Nancy started the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” Instantly Susie marched, stiff-legged, around the room.
“Good!” said Nancy. “And now, Carol, here’s one for you.”
Carol listened and pretended to be walking with her doll.
“That’s right.” Nancy smiled. “This is the ‘Waltzing Doll.’ As you become acquainted with more difficult music, steps to go with it will come to you at once. All you learn now are the different kinds of steps and movements. Later, when you are told the story of a ballet, you will interpret it in your own way.”
“You mean this lesson we can do any steps we want to the music? Oh, let’s all try one right now,” begged black-haired Jennifer.
“All right,” Nancy agreed. She told a story of an animal parade and dropped “Forest Frolic” over the pin of the turntable.
The little girls rose, listened a moment, then started to dance, imitating both the movements and cries of various animals of the forest. A lion roared and stalked a leaping deer. A bear growled, monkeys chattered, and a wild dog barked.
In the midst of the din, Susie suddenly stopped dancing and screamed. She pointed toward the reception room and cried out, “Look! There’s a witch out there!”
Nancy turned to see a strange sight. A woman, wearing a tight-fitting black dress and large peaked hat, with a stole covering half of her face, was tiptoeing across the carpeted room toward the desk.
“Look! There’s a witch!” Susie screamed.
For a moment, Nancy could not understand her strange actions. There was nothing in the desk she could possibly want. Suddenly, in spite of the woman’s disguise, Nancy recognized her. “Mrs. Judson!” she called out involuntarily.
Realizing she had been discovered, the woman forgot her attempts at stealth, ran forward boldly, and reached up on the wall. When her hand came down, she was holding the scarlet slippers!
“Drop those at once!” Nancy shouted, running into the reception room.
But Mrs. Judson, clutching the ballet shoes against her chest, rushed to the hall and down the stairs. Nancy raced across the reception room after the thief!
CHAPTER X
Quest for Portraits
As Nancy dashed out the front door after the thief, she saw Bess heading for the dancing school.
“Hurry! Watch the children! I have to catch a thief!”
Nancy’s ankle was still painful and Mrs. Judson outdistanced her, disappearing around the next comer. Nancy looked for her in vain and concluded she had gone through one of the stores to another street.
As Nancy paused, she realized that her scanty ballet outfit was attracting stares on the busy street. She blushed and quickly walked back to the dancing school. Her young pupils were trying to explain to Bess about the “witch” who had taken the slippers. When they saw Nancy, they all asked what had happened.
“I didn’t catch the woman,” she said.
“Miss Fontaine will feel bad,” Susie said. “She just loves those slippers.”
Bess led the children into the practice room and continued their lesson. Nancy, meanwhile, telephoned the police about the theft.
“There must be something significant about the ballet slippers to make Mrs. Judson steal them,” she thought. “But what?” She decided to drive out to ask the Fontaines about the shoes.
She got in touch with George, who promised to relieve her as receptionist at the school.
When Nancy reached home, her father was already there. He readily agreed to accompany her to Cedar Lake.
“I learned a few things today that the Fontaines may be able to shed some light on,” he said. “I talked with the airline stewardess who was on that plane you and Koff took. She told me one of the passengers spoke with a decided French accent, though his name wasn’t French. He was listed as Raymond Bull. Furthermore, he too got off the plane at River Heights.”
Nancy thought of the letter R on the palette knife. Could Raymond Bull be an artist friend of the Judsons?
“Then,” Mr. Drew went on, “I phoned all the hotels in town. But no one named Raymond Bull was registered at any of them. It’s probably an assumed name.”
When the Drews arrived at the Nickerson lodge two hours later, they found the Fontaines seated in rocking chairs on the front porch. Regretfully, Nancy told them of the unpleasant incident at the dancing school that afternoon.
“Oh, my darling slippers!” Helene exclaimed. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“I’m sure we’ll get them back,” said Nancy. “But have you any idea why Mrs. Judson stole your mother’s ballet slippers?”
