The Nancy Drew Sleuth Book Page 4

  “I still can’t figure out why Mr. Carvello hid the money in the refrigeration room and left this complicated code for his executors to figure out!” Karen declared.

  “As I told you before,” Mr. Carpenter replied, “he was an eccentric person. Even though he was an engineer by profession, he was an expert on codes, which he studied as a hobby. He often helped the police with this type of thing.”

  Peg giggled. “Well, he certainly didn’t help us! He went out of his way to make matters complicated.”

  “He must have known Nancy Drew was around to solve his puzzle!” Karen concluded.

  ACTIVITY

  Nancy suggests that you and a friend make up a code for writing secret messages to each other. Remember that code letters often coordinate to a letter in the alphabet.

  Using what you’ve learned from the story, figure out this confidential message:

  Z WSSB BXJXYJVKX ZAQSFPJXFN GXKXI WVKXQ PH

  To see if you’ve cracked this code, turn to page 152.

  CHAPTER V

  CHANGING SHOE PRINTS

  Plaster Casts, or moulage

  “SUE’S fifteen minutes late,” Nancy remarked to the members of the Detective Club. “Were any of you in touch with her?”

  “No,” the girls responded.

  Just then the telephone rang. Nancy hurried to answer it. The caller was Sue Fletcher, and she was quite excited.

  “Please come downtown right away! There’s a big fire! The neighbors think an arsonist set it. I found some shoe prints leading from the back door. Maybe we can find the person who set the fire!”

  “Good idea,” Nancy said. “We’ll be right there. Where is it?”

  “On the corner of Krum and Archer streets. It’s a big, old white house. Hurry!”

  Nancy hung up and gave the girls Sue’s message. The club members jumped up and seconds later piled into Nancy’s car. Soon they arrived at the scene of the fire.

  The old dwelling was burning briskly. Sparks were flying in every direction. The ornate old-fashioned trim on the building was igniting and falling in flaming chunks to the ground.

  Fire engines, pumpers, and a hook and ladder were already in action, with some of the firefighters manning hoses and others climbing to the upper floors. A sizable crowd of onlookers was held at a safe distance by police.

  “Let’s find Sue,” Nancy suggested, and the girls circumvented the crowd to reach the back of the house.

  Here, flames were bursting through broken windowpanes. Sue stood near a rear hedge watching in fascination.

  “This is dreadful!” she said. “Can you imagine anyone setting fire to a beautiful old home like this?”

  “No,” Nancy spoke up, “or to any home. A person must be insane to do such a thing. What did the neighbors say, Sue?”

  “The woman next door saw a figure in a long raincoat and a rain hat run out of the back door and go through the hedge over there. Soon afterward the fire broke out in several places at once. That’s why she believes he set the fire.”

  “It was a man?” Peg asked.

  “The neighbor thinks so,” Sue replied.

  Martie said thoughtfully, “Maybe the man was a burglar. But why he would bother to wreck the place afterward?”

  “To make sure no clues are found,” Peg replied. “Don’t you think so, Nancy?”

  Nancy smiled. “You’re jumping to conclusions. You don’t even know if the man was a burglar.”

  Her friends admitted this was true. But then why was the home set on fire?

  “Let’s begin by examining the shoe prints,” Nancy suggested.

  “They’re funny!” Martie declared. “They don’t match. Maybe the arsonist has a clubfoot and wears special shoes?”

  “That’s a good guess,” Nancy agreed, “but why wouldn’t the two resemble each other? These are totally different. One has a smooth sole and a corrugated heel and is smaller than the other, which has a rubber heel with a star on it and a corrugated rubber sole.”

  “What does it mean?” Karen asked.

  Nancy shrugged, then said, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a complete record of the soles and heels of every pair of shoes manufactured in the United States.”

  “But how can you get these prints to the FBI in Washington, D.C.?”

  Sue said, “You could photograph them.”

  “The shoe prints don’t match! ” Martie declared.

