That was it!
Nancy stopped so suddenly that Ned was thrown off balance and had to jump back to avoid landing on her feet.
“What—?” he began.
“In the restaurant last night,” Nancy said urgently. “The man having dinner with Whorf— did he remind you of anyone?”
“I didn’t really notice,” Ned said.
Nancy’s blue eyes flashed. “He looked a lot like Susan, and I’d seen him before in a photograph on her dresser. I’m willing to bet that he’s Susan’s father. Come on, let’s get back to the table. I hate to interrupt everyone’s good time, but I’m going to need some help from you guys.”
• • •
Ten minutes later Nancy used her key to let herself and George into Susan’s room. Bess was downstairs, watching in case Susan came back early, while the three guys were still at the gym, keeping an eye on Susan, Greg, and Whorf.
Nancy switched on the light and threw the bolt on the door.
“What exactly are we looking for?” George asked in a whisper.
“We don’t have to whisper,” Nancy replied in a normal tone. “We have a right to be here.” She took a deep breath and added, “First I want another look at the photo on the dresser.”
“It’s not there anymore.” George pointed to the dresser top, which was clear except for a bottle of perfume and some toiletries. “That’s weird. I definitely remember seeing it the day we arrived,” she went on. “I wonder why she’d move it?”
“If my theory’s right, it’s because there’s something in the photo Susan didn’t want us to see—something that could give her a motive for the jewel theft!”
Nancy began to look through the drawers, feeling under the shirts and sweaters for anything that didn’t belong. George went over to the bookcase and looked behind the books there.
In the middle dresser drawer, Nancy found a small jewelry box covered in imitation leather. She lifted the lid, then said, “George, come look.”
George glanced over her shoulder and gasped. “A bracelet of rubies and diamonds. Bingo!”
“Red and clear glass,” Nancy corrected. “But it looks awfully familiar. . . .” She turned over the bracelet and peered at the clasp. “‘Made in Hong Kong,’” she read.
“Maybe it’s part of a set with the earring that the police found in Rob’s parka,” George said.
“Susan could have planted it,” Nancy said slowly. “Remember when she tripped and fell against him at the student center? I’ll bet that was all an act to give her a chance to slip the earring in his pocket!”
A feeling of excitement, of being near the end of the chase, was building in Nancy.
A few minutes later, George called out, “I found it!”
Nancy set down the suitcase she had been about to open and hurried over to the desk. “That’s the photo, all right,” she said. “And that’s the man who was at the restaurant with Whorf last night.
“Where did you find the picture?” Nancy asked.
“At the back of the file drawer, under these old term papers,” George replied, riffling through the stack of papers. “Hey, wait, here’s another photo.”
She pulled it out, took one look, and stared at Nancy. “Susan’s father and Whorf together.”
“That proves there’s a connection,” Nancy said. “There’s a newspaper clipping taped to the back. It says ‘Financier William Whorf congratulates Frank Samuels on his new store, which will be the flagship of a planned chain of sporting goods stores.’”
“Big deal,” George said. “That doesn’t sound very incriminating to me.”
“It’s not hard proof, you’re right. But listen to this.” Nancy told George about the conversation she’d overheard between the two men at the restaurant. “It sounded like some kind of take-over,” she finished, “and I didn’t get the impression Mr. Samuels was happy about it.”
George still looked confused. “I still don’t see what that has to do with the theft and where Susan fits in.”
“Remember the day we got here, how proud Susan was when you said what a great store Samuels for Sports was?” Nancy said. “She made a big deal out of the fact that her father had built it all up himself—”
“You’re right!” George exclaimed. “She said he was the biggest independent sports store in the area.”
“Well, maybe that’s what’s behind the theft. Listen to this. Whorf seems to have some kind of financial hold over Susan’s father. What if Susan stole the jewels, planning to give them to Whorf so he’d leave her father alone?”
“That would be a strong motive, no question,” George said. “And Rob’s breakup with her gave her a motive to pin the theft on him.”