“No. None.”
“Do they have any special value besides the sentimental one?”
Henri leaned forward. “They may have,” he answered. “The slippers appeared in a portrait that has a curious story.”
“Please tell me,” Nancy urged.
“Nearly two years ago,” Henri began, “while I was still painting portraits, a man by the name of Tomas Renee came to me. He ordered twelve pictures of a dancer in various ballet poses. It took me six months to complete the paintings.”
“And the slippers?” Nancy prompted.
“Helene posed for me, and in the last picture she wore the scarlet slippers. In the others she wore her own pink ones.”
“Monsieur Renee’s name begins with an R,” Nancy observed. “May he be considered a possible owner of the palette knife?”
“I suppose so,” said Henri, “except that he was an art dealer, not a painter, so far as I know. Well, the first strange thing was that Monsieur Renee put a peculiar paragraph in our contract—the whole transaction was to be kept secret and I was not to sign the paintings.”
“That was odd,” Nancy murmured.
“He said that there was a race among dealers to fill an order from a famous dancing school for twelve paintings. Monsieur Renee wanted no one to know that he was entering this race.”
Henri went on to say that Renee’s wife fancied herself to be a great ballet dancer and wished to model for the portraits.
“When this Madame Renee came to my studio, I found that she was a miserable dancer. And she could not pose in any of the positions for more than a few seconds.
“Finally I had to tell Monsieur Renee this. He insisted that we must complete the paintings, and permitted my sister to be the model.”
“But Madame Renee was very jealous,” Helene put in.
“Yes,” said Henri. “She claimed that her husband’s visits to our studio were only for the purpose of seeing Helene. And just as I was finishing the last picture, the warning note came, telling Helene and me to leave the country.”
“Do you think Renee could have had anything to do with the note?” Nancy asked.
“I didn’t at the time,” Henri replied. “But now I think it’s possible.”
The young detective turned to her father. “Dad, do you think you could find out more about Tomas Renee?”
“It may take time,” the lawyer replied. “But my attorney friend, Mr. Scott, happens to be in Paris at the moment. I’ll cable and ask him to track down this new suspect.”
“And now,” Henri said, “I have an opportunity to continue work on Nancy’s portrait!”
Mr. Drew said he was not in a hurry to return to River Heights. While Henri prepared to work, the lawyer wrote out his cable and used the lodge telephone to send it to Mr. Scott.
When the Drews said good night much later, both were pleased with the progress on the portrait, which Mr. Drew declared was to be his Christmas present.
The following morning Nancy found that Hannah did not feel well. She suggested that the housekeeper let her take over for a while.
As she did the household chores, the girl detective tried to fit the pieces of the Fontaine puzzle together. Three R’s: Raoul Judson, Raymond Bull, Tomas Renee. Were they associates? Were the names aliases? And what did the strange number in the figurine and on the stamp of the Parisian letter mean?
She was interrupt
ed by the telephone. It was Mr. Drew, calling from his office.
“I have some interesting news for you,” he said, “but I’d rather not give it to you over the telephone. I suggest you come down here at once.”
Nancy lost no time in getting to her father’s office. He closed the door as she sat down in his private study.
“What is it?” Nancy asked eagerly.
“Tomas Renee has disappeared. And he’s wanted by the French police!”
Mr. Drew explained that up to six months before, the Renees had lived in a villa outside Paris. Then suddenly they had vanished.
“But,” said the lawyer, “it seems that Mr. Renee had some strange dealings with various people and is liable to imprisonment.”
“No wonder he disappeared,” said Nancy. “I wonder if he is still in France.”
“That’s hard to say,” her father answered. “If he left the country, it must have been under an assumed name.”
“Then the immigration authorities can’t help us?”
“I’ve spoken with them,” said Mr. Drew. “If Tomas Renee came to the United States, it was not under the names of Renee, Judson, or Bull. No one from France has arrived under those names during the past year and a half.”
