The Case of the Vanishing Veil Read online

  “And then he gave me his card,” Nancy said later in her hotel room. She showed Bess and George the wrinkled business card.

  “Oh wow!” Bess said. She fell on her bed and laughed. “He sounds like something out of an old movie.”

  “He looked it, too,” Nancy said. “But when he opened his notebook and started reading the description of the guy who pushed me, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He knew everything but the guy’s dental records.”

  George shuddered. “You actually saw this blond guy in the gas station last night?” she said.

  “He walked this close to me,” Nancy said.

  A knock on the door made her jump. Nancy laughed at herself for being nervous, but her hand fumbled with the chain on the door. Could someone have followed her back to the hotel?

  “Who is it?” Nancy asked through the door.

  “Room service,” answered a polite voice. “I’ve got your lunch.”

  Nancy opened the door, relieved to see the familiar room service waiter. And the food smelled delicious.

  Soon she and her friends were sitting around the dining table in their room, trying bites of each other’s lunch and talking loudly.

  “Well, while you were off swimming and having fun,” George teased, “I was running up our phone bill. I’ve called just about every Smith in Denver. Mary, Morgan, Michelle, Margaret, Margie, and Maxine — I found them all. But I came up with zip looking for Markella.”

  Nancy ate the strips of cheese off her chef’s salad and thought out loud. “A woman loses part of an airplane ticket in a church in Boston. It’s a round-trip ticket — Denver to Boston and back to Denver,” she said. “But, she never takes the flight from Denver to Boston, and she’s not even scheduled on the return flight. In fact, she doesn’t even live in Denver. Does any of this make sense?”

  “Not to me,” answered George. “I also called Rose Strauss in Maine and asked her about the wedding guest list. Markella Smith wasn’t invited. In fact, Rose has never heard of her.”

  Nancy tried to sort out all of this information. But suddenly she pictured the blond guy in the Salem gas station and felt herself falling into Boston Harbor again. Her eyes glazed over.

  After a silence, George slapped the table with her palm. “I think we deserve to have some fun. The case of the missing veil can wait a little longer, can’t it?”

  Nancy hesitated for just a moment.

  “Good idea,” she finally said. Then she pulled a map of Boston from her purse and blindly stuck a finger on the map. It landed on the words Freedom Trail.

  “Uh-oh.” Nancy laughed when she saw what she had picked. “Get ready for major league sore feet.”

  The Freedom Trail was a walking tour of sixteen landmarks from American revolutionary times. Even without stopping at each landmark on the tour, it took Nancy and her friends three hours to cover the territory. Nancy loved seeing all the old buildings, but her mind kept returning to the mystery of the missing veil.

  “Anyone have the energy for more shopping?” Bess asked when they reached the end of the trail.

  Nancy and George groaned.

  But back near their hotel, the three friends window-shopped on fashionable Newbury Street until even Bess was ready to drop. Finally they went back to their room.

  After showering, they dressed up for dinner and went to a wharf-side restaurant. Nancy hoped that they’d have a view of the water, and the maître d’ seemed to read her mind. He led them to a big table right in the middle of a window facing the bay. But soon Bess and George were complaining that Nancy’s mind had wandered again.

  “It’s hard to forget about the case,” Nancy apologized, “even for lobster tails.”

  They left the restaurant at seven and went to the Beckhurst Theatre to see a new murder mystery play which had just opened there.

  “I love it,” Bess said. “We’re really early. People are just getting here. Now we’ve got time to see what everyone is wearing.”

  Their seats were eight rows from the stage. They were perfect seats for seeing the play, but not the best seats for people-watching. Bess and Nancy decided to stand up and turn around to watch the audience stream in.

  “Blue stockings with a pink dress? Give me a break,” Bess said, describing one of the theater-goers. “Ooh — now there’s a gorgeous dress … Hey, get a look at this guy. He looks like he might be the murderer in tonight’s play!”

