The Bluebeard Room Read online

  “About the Golden Mab, my dear. You see, he told me last week that he’d recently seen a duplicate of the statuette.”

  “The Golden Mab?” Nancy Drew frowned. “Should I know what that means?”

  The art dealer shrugged and fluttered his well-manicured hands. “Perhaps not, if you’ve just arrived in London. It’s been receiving a good deal of media coverage lately. The statuette is a bust of the old pagan British goddess Mab, or Maeve, as the Irish call her. She’s sometimes known as the Goddess of the Witches.”

  Witches! Another coincidence? Nancy repressed a shiver of excitement as Eustace Thorne went on. “It’s the finest example of ancient Celtic art ever discovered. It’s now on display at the Tate Gallery, by courtesy of the present owner, to whom I sold the bust last year.”

  “It’s quite valuable then?”

  “The gold alone makes it worth a small fortune. As an historical art treasure, ten times its weight in gold would be a modest valuation.”

  Nancy regarded Thorne thoughtfully. “You believe Ian Purcell was telling the truth?”

  “Who knows, my dear? All I can tell you is that art experts have traditionally held that the Golden Mab was one of a matching pair. A layman like Purcell would be unlikely to know that. Yet he told me this other Mab he’d seen faced right, whereas the bust at the Tate Gallery faces left. It gave his story a certain ring of authenticity.”

  “Did he give you any hint where he’d seen this other Mab?”

  Eustace Thorne shook his head sadly. “Alas, no. He merely left his name and address, and promised to return with photographic evidence. When he failed to do so, I took it upon myself to pay him a visit. I gather you saw with your own eyes the condition I found him in.”

  When Nancy arrived back at Claridge’s, she decided this would be a good time to phone her father. With the five-hour time difference between London and River Heights, he should be breaking for lunch soon.

  Carson Drew’s delight upon hearing from his daughter was evident even over three thousand miles of ocean. “How are things in jolly old London, honey?”

  “Marvelous, Daddy! I’m having such fun! I haven’t even seen Lisa yet, but I’ve already stumbled on a brand new mystery.”

  “That’s no surprise, coming from my favorite sleuth. By the way, let me give you the name and number of a law firm you can go to if you run into any complications. It’s Huntley & Dawlish, in Lincoln’s Inn. They’re top-flight criminal barristers. They can advise you, or put you in touch with the right man at Scotland Yard.”

  “Oh, good!” Nancy wrote down the information.

  Her father also reported that there was a special clause in Lisa’s trust fund that provided for Mrs. Harwood to serve as executor should her daughter ever become ill or incompetent.

  Nancy had barely hung up when the phone rang. She felt a moment’s panic—surely this couldn’t be Lance Warrick so early. She hadn’t even changed or showered yet!

  Instead, a hotel clerk’s voice informed her that a Miss Jane Royce was in the lobby.

  “Oh yes, of course. Ask her to come up, please.”

  The young Englishwoman wore a cool smile when Nancy opened the door to her knock.

  “Surprised to see me?”

  “Not at all. Do come in. I’m sorry I have no refreshments to offer you, but let me call—”

  “No, no. I can’t stay long, darling, so let me get right to the point.”

  Jane Royce took a chair and helped herself to a cigarette before speaking. “You’re rather fond of Lance, aren’t you?”

  “He’s certainly been very nice to me,” Nancy replied, “and I’m sure any girl would call him attractive. Yes, I do like him.”

  Her visitor’s smile became a trifle patronizing. “I thought so. Well, Nancy dear, may I offer a word of advice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t get too fond of him.”

  “Why not?”

  “We haven’t broken the news yet, even to the rest of the group, but you see, Lance and I plan to marry soon.”

  9

  A Night on the Town

  Though taken aback and hurt by the news, Nancy forced a smile and murmured, “Congratulations.”

  “One congratulates the man, dear,” Jane Royce responded, “and wishes the bride-to-be happiness.”

  “You’re right, of course, Jane. I spoke without thinking. And I do wish you every happiness.”

