The Silver Cobweb Read online

  Nancy mulled over what Brett Hulme had just told her. With these latest frightening developments, it seemed as though the puzzle was becoming more complicated than ever!

  “What about Simon Sand himself?” she said, looking up at Brett. “Did he sound as if he knew about the glass counterfeit when he phoned you to cancel the order for the silver cobweb?”

  “Definitely! That’s why he canceled the order.” Brett replied. “He was pretty sore about getting stuck with a fake. But he also seemed convinced that the spider Oscar Larue sold him was genuine―in other word. That someone had stolen it from him later on and substituted a glass imitation.”

  “Did he notify the police?”

  Again Brett grinned wryly. “No way! His business crowd’s a pretty tough bunch, I guess, and he didn’t want them to find out he’d been cheated. He was afraid that if news leaked out, it might make him look like an easy mark. It would also be embarrassing to him.”

  Nancy was silent for several moments. Then she mused aloud, “The mystery seems to boil down to two main questions. One: how and when did the glass fake get substituted for the real jeweled spider? If it happened early on, was the brooch Oscar Larue bought from Madame Arachne the real one―or a glass counterfeit?”

  “Since both of them are dead now, how can we ever hope to find out?” Kim murmured.

  “That remains to be seen.” said Nancy. “But the other question’s just as important or maybe more so.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who has the real jeweled spider now? We’re going to have to find the answers to both questions, Kim, if we hope to clear your brother!”

  Nancy drove away from the riverside cottage turning the questions over and over in her mind. After she had parked her car in the train station lot and bought her ticket to New York, she found she had a forty-minute wait until the train was due. Nancy used the time to get a sandwich and milkshake at a nearby luncheonette and arrived back just before the train pulled in.

  On arriving in Manhattan, she took a taxi to the hospital. A smiling Tad Farr opened the door of his mother’s room when she knocked.

  “Hi, Nancy! Come on in!” As Maggie Farr, weak but smiling, held out a hand to their visitor, he went on, “We both want to thank you, Nancy. I’m sure the way you tried to help Mom communicate speeded her recovery.”

  Mrs. Farr nodded and squeezed Nancy’s Hand. “Tad’s right. I’m grateful to you, my dear. You’re a lovely girl.”

  “Thank you.” Nancy blushed and smiled back. “But now we both want to hear your story.”

  Tad pulled up a chair for the teenage sleuth, and they both sat down at Maggie Farr’s bedside.

  The elderly woman explained that she had been present in Madame Arachne’s hotel suite in Oceanview on the day Kim Vernon came to plead with the opera star on her brother’s behalf.

  Nancy was startled. “Then you know about him stealing her jeweled spider?”

  “Indeed I do. Only that’s not what he stole!”

  Tad shot a puzzled glance at Nancy, who had a sudden flash of intuition. “What do you mean, Mom?” Tad started to ask.

  But Nancy broke in, “I believe I can guess. What Jack Vernon stole was just a cheap glass imitation. Am I right, Mrs. Farr?”

  “You bet you are!” Maggie responded. “That woman, Madame Arachne, was the most extravagant creature you ever saw! She spent money like there was no tomorrow. Cars, clothes, jewelry, gifts for her friends – anything that caught her eye, she’d buy. Money slipped through her fingers like water, so half the time she was flat broke. One day generous, next day mean and stingy as old Scrooge himself! Anyhow, one of those times when Madame O was broke, she sold off her ruby spider to some rich fella named Oscar Larue. That’s why she had the glass imitation made – so no one would know she’d had to raise money by selling her brooch!”

  Nancy was shocked. “Then she deliberately misled Kim Vernon! I mean, she wouldn’t even relieve Kim’s mind by letting her know the brooch Jack took was just a fake of no value?”

  “That’s right, dear. Believe me, that was Madame Arachne all over. Here was her chance to put on a big act – as if she was a generous, kind-hearted, forgiving fairy godmother – so she played it to the hilt. If she’d told the truth, that would have meant admitting she’d pawned her real brooch for cash to stave off the bill collectors. Madame O would have eaten toads first!”