  “That’s true,” Nancy agreed. “But you have to measure the length and width of each section—the front part, the arch, and the heel. These measurements must be sent along with the photographs.”

  Martie sighed. “Sounds like a lot of work.” She was glancing at the house, and suddenly started to scream. “Oh!”

  The others stared in the direction she pointed, and they cried out, too. A large, flaming cornice had broken loose from under the overhang of the roof and was hurtling toward the garden. Instinctively, the girls pushed through the hedge into a large flower bed on the other side. They were not a moment too soon. The cornice landed and split into hundreds of pieces, sending a shower of sparks high into the air.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t stay here,” Peg said fearfully.

  Nancy was calm now. “I’m sure we’re safe on this side,” she said. “And we should work on the footprints. Those in the garden are ruined, so we must pick up the ones over here. I’ll dash home and get my camera and my moulage kit. You wait here.”

  As the young sleuth hurried off, Honey Rushmore asked, “What’s a moulage kit?”

  “It holds material for making a plaster cast of things like shoe prints,” Peg replied.

  Sue thought the girls should hunt for a good sample of the suspect’s impressions for Nancy to use. It took them several minutes to locate a perfect right and left print in the soft earth, since their own were there, as well as those of another person, presumably the gardener.

  Nancy arrived just as the club members made their decision. “They’re excellent,” she agreed. “Deep enough that we won’t have to make a wall around the prints to keep the plaster from running over the sides.”

  She handed Sue the camera. “Since this is your case, how about you take the pictures? Snap most of them from above, and get as close as possible so every detail will show. Cathy, will you take the measurements? The rest of you can help me.”

  Nancy had received permission to park in the driveway of the house where the girls were working. She carried the moulage kit to the flower bed, set it on the ground, and opened it. Inside the box was a metal mixing bowl, a stirrer, and a spatula. Alongside lay a bag of quick-drying white plaster of Paris powder and a bottle of water.

  “Martie, will you empty the powder into the bowl, and Peg, please pour the water in gradually. I’ll stir.”

  In less than a minute, the plaster was ready. Nancy carefully dropped plaster into the right shoe print until it was half an inch thick, then gently patted it firm. Finally, she smoothed it with the spatula.

  She now laid thin strips of wood over the cast as a base to turn the cast upside down on after it had dried. Before working on the left shoe print, the girls stopped to look at the snapshots Sue had taken.

  “They’re great!” Nancy praised her. “Take some more at different angles.”

  She prepared a new batch of plaster and, in a few minutes, finished the cast of the suspect’s left shoe print.

  “As soon as these dry,” Nancy said, “we’d better follow the stranger’s trail.”

  When the moulages were ready, they were carefully laid in the trunk of Nancy’s car. Then she put the kit on the floor of the backseat before the girls set off on their sleuthing. The prints led to the next block, then veered off into a stretch of woodland. A quarter of a mile farther on, they stopped abruptly.

  “Now what do we do?” Karen asked.

  Nancy did not reply. Instead, she looked carefully around the area. The undergrowth was thick, and it was difficult to detect any marks on the ground. Suddenly she called ou
t, “Come here, everyone! Tell me if you see anything unusual.”

  The club members gazed around. Finally Sue said, “The bushes have been trampled.”

  “Yes. Let’s see where the broken path leads.”

  As the girls climbed across the tangled mass Martie cried out, “Ouch! There are briars in here!”

  Sue giggled. “A good detective never lets a few briars stand in her way.”

  Her friends laughed, then plunged ahead. When they reached the far side of the wooded area, the girls stopped and searched again for the uneven shoe prints. They saw none, but presently Peg, who was in the lead, exclaimed, “I just noticed a different set. They match!”

  Everyone hurried forward to study her new discovery. Nancy remarked, “They’re small enough to belong to a woman.”

  “Maybe the suspect met a woman here?” Karen said.

  “Then what did he do with his own shoes? Carry them and walk in his stocking feet?”

