Nancy shook herself for being so untrusting. So far there wasn’t really any reason to doubt him. Matt was speaking with Bess now in a completely casual and natural manner.
Seeing her father across the room, Nancy crossed to him, but as they talked her eyes kept straying to Matt and Bess. Bess seemed to be doing most of the talking, and from the smiles on both their faces, they were enjoying each other’s company quite a bit.
“Is something bothering you, Nancy?” her father asked. “I just asked you a question, and you didn’t even hear me.”
Nancy felt herself blush. “Sorry, Dad. I was just thinking, it’s pretty amazing about Matt coming back. Maybe it is him.” She told him about the mustard.
Carson Drew followed her gaze. “A really clever impostor would know all about the person he’s pretending to be,” he replied, sounding thoughtful. “I honestly don’t know what to think about him, Nancy. If you asked me whether that guy is Matt Glover or a con man, I couldn’t give you an answer. Not yet.”
Nancy took a bite of her pasta salad. “I guess the important thing is not to be biased either way.”
“One thing’s sure—he knows the house inside and out. When he first came here today, Rosemary said she asked him to get two trays for her from the second pantry. He got them in record time—not a false move.”
Nancy thought of the huge kitchen with its many storage rooms and pantries in the back hall. It wouldn’t be easy for a stranger to find the second pantry so quickly—unless he’d studied a blueprint of Glover’s Corners.
“What’s this about false moves?” George asked, coming up to Nancy and her father.
“We were just talking about Matt, and how he hasn’t made any yet,” Nancy told her.
“If he’s an impostor, you mean,” George added. “Well, so far he has two definite fans.”
“You don’t have to tell me who one of them is,” Nancy said with a laugh, nodding toward Bess. “Who’s the other?”
“Mrs. Adams. I just heard her say something like, ’Maybe dreams do come true.’ ”
“She’d know better than anyone,” Carson Drew commented. Putting his arm around Nancy’s shoulders, he said, “I’m worn out. You girls won’t mind if I leave early, will you?”
“Poor Dad,” Nancy said. “Settling Mr. Glover’s estate has been a lot of extra work for you, hasn’t it? Here, I’ll get your coat.”
Out in the hall, Nancy paused to glance out the windows on either side of the front door. The day appeared to be colder and grayer than ever, and the cars lining the winding drive were covered with a frozen mist.
Shivering slightly, she went to the front hall closet and pulled her father’s heavy overcoat from its hanger. She was just slinging it over one arm when a noise behind her made her pause.
Nancy swiveled around and saw someone emerge from the shadows near the front door. She recognized Tony Giralda’s lean, wiry form as he strode toward her.
“So, you’ve been taken in by him, too,” he said. Nancy saw that he had brown eyes, and there was a look of intense anger in them. In fact, it seemed to Nancy that his whole body was tense with a kind of nervous energy.
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked him.
“You’re some kind of detective, right?” he asked, but his angry voice made it sound like an accusation.
Nancy nodded.
Giralda’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “I knew Matt Glover,” he said, drawing the words out. “I knew him like my own brother. And that guy’s not him.”
Chapter
Three
HOW CAN YOU TELL?” Nancy asked Tony. “What kind of proof do you—”
“I’ve got to go,” he said suddenly. “If you want to talk, you can find me at my office. Giralda’s Environmental Action.”
“Tomorrow?” Nancy asked immediately. If Tony Giralda had any proof that the man inside wasn’t Matt Glover, she wanted to know what it was as soon as possible.
He nodded. “Hours are noon until eight. I’ll be there all afternoon.”
When Nancy went back into the library with her father’s coat, Carson Drew was nowhere in sight. George was just putting her empty plate with some others at one end of the long table.
“Did you see where my dad went?” Nancy asked, going over to her.
George pointed toward a doorway at the rear of the dining room, which Nancy knew led to the kitchen. “He went back there with Mrs. Adams.”
