After the doctor left, Nancy took some aspirin. When the pounding in her head had lessened a little, she went downstairs to the library. Matt was standing on the hearth by the fire, and Bess and George were sitting on the couch. They all looked worried. Matt rushed over to Nancy when she stepped into the room.
“Nancy, are you all right?” he asked. “You really gave us a scare back there.” He led her over to a chair beside Bess and George and poured her a steaming cup of tea from a china tea service on the table in front of the couch.
“Someone gave my horse a scare,” Nancy replied evenly. She took a sip of the tea. “Mmmm, this tastes good. I’m starting to feel better.”
Bess looked up, her blue eyes filled with concern. “That’s awful. You guys could have gotten killed, and Matt and I didn’t even know anything was wrong until George screamed for us.”
“You wouldn’t have seen anything, unless you were looking back,” Nancy said. “A person dressed in a red jacket ran out from the trees right in front of us.”
Matt nodded. “That’s what George said. Did you see who it was?”
“No, and I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman. It all happened so fast.”
“I do remember one thing,” George said, leaning back against the plush pillows of the couch. “Whoever it was had a ski cap pulled low so it was impossible to see the face clearly.”
“I don’t suppose it could have been an accident?” Bess asked.
“Oh, come off it, Bess,” George told her cousin. “People don’t wait around in the woods in a snowstorm and charge out in front of a horse by accident. Whoever did it meant for Nancy or me to get badly hurt, maybe even killed. And somehow I don’t think whoever it was was after me.”
Matt looked troubled. “If someone is trying to hurt Nancy, it must be because of me—because of the investigation she’s been doing to see if I’m who I say I am.” He held up a hand as Nancy started to speak. “Yes, I know you haven’t been sure about me. I heard Bess telling you about the lie-detector results earlier. I do understand your suspicion, believe me. I know it’s a strange story to swallow, but I hope soon you’ll believe I’m telling the truth about who I am.”
Watching Matt as he paced back and forth in front of the fire, his blue eyes earnest and troubled, Nancy was almost positive he was telling the truth.
“What we have to think about is who could have done such a thing,” Matt went on. He paused to look at Nancy. “Do you have any suspicions?”
Nancy shook her head, waiting for him to speak. He stopped his pacing as if he had an idea.
“I hate to say it,” Matt said at last, “but it must be one of the people who would have inherited my father’s fortune if I hadn’t reappeared. Like maybe Tony Giralda.”
So Matt had thought of that possibility, too, Nancy thought with a touch of admiration.
“You could be right,” she told him. “There’s something else we should consider, too. I don’t think the attacker was necessarily after me. It’s just as likely that the person was trying to get you out of the way, Matt, so that your father’s money would be distributed to the causes named in the will.”
Bess gasped. “Oh, no!” she wailed.
“That makes sense,” said George. “Whoever it was could have mistaken our sled for Matt’s. It was pretty shadowy out there, so it would have been hard to tell who was in which sled.”
“I’ll bet it was Tony Giralda,” Bess said emphatically. “He’s so intense!”
“His work is his whole life,” Matt pointed out. “If he loses it, he loses everything. He’s barely surviving as it is. He needs that money.”
Matt came over and knelt in front of Nancy’s chair. He put a hand on her shoulder and stared into her eyes. “I’m sorry that I’ve caused you so much trouble. If anything happened to you because of me I’d—I don’t know what I’d do.”
Nancy studied Matt’s blue eyes carefully, but there was nothing in them but sincere concern. “Thank you, Matt,” she said.
As Matt went over to put another log on the fire, Mrs. Adams came in with fresh tea. She smiled at them, but Nancy saw that the housekeeper still had a pained look on her face, and her step had lost its usual energetic bounce.
As she bent to place the fresh teapot on the table, she leaned close to Nancy and whispered very softly, “I have something to tell you.”
Nancy blinked, surprised. Obviously Mrs. Adams wanted to talk with her in private. Getting to her feet, Nancy picked up the tray with the cold teapot on it and said, “Here, Mrs. Adams, I’ll help you clear this.”