“Right,” Nancy said, slapping her fist into her palm. “Now, what else have we got? Means? Susan works at the museum. She knows how to set off a false alarm. And she would have known what the jewelry looked like far enough in advance to buy the fake stuff.
“As for opportunity, first, she could go in and out of the museum without attracting attention. People were probably so used to seeing her there that they didn’t really notice her before the theft, if they saw her at all. And afterward, when the exhibit area was empty, she probably made her getaway through the fire exit. Second, she could easily have taken Greg’s boat house key, in order to set the fire.” Nancy was ticking off each point on her fingers as she spoke. “And third, she knew about my skating date this morning. When I woke up, she was already gone. Where was she? Down at the lake, removing the barricades!”
“It all fits,” George exclaimed. “Congratulations, Nancy. You’ve done it—you’ve cleared Rob and found the real thief!”
Nancy let out a long breath. Her mood of excitement left her as quickly as it had come. “Maybe,” she said. “But we don’t have a single shred of evidence. Unless we can recover the stolen jewels in Susan’s possession.”
“They’re not in this room,” George said. “I’m pretty sure of that. We’ve looked everywhere.”
“I wouldn’t expect them to be,” Nancy replied. “Too unsafe. Besides—listen, George, she must have been on a split-second timetable. She had to set up the boat house fire, get back to the museum, set off the false alarm, steal the jewels the moment the fire engines arrived, and get off the premises before the theft was discovered. She couldn’t have had time to go far with the jewels. That means she must have hidden them somewhere near the museum until the commotion died down and it became safe to retrieve them.”
Nancy snapped her fingers. “Right after the fire, we saw her working on her snow sculpture. Of course. It’s the perfect place!”
George stared at her. “You think she hid the jewels in her sculpture?” she said. “Then all we have to do is go get them back!”
“No,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “Then we’d have no evidence to link Susan to the theft. No, here’s what I think we should do. . . .”
Nancy quickly explained her plan, and George’s brown eyes gleamed with excitement.
“We’ve got her now,” George said. “There’s no way she’ll be able to get out of this one!”
Chapter
Fifteen
NANCY SMOOTHED the cheek of her snowman with the back of her glove, then stepped away and looked around. Sunlight glinted off dozens of snow sculptures that edged the side of the lake. Nancy’s was one of more than ten snowpeople. Other entries in the contest included an eight-foot smiling whale, a hungry-looking bear, and enough castles and forts to supply a medieval kingdom.
A big crowd had gathered to watch the judging of the contest, and a lot of contestants were still putting the finishing touches on their sculptures. On the far side of Bess’s sculpture, Susan was standing next to a model of a sleigh that looked a lot like the one they had ridden in.
Nancy glanced casually at the sleigh, then at the other sculptures. It was vital that Susan not feel under suspicion, or even under surveillance.
A photographer from the campus newspaper asked Nancy
to pose next to her entry, snapped a couple of exposures, and moved on to take a shot of George and her fort. A girl with a Press tag dangling from the zipper pull of her parka was videotaping the proceeding. Nancy smiled to herself. If they stayed until the end, they might find themselves with some really newsworthy material!
“Your attention, please,” a bullhorn blared. “The judging of the Winter Carnival snow sculpture contest is now beginning. From this moment, contestants are not allowed to make changes to their entries.”
Ned and his two fellow judges, armed with clipboards and ballpoint pens, began to make a circuit of the clearing. They stopped at each sculpture and made notes. They took their time, and Nancy found it hard to keep her patience. Her plan wouldn’t go into action until after the preliminary round of judging.
As Ned and the other two judges slowly made their way through the sculptures, Nancy studied the crowd. Whorf was standing with Dean Jarvis and a couple of professors at the edge of the clearing. Nancy wondered what they would say if she told them that she suspected Whorf, a trustee and benefactor of the college, of being implicated in the theft from the museum.