The two girls found Nancy’s father in the kitchen, holding Mrs. Adams awkwardly in his arms and patting her back. The housekeeper’s eyes were red rimmed, and she had obviously been crying.
When Mrs. Adams saw Nancy, she said, “Oh, dear, please excuse me. I feel like smiling and crying at the same time.”
“Rosemary is feeling a bit overwhelmed,” Nancy’s father said.
Straightening herself, Mrs. Adams stepped away from Carson Drew and wiped her eyes with one end of the kitchen towel she was holding. “At first I couldn’t be sure that young man was really Matt, and yet I wanted him to be. I wanted it so much.”
She sat down at the long oak table. “Mr. Glover was a very fine man,” she went on after a long pause. “He took it so hard when Matt disappeared. My heart ached for him. He was a wonderful employer, but things were never the same here after Matt vanished. You remember, Nancy, dear, how happy the atmosphere at the Corners was. The picnics and barbecues, the skating . . .”
“Yes,” Nancy said in a comforting voice. “My friends and I were talking about it earlier. Mr. Glover continued to invite us out here, but it was never the same after Matt died.”
“We have to stop saying that now, of course,” Mrs. Adams said, smiling. “Matt didn’t die, thank goodness, and now he’s come home. It’s just wonderful, isn’t it? If only his father could have lived to see him again.” She looked as if she might start crying again, but then she clapped one hand over her mouth and said, “Silly me, it was only because of Mr. G’s death that Matt remembered who he was.”
“Yes, he told me how the article in the Clarion sparked his memory,” Nancy said. She paused, then asked, “Tell me, Mrs. Adams. When did you know he really was Matt?”
“I began to suspect it when we came back here after the funeral. He stepped into the hall and asked me where the old elephant’s leg was.” Mrs. Adams was beaming, unaware of the puzzled expressions on the others’ faces.
“Elephant’s leg?” Carson Drew inquired.
“Yes, the old umbrella stand. Mr. G’s father brought it back from Africa years ago. It was a hollowed-out leg—a curio, really. Matt always loved it as a child. I had to tell him his father gave it away after he disappeared. Mr. Glover couldn’t stand being reminded of Matt every time he saw the thing.”
“I wonder why he didn’t ask yesterday, when he first came to the door?” Nancy said.
Mrs. Adams appeared to be indignant. “You don’t think I let him into the hall yesterday?” she asked. “He didn’t take one step inside, because I couldn’t be sure who he really was.”
“But now you’re sure?”
The housekeeper nodded. “When we came back here today, he knew right where to find my trays, for one thing. And when he went up to see his old room, he came back amazed at how it hadn’t changed. Only a boy who’d been raised here could know such things, don’t you agree?”
Nancy smiled rather than answering.
“Still,” Mrs. Adams continued, “there’s always that little nagging doubt, isn’t there? A fortune hunter could learn about the umbrella stand and about how Matt’s father kept the room the way it had been. . . .”
“And where the trays were kept in the second pantry,” Nancy added.
Rosemary Adams wiped at some imaginary dirt on the table with the kitchen towel. “But I really knew in my heart that he was Matt when he called me Addie.”
“Addie?” Nancy asked.
“That was Matt’s private nickname for me. He didn’t use it when other people were around, but in private, he always called me Ad
die.”
Mrs. Adams glanced at her watch, then got quickly to her feet. “My goodness, I’ve been neglecting my guests,” she said.
“Don’t try to do too much,” Carson Drew advised her.
“Oh, but there’ll be lots of work now that Matthew is back,” she sang out in a happy voice.
“So you think he’ll stay on here?” George asked. “This place is pretty big for one person.”
“Two people, you mean,” Mrs. Adams corrected. “Don’t forget, Matthew will surely want to marry and raise a family, and I’d want to stay on and take care of them.”
Nancy gazed after Mrs. Adams as she bustled back toward the dining room. The detective in her was beginning to be very intrigued by this situation. Whether or not the man she’d met that day really was Matt Glover, his appearance was definitely causing ripples.
