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  “Well, it’s nearly two o’clock. I don’t call this morning anymore. Look, Nancy, I’m tired of chasing you. Where’s my scoop?” Brenda whined. “Am I going to have to solve this case for you?”

  Fat chance! Nancy said to herself. But aloud she merely replied, “I’m almost there.”

  Brenda scowled. “I don’t believe you,” she challenged. “You’re stuck. In fact, I don’t think you know anything more than you knew the day Ned was arrested!”

  “That’s not true!” Nancy retorted.

  “All right, then, prove it,” Brenda flung back. “Tell me exactly what you do know. Otherwise I’ll write a very unflattering piece on Ned.”

  Nancy closed her eyes in total frustration. Brenda was so irritating that she wanted to shake her!

  “Fine,” Nancy said at last. “But you’d better not print what I’m about to tell you. I can’t prove it yet, and you don’t want to get sued for libel, do you?”

  Brenda looked smug. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Nancy reluctantly invited Brenda in, and the two girls went into the kitchen. Hannah was out, and Carson was at work, so the house was empty.

  Nancy poured herself and Brenda tall glasses of lemonade. Then, taking a deep breath, she told Brenda about the whole case, detail by detail.

  “The problem is, I can’t prove Dr. Meyers actually went to the warehouse on Saturday morning,” she concluded. “I can prove that he could have gone, but my dad says that won’t be enough, with the evidence against Ned. And there are those little holes, too. I’m sure there’s a way to prove the whole thing and get Meyers arrested, but I haven’t found it yet.”

  Brenda had been writing down everything Nancy said. Now she snapped her notebook shut and said darkly, “Want to know what I think?”

  Nancy didn’t, really, but knew it would be rude to say so. “What?” she asked.

  “I think you’re completely wrong,” Brenda announced. “Meyers didn’t kill that guy. But you keep trying to prove he did because you can’t face the truth about your boyfriend, Nancy. You can’t admit that Ned is guilty.”

  “Brenda!” Nancy was furious.

  “It’s obvious there’s another side to Ned,” Brenda went on. She waved her hands dramatically. “A dark, criminal side. He, Foyle, and Dr. Meyers were in league to steal money from the insurance company. But something went wrong.” She leaned forward over the kitchen table, lowering her voice. “Very wrong. They had a falling-out. Foyle was going to talk, and so Ned killed him.”

  Nancy turned away, disgusted. How could Brenda spout that kind of nonsense? The very idea of Ned having a dark, criminal side was totally absurd. Besides which, the evidence made Brenda’s theory ridiculous. Ned had blown the whistle on the scam—how could he have been involved in it?

  “I mean, think about it,” Brenda was saying. “It all fits so perfectly. Ned had to be in on it, don’t you see? An insurance scam like this would need an insider.”

  Nancy stiffened as she caught Brenda’s last words. “What was that?” she asked slowly.

  “I said this job needed an insider,” Brenda repeated. “I’m telling you, if you look in Ned’s bank account, you’ll find that missing fifty thousand. Hey, how’s this for a headline—”

  “Stop!” Nancy cried suddenly. She sprang up out of her chair. An inside job—of course!

  In that instant everything fell neatly into place. She knew what had happened. She knew how and why Toby Foyle had been killed—and who had done it.

  “Brenda, that’s it!” Racing around to Brenda’s side of the table, Nancy hugged the astonished reporter. “That’s the answer. You got it!”

  “I did?” For once in her life Brenda Carlton sounded uncertain.

  “Yes. Ned is not a murderer,” Nancy added quickly. “Look, I can’t explain now. Do me a favor and go away, okay? I need to hurry if I’m going to get proof before Ned’s hearing tomorrow.”

  Brenda’s eyes narrowed. “Nancy Drew, are you throwing me out?” she demanded.

  Nancy rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time to argue! “I’m not throwing you out,” she explained. “It’s just that I have things to do.”

  “What about my story?” Brenda pressed her. “When do I get it?”

  Nancy looked at her watch. It was three now. She bit her lip. “Give me until six o’clock tonight,” she begged. “Then I’ll give you the exclusive of your life, Brenda. This time I really mean it.”

