The Secret in the Old Lace Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - Crashing Ladder

  Chapter 2 - The Disappearance

  Chapter 3 - Missing Manuscript

  Chapter 4 - Clever Caller

  Chapter 5 - Midnight Intruder

  Chapter 6 - Kid Attack

  Chapter 7 - The Stolen Bag

  Chapter 8 - Detective Trouble

  Chapter 9 - The Ghost

  Chapter 10 - The Water Tunnel

  Chapter 11 - Fantastic News

  Chapter 12 - At the Lace Center

  Chapter 13 - The Thief

  Chapter 14 - A Threat

  Chapter 15 - Cowboy Suspect

  Chapter 16 - Exciting Clue

  Chapter 17 - Hidden Treasure?

  Chapter 18 - The Spy

  Chapter 19 - The Capture

  Chapter 20 - A Double Surprise

  STRANGE things start to happen when Nancy enters a magazine contest with a solution to a true mystery. A century ago, an elegant Belgium gentleman, a secret pair of lace cuffs, and a priceless treasure all disappeared. Suddenly Nancy’s contest entry is missing! A day later when another contestant submits the identical solution, Nancy sees there’s a real mystery to be solved. Nancy, Bess, and George fly to Belgium in search of the truth. In a chilling adventure through hidden rooms, dark tunnels, and ghostly canals, the young sleuths get caught up in a romantic mystery of the past.

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  Copyright © 1980 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in 2005

  by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014. NANCY DREW MYSTERY STORIES® is a registered

  trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07760-3

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  Crashing Ladder

  “Nancy, what are you doing?” asked Hannah Gruen, pausing at the door of Nancy’s bedroom. The attractive, titian-haired girl was seated at her desk writing something hurriedly on a notepad.

  “Oh, Hannah,” Nancy said, turning around in her chair excitedly, “I’ve just completed the mystery story for the magazine contest I told you about!”

  “That’s wonderful, dear,” the woman said in a motherly tone. “Now perhaps you can get out and enjoy this lovely weather. You’ve been cooped up here for days.” She went to a window and opened it slightly, allowing a warm breeze to rustle the papers on Nancy’s desk.

  “For days?” Nancy repeated in mock surprise. “Why, it feels like no time at all.” She winked affectionately at the housekeeper who had taken care of her since she was three years old.

  “No time, indeed,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “You’re as pale as the paint on the shutters.”

  “The old paint or the new paint?” Nancy teased. The pungent odor of a fresh coat of paint drifted through the open window, and they could hear the scraping of a ladder as a man in white overalls worked on the trim.

  “It’s all the same color,” Mrs. Gruen quipped. “Ghost white!”

  Nancy smiled. “Aren’t you even interested in my solution to the mystery story?”

  Hannah slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulder. “Of course, I am. May I read it now?”

  “Mm-hmm, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to get lots of sun today.”

  A smile crossed Hannah’s lips as she glanced at the penciled page half hidden by several others. “I must confess, Nancy, I’m very happy about this mystery.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, because it’s one you were able to solve in the safety of your own home!”

  “Oh, Hannah...” Nancy laughed. Although she was eighteen years old now and well-known as a capable amateur detective, she knew Hannah could not help worrying about her.

  Without another word, the girl put the papers in order and clipped them together. “Here you are,” she said, handing the manuscript to Hannah.

  “Let me get my reading glasses,” Hannah said, excusing herself just when the front doorbell rang.

  “That must be Bess and George,” Nancy said. “I called them while you were out shopping.” She dropped the papers on her desk and flew down the stairs, followed by Hannah. “Hi!” She welcomed the visitors. Bess Marvin and her cousin George Fayne were Nancy’s closest friends.

  “Have you come to rescue the fair maiden from her ivory tower?” Hannah said mischievously.

  “Guess so,” Bess smiled, revealing deep dimples in her cheeks. “We’re taking Nancy to Pickles and Plums for lunch!”

  The Drews’ housekeeper wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure you won’t get indigestion on that diet?” she asked innocently.

  “Oh, no!” George giggled. “It’s a new health-food restaurant downtown. We can sit outside and get lots of vitamins A and D.”

  Hannah’s eyes brightened. “Health food! That sounds just like what the doctor ordered,” she said approvingly.

  Nancy kissed the woman’s cheek, then ran upstairs, calling to her friends, “C’mon, I want to show you the story I’m submitting to Circle and Square magazine!”

  “Can’t we eat first?” Bess replied, following her cousin to the second landing. “I’m starved!”

  “So what else is new?” George teased. Unlike Bess, who tended to be plump, George had a slim figure.

  “I haven’t eaten a thing today! Really!” Bess giggled as Nancy gave her the manuscript to read.

  “Let me see it too,” George said eagerly. “I want to learn what happened to the mystery man. ”

  “Just a minute,” Bess protested, holding the manuscript away from her cousin and toward the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window.

  “Oh, please don’t keep me in suspense,” George begged.