In the kitchen Mrs. Adams didn’t waste any time telling Nancy what was bothering her.
“There’s something I want you to know,” the woman began. She leaned over the counter and began chopping carrots and tossing them in a big stewing pot. “Ordinarily I’d wait until you were feeling better, but this can’t wait.”
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Nancy reassured her. There were some stalks of celery on the counter, too, and Nancy went to work on them, chopping and tossing them into the pot.
“When you came into the kitchen earlier today, I suppose you could see I’d been crying.” Mrs. Adams sniffled, and Nancy waited quietly until she continued.
“I was so happy when Matt came home. It seemed like a dream come true. But now—now I don’t know what to believe, Nancy.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t trust him anymore.”
Nancy looked curiously at Mrs. Adams. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand,” she said. “Why don’t you trust him?”
Mrs. Adams took a deep breath. “You know how it is when you want to believe something so badly, you overlook all sorts of things in order to convince yourself?”
“Sure,” said Nancy.
“Well, it wasn’t like that at all with me,” Mrs. Adams said defiantly. “I didn’t have to overlook signs that Matt wasn’t my Matt, because there simply weren’t any. Everything he did, everything he said, was exactly what I expected of the Matt I remember. He even remembered to bring me a cake today, when he had so much on his mind.”
She pressed her hands to her mouth to stop the trembling of her lips. “You see, it was a custom in this house, way back when Matt was little. I would bake a pie, or a cake, and when it was finished, Mr. Glover would bring us a new one from the bakery.”
“What a nice way to show his appreciation of you,” Nancy said, reaching for another celery stalk.
Mrs. Adams wiped away a tear with her finger. “That’s what Mr. Glover said, that I deserved to be spoiled, the way I looked after them. Made me feel like one of the family. I told him I loved baking, but he insisted. He was such a considerate man. And now that he’s gone, Matt is continuing the tradition.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Adams, but I don’t quite see what you’re leading up to,” Nancy said, a puzzled frown on her face.
The housekeeper looked at Nancy with anguished eyes. “The cake,” she said. “It was—”
“Nan, your father’s on the phone.” Bess had come into the kitchen. “Need any help, Mrs. Adams?” She crossed the room and took the knife Nancy had put down on the counter. “I’ll give you a hand while Nancy talks to him.”
Nancy assured her father that she was all right and said she’d be home as soon as the snowplows cleared the road. When she returned to the kitchen, however, she saw that George and Matt had joined Bess and Mrs. Adams there, and they seemed prepared to stay for a while.
So much for learning Mrs. Adams’s secret about Matt, Nancy thought, frustrated. She didn’t have a chance to get Mrs. Adams alone again until after they’d eaten a dinner of beef stew and salad, and finished up the chocolate cake.
“That was delicious,” Bess said, pushing her empty plate away from her. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
George shot her cousin a teasing look and said, “That’s good, because I doubt there’s another bite left after those two servings of everything you ate.”
“How
about watching a tape on the VCR,” Matt suggested, getting up from the table. “My dad had a pretty good selection of old movies. They’re in the den.”
As the others followed him toward the den, Nancy stayed behind to help Mrs. Adams clear the table.
“What were you saying before about the chocolate cake?” she asked the housekeeper, picking up the conversation they’d started earlier.
“It was chocolate,” Mrs. Adams said.
Nancy stared at her. “Is there something strange about that?”
Fresh tears sprang to Mrs. Adams’s eyes as she explained in a quiet voice, “It’s anything chocolate. I’m terribly allergic to it. The one kind of cake Matt Glover would never bring me is the one he brought today.”
Nancy thought for a moment. “Is it possible that he’s forgotten?” she suggested. “After all these years, maybe—”
“He’d remember this,” Mrs. Adams interrupted. “It’s a very severe allergy. When he was a little boy, I ate something with chocolate in it by mistake. My throat swelled up, and I could hardly breathe. Mr. Glover had to send for the doctor. It scared Matt half to death, I remember.”