  “Six o’clock? That won’t give me much time to write the story,” Brenda complained.

  “I know you can do it,” Nancy said firmly. She took Brenda’s arm and practically pulled the young reporter to the door. “See you then.”

  Brenda was still protesting when Nancy closed the door on her, but at least she was gone. Nancy let out a sigh of relief, and leaned against the door, biting her thumbnail as she thought about how to proceed.

  It had to be an inside job—with not two, but three people working together. Now it made sense!

  At length she strode back into the kitchen. Lifting the receiver of the phone, she dialed the number for the Mutual Life Insurance Company.

  “May I speak to Libby Cartwright?” Nancy asked when the receptionist answered.

  “One moment,” the receptionist said. There was a click and then Libby’s high, girlish voice answered, “Accounting. Libby Cartwright speaking.”

  “Libby, it’s Nancy Drew,” Nancy said briskly. “I need to ask you one last question. Remember that story you told me about the man who lost his life savings when Mutual Life wouldn’t pay his wife’s hospital bills? Libby, who was that man?”

  Five minutes later Nancy hung up the phone. There was a grim smile on her lips. Her conversation with Libby had confirmed one of her suspicions. Now she had to check out the other.

  Straightening her shoulders, she picked up the receiver again. This time she dialed the Nickersons’ number. Ned answered.

  “It’s me,” Nancy said tersely. “I have a question for you. After I dropped you off last night, what did you do?”

  “Do?” Ned sounded bewildered. “I went inside and watched TV, I think. Oh, and I called Mr. Packard. I told him we were back to investigating the insurance scam angle of Foyle’s murder. I thought he ought to know.”

  Bingo! Nancy thought. “Did you happen to mention to him that I was going to see Mrs. Godfrey after I dropped you off?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think I did. Why?”

  “Someone tried to run me down outside Mrs. Godfrey’s house last night,” Nancy informed him.

  “What? Are you all right? Nancy, what is this about?” Ned demanded. “What are you saying?”

  Nancy exhaled slowly. “Brace yourself, Ned,” she warned. “I believe Toby Foyle was killed by Joe Packard.”

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  THERE WAS a long silence. Then Ned said, “If this is a joke, I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “I’m sorry, Ned,” Nancy replied, and she meant it. “It isn’t a joke.”

  “But why?” Ned’s voice was raw with shock. “What possible reason could Joe Packard have for killing Toby Foyle?”

  “It’s a long story,” Nancy told him, “and I’m still figuring out some of the details. How about if I come over and tell you in person?”

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” Ned answered. He hung up with a click.

  Nancy put down the receiver with a sigh and swept a hand through her hair. She wasn’t looking forward to telling Ned this story. Packard was a respected figure at Mutual Life and practically a mentor to Ned. The truth was going to hurt.

  When Nancy pulled up in front of Ned’s house, he was sitting on the rail of his front porch, watching for her car.

  “Let’s talk out here,” he said as she climbed the few steps to the porch. “My mom’s home, and I don’t want her to hear this conversation. At least, not until I’m sure you’re right.”

  Nancy nodded and took a seat on the swing.

  “Brenda Ca
rlton, of all people, gave me the link I needed,” she said matter-of-factly. “She was being her usual overdramatic self, talking about how the murder was part of a big criminal conspiracy. And she said the insurance fraud had to have been an inside job. That’s when it hit me.”

  “What hit you?” asked Ned. “If all you’re after is someone who works at the insurance company, why pick on Packard? There are a million other people I could more easily see as criminals. Wally Biggs, for example. Or Libby Cartwright. She was dating Foyle, after all.”

  Nancy ran a finger along the armrest of the swing. “But nobody else fits the way Packard does, Ned,” she said softly. “Think about it. Who knew about your investigation of Foyle from the moment you started it? To whom did we tell all our suspicions about Michelle Ferraro and Dr. Meyers? Who tried to steer my investigation away from Meyers and toward Michelle?”

  “Mr. Packard wasn’t trying to steer us anywhere,” Ned objected. “He was just giving his opinion. He never tried to convince you that he was right, did he?”

