The Mysterious Image Read online

  Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #74

  The Mysterious Image

  Contents

  1. Disappearing Act

  2. A Puzzling Trail

  3. An Odd Dislike

  4. Picture Snapper

  5. Clue Search

  6. Windshield Warning

  7. A Sneaky Trick

  8. Muddy Evidence

  9. Smear Tactic

  10. A Frustrating Afternoon

  11. Telephone Reports

  12. The Elusive Clue

  13. A Cute Cartoon

  14. Twinkling of an Eye

  15. A Question of Dates

  16. A Trio of Suspects

  17. Secret Images

  18. A Pair of Enemies

  19. The Unsigned Message

  20. Tower of Danger

  1. Disappearing Act

  “Oh, Dad, look!” exclaimed Nancy Drew. “Isn’t this striking?”

  As she nibbled on some toast, the young detective leafed through a magazine that had arrived in the morning mail. She slid it across the breakfast table and pointed to a full-page advertisement that had caught her eye.

  The photographic layout showed a bronze African idol with a diamond and emerald necklace. The gems seemed to glow with even more fiery radiance by contrast with the eerie-looking figure.

  Nancy’s father, Attorney Carson Drew, nodded. “Beautiful—a very artistic ad! I happen to know this is the work of Dallas Curry.”

  “That famous photographer who’s a friend of yours?” Nancy queried.

  “Yes—and not only a friend, but a client. I’m about to defend him in a lawsuit.”

  “For goodness sake, Dad! Whatever for?” “Believe it or not, he’s accused of copying other people’s work—of stealing their ideas.” Nancy was startled. “But that’s incredible! Dallas Curry is world-famous, isn’t he? Why on earth would he want to pirate someone else’s work?”

  Mr. Drew nodded grimly. “Good question. The whole thing doesn’t make sense. Dallas Curry has become the most highly paid advertising photographer in America just because he creates such unique images—like this one of the African idol with a necklace that you’ve just shown me. Yet, apparently he copied three separate layouts that were shot by other photographers for other ad agencies. He himself can’t explain it.”

  “Have you seen the advertisements, Dad?” “Yes, and I’ll have to admit the similarity seems too great to be mere coincidence.” The distinguished trial lawyer sighed and shook his head. “It’s really quite a mystery, Nancy. I may need your help in handling the case.”

  Nancy’s blue eyes sparkled with interest at the challenge. “Sounds fascinating! I’d love to help if I can.”

  The strawberry-blonde detective had already solved a number of baffling mysteries, and her skill at sleuthing had made the name of Nancy Drew well known far beyond her hometown of River Heights.

  “Who exactly is suing Mr. Curry?” she inquired. “The other photographers?”

  “No, a firm called Marc Joplin, Incorporated—one of the three advertising agencies that claim their ads were copied,” replied Mr. Drew. “Recently they did one for a cosmetic company that ran in Flair magazine. It featured a picture of flowers with models’ faces on the flower blossoms. A week or so later, an ad for a rival cosmetic company appeared in another magazine with exactly the same layout, this one photographed by Dallas Curry!”

  Nancy was astounded. Before she could comment, the telephone rang. Knowing that their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, was busy in the kitchen, she rose from the table. “Excuse me, while I answer that.”

  Nancy hurried out to the front hall. The caller was her old friend, Police Chief McGinnis.“Sorry to bother you so early on a Monday morning, Nancy, but a situation has come up where a private detective would come in mighty handy. How would you like to investigate a disappearance?”

  Nancy chuckled. Apparently today was her morning for mysteries—and this one sounded intriguing! “Glad to, Chief. Who disappeared?”

  “A young actress named Clare Grant. Ever heard of her?”

  “Why, yes. Didn’t she star in a Broadway play a while back? And I believe I read in the paper that she was staying in River Heights this summer.”

  “Right on both counts, Nancy. Anyhow, she seems to have vanished overnight, and a friend of hers is raising quite a fuss about it.”

  “Who’s the friend?” asked Nancy.