  The girls searched for footprints, but found no extra set. Nancy suggested that the arsonist could have changed shoes at this point. “He probably used the phony ones to go to the house to set the fire. He might even have slipped them on over his regular shoes. Sue, why don’t you take some snapshots of these new prints, and then we’ll see where they lead us.”

  As soon as Sue had finished, the young detectives continued their search. It was reasonably easy to follow the trail across fields to a farmhouse with the name STEDMAN on the mailbox. Nancy went to the back porch and knocked on the kitchen door. A little girl answered.

  “Hello,” the young detective said. “My name is Nancy. What’s yours?”

  “Josie.”

  “Is your daddy or your brother at home?”

  “Not my daddy. He’s at work. My make-believe brother is. But you can’t see him. He’s taking a bath. Did he come home a mess!”

  Nancy’s eyes roved around the porch. On a hook hung a man’s raincoat and hat. In one corner she spotted a pair of pants and a shirt that reeked of gasoline. Underneath lay two unmatched shoes. Did they belong to the suspect? Had he started the fire with gasoline?

  Nancy’s pulse was racing, but she smiled calmly at the little girl. “Why do you say he’s a ‘make-believe brother’?”

  “’Cause he’s not my real brother. Mommy and Daddy brought him here from some school. I don’t like him. He does bad things instead of his chores, like going off without telling anybody. And he teases me. He’s mean!”

  Nancy asked Josie if her mother was at home.

  “Yes, but she’s sleeping. She works nights.”

  There was a long pause, then Nancy asked if she might use the telephone. “My friends and I took a long walk, and we’d like to ride back. If it’s okay, I’ll call my daddy to come and get us.”

  “Go ahead. Mommy won’t mind.” Josie led Nancy to the wall phone in the dining room.

  The young sleuth dialed her father’s private number. When he answered, she said, “This is Nancy Polly. The girls and I are at a farmhouse on Chester Road. The name is Stedman. Could you pick us up? Hurry, please! We left my car in town at Krum and Archer streets. And thanks a lot.”

  She hung up and turned to the little girl. “You’re so sweet. I’ll go and tell my friends we’ll get a ride home.”

  Nancy went outside and whispered to the members of the Detective Club, “I think we’ve cornered the arsonist. Dad’s coming with the police.”

  “What!” Sue exclaimed. “Tell us about it.”

  “I will, but first we must be sure the suspect won’t guess what’s going on and try to escape. You girls pretend to be strolling around the house and guard all the entrances. If anyone comes out, yell.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Mr. Drew and a detective arrived in Nancy’s car. Behind them was a coupe with two plainclothes policemen. Nancy hurried to meet them and reported the girls’ discovery.

  “I made moulages of the strange unmatching shoe prints,” she added. “Those shoes and some clothes smelling of gasoline are on the back porch. Suppose I show Dad where the articles are, and he can bring them to you.”

  After Mr. Drew had left the porch, Nancy knocked on the door again. Josie opened it. Nancy requested that the wide-eyed child awaken her mother gently and ask her to come downstairs to meet the visitors. Josie hurried out of the kitchen and returned five minutes later with a sweet-faced woman. By this time the police had compared the moulages with the shoes. They matched perfectly!

  “This is Nancy Polly. Could you pick us up? Hurry, please!”

  Mr. Drew was introduced to Josie and her mother. “Is your son at home, Mrs. Stedman?” he inquired.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Why are you asking?”

  “He’s suspected of arson,” the lawyer said and, in a low voice, related the circumstances. “The house that burned down belongs to Judge Ryman. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  The woman nodded, and tears came to her eyes. “After Bobby was found guilty of stealing, Judge Ryman sentenced him to a reform school. My husband and I offered to take him here on a trial basis. He’s a good farmworker but is absent a lot. Oh, this is dreadful. Poor Bobby!”

  At this moment the group heard footsteps on the stairs, and a dark-haired youth of seventeen appeared, dressed in a clean shirt and jeans. Without waiting for an introduction, he cried out, “Where are my clothes and shoes?”