  Once again, Nancy realized what a strange and complex, maddening yet fascinating person Madame Arachne Onides must have been. “Yet I suspect you liked her in spite of everything . . . didn’t you, Mrs. Farr?

  Maggie smiled reminiscently. “Maybe so. She was always good to me, I’ll say that for her – provided I put up with her tantrums. But the way she let Miss Vernon go on thinking her brother had stolen a priceless piece of jewelry – that disgusted me! When I saw that poor troubled girl’s face on TV, I couldn’t help wondering if the past had anything to do with her dropping out of the tournament. I guess it was a crazy idea, eh?”

  “It certainly wasn’t!” Nancy declared. “You’ve helped Kim Vernon so by telling me this, Mrs. Farr. She’ll be very grateful!”

  Before leaving, Nancy chatted a while longer with Tad and Maggie. Among other things, she learned that Renzo Scaglia had fallen deeply in love with the tempestuous prima donna. Whene Eugene Horvath became Arachne’s business manager, however, and eventually talked her into marrying him, Scaglia had suffered a cruel disappointment.

  Nancy remembered to call her chum from New York before starting home. “My flight will get in an hour from now, Bess. So let’s have dinner, all right?”

  “Super, Nancy! I’m going downtown with Mom Later, so I can meet you anywhere.”

  “Then how about the front of Taylor’s Department Store at six o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there!”

  When the girls finally met, Bess observed Nancy’s happy expression. “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary! Good news, huh?”

  “Very good!” Nancy beamed. “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”

  “Hey, that reminds me,” Bess went on. “Chief McGinnis called right after you did. He was trying to get in touch with you. He asked me to tell you that Jack Vernon is well enough now to be questioned.”

  “Oh great! Bess, I think I should drop over to the hospital right away. Wan to come along?”

  Bess was more than willing, since this would save time. The two girls hurried to Nancy’s blue car and headed for Riverside Hospital.

  Moment later, as she glanced in the rearview mirror, nncy’s heart gave a lurch.

  Dangling close to her right ear by a silken thread from the car ceiling hung a fearsome, deadly-looking spider!

  17. A Voice in the Dark

  Nancy stifled the little cry of surprise and fear that rose in her throat. Her first impulse was to swing her shoulder bag upward to brush the frightful creature away from her, but then it might land on her or even Bess!

  “Don’t move or make a sound,” Nancy advised her companion in a low, controlled voice.

  “Hmm . . . what’s the matt – ” Bess replied, breaking off in a shriek as she turned her head from the side window and saw the horrid spider.

  “Just stay calm, and reach in the glove compartment, will you?” Nancy said, sounding less nervous than she felt. “There’s a paper bag in there, I think, with flashlight batteries in it.”

  Bess extracted the bag. “Is this what you mean?”

  “Yes. Empty out the batteries, please and hand me the empty bag.” By now, Nancy had stopped the car and was opening her door. “I also suggest that you get out of the car for a second.”

  “Oh, Nancy, do be careful,” Bess pleaded as she followed Nancy’s instructions obediently. “Maybe we ought to call someone to help u – ”

  But her friend had already opened the paper bag, positioned it under the spider, and brought it swiftly upward so as to capture the creature inside it. Then she twisted the top and, after fishing
in her purse, found a rubber band with which to hold the bag tightly closed.

  Bess let out a long weakened gasp. “I could never have done that!”

  Nancy burst into a merry peal of laughter. “Don’t tell anyone, but I was scared, too!”

  “Where on earth did it come from, Nancy?”

  “Good question. It certainly didn’t look like any plain old American variety. Maybe that spider expert, Paul Taggart, can tell us.”

  Because the famous girl detective had been the one who found Jack Vernon, she was readily permitted to see him. When Nancy phoned his room, he not only sounded eager to talk but told her she could bring Bess up as well, if she liked.