  “A young lady named Pamela Kane, who just flew in from California. She’s demanding that we launch a full investigation right away, but as you know, the police can’t legally take any action until a person has been missing for at least twenty-four hours. So I suggested that Miss Kane put the case in your hands.”

  Chief McGinnis explained that Clare Grant had been staying at the home of friends on Possum Road. Nancy jotted down the address and promised to go there at once.

  Returning to the dining room, she told her father about the call and apologized for having to break off their conversation.

  “That’s all right, my dear,” said Carson Drew, setting down his coffee cup and dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “I’ve an early appointment, so I must be running along. We’ll talk more about the Curry case later on.”

  Soon after her father left the house, Nancy was backing her sleek blue sports car out of the garage. Possum Road ran eastward out of town into a pleasant, rolling green area of wealthy estates. Most of them were on the north side of the road. The opposite side, being rugged and hilly, was still mostly undeveloped.

  Chief McGinnis had told Nancy that the house where Clare Grant had been spending the summer was owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Fyfe, a couple who were vacationing in Europe. During the owners’ absence, both their guest and the property were being looked after by their cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Barrow.

  Presently Nancy turned up a graveled drive and stopped in front of the large, white chateau-style house. In response to her ring, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman in a gray, white-collared servant’s uniform. Evidently this was Mrs. Barrow.

  “Miss Drew?” she said to Nancy. “Please come in. Detective Hoyt is expecting you.” She led the way to the drawing room, where the plainclothes police officer was speaking to a worried-looking young woman with fluffy blonde hair. Her brown eyes peered out anxiously at the world through pearl-rimmed pixie glasses.

  “Hi, Nancy,” said Detective Hoyt. “This is Miss Pamela Kane. She’s a friend of Clare Grant, the young lady who seems to be missing.

  “She is missing. There’s no doubt about it!” Pamela Kane choked back a sob. Her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping, and her fingers were twisting and kneading a damp hanky. “That’s why I’m so glad you’re here, Nancy. I’ve heard ever so much about you! I just pray you can find Clare before it’s too late. I’m terribly afraid something awful’s happened to her!” “Let’s hope you’re wrong, but I’ll certainly do my best,” Nancy promised. When they were all seated, she went on, “Please tell me how you discovered your friend’s disappearance.” The story came out in snatches with Pamela, Detective Hoyt, and the housekeeper all helping to fill Nancy in. The Fyfes, she learned, had generously told their guest to treat the house as her own while they were gone. Accordingly, on Sunday evening, Clare Grant told Mrs. Barrow that she was expecting a friend—Pamela Kane—to join her the next morning.

  Soon after 8:00 A.M., Pamela had arrived by taxi from the airport. Mrs. Barrow had answered the door and let her in. But when she went to inform Clare Grant of her friend’s arrival, Clare’s room was empty. Since then, the whole house had been searched with no result. The young actress had disappeared! Finally Mrs. Barrow called the police.

  “Any sign of a struggle?” asked Nancy. Detective Hoyt shook his head. �
�None, although her bedroom window was wide open.” “But she told me on the phone that she’d been receiving threats!” Pamela Kane cut in. “That’s partly why I made the trip East— because she sounded so worried and fearful.” “Did Clare tell you who made the threats?” Nancy inquired.

  “No, she even seemed afraid to talk about it. I was hoping that after I got here, I could persuade her to confide in me—but as you see, I came too late!” Pamela’s lips trembled. She dabbed her nose with her hanky and seemed on the verge of bursting into tears again.

  “Could I see Clare’s room?” Nancy murmured hastily, changing the subject.

  “Of course.” The housekeeper rose from her chair. “Let me show you the way.”

  The bedroom—which was in the rear of the house, on the first floor—was large and comfortably furnished. The coverlet had been thrown back, and the bed looked as if it had been slept in.

  The room had two windows with green silken draperies. The one nearest the bed was wide open. “Was this how you found it?” Nancy asked and pointed.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Barrow said that most of the windows were kept closed, since the house was air conditioned. “But Miss Grant was quite a fresh-air fiend,” she added with a wan smile. “She liked to sleep with her window open.” “No screen?”