• • •
“Did you ever hear Matt call Mrs. Adams ’Addie’?” George asked from the backseat of Nancy’s car. She and Nancy and Bess were driving back toward town from Glover’s Corners.
“I don’t think so,” Nancy said, “but Mrs. Adams said that he didn’t use the name in front of other people.”
“What’s this Addie business?” Bess asked.
“Mart’s private nickname for Mrs. Adams,” George told her. She stretched her long legs out on the seat and leaned back. “It seemed funny to me, that’s all.”
“I think it sounds cute,” Bess countered.
George rolled her eyes. “You think everything about Matt is cute.”
“That’s because it is,” Bess replied. “Matt’s a major heartthrob, you have to admit.”
“He is handsome,” Nancy agreed. She gave Bess a sideways glance. “But maybe you should hold off falling in love with the guy until everyone’s sure he really is Matt.”
“Who’s not sure?” Bess asked. “Mrs. Adams is convinced. Who would know him better? And you saw how much mustard he put on his sandwich. How would he know how much Matt liked mustard unless he is Matt?”
“Well, Tony Giralda’s not so sure.” Nancy told Bess and George about the environmentalist’s reservations.
Bess looked at her doubtfully. “Well, I don’t remember anyone named Tony Giralda hanging around with Matt. How would he know?”
“Tony said he knew Matt like a brother,” Nancy explained. “We were a lot younger than they were, don’t forget. We don’t know who Matt’s friends were.”
“Yeah,” said George. “Just because we didn’t know him doesn’t mean Matt didn’t.”
Nancy steered the Mustang onto Bess’s street and pulled up in front of her house. “Anyway, I’m going to talk to him tomorrow and find out what he has to say. It can’t hurt.”
“I don’t see why you guys can’t just admit that Matt’s really back.” Bess got out of the car, pausing with the door open while she looked back and forth from Nancy to George. “I would think you’d at least believe Mrs. Adams if you don’t believe me. Oh, well. See you.” She closed the door and was gone.
Nancy dropped George off and was on the way home when a new thought struck her. It was something Mrs. Adams had said: “Don’t forget, Matthew will surely want to marry and raise a family, and I’d want to stay on and take care of them.”
Mrs. Adams had lived at Glover’s Corners for over twenty years, and she loved the place. Where would she go if the estate was given to River Heights as a museum or a nursing home or if it was demolished to make room for development?
It was definitely in the housekeeper’s best interests to have Matt show up. She knew Matt better than any other living person and could easily teach a stranger—a stranger who looked just like Matt—all the little things. Maybe she’d even made up that stuff about her nickname being Addie.
Nancy didn’t want to believe it, but a part of her was whispering that the only one who knew enough about Matt and Glover’s Corners to set up a giant fraud was Mrs. Adams.
Chapter
Four
NANCY LET OUT a long breath. She could hardly believe that Mrs. Adams would deceive anyone, but she had to admit that it was possible.
A dog ran out into the road. Nancy swerved to avoid it, then forced herself to keep her mind focused on her driving for the rest of the way home.
She found a note from her father in the kitchen: “Went to bed early. See you in the A.M.” Beneath it, he had scrawled, “Call Bess.”
Picking up the kitchen extension, she dialed Bess’s number, smiling to herself when her friend’s bubbly voice came over the line.
“Nan! I have so much to tell you!”
Nancy leaned against the kitchen counter and cradled the receiver between her head and shoulder. “I just dropped you off ten minutes ago, Bess. How much could there be to say?”
“Matt called,” Bess said, her voice shrill with excitement. “He told me how much it meant to him to have good friends like me after being away for five years. He mentioned you and George, too.”
Nancy could practically see her friend’s grin over the line. “I forgot to tell you guys on the ride home,” Bess went on, “that he had told me his whole story—well, practically all.”
“What did he tell you?”
Nancy listened to the story about the obituary to see if he’d told it any differently to Bess, but it was the same, almost word for word. “He doesn’t remember the skiing accident in Colorado at all,” Bess finished. “He didn’t even know his own name until he read it in the paper. He had taken the name Gary Page. He was working as a journalist. Doesn’t that sound familiar?”