  “I’m through hiding in the past,” the young politician declared when the two girls were seated at his bedside. “What happened last night has convinced me I should have made a clean breast to the police right from the first, instead of dumping the whole problem on Kim’s shoulders.”

  “She’s told me the whole story,” Nancy said.

  Jack Vernon nodded. “I know. And now I’m prepared to tell my story, even if it costs me the election . . . and my chance to marry Celia Hawthorn,” he ended unhappily but firmly.

  “I’m sure your fiancée will stand by you. But if you don’t mind my offering a word of advice,” Nancy counseled sympathetically, “I suggest you hold off a while longer before making any statement to the news media. I’m hoping my investigation of this case will clear your name completely.”

  “If you can do that, I’ll be eternally grateful,” the young candidate muttered in a husky voice.

  Vernon related that after his recent political rally had been broken up by hecklers, he received a highly unpleasant phone call. “Whoever it was wanted to know what had happened to the real jeweled spider. He said the heckling was just a sample. If I didn’t come clean, as he put it, he’d wreck my election campaign!”

  “In other words,” Nancy queried, “he knew all about your part in the theft of the brooch from Madame Arachne’s dressing room?”

  “Right. So I told him I hadn’t seen the brooch since I turned it over to that fake publicity agent, Sweeney Flint.”

  “Can you remember what Flint looked like?”

  “How can I ever forget!” Jack said grimly, clenching his fist at the recollection. “His nose was sort of twisted, as if it had been broken and hadn’t been set properly, and one eyelid drooped. He looked so sinister, I remember thinking he must have a tough time attracting publicity clients!”

  This seemed to remove any doubt, Nancy reflected, that the mysterious Sweeney Flint was also the midnight intruder on Eugene Harvath’s island estate.

  “How did your phone caller react to what you told him?” she said aloud.

  Jack Vernon shrugged. “I guess he believed me. Anyhow, he muttered a couple more threats about wrecking my campaign if I was lying, and hung up.”

  “Do you think he was responsible for last night’s attack in the park?”

  Jack frown thoughtfully. “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, the attacker asked me the same question the phone caller did.” Vernon explained that while he was waiting for Nancy just inside the park entrance, he suddenly felt a knife at his back. “Then a voice behind me asked what had happened to the real jeweled spider. When I told him I hadn’t seen it since the night of the theft, he told me he was going to teach me not to talk to snoops like you. Next thing I knew, something hit me hard on the back of the head! That’s the last I remember till I came to in the hospital.”

  “You said ‘for one thing,” Nancy pursued. ‘Is there some other reason why you think he and your phone caller were different persons?”

  “Yes – my assailant’s voice,” Jack said grimly. “It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Now I’ve got a strong hunch who he was.”

  “Who do you think?” asked Nancy.

  “Sweeney Flint!”

  Bess Marvin had listened to Jack Vernon’s story with breathless interest. Later, as she and her girlfriend were driving from the hospital to Paul Taggart’s wooded estate, she murmured anxiously, “Do you think the same person who hurt Mr. Vernon could have put that spider in your car?”

  “It certainly possible, Bess. If the spider turns out to be a foreign specimen, that’ll convince me it didn’t creep in all by itself!”

  Nancy’s suspicion turned out to be well founded.

  “This is a wolf spider,” Taggart announced after shaking it out of the paper bag. “And I can tell you just where it came from, Nancy.”

  “Where?”

  “My collection. Someone broe in and took it last night. This spider happens to be quite harmless. Unfortunately, the other live specimen that was taken isn’t quite so harmless.”

  “You mean two spiders were stolen?” the pretty young sleuth exclaimed in surprise.

  “Yes.” Taggart shot her a thoughtful glance. “The other one’s that’s missing is a poisonous black widow!”

  18. Legal Evidence

  Nancy felt shaken as she and Bess drove away from the arachnologist’s sprawling stone house.

  “Do you suppose whoever put that wolf spider in your car knew it was harmless?” asked Bess.

