160 The Clue On The Crystal Dove Page 4
Bess Marvin and George Fayne.”
“How nice to meet you,” Dell said warmly, shaking
the girls' hands. “I've heard so many wonderful things
about all of you. Won't you have some champagne,
Eloise? And girls, sodas or sparkling cider?”
Before anyone could answer, a creaking noise
erupted from above them. Nancy looked up, startled by
the loud tinkling of glass. Nancy gasped. The huge
chandelier in the center of the ceiling was dangling on
a broken chain. Before she could alert Dell, the chain
suddenly broke. The lights fizzled as the electric cord
snapped from the chandelier's weight.
Like a gigantic spider poised to embrace them with
sharp deadly legs, the chandelier was plunging toward
them!
5. A Wild Accusation
“Look out!” Nancy yelled. “The chandelier's falling!”
Screaming in panic, guests scattered to the edges of
the room as the chandelier crashed down and the
orchestra abruptly stopped playing. Shards of crystal
skimmed across the marble floor, like schools of tiny
sharks heading for a kill.
“Ouch!” a woman said, jerking her ankle upward to
inspect a painful-looking gash. She slumped down on a
nearby chair, then took a handkerchief from her purse
and pressed it to her wound. “Dell, are you trying to
punish me for not wearing a long dress tonight?” she
asked, smiling feebly.
Nancy could tell the woman was trying to be brave,
though her forced smile showed that the cut must have
been hurting.
Dell ran over to the woman and offered first aid, as
well as a flurry of apologies. Curious to inspect the
chandelier, Nancy lifted her skirt above the glass-lit-
tered floor and walked gingerly over to it. In the dim
light of the wall sconces, Nancy could make out
something white in the middle of the ruined crystal.
She leaned over it. Her stomach knotted as she re-
alized what it was—an envelope impaled upon a piece
of crystal.
Nancy eyed the fallen chandelier, which resembled
a jumble of jagged stalagmites reaching up to stab her
with their razor-sharp points. Very carefully she pulled
the envelope off the piece of crystal without cutting
herself.
Straightening, Nancy ripped open the envelope and
scanned the typed note. “The day the Van Hoogstraten
house opens to the public will spell its doom!” she
read.
Nancy frowned at the strange message. Folding up
the note again, she placed it back into the envelope and
gazed over at the broken chandelier chain and
electrical wire. The wire looked frayed, she observed,
as if it could have broken from the weight of the
chandelier. But the clean break of the chain suggested
that someone had deliberately used a heavy duty wire
cutter on it.
Nancy walked over to Dell, who was supervising a
middle-aged man bandaging the woman's cut.
Meanwhile, two waiters started sweeping the broken
glass into dustpans. A third appeared with a wheel-
barrow and heaved the arms and body of the chan-
delier into it.
The orchestra struck up a lively tune, and the mood
of the party immediately changed back to festive.
Guests streamed into the ballroom to dance.
“Dell,” Nancy said tensely, “there's something I'd
like to show you.”
Dell smiled fleetingly. “I'm sorry, Nancy, but I need
a minute.”
“I understand,” Nancy said. “But when you have a
chance, I thought you'd like to know that this has to do
with the chandelier accident.”
Dell turned pale. “I hope it's not something bad. I
can't take more stress, especially at a party that was
supposed to show off this house.”
“Don't mind me, Dell, darling,” the injured woman
said gamely. “I'm as good as new, and I refuse to leave
the house tonight until I've worn out my shoes dancing.
Why don't you go find out what this young lady has to
say?”
Dell smiled. “Thanks, Eleanor, but there's no reason
why you and Fred can't find out, too.” She turned her
lively green eyes on Nancy and said, “Fire away,
Nancy. I promise you that whatever your news is, the
three of us can handle it.”
Nancy hesitated. She was uncomfortable having an
audience, but feeling she had no choice, she handed
the envelope to Dell.
Dell read the note out loud. Then she looked at
Nancy, Eleanor, and Fred in horror.
“What an awful message!” Eleanor exclaimed.
“What's the meaning of that rubbish?”
“Nothing darling,” the man said. “I'd guess the joker
didn't plan for the chandelier to fall at the party. Too
risky.”
“Whoever did this and wrote that note is trying to
keep me and my cousins from opening the Van
Hoogstraten Collection to the public,” Dell said in-
dignantly. “But we won't be intimidated even by a
horrendous stunt and a ridiculous message like that!”
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to
stop you from opening the museum?” Nancy asked.
“None at all,” Dell replied with a puzzled frown.
“It looks as if someone used wire cutters on the
chain,” Nancy told her. “But the person would have
needed a very tall ladder to get up there, plus a lot of
time to cut the chain. Wouldn't you—or someone
else—have noticed someone out here?”
