The Picture of Guilt Page 10

  "He'll be all right, I think," she told Pam. "Let's drag him out onto the stairway. Fresh air will help."

  She took one arm, and Pam and George the other. As they tugged Keith through the doorway, he stirred and muttered something over and over. Nancy leaned closer. It sounded like "Jean-Luc."

  "Censier! Of course!" Nancy exclaimed. She turned to George and Pam. The words came in a rush. "Who else would be in a position to sell those paintings? Jean-Luc Censier—Solo's dealer for years. And with Keith out of the way, he won't have to split the profits."

  Nancy could hear the two-toned horn of a fire engine coming closer. Someone must have heard George's shouts and sounded the alarm.

  "What now?" George demanded. "If the fire fighters find us in an apartment that isn't ours, we'll be answering questions for the next day and a half!"

  "You're right," Nancy said quickly. "We can't give Censier time to get all those paintings to a safe hiding place. Let's get out of here."

  "And leave Keith here?" Pam protested. "We can't do that!"

  The fire engine was practically outside the building now.

  "Fine," Nancy said. "You stay with him, then. And as soon as you can, call Professor Mathieson and my father and tell them what's going on. Tell them to alert the police. George and I are going to track down Censier to recover the stolen paintings."

  Darkness was falling as Nancy and George rushed from the building. The fire engine had just come to a halt across the mouth of the narrow street. Four fire fighters, in rubber coats and steel helmets, all pulling a hose, ran past the two girls and into the building. A crowd started to gather.

  Once past the fire engine, Nancy spotted a taxi stand. "Come on."

  The first few blocks seemed to take forever. Their cab got stuck behind a vehicle painted to resemble an old-time steam train. The dozens of tourists riding in it were obviously having a fine time taking photos of Montmartre, but Nancy was ready to start biting her nails.

  Finally the vehicle made a left turn, and Nancy had to grab the edge of her seat, as the taxi driver swerved past it, accelerating to make up for the time he'd lost.

  The taxi stopped on the rue Bonaparte, and Nancy and George got out. Steel shutters were drawn across the windows and door of the Galerie Censier. Nancy shaded her eyes and peered through one of the cracks. Was that a light in the back room?

  "Let's take a look around," Nancy said. "Maybe there's another way in."

  They started to circle the block. On the side street, George pointed to a narrow lane. An ornate metal gate blocked the entrance, but Nancy managed to snake an arm through and press the button that released the lock. She hurried down the lane, with George close behind. Fifty feet in, the lane bent to the right and became a courtyard. A van was backed up to one of the buildings, evidently the back of the gallery. Nancy and George approached the van, and Nancy peered in through the rear door. By the dim light of a street lamp, she could make out a half dozen paintings inside.

  "George, this is it!" she said exultantly. "We've—" "Nancy, look out!'' George shouted, Nancy whirled around. From the rear door of the gallery, Jean-Luc Censier was charging toward her, a crowbar in his right hand raised high, ready to strike a deadly blow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  AS THE ENRAGED gallery owner ran at her, Nancy threw herself sideways and to the ground. Censier slammed the crowbar against the roof of the van with a terrible clang, then let out a cry of pain and grabbed his hand. The crowbar clattered to the pavement.

  Nancy rose and dove at Censier, wrapping her arms around his knees. Off balance, he staggered and fell backward, landing heavily. He groaned as his head banged against a cobblestone.

  "Quick, George," Nancy shouted, jumping up and standing over the dazed man. **Go inside and find something we can use to tie him up.''

  As George vanished through the open door, Nancy heard running footsteps in the lane. The cavalry to the rescue? Or another enemy to be faced? She quickly bent down and picked up the crowbar, then stood with her feet apart and her knees slightly bent, ready for action. Her heartbeat sounded very loud in her ears.

  Someone dressed all in black appeared at the entrance to the courtyard. He paused for an instant, swaying slightly, then broke into a run in Nancy's direction. It was Keith. He must have overpowered Pam and made his escape, before the fire fighters found him. Now he had come to claim his share of a fortune in stolen paintings, and only Nancy and George stood in his way.

  Nancy tightened her grip on the crowbar, wondering if she could bring herself to use it as a weapon. Keith had already suffered one serious blow that day. A second one, so soon afterward, might do permanent damage.

  Nancy made a lightning decision and dropped the crowbar. She would have to rely on her reflexes, knowledge of judo, and Keith's weakened state to help overcome him.

  Keith was halfway across the courtyard when he shouted, "Nancy, behind you!" She scowled and went deeper into her fighting stance. Did he really think she would fall for that old gag? Then, out of the comer of her eye, she noticed movement. She turned, just as Censier lurched to his feet and rushed to grab the crowbar again.

  Before Nancy had time to react, Keith launched himself in a flying tackle—at Censier. Once more the crowbar whistled through the air, and once more it missed its target. The gallery owner crashed to the ground, with Keith on top of him. Censier aimed a blow at Keith's jaw. Keith slumped like a rag doll. Censier pushed him aside and began to scramble to his feet again.