Nancy was happy to see that Sergeant Balsam was also there. It had taken a lot of talking before she’d been able to convince him to show up.
Greg went over to stand with Susan, next to her sleigh. As Nancy watched, he took off his orange and purple scarf and tied it around Susan’s neck. The gesture was an exact replay of what had happened in the sleigh the night before. Greg had put the scarf around Susan’s neck, saying that he was returning it to her. That was what had been nagging at her. The scarf was Susan’s, not Greg’s, as she had suspected earlier. Nancy nodded. It had probably been Susan who shut her in the shed, too. One more piece of the puzzle fit into place.
Susan stiffened as Ned and the other two judges reached her entry. Ned examined the sleigh with particular care, squatting down to peer at the work.
Finally Ned stood up, nodded to the other judges, and led the way to Bess’s castle. Just as they arrived, the tallest tower slipped sideways and collapsed.
“Oh, rats!” Bess exclaimed. The crowd laughed sympathetically, and a few people started to clap.
Nancy chuckled, but when she glanced back at Susan, she couldn’t help staring. Susan looked terrified. Her mouth hung open, and her face was so pale that she looked ready to faint. Greg noticed and took her arm, but she shook him off.
Nancy frowned. Susan’s reaction didn’t make sense, but Nancy didn’t have time to wonder why.
“Ahem!” Ned was now standing a couple of feet away from Nancy, in front of her snowman. “This contestant is”—he paused to check his clipboard—“Nancy Drew, of River Heights.”
As if you didn’t know! Nancy grinned at him, and he winked back. She stepped aside to let him and the other judges examine her snowman. They didn’t seem very impressed. After making a few notes, they went on to George’s fort. Nancy concentrated on Susan.
The bullhorn came to life again. “The judges have rated all the entries,” Ned said. “But before we announce our decision, we have to make another, special examination of the sculptures.”
The contestants seemed puzzled—all except Nancy, Bess, and George. But after all, the “special” examination had been Nancy’s idea. And she planned on keeping a careful eye on one person in particular, to see how she would react.
As she watched, it seemed to Nancy that Susan froze in place, as if she herself had become one of the snow sculptures.
“As all contestants know,” Ned continued, “the contest rules state that only snow may be used in the sculptures. But rumors have reached us that some of the entries have been molded around wooden or wire frameworks. If that’s so, we’ll have to disqualify these. But first we have to know which ones they are.”
“Get to the point, Nickerson,” someone called from the crowd.
Ned held up a long stick. “Here’s the point,” he retorted. “We’re going to go around and poke all the statues to make sure there’s nothing but snow inside them.”
“What? You’ll wreck them,” the same person called back.
“Rules are rules,” Ned replied.
Nancy looked away from Susan for a moment and scanned the crowd behind her. Sergeant Balsam met her gaze and gave her a brief, almost imperceptible nod.
A lot of the spectators began following Ned around the field, blocking Nancy’s view. She began to worry. She had to be in a position to see when the judges got to Susan’s sleigh.
Nancy walked over and stood between Susan’s and Bess’s entries. When it was Susan’s turn, Nancy watched intently as Ned and the other judges carefully inserted their sticks into the front, sides, and back of the sleigh, feeling for anything that wasn’t snow. Most of the back seat of the sleigh fell down, then part of one side. When the judges were finished, it looked like little more than a pile of snow.
Ned caught Nancy’s eye and shook his head slightly. She stared back at him in dismay.
She had been sure they would find the jewels there. But Ned had riddled the sleigh with holes. If anything had been hidden inside, he would have found it. Nancy pounded her gloved fist in her other hand. It had made so much sense—the timing, Susan’s movements, everything! Where had she gone wrong?
Nancy felt a growing sense of alarm. Her plan had failed totally. Susan clearly had not hidden the jewels in her snow sculpture, and Nancy’s case against her was slipping away. It was unbelievably frustrating! Nancy knew she was right, but still . . .