Nancy sighed. “All our facts are on the negative side, Dad. Let’s try a new angle.”
“What?”
“Those pictures that Henri painted may be an important clue,” Nancy pointed out. “If Renee was dishonest, his story about the race among art dealers probably was false. And in the light of what’s been happening to the Fontaines, there’s a chance that some of the pictures may be in this country—possibly even in River Heights!”
“You think there is some connection between the paintings and the enemies of the Centrovian underground?”
“Perhaps.”
Mr. Drew looked thoughtful. “Suppose I call the customs office? And then, how about having lunch with me?”
“Wonderful, Dad. I’ll call Hannah and tell her I won’t be home.”
Nancy spoke to the housekeeper on a phone in the outer office, while Mr. Drew used his private line to call customs.
“Oh, Nancy,” Hannah said, “I’m glad you called. Mrs. Parsons was here. She’s terribly upset because Millie Koff didn’t come back. She says the Koffs haven’t returned to the Claymore Hotel.”
Nancy hung up and dialed the Cliffwood Hotel at once. “Mr. Koff and his daughter checked out yesterday,” the clerk told her. “They left no forwarding address.”
Nancy was dumfounded. Had she let Mr. Koff deceive her? Was he in league with the Judsons, and maybe with Raymond Bull, and even Renee?
When Nancy told her father about the Koffs, the lawyer looked grave. “Let’s eat,” he suggested. “Maybe we’ll be brighter after lunch and can figure this out.”
At the lawyer’s club, Nancy found herself the center of attention. Her father’s friends enjoyed exchanging sallies with the young detective and trying to stump her on knotty problems. For a time, Nancy nearly forgot her own case.
Soon after they returned to Mr. Drew’s office, a call came in from the customs office. Mr. Drew told Nancy that all of Henri’s paintings had been shipped to the United States during the past twelve months.
“The consignor for eleven of them was Tomas Renee. But the twelfth, the one with the scarlet slippers, was sent over by a man signing the name Raoul Amien.”
“Who received them in the United States?” Nancy asked eagerly.
“A Pierre Duparc, formerly an art dealer in New York. His whereabouts are unknown.”
Nancy had a hunch. “Dad, I think this Raoul Amien may be in our vicinity—perhaps using the name Judson. Can we send a cable to Paris to inquire about him?”
Carson Drew agreed to do so, and Nancy said he would be able to reach her at the dancing school all afternoon.
When the lawyer returned home that evening, he told his daughter that Raoul Amien had indeed come to the United States. “He married after arriving,” he added.
“Dad, I think Amien and Renee probably were working some scheme together—something to do with Henri’s paintings.” Nancy speculated. “It’s even possible that they’re enemies and the Fontaines are in the middle.”
The lawyer laughed, pleased at his daughter’s knack for quick deductions. “So what’s your next move?”
“I think I’ll go down and place an ad in the Gazette for a painting of a ballet dancer. Maybe I can locate some of Henri’s work. Dad, please tell Hannah I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
The next morning Nancy’s advertisement appeared in the local newspaper. She called Bess and George and asked them to come to her home as soon as possible.
“We’ll go to the Gazette office at about three,” she told the cousins a short time later. “I have a hunch that one of the suspects may mail or send a note and come to see who put the ad in the paper. I’d like you two to keep an eye on anyone who may be standing around when I go in to pick up the mail. See whether anyone seems particularly interested.”
That afternoon Nancy drove downtown, parked near the entrance of the Gazette, and strolled in. Her two friends were waiting at vantage points near the large pillars inside the building.
Nancy handed in the receipt for her box number and received three letters. Suddenly Bess signaled frantically and pointed out the window.
Johann Koff was watching Nancy intently!
Nancy stuffed the three letters into her handbag and went outside. Mr. Koff had not moved. Before she could speak, he smiled pleasantly.