  “For all those terrible things you always say about my figure,” Bess declared, “you’ll have to wait your turn.”

  George shrugged. “Beaten again.”

  “Who’s beaten—someone in your manuscript?” Hannah Gruen interrupted, joining the girls.

  “No, no.” Nancy chuckled. “This is a love story. Actually, it won’t make much sense unless I tell you how the whole thing started. The opening of the story appeared in the magazine. It contains a real-life mystery which every contest entrant is supposed to solve. ”

  As Nancy spoke, Hannah sat in the Queen Anne chair opposite the girl’s desk while Bess and George plopped at the foot of the bed.

  “I gather from the little I read,” Bess put in, “that the story takes place in Europe.”

  “That’s right,” Nancy replied. “It starts in Brussels, Belgium, in the nineteenth century. A handsome young man whose name was François Lefèvre received a pair of mysterious lace cuffs which he wore with a red velvet dress jacket.”

  Bess leaned forward with a starry look. “Mm, too bad he isn’t living now. I’d love to meet him.”

  “Believe me,” Nancy said, “you would have been only one of many admirers. One of them apparently was too bashful to tell him how much she cared for him. ”

  “You mean he never found out who sent him the lace cuffs?” George asked.

  Nancy nodded. “François
disappeared suddenly with a rather sizable fortune. Neither his family nor friends ever heard from him again.”

  “Oh, how sad!” Bess remarked.

  “In the fireplace of his bedroom,” Nancy continued, “his servants found burned fragments of letters. Among them was a mysterious note in flowery handwriting—”

  “Obviously from a woman.” George seized the clue.

  “It was in French,” Nancy said. “Translated the message read:

  Turn your face

  To the lace

  Of the cuffs

  A secret—

  The rest of it was charred.”

  “Did the servants find anything else?” Hannah questioned eagerly.

  “Yes, on another shred of paper was the word marry.”

  “What a story,” Bess said dreamily.

  “Does anyone know who sent the lace cuffs to François?” George inquired.

  “The story didn’t say,” Nancy replied. “I guess no one ever admitted to being the lace maker.”

  “Oh, please tell us the rest,” Bess said, “before you hear my news—”

  Nancy’s eyebrows shot up. “What news?”

  “We’ll get to that later. Finish your story first.”

  “Well, what I’ve told you so far is all that was published in the magazine. Everything else I made up.

  Nancy handed the housekeeper her story. “Hannah’s first. I promised to let her see it before you arrived. ”

  The woman began reading the manuscript with great interest. Bess was quiet for a while, then became impatient. “Nancy, got your passport ready?” she asked.

  “Why, where are we going?”

  “To Belgium!” Bess blurted.

  “Belgium?” Nancy said in puzzlement. “Now, Bess, I told you François Lefèvre has been dead for more than a century.”

  Grinning, Bess swept a blond curl off her forehead. “We’re not going there to hunt for François,” she said. “You remember my telling you about Mother’s old college friend, Madame Chambray?”

  Nancy nodded.

  “Well, about a month ago she moved from France to Brugge, Belgium—”

  “Why, that’s the name of a city in Nancy’s story,” Hannah interrupted.

  “You’re kidding,” Bess said.

  “No, it’s true,” Nancy concurred, “but tell me about Madame Chambray.”

  “She wrote to Mother recently. Here’s the letter,” Bess said, rummaging through her purse for it. “It seems that Madame Chambray found a valuable antique cross in her house. It’s made of diamonds and lapis lazuli. Madame Chambray believes it belongs to someone who lived in her house years ago. Unfortunately, she hasn’t had much time to search for the owner of the cross but she’s going to put an ad in the newspaper over there.”

  Intrigued by the story, Nancy glanced at the letter for a moment, then dropped it on the desk. “What about the person from whom Madame Chambray bought the house?” the girl detective inquired. “Isn’t it more likely the cross belongs to him or her?”

  “Apparently it doesn’t,” George spoke up. “Madame Chambray checked on that. ”

  Just then Hannah, not taking her eyes from the manuscript, commented, “It’s a wonderful story, dear. You know, I’d been hoping you’d be content to work on fictional mysteries for a while, but I can see—”

  Before the housekeeper could continue, there was the shatter of glass followed by an earsplitting crash.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Hannah shrieked, rushing to the window.

  “What was it?” the girls chorused as they ran after her.

  “The painter!” Hannah cried. “His ladder must have slipped and he fell!”

  All four were staring down at the lawn, where the man in white overalls was dizzily swaying to his feet. The ladder was lying on the grass a few feet away from him.

  “I hope he isn’t badly hurt,” Hannah said. “We’d better go down and find out.”

  Her words were hardly spoken, when the man quickly hobbled across the lawn to a truck parked in front of the Drew home. Nancy raced downstairs two steps at a time, the others close behind her, and bolted outside along the curving driveway toward the truck.

  “Are you okay?” she shouted anxiously to the man.