  Nancy laughed. But then suddenly she sat down and grabbed Bess’s arm, pulling her into her seat, too. “Psst — Bess,” Nancy whispered. “You’ll never guess who just walked in.”

  Bess and George casually turned toward the center aisle in time to see who Nancy was talking about. There was Cecelia Bancroft.

  “So?” Bess said.

  “So look who she’s with! “ Nancy said softly.

  All three girls studied Cecelia — the wave of her shiny blond hair, the pressure of her arm locked in that of a thin, handsome, smiling man. Cecelia’s evening gown sparkled. She and the man talked to each other all the way to their third-row-center seats.

  “I give up,” Bess said. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Jason Moss,” Nancy whispered, just as the curtain came up on the play. “You know — the man who controls Brendan Thorndike’s sixty million dollars!”

  9

  At the Laugh Riot

  “Nancy, you’re staring,” George whispered in the dark. “In the wrong direction!”

  The play was starting now but Nancy couldn’t really concentrate on it. So many ideas were running through her head. Was Cecelia somehow involved with the missing veil? And why wasn’t she out with her husband? Why was she here with Jason Moss? Did this mean the veil was somehow connected to the Thorndike affair?

  BANG! A gunshot!

  It came from the stage and immediately grabbed Nancy’s attention. The questions in her head would have to wait — the play was getting interesting!

  At intermission, the lobby of the theater was like a very large and very crowded elevator. As soon as the theater’s front doors were opened, people spilled out into the street for air.

  Nancy, Bess, and George squeezed through the crowded lobby, and finally found a little breathing room outside.

  “I don’t see Cecelia,” Nancy said. “Do you?”

  “There they are,” George said softly. “Are you going to go up to her?”

  Before Nancy could answer, Cecelia turned around and spotted all three girls.

  “Aha!” she said, pulling Jason’s arm. “These are the junior detectives I told you about, Jason. I can’t remember their names, but I’m sure they do. And this is my husband, Jason Moss.”

  Husband! Cecelia had said that she was married, but Nancy never guessed that she had kept her own last name.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Moss,” Nancy said. “I’m Nancy Drew.”

  “I’ll bet all of Boston would like to meet you,” George said.

  “Half of Boston already has,” Jason said with a laugh. “And the other half is still lined up outside my office.” He had a way of making someone feel as though he or she were the most interesting person he’d ever met.

  “I thought you ladies would be on your way to Vail, Colorado,” said Cecelia.

  “You mean Denver,” corrected Nancy. “We were looking for a veil. We haven’t found it yet.”

  “Well, you’d know better than I would,” Cecelia said.

  “Cecelia told me about a red-haired woman and a lost airline ticket,” Jason said. “It sounds very mysterious.”

  “Yes — it is mysterious,” Nancy said. “We waited at the airport, but the woman didn’t take that flight to Denver. In fact, she probably doesn’t even live there.”

  “But we’ll find her,” George chimed in.

  “I suspect that you are a very determined young woman,” Jason said to Nancy. “You won’t give up until you find what you’re looking for, will you?”

  “No,” said Nancy.

  �
�Good for you,” Jason said. “Then I guess you and I have something in common.”

  Bells began ringing softly in the theater. Ushers walked through the crowd asking people to return to their seats for Act Two.

  “What do you think of the play?” Cecelia asked Nancy as they re-entered the theater.

  “I know who did it,” Nancy said with a sly smile.

  It was easy to solve mysteries in movies or the theater — but real life was different. Tony and Cecelia … Cecelia and Jason Moss … the Thorndike fortune and the veil … It was all too much for Nancy to consider now, especially with Act Two about to begin.

  After the play was over, Cecelia and Jason walked out with Nancy, Bess, and George.

  “Well — where to next?” Jason asked. “You’re young. You girls should enjoy some of Boston’s nightlife”.

  “What would you recommend?” asked Bess.