  Nancy shook her head. “He was too smart to argue,” she replied. “He knew that would only make me wonder why he cared so much. But I think he tried to convince me in other ways.”

  “What ways?” Ned jumped up and began pacing.

  “On Monday morning I went to see Mr. Packard and told him two things,” Nancy said. “First, I said that I’d just seen Michelle. He already knew about her coming at me with a knife. Second, I said that I was looking into the possibility of a Mutual Life employee being involved in the insurance scam with Foyle. Shortly after that, my car seat was slashed. I’m positive it was a move calculated to make me think of Michelle Ferraro, who’d recently attacked me with a knife.” She smiled slightly. “It worked, too.”

  Ned’s face was full of horror. “And the way your car was booby-trapped on Monday night,” he murmured. “It was made to look as if someone who didn’t know anything about cars had done it.”

  “Right,” Nancy agreed. “And Mr. Packard lives right near you. Add to that the fact that he’s the only one besides you and me who knew I’d be at Mrs. Godfrey’s last night. It looks pretty bad for him, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly Ned gave a fierce shake of his head. “Wait a minute. We’re getting way ahead of ourselves,” he said. “You still haven’t explained the most important thing—his motive. Nancy, I can’t believe Joe Packard would be involved in any scheme to defraud Mutual Life. He’s spent his whole career protecting them from fraud!”

  “That’s the sad part,” Nancy said. She took Ned’s hand and pulled him down to sit beside her.

  “Remember when you told me that Mr. Packard had changed since the death of his wife?” she asked. “You said it seemed as if he’d lost interest in his work. And everyone in the department was surprised that he took it so hard, since they’d been separated for some time.”

  Ned nodded. “I remember,” he said, still obviously confused.

  “Well, I don’t think it was the loss of his wife that changed Mr. Packard,” Nancy announced. She rocked the swing with her feet as she spoke. “I think it was what Mutual Life did to him then. In his eyes, the company betrayed him.”

  Ned scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “When I talked to Libby Cartwright, she told me a story she’d heard,” Nancy said. “It was about a guy who had worked for the company all his life and whose wife had died after a long illness. Mutual Life refused to pay her medical expenses, and the man was stuck with them. His life savings were wiped out. I called Libby today and asked her who the man was.”

  She gazed at Ned and saw the growing realization in his brown eyes. “That’s right. It was Joe Packard,” she told him quietly.

  Ned dropped his gaze and sat silently for a long moment. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a warm, rain-scented breeze swept over the porch, ruffling his hair. At last he spoke. “So Packard decided to get revenge.”

  “I think so,” said Nancy. “He’s put his scheme together with Dr. Meyers, who’d been his wife’s physician. Meyers was the middleman. He persuaded some of his patients to file false claims, and then he signed them. The claimants never asked for enough money to make the claims investigators at Mutual Life really suspicious.”

  “And with Packard heading up the claims investigation department,” Ned put in, “it was simple to get the claims through.” His eyes were flashing with anger now.

  “Right,” said Nancy, nodding. “Packard would just advise whoever the investigator was to settle, since fighting the claim legally would be time-consuming and probably more costly in the long run. No one would think of arguing with the boss—especially since he had a reputation as a company watchdog. If Joe Packard said it was all right, then it was all right.”

  Ned smiled bitterly. “Then I came along, with my gung-ho attitude, and nearly blew the whole scam,” he said. “Packard must have flipped when he heard about my fight with Toby Foyle.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Nancy tapped her fingers thoughtfully on her cheek. “I also suspect that Foyle was putting pressure on Meyers and, through Meyers, on Packard, to protect himself. He was really scared when you recognized him in that restaurant, Ned.”

  “Wow,” Ned murmured, sounding dazed. “Who could have guessed what it would lead to?” He stood up and began pacing again. “So now we need to figure out how Packard killed Foyle. And we have to prove it.”

  Nancy smiled. She was glad to see that Ned’s mind was back on solving the case.