  “There was one, but it got damaged on Saturday, so I called our handyman to have it fixed. But Miss Grant opened her window at night even while it was gone. I guess she didn’t mind the insects.”

  Nancy gazed out at the rear grounds. The well-tended lawn and shrubbery were bordered by a dense, wild grove of trees. “How far back do those woods extend?” she wondered aloud.

  “Almost a mile,” Detective Hoyt replied.

  “They run in back of all the houses on this side of Possum Road.”

  Nancy turned to the housekeeper again. “When was the last time you spoke to Clare Grant?”

  Mrs. Barrow said she had received a call from Clare on the house phone shortly after 1:30 A.M. “She sounded a bit disturbed.”

  “What about?”

  “She thought she’d heard noises out back. In fact, she even thought she might have glimpsed someone skulking out there.”

  Nancy asked, “Did you call the police?” “No, though I offered to. First I switched on the ground lights. That would have caught any prowler by surprise, because they light up the whole yard. But we could see there was nobody out there. I guess that reassured her, because then when I offered to phone the police, she said not to bother.”

  “The lights wouldn’t prove there was no prowler,” Pamela Kane argued. “He might have ducked behind some shrubbery.”

  “But at any rate you heard nothing further from Miss Grant after that one call?” Nancy asked Mrs. Barrow.

  “That’s right,” the housekeeper said and nodded.

  “So presumably,” Nancy mused, “she must have disappeared sometime between . . . well, say about 2:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M.”

  “Clare certainly wouldn’t just walk off without telling anybody,” said Pamela. “And she wouldn’t leave the window that wide open just for fresh air, either.”

  “Are any of her things missing?” asked Nancy.

  “Not as far as I can tell,” said Mrs. Barrow. “Have the woods been searched?”

  The detective shook his head. “Not yet.” “Then let’s look right now,” Nancy proposed. The housekeeper remained behind while Nancy, Pamela, and the police officer started out toward the woods. They had barely entered the first fringe of trees when Nancy saw a shiny scrap of paper clinging to a patch of underbrush. She picked it up and was startled to see that it bore a picture of a girl’s face.

  Pamela cried out excitedly, “That’s Clare!”

  2. A Puzzling Trail

  “It’s a piece of a photograph,” said Detective Hoyt. He shot a frowning glance at Nancy.

  Both were troubled by the same thoughts. Why had a picture of the actress been tom up, and who had dropped the fragment of her photo in the woods?

  “Oh, Nancy, I don’t like the looks of this!” wailed Pamela Kane. “Maybe whoever broke into Clare’s room last night tore up her picture in a rage! What do you suppose has happened to her?”

  “Come on, we’ll find out,” Nancy said soothingly, putting her arm around the trembling woman. “Meanwhile, don’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “That’s good advice,” said Detective Hoyt.

  “Now let’s spread out and keep our eyes open. And we’d better watch out for poison ivy, too!” Pushing on through the woods became increasingly difficult. The trees grew closer together, casting deeper shadows. The underbrush was also thicker. Soon another fragment of the torn picture was found by Detective Hoyt. Then Nancy spotted another.

  Bit by bit, as the three worked their way through the cool, damp woods, they picked up additional pieces until they were able to form a general impression of the whole photograph.

  To their amazement, it showed Clare Grant posed like the Statue of Liberty, with torch and book, atop a marble column! She was wearing a diamond tiara and clad in a stunning evening gown of white silk, woven with glittering metallic threads.

  The police officer scratched his head and looked up at his two companions with a puzzled grin. “What’s with this Statue of Liberty bit? Is it some kind of joke?”

  “No, wait! I recognize it now!” exclaimed Nancy. “This was an advertising layout that Clare Grant modeled for. I remember seeing it in a magazine about a year ago. It was a department store ad featuring some fashion designer’s line of evening wear.”

  “Okay, if you say so, Nancy,” Detective Hoyt commented somewhat uncertainly. “But I’d sure like to know how all these pieces got scattered through the woods.”