“How are you?” he asked. “I just happened to see you crossing the street, and waited to speak to you.”
The man explained that he and Millie had just returned to the Claymore after stopping overnight on the way back from the Cliffwood. He wondered whether there was any news on his case.
Nancy, taken aback, could not feel sure about the man. “Have you received any more threatening messages from Mr. Judson?” she asked.
“No. Perhaps that letter I sent about retaining your father on the case reached Mr. Judson and discouraged him from suing me.”
Nancy, still slightly suspicious, asked, “Are Renee and Amien friends of yours?”
“I never heard of them.” Suddenly Mr. Koff laughed. “Miss Detective, were you trying to trap me? Are these men enemies of the Centrovian underground?”
As Nancy merely smiled and did not reply, he added, “I have heard nothing concerning my own briefcase. I am terribly worried.”
“I wish I could help locate it,” Nancy said. “And I’ll tell Dad I saw you.”
Joining her friends in the car, Nancy learned that no other suspicious characters had been spotted in the Gazette building. The young detective asked Bess to take the wheel so she could read the answers to the ad.
As they drove off, Nancy laid two of the letters on her lap. She opened the third. As she spread the sheet, both she and George gasped in astonishment.
“What is it?” Bess demanded, stopping for a traffic light.
Nancy held up the paper for her to read. On it had been sketched the familiar scarlet slipper insigne. In printed letters, similar to those on the note received by the Fontaines, were the words:
STOP YOUR DETECTIVE WORK AT ONCE OR YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN GRAVE PERIL!
CHAPTER XI
Signs of Tampering
BESS did not pull ahead when the traffic light turned green. She was too shaken by the threatening message Nancy had just received.
Horns began to sound and George urged, “Move, Bess!”
Bess drove on, then said worriedly, “Whoever wrote that note means business, Nancy. Oh, please give up the case before you run into real trouble.”
“This doesn’t scare me,” Nancy declared. “Writers of anonymous notes are always cowards, and I don’t intend to be frightened by one!”
Bess turned to George for moral support, but her cousin agreed with Nancy. She suggested that her friend open the other two notes.
“Oh, I hope they’re not the same kind!” Bess said fearfully.
Nancy quickly examined the two answers and reassured her friends. One letter offered a painting that obviously was not one of the group Henri had painted. But the other note, which had been telephoned in, looked. like a lead.
It was from the Elite Dancing School in Stanford, and described an oil painting the school was willing to sell. It depicted a ballet dancer in pink-and-white tulle, with an indistinct background of trees.
“That’s just the way Henri described the background to me,” said Nancy excitedly.
“Let’s go right over to Stanford and look at it!” George urged.
“But we can’t do that,” Bess broke in. “Nancy and I have classes at the dancing school.”
“Bess is right,” said Nancy. “We’ll go tomorrow morning.”
When the girls arrived at the school, George left the others, arranging to meet them at nine the next day.
Bess had the first group of young ballerinas, Nancy the second. Both girls carried on with their usual enthusiasm but were surprised at the small attendance in the classes. More than half the pupils were absent.
“This is very strange,” Nancy thought. “I wonder what the trouble is.”
She made a list of the absentees and began telephoning their parents. Nancy explained to those she reached that she was sure the Fontaines would return soon to resume teaching.
In her conversations with the various mothers, Nancy noticed a reluctance to discuss the subject. Finally she talked to Mrs. Muller, a neighbor, and asked, “Has anyone been in touch with you regarding the Fontaines?”
“How did you know?” the woman said in surprise.
“Maybe it’s my instinct,” Nancy replied with a chuckle. “Just what have you heard?”
Mrs. Muller told her that several mothers, including her, had received anonymous letters informing them that the Fontaines had disappeared because they were wanted by the police. The letters indicated that the dancers were involved in a serious scandal, which would reflect on the children if they continued at the school.