“Yeah,” Nancy agreed. “I remember that Matt was the editor of the high school paper. I think he even wrote a few articles for the Morning Record.”
“So that’s more proof he’s really Matt, right?”
“Maybe,” Nancy said noncommittally. “Where’d he work? In Colorado?”
“He didn’t say. He just said something made him want to keep moving east. He worked on a paper in Nebraska for two years, and then he went to Iowa before going to work for the Clarion in Chicago.”
They talked for a few more minutes, and then Nancy hung up. It seemed more and more as if Matt was who he said he was. It would be great if he were—especially for Bess—but Nancy knew she wouldn’t be convinced until she had checked out a few things. Tony Giralda’s doubts, for one.
Maybe she’d go to the Chicago Clarion office, too, to check on his background to see if Gary Page was the same guy as the Matt Glover she’d met that day.
Her father would be checking him out, too. Carson Drew was spending the whole next day with Matt. Apparently there were matters to be settled before Matt could be legally accepted as Clayton Glover’s heir. If anyone could catch him in a lie, it was Carson Drew.
Nancy shook her head. She’d thought about Matt Glover enough for one day. She knew one way to get her mind off him. Grabbing the bag with her disassembled tape deck in it, Nancy sat down at the kitchen table, dumped the parts out, and concentrated on putting them back together.
• • •
When Nancy woke in the morning, light snow-flakes were dancing outside her window. She had stayed up until after two A.M., working on her tape deck, and had slept much later than usual. It was ten by the time she had dressed in jeans and a pale green cable-knit sweater and went downstairs.
Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ housekeeper, was making chicken soup for lunch. Hannah had been living with the Drews since Nancy’s mother died, when Nancy was just three, and she was more like a member of the family than a house-keeper.
“That smells delicious,” Nancy said, sniffing appreciatively.
“Your father’s at his office with that young man who says he’s Clayton Glover’s son,” Hannah informed her. “I imagine they’ll be there all day.”
Pouring herself a glass of orange juice, Nancy popped two slices of bread into the toaster. “What do you think?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About the new Matt,” Nancy said. “Do y
ou think it’s possible to have amnesia for five years and snap out of it when you see your father’s obituary?”
Hannah considered Nancy’s question. “It happens all the time on TV,” she said, “which is enough for me to doubt it. On the other hand, anything is possible.”
“I guess you’re right—on both counts,” Nancy said, laughing. When her toast popped up, she buttered it, then smothered it with strawberry jam.
“You’re going to spoil your appetite for lunch,” Hannah told her.
Nancy took a bite of toast. “Don’t worry. I always have room for your soup.”
At twelve Nancy proved it, eating a big bowl full of it. After mopping up the last of the soup with a thick slice of crusty bread, she checked her watch. It was early afternoon, and Tony Giralda would probably be in his office by now.
Pulling on her leather boots and heavy jacket, Nancy grabbed her tape deck from the small table in the front hall, where she’d left it the night before. Then she ran out to her car. A light snow was falling, but the flakes melted as soon as they hit the ground. Backing out of the driveway, Nancy put a tape in the deck and was pleased to hear that the sound was perfect and that the machine was no longer eating tapes.
Nancy drove toward the address she’d looked up for Giralda’s Environmental Action office. Soon she pulled up in front of a building on the outskirts of River Heights’s downtown area.
To call the Environmental Action building an office was stretching things a bit, Nancy thought as she studied the building through the window of her car. It was really just a long, low garage. Posters publicizing Tony’s campaign to clean up the Muskoka River covered the area around the door.
Pulling the fleecy collar of her leather jacket close around her ears, Nancy stepped out of the car, walked to the door, and knocked on it. A few seconds later Tony opened it.
“I was wondering if you’d show up,” he said as she stepped inside.
It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic hello, Nancy thought, but at least his voice had lost some of the angry intensity of the day before.