  “How sweet! You’re not offended, I hope, at my saying all this?”

  “Not at all.” Nancy found it hard to go on smiling, but did her best to inject some warmth into her voice. “I appreciate your frankness. In your place, I would have done the same thing.”

  “Good! Then I needn’t take up any more of your time.” The taffy-blond Londoner rose with feline grace and stubbed out her cigarette in a hotel ashtray. “Lance will still come round to take you out to dine—with my blessings,” she added silkily, “so enjoy yourself, darling!”

  She was gone before the American girl could fully collect herself and recover her emotional poise.

  Alone once again, Nancy bit her lip to keep it from quivering, but she could feel tears welling in her eyes. How could Lance have been so insensitive! Leading her on and watching her respond to his flirtatious advances, while all the while his fiancée looked on, pitying her naivete!

  She felt like flinging herself on the bed and sobbing. But Nancy had never been one to indulge in self-pity. Instead, she concentrated on filing her nails, until her feelings calmed down. Then she dashed off a letter to Hannah Gruen and prepared to shower.

  By the time Lance arrived, she had changed into a sapphire-blue dress which reflected her sapphire eyes and set off her red-gold hair perfectly. Around her neck was a small string of pearls which, with matching earrings, had been her eighteenth birthday present from Carson Drew.

  The result was obvious from Lance’s expression. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful?” he said huskily, offering his arm.

  Nancy dimpled. “Well, let’s see now. Yes, I seem to recall hearing that line a few times—from my boyfriend back in the States.”

  “He must be some kind of dork then, if it’s just a line. You’re flat-out gorgeous, luv!”

  They dined at Suzabelle’s in Curzon Street. The decor was campily 1950’s with posters and newspaper blowups on the walls from that era. The atmosphere was one of balloons-and-confetti, and Rock King Lance Warrick was plainly a favorite patron. They were showered with attention, and their table was beset by eager fans until the maitred’ took up the microphone and forbade further autograph-hunting.

  Nancy found her spirits lifting. Over dessert and coffee, Lance said, “This Yank boyfriend you were telling me about, is it serious?”

  “We haven’t decided yet.”

  “Then it’s not.”

  Nancy smiled. “I didn’t say that. Ned and I’ve been going together so long we found ourselves taking each other for granted. So we decided to date other people till we make up our minds.”

  “Wise child. I’ll drink to that!”

  “What about yourself?” said Nancy. “I understand congratulations are in order for you and Jane.”

  Lance set down his cup. “Now what scheming little birdie told you that tiresome twaddle? Dear little Janie Royce, no doubt?”

  Nancy shrugged evasively. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it ruddy well does! Let me tell you something, my sweet. Janie’s been at me since the Year One to go tripping down the aisle with her, and I just keep telling her to belt-up. I wouldn’t take that kind of nonsense from any other bird. The thing is, she’s good at her job—too good to sack.”

  Lance paused with a look of embarrassment and twiddled the stem of his glass reflectively. “Oh, we’ve had our tender moments, Janie and I, if you must know . . . but that’s all they were—just the odd kiss and hug at times when we’ve both been under pressure or just launched a new record successfully. What matters is that Jane’s the best in t
he business when it comes to publicity. Got a sixth sense for what’ll make the headlines, that girl. She knows how to squeeze every drop of favorable press coverage out of any angle that comes along! Do you understand what I’m trying to say, luv?”

  Nancy’s eyes glowed back at him. She was suddenly feeling much happier. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Good! Then let’s get on with the evening!”

  The evening was indeed just beginning. From the restaurant, they drove to The Camden Palace in North London. “Best club in Europe!” Lance confided to her at the door.

  The music level inside blasted her ears, and the costumes of the patrons were the most bizarre that Nancy had seen yet.

  Afterward they went to two of London’s avant-garde nomadic clubs, which Lance told her did not even advertise and had no fixed address. “Très exclusive!” he chuckled. “One only gets to know where they are by word of mouth.”

  Nancy could believe it. One of the clubs consisted of a tent set up for the night in the empty shell of an abandoned building!