  “Just what I was wondering,” Nancy confessed. “Let’s be thankful it wasn’t the black widow!”

  “How do we know he didn’t put that in your car, too?” Bess blurted in a quavering voice.

  As the two girls exchanged startled looks, Nancy jammed her foot on the brake pedal. Then she hastily pulled over to the side of the road. “We’d better make sure right now!”

  After a careful search, Nancy felt satisfied that the poisonous creature was not lurking in her beloved blue sports car. She and Bess breathed sighs of relief. Nevertheless, the scary experience somewhat spoiled their planned evening of fun.

  When Nancy returned home, she found her father reading in his usual chair. She asked if he had ever heard of Oscar Larue.

  “Yes, he was well known in the business world up until a few years ago,” said Carson Drew. “Then he retired and spent his time collecting antique cars. I believed he was rumored to have lost a lot of money in the stock market before he died. Why?”

  Nancy related what Simon Shand had told Brett Hulme about how Larue had bought Madame Arachne’s jeweled spider and later sold it to Shand. “Is there any way to check out his story, Dad?”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Drew frowned thoughtfully. “If I can learn the name of the attorney who handled Larue’s estate and explain to him that you’re working on a mystery case, he might be willing to answer a few questions. Let me see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks, Dad. If you can, it’ll be a big help!”

  Nancy was still turning the day’s events over in her mind as she drifted off to sleep. Both Jack Vernon and Brett Hulme had been threatened and attacked by two separate, unknown enemies.

  In Jack’s case, that second enemy might have been the mysterious Sweeney Flint. Was he also responsible for the bomb planted in Brett’s car?

  If so, maybe the first mystery caller had also been the same in both cases. Nancy was beginning to suspect who that person might be.

  Next morning, as soon as she finished breakfast, she dialed Simon Shand’s number, intending to ask for an appointment. His servant answered, however, and told her his employer had gone to Oceanview for the last few days of the festival.

  I may just have to chase down there after him, nancy decided crossly. Then she brightened. Why don’t I ask Bess and George to come with me and see the opera Saturday night?

  The teenage sleuth was just pouring herself another glass of juice when the phone rang. Carson Drew was calling from his office.

  “The executor of Oscar Larue’s estate is an attorney named Howard Emmett,” Mr. Drew reported. “He practices in New York and most of his court cases are heard there, but he also has a suburban law office in Mapleton, since a good many of his clients reside in this state. I’ve alre
ady spoken to him, nancy, and he’s agreed to see you at his Mapleton office at ten forty-five. Can you make it?”

  “You bet, Dad – and thanks ever so much!”

  Howard Emmett proved to be a stout, balding man with shrewd gray eyes and pinch-nose glasses. He greeted Nancy with a friendly smile, invited her to have chair, and asked how he could be of help.

  “Dad’s probably told you about the mystery case I’m working on, counselor. According to an informant, Oscar Larue bought a valuable ruby brooch in the shape of a spider from opera singer, Madame Arachne Onides. Can you confirm the story?”

  “Yes.” Emmett nodded. “Among his effects was a bill of sale for such a brooch from Madame Onides for a price of three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I see.” Nancy hesitated. “Are you aware that that brooch was later reported to have been stolen from her while she was performing at the Oceanview Festival?”

  Emmett’s face took on a troubled frown. “Yes, indeed I am. It would be inappropriate, however, for me to comment on exactly what may or may not have been taken at that time.”

  Nancy realized that his discretion as a lawyer would prevent him from charging Madame Arachne with a hoax or outright fraud, even if she had lied in claiming that the stolen object had been her original jeweled spider. “I’m also informed,” she went on, “that your late client, Mr. Larue, sold the brooch just before he died to Simon Shand.”

  “Yes, that too is correct,” said Attorney Emmett. “In fact, the cashier’s check from Mr. Shand was still in my client’s possession and had not yet been deposited in the bank when he suffered his fatal heart attack.”

  “Then how do you account for the fact that the brooch which Mr. Shand now has is only a cheap glass counterfeit?”