  In a flash Nancy was on him. She grabbed his left wrist and twisted his arm into a hammerlock, then used her knee in the small of his back to force him, facedown, to the pavement. George came running out of the gallery with a spool of picture wire and a pair of pliers. Moments later, Censier was bound and helpless, and Keith was sitting up, rubbing his jaw.

  Pam came running up and took Nancy's arm. "We got here as fast as we could," she panted. "Keith promised to tell the whole story to the police. I called your dad and he's contacting the cops. They should be on their way here, with David. He was really worried about us."

  "I was pretty worried myself," Nancy said dryly.

  The police took Keith and Censier under guard to a nearby hospital for examination. Two officers stayed behind to oversee the transfer of the paintings to a bank vault for safekeeping. Nancy and the others returned to Ellen's apartment.

  "I think I've grasped the broad outlines of what's been going on," Carson Drew said. "But I'm pretty fuzzy on the details. How did Keith and Censier know those paintings existed?"

  "They didn't. Dad," Nancy replied. "It was a guess on their part. But as Solo's agent, Censier knew how dissatisfied she'd been with the work she was doing. And when she stopped doing it, he guessed she was doing something else. Maybe she let something slip during the argument they had."

  "And Keith?" David asked. "Where did he come into it?"

  Nancy said, "That's an interesting story. George and I figured that he knew too much about Paris for this to be his first stay. And he's an art student. It seemed possible that his path had crossed Solo's at some point."

  "Did it ever!" Pam interjected. "He told me all about it in the cab on our way to the gallery. Solo took him under her wing. She really liked his work and thought he had a lot of talent. She used to call him her Boy Wonder."

  "Huh!" Nancy said. "So that's who the mysterious BW in her datebook was! Sorry, Pam, go on."

  "Solo's death really shook him up," Pam continued. "He left Paris and went back to the States. But then he started wondering about some of the things she had said about making a clean break with her old life. He wondered what she had meant. He was sure that she had done many more paintings than had surfaced. Where were the rest?"

  Nancy took up the story. "So Keith came back to Paris as part of the exchange program. I suspect part of the reason he joined the program was that he knew about Ellen's research into Solo's hfe."

  "Hmmph! The nerve," Ellen muttered.

  "Once here, he go
t in touch with Censier," Nancy continued. "They made a deal to find the missing paintings and share the profits."

  "How could they have hoped to sell them?" Carson asked. "As I understand it. Solo left her entire estate in trust to Ellen. Once those paintings surfaced, title would automatically pass to Ellen."

  "They thought of that," Pam told him. "Censier was planning to say, and back it up with phony documents, that when Solo decided to turn to hyperrealism, she sold him all the paintings she had around in her old abstract style. They were going to be sold as old Solos, not new Arias."

  Nancy took up the story, as she had pieced it together from Pam's statements on the way over. "Part of Keith's job was to keep a close eye on Jules and try to take advantage of any discoveries he made," she said. "So he overheard Ellen talking to Jules over the phone during Ellen's party."

  "He must have heard me asking Jules what his amazing discovery was," Ellen said.

  Pam broke in. "But Keith swears he never thought anybody would get hurt."

  "Except Jules," David pointed out.

  Pam turned to face her twin brother. "All Keith meant to do was snatch Jules's briefcase," she declared. "I know that wasn't right, but it's not the same as murder. It wasn't totally his fault that Jules stumbled into the street and was hit by a truck."

  "That's for the courts to decide," George interjected. "And one woman said she thought Jules was knocked into the path of the truck. Also, he tried to set David up as the fall guy simply because he didn't like him. But in any case, whatever he found in the briefcase convinced Keith that he was on the right track. But we were on the track, too, and on his track. He tried to scare us off with the mobylette, the attacks on Nancy, and the note, but when that didn't work, he decided to use us instead."

  "He could have killed me on the steps at Montmartre. That was a bit much for a scare tactic," Nancy said. "And then today, he must have followed us to Montmartre again. Once he was sure that we'd located Solo's studio, he telephoned Censier, who came right over with a van. You know the rest."

  "Not quite," Ellen said. "Why did Censier knock Keith out and try to set the studio on fire?"

  "He had to silence us," Nancy explained. "Otherwise, his scheme for selling the paintings as Solo's early work couldn't possibly work. And when Keith objected, he decided he had to silence him, too. Who knows? Maybe he meant to get rid of Keith all along."

  "A real sweetheart," David growled. "I hope they put him away for a long time."

  Carson said, "Arson, theft, assault, attempted murder ... I imagine they will, thanks to all of you."

  "How are you going to spend the rest of your visit to Paris, girls?" asked Ellen. "After everything you've been through, Vm afraid that mere sightseeing will seem terribly dull."

  George met Nancy's eyes and started to laugh. "Who could possibly find Paris dull?" she demanded. "And anyway, we've had enough excitement for a while."

  Nancy added, with a twinkle in her eye, "Just don't expect us to spend much time visiting art galleries. They're too dangerous!"

  "Well, since you mention galleries," Ellen said, "this is a good time to announce that you and your father and George, and Pam and David, will all be guests of honor when the Solo/Aria wing of my university's art museum is dedicated. I know that poor, dear Jo would have been proud to have you there."