  As they danced, Lance whispered in her ear, “You’re quite a girl, Nancy Drew! When we first met, even this morning at the airport, I thought you were just an exceptionally lovely bit of crumpet. But you’re much more than that, you know. You’re something quite special!”

  Their lips met . . . tenderly, despite the loud blare of rock music.

  “Must you go to Cornwall tomorrow?” Lance asked softly before depositing her at Claridge’s later that night.

  “I’m afraid I must. I promised my friend—which reminds me, how is Ian Purcell?”

  “Still tripping—if that’s the explanation.”

  “How odd,” Nancy mused with a puzzled frown. “I wish I knew the explanation.”

  “Look here,” said Lance. “If you’ll stay on for tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to see him, and you can speak to the doctor yourself.”

  “Hmm, I must admit I’m curious enough to accept your offer, but I’d also like to pay a quick visit to the Tate Gallery.”

  “Say no more, then. It’s a date, darling!”

  Next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, they drove to Hampstead, a charming villagelike spot in north London. The clinic to which Ian had been taken was a half-timbered Elizabethan country house overlooking the wild green heath.

  Dr. Palmer, the white-coated psychiatrist in charge, patiently answered Nancy’s questions, but admitted he found the case baffling.

  “Could his condition simply be due to an over-dose?” Nancy inquired.

  Dr. Palmer shook his head. “Most unlikely. In fact, he shows certain physical withdrawal symptoms that indicate he was quitting drugs cold turkey. Emotionally, he behaves as though he’s undergone a terrifying shock, some experience which literally scared him out of his wits.”

  The medic frowned and hesitated. “And there’s one other odd circumstance . . .”

  “What’s that, Doctor?” Nancy asked.

  “Mr. Purcell has a needle puncture mark in the back of one leg—not at all a place where I should think it could have been self-inflicted.”

  “Does that suggest anything?”

  Dr. Palmer shrugged uncomfortably. “Perhaps that he was deliberately injected with some mind-scrambling drug that has left him in his present disoriented state. I’m afraid one can only hope that time and rest will restore his full faculties.”

  Nancy was thoughtful on the ride back into central London. “How did Ian happen to go to Polpenny after he left your group, Lance?”

  “Search me. He and Bobo Evan were mates, and they seemed to fancy the place. They’d often go there to unwind between gigs.”

  The imposing neoclassical Tate Gallery, on an embankment of the Thames, was their next stop. Nancy was eager to see again the fantastic drawings of William Blake and the glowing watercolors of Joseph Turner. But her favorite of favorites was a wall of Victorian fairy paintings, especially one called The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke by a mad English artist, Richard Dadd, who died without explaining his strange masterpiece.

  “Blimey, what do you make of that?” said Lance.

  “In a word, I think it’s wonderful!”

  Nancy’s main interest that day, however, was the Golden Mab. The bust was displayed amid a variety of modern and abstract sculpture. A placard said that it represented an ancient Celtic fertility goddess and had originally been dug up in the Somerset marshes during the reign of Henry VIII.

  The lovely gold statuette portrayed a woman gazing at herself in a mirror.

  “Vain old bird, eh?” murmured Lance.

  “With much to be vain about,” replied Nancy. As the art dealer had said, this Mab held the mirror in her left hand and looked to the left.

  There was no time for lunch if Nancy hoped to arrive in Polpenny at a convenient hour. But Lance took her to watch the colorful changing of the guard before driving on to Paddington Station.

  “By the way,” Lance said with a grin at the last moment, through the window of the train, “I’ve a surprise announcement to make.”

  “You’d better make it fast!”

  A voice was already booming over the PA system that her train was about to depart.

  “I’ll be seeing you in Cornwall, luv!”

  Nancy’s heart danced. “In a word—wonderful!” She leaned out of the window and blew him a kiss as her train pulled out of the station.

  10

  A Haunted Land

  The train ride to Penzance, which was the nearest station to Polpenny, lasted almost five hours but Nancy enjoyed it thoroughly. She thought she’d never seen a countryside so richly green; and it was somehow comforting to look at.