  “As for how he did it,” she said, leaning forward excitedly, “I think he called Foyle on Friday night, pretending he was Dr. Meyers, and set up a meeting for Saturday morning. He probably told Foyle that they shouldn’t be seen together, since they were suspected of being in cahoots on the insurance scam. That’s how he got Foyle to go out to the warehouse.”

  “How do you know all this?” Ned asked.

  “Mrs. Godfrey told me a man named Meyers had called Foyle on her line Friday night. Now, Foyle had just recently gotten his own phone. It wasn’t listed yet, but I know Dr. Meyers had the new number. So when I heard about this call, I thought, why would Meyers call on Mrs. Godfrey’s line, and why would he tell her his name? It seemed kind of careless, for a man planning a murder.” Nancy shrugged. “But it all makes sense—if you realize that someone was setting Dr. Meyers up as a scapegoat.”

  “Pretty smart, Drew,” Ned commented, smiling down at her.

  Nancy grinned back. “Thanks.”

  “You know the rest,” she went on. “Packard went out early, parked in back of the warehouse, and waited for Foyle. When Foyle showed up, Packard killed him, then left through the back door.”

  “And I just happened to show up a few seconds later,” Ned added. “A nice bonus for Packard—I made a better scapegoat than Dr. Meyers.” He shook his head angrily. “Okay, I’m convinced. But how do we prove it?”

  “That’s the hard part,” Nancy admitted. She gazed at the lawn, where a few fat raindrops were beginning to fall. “But I have an idea. I think Packard made one mistake.”

  “Go on.” Ned grabbed her hand.

  “He has a habit of shredding cardboard matches when he’s nervous,” Nancy said. “When I was at the warehouse the other night I saw a bunch of little cardboard scraps on the floor. At the time I didn’t think about them because the warehouse is full of cardboard boxes and a lot of them are falling apart. I’m sure that’s what the police thought, too. But, see”—she raised one finger—“the boxes are brown cardboard, and some of the scraps I saw were gray. Like matches.”

  Ned’s eyes lit up. “There’s our proof!” he cried, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s go get it!”

  At that moment the front door opened and Mrs. Nickerson came out on the porch. “Ned, there’s a phone call for you,” she began.

  “Not now, Mom,” Ned said. He was already halfway down the porch steps. “Nancy and I have to get to the warehouse. She’s solved the case!”

  Mrs. Nickerson�
��s mouth fell open. “Oh, how wonderful!” she exclaimed.

  “I’ll explain it all when we get back,” Ned called as he and Nancy climbed into her Mustang.

  “I just hope those scraps are still there,” Nancy fretted as they drove toward the warehouse. “Someone might have cleaned them up.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Ned said firmly. “We’ll find them.”

  A few minutes later Nancy steered onto the gravelly parking area in front of the warehouse. She parked the car, and she and Ned jumped out. The sawhorses and police seals were still in place, she was glad to see. That meant no one had been allowed inside the warehouse since the crime.

  After leading Ned to the ventilation duct, Nancy showed him how to crawl through. She followed and once again found herself in the dim interior of the big building.

  There was a little daylight coming through the small windows set high up off the floor. Nancy and Ned quickly made their way back to the spot where Foyle’s body had lain. Nancy shivered as she saw the chalked outline on the floor. It seemed even eerier now that she knew who had committed the crime.

  Suddenly she heard a soft, shuffling noise coming from near the front of the building. She grabbed Ned’s arm. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

  Ned nodded. For a long moment they stood motionless. Nancy strained her ears but didn’t hear anything else. After a moment Ned shook his head. “Probably a rat,” he told her.

  “Yuck!” Nancy said, grimacing.

  “It won’t bother us,” Ned assured her. “Now, where are those famous scraps of cardboard?”

  Nancy knelt. “They were right by this box of receipts,” she said, pointing to the battered box that lay on the floor near the chalked outline.

  Ned squatted beside her and picked up a handful of little shreds. After a moment he gave a cry of triumph. “There’s a gray one!” he announced. “When you look closely, you can see it was part of a match. Nancy, you were right! This proves Packard did it.”

  “How careless of me,” a new voice suddenly cut in.

  Nancy felt a sharp jolt of terror slice through her. Slowly she looked up.