  But he pulled himself into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and roared off. Nancy turned back to the house, meeting her friends and Hannah halfway. The housekeeper still held the manuscript in her hand.

  “The ladder must’ve slid straight down,” Mrs. Gruen observed, “and hit the dining room window. ”

  Nancy gaped at the pile of broken glass beneath the opening. “I’m going to call the paint company immediately,” she announced.

  “That guy sure acted strange, don’t you think?” Bess said.

  “I just hope he’s all right,” Hannah said.

  Nancy dialed the phone number of the painters, Kell and Kell, and talked with the owner, Oscar Kell. He offered to come at once to see the damage. While they waited, Nancy and the other girls decided to take a second look at the scene themselves.

  “Be careful,” George cautioned Nancy as she walked gingerly between shards of broken glass.

  “What do you think of this?” Nancy said, ignoring her friend’s comment. She pointed to a paint can standing on the ground a few feet away from the window.

  “It’s white paint,” Bess said. “What are you getting at?”

  “If he was working on my window frame, the can would have fallen and splattered paint on the grass, wouldn’t it?” Nancy questioned.

  “You’re right,” George admitted. “He climbed up there without it. I wonder why he did that?”

  “I have a hunch he was eavesdropping on us!”

  2

  The Disappearance

  “How much do you think the painter overheard?” Bess asked after Nancy revealed her conclusions.

  “Probably only snatches,” Nancy replied, “but enough to give him ideas. ”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” George said. “He didn’t find out your solution to the contest.”

  “True, but I bet he wanted to,” Nancy replied. “He must have heard us talking about the mystery while he was painting near the window. So he scooted down his ladder and moved it right underneath my room, and climbed up again. Of course, by doing that, he missed part of the conversation.”

  George nodded. “He probably mixed everything up and figures there’s some important connection between your contest and Madame Chambray’s story!”

  As George spoke, a station wagon pulled into the driveway. A middle-aged man with stocky features emerged. “I’m looking for Nancy Drew,” he called to the girls.

  Nancy stepped forward. “Mr. Kell?”

  “That’s me,” he said, knitting his eyebrows as he noticed the broken window. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get over here faster. I was waiting for Matey to return with the truck.”

  “Did he?” Nancy asked impatiently.

  “Yep, and before I could find out what happened, he quit on me. Said he was tired of house painting. When I asked him what he intended to do, he said he was going treasure hunting. A real smart aleck!”

  Nancy, unwilling to reveal her suspicions, innocently asked, “What’s his last name?”

  “Johnson,” Mr. Kell replied. “He used to be a sailor; I guess climbing the mast was good training for the kind of work he did for me. ”

  “Was he with you a long time? Nancy asked.

  “A year. He’s been on parole for a while,” Mr. Kell said with hesitation in his voice. “But he’s okay. A good painter, just a smart aleck.”

  Bess and George had all they could do to contain their anxiety while Nancy spoke to Mr. Kell. Then Hannah appeared at the dining room window, and for several moments she and the contractor discussed repairs.

  When he left, Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm. “I don’t believe it!” she said. “That painter is an ex-convict!”

  “Matey Johnson was probably a second-story
burglar,” Nancy concluded.

  “To think he could’ve just squirmed his way into your room and stolen your manuscript!” George exclaimed.

  “But he didn’t,” Nancy pointed out calmly. “Of course, if he had, he could’ve copied my answer to the contest and sent it in. Then, if his entry had reached the magazine office first, the editors would have accused me of plagiarism.”

  “How awful!” George said. “But he would have been the plagiarist—the one who stole your idea!”

  “I know,” Nancy said, “but how could I prove it?”

  “We’re your witnesses,” Bess said cheerfully.

  “You’re more than witnesses.” Nancy smiled. “You’re my best friends.”

  “Say, what about lunch?” George piped up.

  “Don’t tell us you’re hungry!” Her cousin smirked.

  The girls went to get their handbags. Nancy saw the manuscript lying in the hallway where Hannah had placed it after she had come back into the house. Quickly the girl put it into the closet before she followed her friends outside.

  They climbed into Nancy’s car and headed for Pickles and Plums Restaurant. Outside were rows of round yellow tables with floral umbrellas poised in the center of each one. Several of the umbrellas were open; a few were not.

  “Let’s get a little sun,” Nancy suggested, remembering her promise to Hannah.

  The girls chose a table with a closed umbrella and within a minute or so a lanky waiter in blue jeans and a floral shirt brought them menus.

  As soon as Bess had ordered an exotic fruit and yogurt salad, she leaned toward Nancy. “We never did read the rest of your story so please tell us how it ends.”

  Nancy said she felt sure there was a message in the lace cuffs that prompted François to disappear.

  “What kind of message? Bess persisted.

  “I have a strong hunch that the girl who made the cuffs was in love with François but he didn’t love her. Maybe he was fearful his family and the girl’s would arrange their betrothal. In those days young people had little to say about such things.”