  The train out of London had been crowded with travelers. On the last leg of the journey, however, Nancy found herself alone in the compartment with a tweedy, red-faced old gentleman with a bristly white military mustache and a smelly pipe. But she soon forgave him the pipe as a fair exchange for his interesting conversation.

  “Ever been to Cornwall before, young lady?” he inquired with bluff, soldierly directness.

  “No, are we close?” Nancy replied.

  “That river we just crossed was the Tamar. To a Cornishman, everyone from the other side of the Tamar, English or not, is a foreigner.”

  “They sound rather clannish.”

  The elderly gentleman chuckled. “One could say that. And the attitude’s not all one-sided, come to that. There was a time when tots in Devon were told that Cornishmen had tails!”

  Nancy laughed appreciatively.

  “I’m Colonel Tremayne, by the way. Retired.”

  “And I’m Nancy Drew.”

  “American, I take it, from your charming accent?”

  “Yes, though opinions differ on our accent, I imagine! And are you Cornish, by any chance?”

  “You guessed from my name, no doubt.”

  “No, should I have?”

  “You’ve not heard the old jingle, then: By Lan, Ros, Car—Pol, Tre and Pen—ye may know the Cornishmen. . . . Tre for Tremayne.”

  Nancy smiled with pleasure. “I find that rather charming, Colonel! Thank you for telling me. But why do Cornishmen feel so different? Is it just because they live in the farthest west corner of Britain, on their own separate peninsula?”

  “Partly that, I dare say. But people also forget that jolly old England’s actually a mixture of two hostile races.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Celts and Anglo-Saxons. The movies, you know, would have us believe that King Arthur and his knights spoke Oxford English, which is nonsense, of course. They were Romanized Celts who spoke old Welsh or Cornish when they weren’t talking Latin. The nearest thing to English-speakers in those days were their enemies, the Saxon barbarians from across the Channel. In the end, the two sides got together, but not before the Celts had been overrun and nearly pushed off their own island.”

  Nancy stared dreamily out the coach window. “How I loved those old stories of King Arthur and his Knight
s of the Round Table!”

  “So did we all, my dear. Some say they’re sleeping under a hill, ready to come out and fight again if Britain’s ever invaded.”

  Nancy shivered. “What a thrilling superstition!”

  “Perhaps not everyone in these parts would call it a superstition.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Colonel Tremayne shrugged and refilled his pipe gravely. “Let’s just say it’s a haunted land you’ve come to, Miss Drew, full of myths and legends.”

  Nancy was silent a while, thinking of elf-darts and witches and the twin Golden Mab. “Is Cornwall really so ancient?” she asked presently.

  “Oldest corner of Britain, my dear. There were Stone Age miners digging tin and copper hereabouts long before Athens and Rome were built. Phoenician traders came here and carried the ore to the Mediterranean. Some say that’s why you’ll still see a good many dark-haired, hook-nosed Cornishmen.”

  Nancy glimpsed rocky headlands and blue sea and picturesque fishing villages. At one point she did a startled double take. “Were those palm trees I just saw?”

  Her companion smiled. “You’re on the Cornish Riviera now, my dear. Warming influence of the Gulf Stream. It’s another reason tourists flock here, not to mention artists and writers and other such layabouts.”

  By the time she descended from the train at Penzance, Nancy was eager to see more of Cornwall. Lisa was waiting to greet her, and the two girls fell into each other’s arms.

  “Oh, Nancy! You’re looking just beautiful!”

  “So are you, Lisa.” But Nancy secretly crossed her fingers, unhappy at having to fib.

  “No, I’m not. You needn’t worry about hurting my feelings, Nancy. I see myself in the mirror every morning. To tell the truth, I haven’t been feeling well these last few months, but now that you’re here, I’m sure I’ll perk up.”

  “Oh, I hope so, Lisa dear!”

  In the station parking lot they came to a huge, lemon-colored British roadster of 1920’s or 1930’s vintage, with a hood that looked about a mile long to Nancy.

  “Good night! Is this your royal carriage?”