  “So would I!” declared Pamela in a fervently anxious voice.

  “Let’s be patient,” said Nancy. “I’m sure we can work out the answer eventually if we try hard enough.”

  The trail of the tom photo finally led them out of the woods into a big clearing. The vegetation underfoot was sparse in this area, and the ground was still mushy and soft from the heavy rains that had drenched River Heights over the weekend.

  Here and there, a few confused footprints were visible—evidently made by a man’s shoes, and leading both to and from the edge of the clearing—but for the most part they seemed to be purposely scattered over rocks and pebbles, to avoid leaving any clear traces.

  “I don’t see any female footprints,” Detective Hoyt remarked.

  “He could have been carrying Clare,” Pamela pointed out.

  If so, Nancy reflected, it might explain why the few prints that were visible seemed to have been pressed into the mud so deeply. But she refrained from saying so aloud in order to avoid frightening Pamela still more. After all, the prints might simply have been made by a person of heavy build.

  In the center of the clearing was a large excavation—obviously an old, abandoned rock quarry. “Oh-h-h!” Pamela wailed again and stumbled toward the edge of the crater to peer down into its depths. But the excavation was empty, with little or no residue of water from the recent storm.

  The ground immediately surrounding the crater was strewn with too much gravel and broken rock to show any footprints. Nancy began walking around the quarry, searching for clues, with Pamela close at her heels, while Detective Hoyt circled it in the opposite direction.

  When they met on the opposite side of the quarry, they found themselves looking at clear tire tracks in the mushy ground.

  Nancy studied the heavily ridged tread marks. “Those are the kind of tire treads that a four-wheel-drive vehicle would have, aren’t they, Detective Hoyt?”

  “Right you are, Nancy. Obviously an ATV was driven here. You know—an all-terrain, or off-the-road, vehicle, the kind that can be driven over any ground,” the detective observed.

  The tire tracks led from the quarry to an old, deeply rutted cinder path, which seemed to meander through the woods at a roughly northwesterly slant. Although there wa
s no hope of making out the tire tracks on the cindered trail, it seemed obvious that the mystery vehicle had traveled in a direction opposite to the Fyfes’ house.

  “Do you know where this cindered path leads to?” Nancy asked Hoyt.

  “Yes, I do. It connects up with Highway 19 on the other side of the woods, about a mile from here. And the opposite end joins Possum Road a little way east of the Fyfes’ house.”

  After pondering for a few moments, Nancy said, “Well, I think we’ve done all we can here for now.” And pushing her red-gold hair back from her face, the teenager turned and led the way back through the woods toward the house.

  Stepping through a border of forsythias and rhododendrons, they finally reached the lawn and fragrant gardens at the rear of the Fyfes’ estate.

  Detective Hoyt bent down to brush the mud off his trouser cuffs, then as he straightened up said, “Don’t worry too much, Miss Kane. Your friend hasn’t been gone very long and maybe she’ll soon be back. But I’ll be in touch. Right now I’d better be getting back to headquarters.”

  When he had gone, Nancy pointed to a group of white garden furniture on a tiled patio. “Why don’t we sit down over there, and you can help by telling me more about Clare Grant.”

  When they were seated, Pamela Kane said hesitantly, “I’d like to ask the housekeeper to bring you some refreshment, Nancy, but I’m a little unsure about whether I should stay here or exactly what I should do until Clare comes back.”

  “I’m sure you’re welcome to stay here until your friend returns,” Nancy replied sympathetically. “After all, Clare Grant did invite you here as her guest. And she may come back at any moment.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Pamela said, not very confidently, clasping and unclasping her hands.

  “What can you tell me about Clare?” said Nancy, encouraging her to talk. “Her career might be a good place to start.”

  “Clare was stagestruck; that’s the only word for it.” Pamela Kane smiled reminiscently.

  “When she finished college out in the Midwest, she came straight to Broadway. And was she lucky! She landed a part almost immediately and scored an instant hit! It was in a play called The Mandrake Root.”