Taking a deep breath, she raced over the details in her mind. Susan hadn’t seemed upset when Ned was poking her sculpture. But just before—
“Oh, no!” Nancy heard Bess shout. “Stop, you’re totally wrecking it!” A burst of laughter followed.
Nancy snapped to attention and fought her way to the front of the crowd. Someone had tripped and fallen right on top of Bess’s castle and now was flailing around in the snow. Nancy immediately recognized the dark hair and the orange and purple scarf tied around the girl’s neck.
As Susan stood up and started to turn, Nancy leapt forward and grabbed her wrist with both hands.
“Let go of me!” Susan screamed. “What are you doing?”
Nancy held on determinedly, gritting her teeth when the toe of Susan’s boot hit her kneecap. “You can’t get away now,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Hey, let her alone!” Greg shouted. He started to shove Nancy away, but a moment later Ned and Jerry pulled him back.
Nancy’s grip was beginning to weaken when she heard Sergeant Balsam say, “Okay, what’s going on here?”
Just as he reached them, Susan stopped pulling away so suddenly that Nancy lost her grasp and fell back. Balsam put his hand on Susan’s arm and repeated, “What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know, Officer,” Susan said breathlessly. “I lost my balance and fell down, and the next thing I knew, Nancy Drew was grabbing my arm and twisting it.”
Balsam turned his head. “Ms. Drew?” he said. “Do you have anything to say about this?”
Panting, Nancy fought to put the right words together. “Sergeant, if you’ll search this woman I think you’ll find—”
“Ms. Drew,” Balsam cut in sternly. “I’ve given you a lot of cooperation, but I have to tell you—”
At that moment Nancy met Susan’s eyes. The fear in them was evident. Even though Sergeant Balsam seemed reluctant to search her, Susan didn’t think she had gotten away yet. Then Nancy noticed the odd way that Susan was holding her left arm. It was bent slightly and held pressed against her side.
Without pausing to think, Nancy reached out and yanked Susan’s arm away from her side. Susan let out a scream as something fell from the inside of her parka onto the snow. Balsam was stepping forward to intervene when Nancy shouted, “There! Look! She had it inside her parka!”
On the snow at Susan’s feet was a clear plastic sandwich bag. Through the plastic, rays of red and white fire gleamed. Susan had dr
opped the empress’s jewels!
A collective gasp rose from the crowd, followed by excited cries as everyone began to talk at once.
A horrified look came over Susan’s face. For a fraction of a second, her eyes met Nancy’s. She looked terrified and desperate. Making a quick, sudden turn, she tried to dash through the crowd to escape, but Balsam clamped a hand firmly around her arm.
With his free hand, the sergeant drew a card from his pocket and began to read, “‘You have the right to remain silent . . .’”
Chapter
Sixteen
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Nancy and her friends were gathered around the fireplace in Ned’s frat house. Nancy was sitting on the sofa next to Ned, talking about the case and its solution.
“You mean Whorf denied knowing anything about the robbery?” Bess asked from her seat on the floor. She was propped against an oversize pillow in front of the fireplace.
Nancy nodded. “At first, Susan told the police that he didn’t have a thing to do with it and that the robbery was entirely her idea.”
“You don’t sound as if you believed her,” Jerry observed. He was standing next to the fireplace with his elbow on the mantel.
“No, I didn’t. And thank goodness I was able to convince Susan to tell the police the real story when I went to visit her at the police station this afternoon.”
Nancy stared silently at the flames for a few moments. Then she said, “Susan would steal the jewels if Whorf would agree to allow her father to stay independent and stop pressuring him to join his conglomerate. Whorf denied her story, of course. He maintained that she was working completely alone.”
Rob was perched on the arm of George’s chair. “I know Susan pretty well,” he said. He paused to reach for George’s hand. “I mean, I used to. She’s too bright to go that far out on a limb without checking it out with Whorf ahead of time. Otherwise, how would she know which pieces of jewelry to steal, which ones Whorf most wanted to add to his collection?”