Nancy nodded. “You’re right, he wouldn’t be likely to forget anything as dramatic as that.”
“That’s why I don’t think that boy is Matt Glover. It breaks my heart to say so, but he’s not Matt.”
Mrs. Adams’s words were still ringing in Nancy’s ears when she joined the others in the den. She could hardly concentrate on the movie —some spy thriller about a Russian double agent. She kept stealing glances at Matt, who was sitting next to Bess on the couch and acting as charming and natural as ever.
When the movie was over, Nancy glanced out the den window and was relieved to see that a plow had come to clear the driveway. That must mean the roads had been plowed, too. Her head had started to pound again, and all she could think about was going home and getting into bed. While Bess and Matt rewound the video, Nancy and George went out to the front closet.
“I’m exhausted,” said Nancy, opening the closet door. She pulled her jacket off its hanger and pushed aside some other coats to get to George’s. That was when she saw it—a flash of red peeking out from beneath some raincoats.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she pulled the raincoats aside. An old red hunting jacket hung on a peg near the back of the closet. Reaching out, she fingered the sleeve. It was slightly damp.
“George!” she gasped. “It’s the red hunting jacket! The one the person wore to spook our horse!”
“You’re right!” George exclaimed, peering into the closet over Nancy’s shoulder. “But what’s it doing here?”
“Whoever scared our horse put it here.”
George frowned. “But we’re the only ones around here, and none of us was wearing it, because we were all in the sleighs.”
Nancy’s voice dropped to a whisper as she said, “Not all of us. There was one other person around—someone who wasn’t in the sleighs, someone who knew that we were.” She paused. “Rosemary Adams.”
Chapter
Twelve
GEORGE STARED AGAIN at the red hunting jacket. “Nan, do you really think a sixty-year-old woman would go tromping out in knee-deep snow to try to kill someone?” she asked doubtfully.
“It does seem pretty unlikely,” Nancy replied, smiling at the ridiculous picture George’s words painted in her mind. But her face swiftly grew grim again as another point occurred to her.
“George, this case just gets more complicated the more I get into it,” she complained. She told her friend what Mrs. Adams had said about Matt bringing home the chocolate cake.
“So Mrs. Adams doesn’t think that guy is really Matt Glover,” George summarized when Nancy was done.
“Right, and there’s something else. Remember I was wearing Matt’s blue wool hat on the ride?”
“Yeah. So?” George prompted.
“So I looked like Matt,” Nancy said excitedly. “Don’t you see? That makes it even more likely that whoever spooked our horse expected to get Matt’s sleigh. Especially if that person was someone who would recognize that cap as Matt’s. Someone like Mrs. Adams.”
“You’re saying that Mrs. Adams spooked our horse in an effort to kill Matt? Why? Because she was angry at him for being a phony?” George’s brown eyes were skeptical. “Sorry, Nancy. I don’t buy that.”
“I know it sounds far out, but it is possible,” Nancy said. She snapped her fingers as she remembered something else. “Or if you don’t like that, try this one on for size. Matt was wearing that blue cap the night we went skating —and Tony Giralda was there.”
“Hey, I like that better,” George said. “He does have a big reason for wanting Matt out of the way. But if it was Tony, how’d he get hold of this jacket?”
Nancy pulled out George’s coat and handed it to her. “Well, when we left the house for the sleigh ride, Mrs. Adams was resting in her room. He could have come in while she was upstairs, taken one of the old jackets, and replaced it after causing our accident.” Then her face fell. “Actually,” she said, crestfallen, “just about anyone could have done that.”
“Not quite anyone,” George put in. “Even if Matt is a phony, the way Mrs. Adams says, he couldn’t have done it.”
“No, he’s in the clear since he was in the other sleigh with Bess,” Nancy agreed. “Anyway, I’m not sure the chocolate cake business is enough to prove that this Matt is an impostor. Sure, it would be frightening for a child to see someone having a violent allergic reaction, but Matt wouldn’t necessarily remember that it was caused by chocolate. After all, Mrs. Adams still made hot chocolate for Matt and the other kids, didn’t she? It wasn’t as if the whole household was deprived of chocolate just because their housekeeper was allergic to it.”