Dell chewed her lip thoughtfully, then said, “Earlier
today, cleaners from an agency were polishing the
chandelier. They set up tall ladders in the middle of
this hall. But why would one of the glass cleaners want
to prevent our museum from opening?”
“I definitely think you have to tell the agency about
the incident and ask them to question their workers,”
Nancy said, adding, “and the police should be
contacted.”
“I will,” Dell promised. “Tomorrow I'm sure the
cleaning service is closed now, and I suppose I should
call the police tomorrow, too, now that we know the
chandelier was rigged to fall. But I'm not going to ruin
the party by asking them to come by tonight.” She
sighed and added, “Well, if you're really okay, Eleanor,
why don't you and Fred circulate? I'm going to try to
forget the whole incident and do some mingling myself
to try to raise everybody's spirits.”
The group broke up, and as Nancy looked around at
the dancers and groups of happily chatting guests, she
didn't think that Dell would have any trouble raising
people's spirits. It was odd that everyone seemed to
have forgotten about the incident already, she mused.
“Hey, Nancy,” Bess said as she strolled by arm in
arm with Alden Guest, who looked handsome and
confident in his tuxedo. “Look who I found.”
“Hello there, Nancy,” Alden said, b
eaming. “It's
wonderful to see you again. Don't forget—you owe me
a dance.”
Nancy promised to dance with him later, and he and
Bess drifted away.
Alone once more, Nancy studied the broken chain
dangling forlornly from the ceiling. What was that
strange note all about? she wondered. She was
tempted to offer Dell help investigating the note, but
Dell seemed so preoccupied that Nancy decided not to
press her.
I'll come back tomorrow to offer her my help then,
Nancy decided—even if George and Bess give me grief
about getting involved in another mystery.
A waiter announced dinner, and the guests streamed
into the vast dining room, which was filled with circular
tables, each seating eight. Placecards had been placed
at each table setting, and Nancy found hers at Table
Six.
Standing behind her chair, Nancy stole a glance at
the placecards on either side of her place. The one on
her left said Walter Lang while the righthand one said
Violet Van Hoogstraten. Neither name was familiar to
her, though she assumed that Violet was a relative of
Dell's and Alden's.
“Let me help you with your chair,” came a man's
voice on her left. Looking over, Nancy saw a short but
trim middle-aged man whose close-cropped dark hair
was thinning slightly. “I'm Walter Lang,” he said,
introducing himself. Shooting a look at Nancy's
placecard, he added, “And I assume you're Nancy
Drew.”
“Yes,” Nancy said, smiling. She stood aside while he
pulled out her chair. As she sat down, she asked, “Do
you know who Violet Van Hoogstraten is?”
“She's my fiancée's aunt,” he said, sitting down.
“She's a sweet old lady, but I'm not sure she's coming
tonight. At least, I haven't seen her yet.”
“Your fiancée?” Nancy repeated. “Do you mean
Dell?”
“The very same,” he said, his dark eyes twinkling.
“Dell and I are going to be married very soon.”
A waiter went around the table placing dinner rolls
on butter plates with silver tongs. After he had
finished, Nancy turned to Walter and said, “I under-
stand you live in Boston.”
“In Cambridge, actually,” he replied. “I'm a pro-
fessor of zoology at a university there. Since I'm
tenured, my job is absolutely guaranteed, so it wouldn't
make sense for me to move to New York, even though
this house would be splendid to live in.”
“Do you think Dell will miss it?” Nancy wondered.
Walter shrugged. “She seems perfectly happy to be
moving out of it—time for a change,' she says. I just
feel guilty that my situation is so inflexible. If she wants
to marry me, she has no choice but to move out of this
magnificent house, and I feel bad about that.”
“But she does have a choice,” Nancy said, smiling. “I
mean, obviously she'd rather live in Boston with you
than live in this house without you.”
“True enough,” Walter said, chuckling, as a waiter
ladled soup into his bowl. “I'm flattered that she
prefers me to her house. But that's love for you—
there's no predicting it.”
Nancy laughed, amused by Walter's modest charm.
As she picked up her soup spoon, a soft voice chirped
into her right ear, “Excuse me, Miss Drew, but haven't
we met?”
Startled, Nancy turned to her right and saw an el-
derly woman sitting down in the empty chair. “I'm
Violet Van Hoogstraten,” the woman went on, “Dell's
and Alden's aunt.”
Nancy gaped. It was the lavender-haired lady who
had almost fallen off the train!
Before Nancy could recover from her surprise,
Alden rushed up to Violet, his face a mask of fury as he
pointed at her.
“You!” he cried, his finger shaking. “It was you, Aunt
Violet, who broke that chandelier. And you did it on
purpose!”