  “Calm down, Bobby,” said Mrs. Stedman gently. She looked straight at him. “The police have proof that you set Judge Ryman’s house on fire.”

  Bobby screamed, then became defiant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  By this time the officers and the rest of the Detective Club had come into the kitchen. Detective Closter explained how a neighbor had seen a figure wearing a raincoat and rain hat running from the rear door of Ryman’s house, and how the girls had made moulages of his unmatched shoe prints and followed them to the farm.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you took off the unmatched shoes in the woods and are now wearing the pair you had on underneath.”

  Sue opened her handbag and showed several photographs to the detective. “I made pictures,” she said.

  Detective Closter looked at her admiringly. “Good work.” Then he turned to Bobby. “Let me see the bottoms of your shoes!”

  Despite his protest, the young man was made to sit down, and his soles were examined. The pattern matched that in the pictures perfectly!

  Bobby, realizing that he had been caught, flopped down into a chair and covered his eyes with his hands. “I just had to do it!” he cried. “I hate that judge. He sent me away! He deserved to lose his house.”

  Mrs. Stedman put an arm around the boy. “I suppose you’ll have to go back to reform school. It’s too bad you didn’t keep to the straight path you started to follow here. Hatred never pays off, and retaliation only gets you into trouble.”

  “How right you are, Mrs. Stedman,” Detective Closter said. “Come along with us, Bobby.”

  Mr. Drew went with the police and their prisoner. The girls climbed into Nancy’s car and on the way home talked excitedly about the case they had solved.

  “Nancy, how did you manage to tell your father to bring the detectives?” Sue asked.

  Nancy smiled. “Dad and I have a little code we use. Whenever I want him to bring the police, I use a false middle name. I said, ‘This is Nancy Polly. ’”

  “Pretty clever,” Sue remarked, and grinned at her teacher.

  ACTIVITY

  Nancy suggests that you compare the soles of your shoes with those of your friends and take note of the many differences that can be helpful in identifying their imprints. Whether you have running shoes, boots, heels, or basic flats—all can leave a print in the soft earth. Shoe prints can be extremely helpful in catching a suspect.

  CHAPTER VI

  AIRPORT CHASE

  Observation

  AS the members of the Detective Club walked into the Drew living room, they found Nancy
wearing dark glasses.

  “Oh, did something happen to your eyes?” Sue asked worriedly.

  Nancy shook her head. “This is part of today’s lesson. You girls know me pretty well. What color are my eyes?”

  “Blue,” Peg said.

  “Gray,” Karen guessed.

  Cathy shrugged. “Green?”

  There was a pause. Nancy smiled. “The only thing you seem to remember is that they’re not brown.” She took off the dark glasses, and the girls stared at her.

  “I was right. They’re blue!” Peg called out.

  “Today,” said Nancy, “we’re going to talk about being observant so that from one quick glance at a person, you can describe him or her accurately.”

  Honey sighed. “I’d need three pairs of eyes to do that.”

  Nancy set up her blackboard and drew the outline of a human body, putting in dots for eyes, nose, and mouth.

  “You’ll notice that the geometric shape of this figure, like all human bodies, is a triangle,” she said. “The head is the most important part. The body has two of almost everything, so in nearly every case, it can be divided in half when you’re making your observation.”

  Cathy heaved a sigh. “I’m glad of that. It seems to be less work.”

  “Make a list of the following for the head,” Nancy went on, and chalked a column on the blackboard.

  1. Shapea. Egg-shaped

  b. Round

  c. Flat

  d. High crown

  e. Tilted forward, or backward, or to the side

  f. Bulging in front or back

  Nancy went on, “Now describe the ears.” She wrote the following categories on the board:

  2. Earsa. Round

  b. Triangular

  c. Rectangular

  “Now let’s talk about hair,” said Nancy. “Not only the color but the texture. Is it—?” She turned to the blackboard and wrote:

  3. Haira. Curly