“Now, that would be something you’d remember,” George put in, grinning. “Amnesia or not.”
Nancy laughed, but her voice was serious when she said, “On the other hand, Matt’s new-looking scar is kind of suspicious, and—” She snapped her fingers.
“What is it, Drew?” George said. “I know that look, and it usually means you’re about to get us into some crazy situation.”
“Not this time,” Nancy said, laughing. “But it just occurred to me: What if Matt hired two sleighs because he knew something was going to happen—because he planned it! It’s possible.”
“In that case, it would have to have been Matt’s accomplice.” George sighed. “Who do we think that is?” she asked plaintively. “I’m so confused!”
“The most likely person to be Matt’s accomplice is Jake Loomis,” Nancy reminded George. “I think we can rule out Mrs. Adams on that score, since she’s now claiming that Matt isn’t really Matt—if you know what I mean.”
George groaned. “I guess so.” She peered down the hallway. “I keep expecting Bess and Matt to come out of the den. They’re really taking a long time to rewind that video, don’t you think?”
At that moment Bess and Matt appeared. Bess’s face was suffused with happiness. After they had said goodbye and the girls had climbed into the car, she said in a dreamy voice, “You guys, Matt asked me to go to the movies this weekend. I’m beginning to think I really might have a chance with him.”
“Bess, he’s much older than you,” George objected. “Get real!”
Nancy didn’t say anything, but she made a silent vow: one way or another, she was going to have this case solved by the weekend. She couldn’t sit by not knowing the truth—not when her friend’s happiness might be at stake.
• • •
Half an hour later Nancy pulled up in front of Tony Giralda’s Environmental Action office. Her mind was racing after finding the red jacket, and she felt too agitated to just go home.
During the drive she had made a mental list of the three suspects for the accident with the sleigh. The first, Mrs. Adams, might have done it hoping to scare or hurt Matt, whom she believed to be a phony. Nancy knew that possibility was slim, so she
set it aside. She’d check out the others first.
She had to consider both Giralda and Jake Loomis as likely suspects; Tony because he wanted to get Matt out of the way, Loomis because—if Matt was a phony, and he was Matt’s accomplice—he wanted to get Nancy off the case. Anyway, the sooner Nancy checked these two out, the better.
Good, he was working late. The lights were still on, Nancy thought as she parked in front of Tony’s office. The fresh snow was up to the tops of her boots as she made her way to the front door. Finding it unlocked, she let herself in quietly. She was about to call out when she heard Tony’s voice. It sounded as if he was on the telephone.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he was saying. “I know I’m a little late with the rent, but if you can just wait a few more days I’ll—Yes, I know, but—”
Nancy listened attentively. It was obvious that Tony was having money troubles.
Silence. Then, “Please believe me. I’m expecting some donations this week. It’s not a case of being desperate, it’s—” His voice took on an angry tone. “Look, this is a small operation. I’m practically waging a one-man war against pollution in our river—”
The person on the other end of the line kept cutting Tony off, so Nancy didn’t hear much more of his side of the conversation. At last he put down the phone.
Nancy called out to let Tony know she was there.
He was frowning as he came through the doorway to the hall, but when he saw Nancy, his expression lightened. “What a nice surprise,” he told her. “I was expecting a lady with an eviction notice, and I get Nancy Drew instead. What brings you here tonight?”
Tony beckoned Nancy into his office. Nancy hesitated when she saw Fred lying next to the desk chair, but the big dog’s tail began to wag when he saw her so she sat down tentatively.
“I couldn’t help but overhear,” she began.
Tony shook his head and told her, “Some people don’t understand that it’s a struggle to make ends meet around here. They act as if my Environmental Action was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation or something.” He sighed. “I mean, I work day and night. People like my landlady don’t realize how tough it is.”