#6 The Secret of Red Gate Farm
Back to 1961. Nancy is still titian-haired, Bess and George are still in on the action but there’s no Ned to be found.
And we’re off to the rac(ist)es from the very first sentence:
“That Oriental-looking clerk in the perfume shop certainly acted mysterious,” Bess Marvin declared…
This is so far the weirdest story the girl detective has gotten mixed up in. It starts off with the mysterious Oriental clerk who tries to prevent Bess from buying a bottle of Blue Jade perfume which, we find out later, is because the scent of Blue Jade is somehow employed as a way for the various members of a counterfeiting gang to recognize each other.
The counterfeiters have set up shop in a cave on the property of Red Gate Farm and are posing as members of a “nature cult” called the Blake Snake Colony to divert suspicion from their nefarious activities. They dress up in white robes and perform hippie noodle dances in the meadow at night. Perhaps Ken Kesey wrote young adult mysteries for extra cash in the early 60s.
The girls end up knee deep in this craziness after meeting the young waif Joanne Byrd, who lives with her grandmother at Red Gate Farm. Times are tough for the Byrds and they are in danger of losing the farm. Nancy cooks up a plan where she, Bess and George spend some undefined amount of time as boarders at Red Gate, in order to help the Byrds make enough money to pay their mortgage.
It’s hard to tell exactly but this plan seems to last weeks. How is this possible? Are Nancy, Bess and George socialites?
It was not so easy to convince Bess and George, when Nancy telephoned them. They both wanted to help Joanne and agreed that a week or two in the country would be very pleasant, but there were complications. If George went, it meant she would lose out on a camping trip. Bess had planned to visit an aunt in Chicago, but admitted that the trip could be postponed.
Nancy is one pushy broad.
After helping out readying the farm for other boarders and spying on the nature cult for a while, the three girls fashion a set of their own white robes and attempt to infiltrate the cave. They get caught as usual but are saved and Nancy comes up with a scheme to save the farm by turning the counterfeiter’s cave into a tourist attraction.
There was also a coded message that Nancy cracks and describes thusly:
Nothing showed up until she hit upon the plan of four letters of the alphabet in sequence by number, the next four in reverse. Alternating in this manner and leaving two in the end bracket, Nancy scrutinized what she had worked out…
Either that doesn’t make any sense at all or I am dumber than an 8 year-old. Probably both.