6. Sneak Thief
A hush fell over the room.
“Alden,” Walter began awkwardly.
“What are you talking about, Alden?” Violet cut in, a
bewildered smile playing about her lips. “Breaking
what?”
“Stop playing the innocent, Aunt Violet,” Alden
snapped. “You know perfectly well what I'm talking
about—the big chandelier in the great hall that crashed
to the floor and almost killed us all. Its chain had been
cut—by you, Aunt Violet!”
Violet turned a puzzled face on Nancy and Walter.
“What's he talking about?” she asked.
“The big chandelier in the foyer broke earlier
tonight,” Walter explained. “I guess you weren't here
yet, Aunt Violet. It crashed to the floor, and most of the
crystal on it shattered.”
“Oh, what a shame,” Violet began, when Dell rushed
over to her and Alden from a nearby table.
“Alden,” Dell said, between gritted teeth. “Are you
out of your mind? How can you be so cruel to Aunt
Violet in front of all our guests? You've embarrassed
her terribly.”
“Oh, it's all right, Dell dear,” Violet said, chuckling.
“It takes a lot more than a hot-headed nephew to
embarrass me. Plus, I have an announcement to
make.” To everyone's surprise, Violet rose from her
chair, looking demure but confident in a long-sleeved
taffeta gown that perfectly matched her lavender hair.
“I want to say a few words to all our lovely guests,”
she said, tapping her spoon against her water glass to
get everyone's attention. “I'm not certain how many of
you heard what my nephew said, but he seems to think
that I cut the chain of that chandelier and caused it to
crash to the floor. What I want to say is—he has every
reason to suspect me.”
A murmur of surprise rose up among the guests.
Then the room went absolutely still as everyone hung
on Violet's next words.
“Even though I'm innocent of the crime,” she went
on, “Alden found me climbing down from the ladder
that had been placed under the chandelier late this
afternoon. So you see, he's not as crazy as he seems.”
Titters of amusement rose up among the diners at
her pronouncement.
Dell gaped at her aunt as if she couldn't believe her
ears. Then, recovering herself, she asked, “But why
were you climbing on the ladder, Aunt Violet?”
Violet leaned forward and grinned conspiratorially as
if she were about to confess a naughty secret to a group
of two hundred people.
“I came to the house this afternoon because I was
excited by the party,” she said in her clear, tremulous
voice. “My mother and father used to have such
splendid parties, and I was reminded of them by all the
hustle and bustle that was going on here. I wanted to
be part of the action, you know, and when I entered
the great hall a
nd saw the enormous ladder reaching
up almost to the ceiling, I simply couldn't resist
climbing it. One rung led to the next, if you will.”
She grinned mischievously as some of the guests
giggled.
Dell appeared flabbergasted. “Aunt Violet, I can
understand why you wanted to come over today, but
whatever possessed you to climb up the ladder?”
Violet winked at the crowd and said, “As Sir Ed-
mund Hillary said about Mount Everest, I climbed it
because it was there.”
“But really, Aunt Violet,” Dell said gravely “you
shouldn't have done that. You could have been seri-
ously hurt.”
“Don't be so strict, Dell dear,” Violet replied.
“When I saw that ladder, I simply had to climb it. I
couldn't resist getting an aerial view of the hall. After
all, I was a well-known aviatrix in my day, you know,”
she finished proudly.
Dell pursed her lips, then stole a look at their guests
all straining to hear more of her aunt's amusing
revelations. With a resigned sigh, Dell murmured, “I
think we ought to eat our dinner now, Alden and Aunt
Violet. We've shown off our family eccentricities long
enough.”
Before she returned to her table, Dell grabbed
Alden's arm and in a low voice said, “You claim Aunt
Violet is senile, but where was your brain during that
little scene? Is that the kind of publicity you want for
the Van Hoogstraten Collection? And what do you
mean by accusing Aunt Violet of cutting the chain on
the chandelier—I seriously doubt she was holding wire
cutters when you saw her on that ladder.”
“N-no,” Alden said sheepishly. “She wasn't.”
Returning to his aunt who had just sat down, he added,
“I'm very sorry, Aunt Violet. My parents always say I
act impulsively, and I guess they're right.”
Violet watched her nephew go back to his table,
then leaned toward Nancy. “My family says I'm
feather-headed and eccentric,” she confessed, “but I
say my nephew is the one whose brain is addled. He's
way too hot tempered, that boy. He has a real New
York attitude, just like his great-grandfather did. That's
ambition for you. It's not always the most attractive
trait, if you ask me.”
“But Julius had high standards for his work and
wanted to do well,” Nancy reasoned. “Isn't that a good