  “Well, I know what I’d do if I weren’t me,” Cecelia said. “There’s a comedy club all the young people like to go to. It’s called the Laugh Riot. I’d go there.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Jason said.

  Cecelia wrote down the address of the Laugh Riot comedy club and handed it to Nancy.

  But when the girls were alone, they couldn’t agree about what to do next.

  “I need to think about the case,” Nancy insisted. “It’s getting very complicated.”

  “But tonight’s our night off — remember?” George urged. “You said the veil could wait one more day.”

  Finally Nancy gave in and agreed that the Laugh Riot sounded great. So they hopped a cab and arrived at the Laugh Riot just in time for the late show. The small dub was located on a quiet side street of Boston, but Cecelia was right about the place being popular. A line of people waiting to get in stretched around the block.

  Nancy, Bess, and George got the last table, a small one by the back door. It was fun being in a popular dub, but Nancy wished-the room weren’t quite so smoky, loud, and packed with people.

  Finally a thin man wearing a black shirt and a gray tie jumped on stage and grabbed the microphone. He was the emcee. The moment the spotlight came on, people began to applaud.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said the young man. “Welcome to the Laugh Riot. I’m your host Richard Bellman. Thank you. Please keep clapping. It’s the only way we can get the air to circulate in this dump.”

  The audience laughed and applauded even more and Richard went on insulting everyone for the next five minutes. Then he said, “Thank you. You’re a wonderful audience, but right now I’d like to introduce our first comedian — and he’s a little weird, folks, — please welcome Barry Mayonnaise.”

  Nancy, Bess, and George joined the applauding audience, and a very tall man wearing sweat pants and a Hawaiian shirt came on the stage. While he adjusted the microphone to reach him, a waiter came over to the girls’ table.

  “You girls want something to drink?” he asked.

  They ordered soft drinks and the waiter said he’d be right back with them.

  “Hi, everyone. My name is Barry Mayonnaise,” said the comedian. “First of all, you’re probably wondering how I got such an unusual name. Well, I’ll be honest with you. I made it up. That’s right. Barry Mayonnaise is not my real name. I changed it. My real name is Sid Mayonnaise.”

  The audience groaned and booed at the old joke.

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” said Barry. He walked back and forth across the stage, carrying the microphone and flipping the mike cord out of his way.

  As Barry kept talking, the waiter worked his way through the maze of tables to bring their drinks. In between laughs they sipped them quickly because the room was hot.

  “I come from another planet, where everything is exactly the opposite,” Barry said. “Everyone loves to go to slow food restaurants on my planet. That’s because you can feed your whole family there and it will only cost you a fortune. The all-time favorite sandwich is the Little Mac.”

  Nancy started feeling hotter and hotter.

  “Something’s wrong with the microphone,” George whispered to Nancy. “I can’t hear him too well.” Her face was wet with perspiration.

  Then Bess leaned over to Nancy. Her head was weaving as though her neck were made of rubber. “The whole room is going up and down, up and down,” she said.

  Nancy tried to reach across the table for Bess, but she couldn’t move her arm. It was too heavy to lift. “George,” she tried to say, but her mouth wouldn’t move.

  Suddenly Bess leaned forward and fell face first onto the table. What’s going on? What’s happening? Nancy thought to herself. That was the last thing Nancy Saw before the whole world went black.

  The next thing Nancy knew, she was cold and wet. “Why can’t I move? It’s so dark.” It sounded like her own voice, but she felt so far away from it.

  Slowly Nancy opened her eyes and tried to look around. She shivered and realized she had been talking to herself. Her heart was pounding. She wanted to move but she couldn’t.

  She was outside. A wet breeze blew against her damp forehead, making her even colder. Her head, legs, and arms throbbed with pain, but she suddenly realized that she couldn’t even feel her hands and feet. The numbness confused Nancy until she wriggled, and discovered that her arms and legs were tied up.

  Finally she became aware that she was leaning against something, something hard. She tried to turn her head to see behind her. “Bess? George?” Nancy said out loud.

