Nancy sets out to notify the police about Gombet

Nancy Drew’s drive to the sheriff’s office marks the moment her investigation of Nathan Gombet becomes a call for his arrest. Having insisted on certainty before involving the authorities, she now moves quickly with Rosemary Turnbull and Floretta Turnbull, aware that Gombet may suspect discovery and escape. Their arrival brings the danger into the open: the sheriff’s first attempt to enter Gombet’s house meets an armed servant, confirming that the case involves more than an elusive property scheme.

Decision and Stakes

The decision follows Nancy’s discovery of the hidden passages. Rather than pause to celebrate the solution or discuss repayment, she turns at once to the remaining task: bringing Gombet to justice. Floretta shares that priority and wants him locked up; she says she will not feel safe until he is behind prison bars. Nancy’s warning that Gombet might escape if he learned what they had found gives the departure its urgency.

Nancy nevertheless acknowledges a cost to the investigation’s careful pace. She says she wanted to be absolutely certain of Gombet’s guilt before turning him over to the authorities, and worries that the time spent investigating the passages may have been a mistake. Her caution is not presented as indifference to the sisters’ danger: it is the standard of proof she believes an accusation requires. Now that she has reached that threshold, she acts decisively.

The Drive to Cliffwood

Nancy backs her roadster out of the garage, and Rosemary and Floretta crowd in beside her rather than remain behind. The sisters’ presence makes the trip a joint appeal, though Nancy remains at the wheel and directs the decisions. When the question arises whether they should stop at a nearby house, Rosemary explains that there are no houses until they are almost in Cliffwood. Nancy therefore chooses to drive straight to the sheriff’s office, judging that a few minutes’ delay should not matter.

Floretta sees the risk differently. She suspects that Gombet has begun to grow wary, reasoning that his offer to buy the sisters’ house that morning would otherwise have been unnecessary. Nancy does not answer; she concentrates on the road. The car roars down the Cliffwood road, and exactly twelve minutes after setting out, she brings it to a halt outside the sheriff’s office. The exact interval gives the drive a measured pace even as the women fear that time may be working in Gombet’s favor.

The Appeal to the Sheriff

Nancy springs from the car and runs into the building with the Turnbull sisters close behind. The sheriff is at ease, talking with several men and sitting with his feet on a roll-top desk. Their entrance changes the room’s mood: he puts his feet down and gives the three women his attention before asking whether he can help. Nancy’s rapid arrival contrasts with the calm from which she has to draw him into action.

The visit is more than a request for assistance. Nancy has made a deliberate transition from investigating the secret passages herself to asking the law to act against Gombet. Floretta’s fear and suspicion explain why the sisters accompany her; Nancy’s stated need for certainty explains why she has waited until this point. The episode thus makes proof and urgency concurrent demands: she wants to act before Gombet can flee, but only after she believes she can support the accusation.

Gombet’s House and the Armed Servant

The police response exposes a danger already suggested by the servant’s earlier actions. When Gombet brought Carson Drew into his stone house, Carson hurried toward the door without noticing a significant nod Gombet gave the woman working in the kitchen. After the men passed into the next room, she quietly locked the outside door. Later, Nancy encountered her at the house while Gombet was absent and heard her searching the cellar with a flashlight after suspecting that she had heard something below. These incidents establish the servant as a watchful presence in a house where Nancy’s investigation could put her at risk.

When the sheriff opens a door during the attempted police entry, he finds himself facing the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun held by Gombet’s servant. The failed entry therefore makes the danger immediate and frustrates the first effort to reach Gombet. It also changes what the authorities know about the woman: Nancy later questions her as a prisoner and accuses her of being Gombet’s partner in crime as well as his servant. The woman denies the accusation and presents herself as an ordinary worker. Her armed resistance, however, gives the police encounter a concrete consequence beyond delay and supports Nancy’s suspicion of a connection to Gombet.

The servant’s portrayal also carries the period’s racialized language and caricatured dialect; the narration uses those conventions to mark her as threatening before her role is fully established. Her actions—locking the door, searching the cellar, and confronting the sheriff with a gun—are distinct from that framing and are the concrete grounds for the suspicion and danger surrounding her. The episode ends its drive sequence not with Gombet’s capture, but with the authorities confronting resistance at his house: Nancy’s appeal has set events in motion, while the armed servant shows why reaching him will not be simple.