  There were mutters, but they sounded foggy. Everything seemed foggy, distant, confused.

  The moon came out from behind a cloud and gleamed on a hideous face. Nancy trembled for a second until she realized that the head was only a picture carved into the top of a tombstone. She looked around. On every side of her were tall, ancient tombstones, green with age and decay. Each one had a macabre image. Skeletons dancing … angels with tortured faces and bird bodies …

  “I can’t move,” a voice said. It was Bess. Nancy heard it clearly that time. It sounded as though Bess was about ten feet away.

  Nancy lifted herself on her elbows.

  “Bess, wake up.” Nancy started to inch her way over to Bess. But then she stopped. Suddenly, in the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of something lying motionless at Bess’s feet.

  Nancy wanted to warn her friend, but it was too late. Bess was already trying to sit up. Then Bess let out a scream.

  “No … oh, no!” Bess cried, her voice filled with panic. “Get it off me! It’s a dead body — lying on my feet!”

  10

  Graveyard Horror

  Nancy bent her legs and tried to crawl across the cold, wet graveyard. The ropes cut deeply into her wrists and ankles. But it didn’t matter — she had to see the dead body for herself.

  In front of a massive gravestone with a cross carved through its center lay a man in ragged clothes, unmoving and unbreathing.

  Bess was about to scream again when something scampered onto her legs and then off again.

  “A rat!” Bess said. She tried to kick her legs but the ropes held her too tightly.

  “Bess.” Nancy said her friend’s name softly as she scooted toward her. “Please, don’t freak out now. I’ll untie your ropes, if you can just lean forward a little.”

  “I’m cold.” It was George’s groggy voice. She was even farther away.

  The wet ground had soaked through their clothes. It was obvious that they had been there for a while. Nancy tried not to think about the body.

  “We’ll warm up once we start moving,” Nancy called to George. “Hold on for just a few more minutes until Bess and I can get free.”

  An owl hooted. Nancy heard more scampering feet. Wings flapped, twigs snapped in the darkness. The cemetery was alive with animals moving in the shadows.

  “What are we doing here? And who do you think killed … him?” Bess said, tilting her head toward the body with a shiver.

  “Don’t talk, Bess,” Nancy said. “Just hold stil
l so I can work the ropes.”

  “I’m trying,” Bess said.

  Her fingers ached and her hands were numb from lack of circulation. But still Nancy pulled and plucked at the damp ropes that tied Bess’s hands.

  The moon played behind thick summer clouds, making shadows move and sway across the rows of old tombstones.

  Then with a jerk and a small cry of pain Bess held her hands UP into the air, free from the ropes. Nancy had done it! Then Bess quickly reached to Untie Nancy’s hands and legs. When Bess could move more freely, they both scampered away from the body and untied George.

  They stood up and hugged each other for a moment.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Bess said.

  “What about the dead man?” George asked.

  A moonbeam fell on the corpse and Nancy leaned closer to look at his face. Just then, the body started to move!

  Bess screamed.

  Then the corpse began to snore loudly.

  “He’s not dead,” Nancy said with a small laugh. “He’s just asleep.”

  “Phew!” Bess said. “Let’s see if we can find our bags and then get out of here before he wakes up!”

  Looking around, the girls realized that the cemetery was actually quite small — and it was located in the heart of downtown Boston. They found their purses lying near a tombstone, and then they quickly walked through the cemetery’s creaky iron gates. In no time they were outside on the sidewalk again.

  For a while they walked without saying anything. Then at the first telephone booth they found, Nancy called the police. She was surprised but glad when Lieutenant Flood answered the phone. He was on night duty for another officer.

  “We were at the Laugh Riot,” Nancy told him, “when all of a sudden we blacked out. Someone must have put knockout drops in our sodas.”

  Flood promised Nancy he’d have a squad car pick them up in five minutes. He’d also send an officer to the Laugh Riot in the morning to get to the bottom of what had happened.