Clue in the Ancient Disguise Page 6

  Nancy caught her breath as she suddenly noticed a painting which the curator's assistant had just laid aside.

  It showed a sphinxlike statuette and a gray cat in a desert landscape, with the moon rising eerily behind them!

  10. Damaging Evidence

  Nancy was astonished. She knew at once that this must be the painting which the reporter, Peter Worden, had described to her and her friends.

  No wonder he had spoken out so frankly and refused to back down, despite the artist's angry indignation!

  The picture was small and seemed to Nancy not very impressive in style and artistry. It might not have even looked much like the painting that had won Lee Talbot first prize at the Riverview Art Show. But if Worden was telling the truth, the choice of those same three subjects—an Egyptian bust and a gray cat, with the moon in the background—was at the veryleast an odd coincidence.

  But what should she do about it? Nancy was troubled. She had no wish to become involved in an ugly name-calling dispute. On the other hand, if Lee Talbot had deliberately copied another artist's work, it seemed unfair that he should win first prize at such an important art show.

  With a sigh, Nancy decided to ponder the matter for a while and perhaps ask her father's advice before taking any steps. Meanwhile, it might be well to snap a photo of the museum painting to compare with the other later on, in case he did advise her to notify the art show judges.

  Nancy turned to Miss Heron and pointed to the eerie-looking canvas. "Mind if I set this up in brighter light somewhere, so I can photograph it?"

  "Of course not. Go right ahead." The curator's assistant looked slightly surprised at the teenager's request, but politely refrained from asking the reason.

  Nancy laid the painting on a worktable directly under one of the fluorescent ceiling lights and proceeded to snap a picture of it with her tiny purse camera.

  She had just finished when Mr. Gregory came into the room. "Oh, there you are,

  Nancy," he exclaimed on seeing her. "I heard you were here. That was quite an adventure you had last night."

  "The intruder certainly turned up in an unusual disguise," she chuckled.

  "So I gather. And I think I can show you just how it happened."

  The balding curator led Nancy to a small basement workshop down the hall and showed her scratch marks on the door lock, indicating that it had been jimmied open.

  "Rather a clumsy job," she observed thoughtfully, "or else a hasty one."

  Mr. Gregory nodded. "The latter, I think. They probably sneaked down here just before closing time and had to find a place to hide quickly before anyone noticed them."

  He added that regular museum craftsmen employed in the workshop had found cigarette butts and an empty matchbook in the room when they came to work that morning.

  Looking around inside the workshop, Nancy saw various pieces of armor being repaired.

  "So this is where one of them got the idea of dressing up like a spooky knight to scare us!"

  "Exactly," the curator agreed. "What I still don't understand is just how they contrived to ambush the watchman."

  "I think I can explain that," the young detective said, "especially now that you've shown me how they entered in the first place."

  Nancy conjectured that after the museum had closed and the staff had gone home, one of the thieves had emerged from the basement workshop, made his way cautiously upstairs, and picked the lock on the curator's office door.

  "You have a special private telephone in your office, don't you?" Nancy paused to inquire. "I mean, besides the regular museum phone line."

  "Yes, in the telephone directory, under River Heights Art Museum, you'll find it listed separately as 'Curator's Office' with its own separate number."

  Nancy suggested that while one intruder stationed himself in the curator's office, another could have furtively spied on the watchman as he patroled the museum.

  "Then when he saw the watchman go upstairs, he could have dialed your office number from one of the pay phones on the main floor."

  "Ah, I see what you mean!" said Mr. Gregory. "That's how the watchman just 'happened' to hear the phone ringing as he went past my office."

  "Right," Nancy declared. "Then when he went in to answer it, the one lying in wait pounced on him. And the one who'd done the dialing hurried upstairs to help subdue their victim."

  "I believe you've hit on the explanation, Nancy. And incidentally, I would say this pretty well eliminates the theory that they may have had an inside helper."

  Nancy agreed with the curator. "If a museum employee had fallen into our trap and tipped them off that the alarm system was still disconnected, they wouldn't have bothered hiding out in that basement workshop."

  Mr. Gregory thanked the young detective for her help and promised to notify her at once if the Duval family painting turned up in the storage area.

  Nancy then left the museum and drove to the newspaper office of the River Heights Record. At the reception desk in the lobby, she asked to speak to the arts and entertainment reporter, Peter Worden, and was promptly directed upstairs to his cubbyhole office.

  Worden greeted her with a smile. "How can I help you, Nancy?"

  "Could you give me a more detailed description of Lee Talbot's prize-winning painting?" she asked, returning his smile.

  "I can do better than that. I can show you a photograph of it."

  Leafing through a file drawer, Peter Worden pulled out a glossy 8 x 10 photograph. It showed Talbot and the art show judges grouped around his painting, which looked quite large.

  Nancy was startled, but not by the size of the canvas. Pictorially speaking, Lee Talbot's work was an almost precise duplicate of the smaller painting that she had seen just a short time before!

  The newsman noticed her gasp of surprise. "Is there anything you care to tell me, Nancy?" he asked discreetly.

  Nancy Drew hesitated. Since Peter Worden was the one who had first apprised her of the suspicious similarity, and had now helped her prove it beyond a doubt, she felt she at least owed him a word of explanation.

  "I can only speak off the record," she said unhappily. "If I do, will you promise not to quote me, or involve me in any way in your dispute with Lee Talbot?"

  "Of course I'll promise. You have my word of honor on that, Nancy."

  "Then I'm sorry to say your suspicions were right. The painting you remembered happens to be down in the basement storage area of the museum." She told him the size of the picture and the name of the artist who had painted it.

  The whole episode left Nancy feeling rather heavyhearted and depressed. Nevertheless, she dropped off her film at a camera store to be developed. Then she headed out of town.

  Maybe a drive in the country will cheer me up, she told herself hopefully.

  Professor Crawford's married daughter lived in a pleasant rural hamlet about a dozen miles from River Heights. Her name was Mrs. Grale and she herself was now a parent with two children of school age.

  She received Nancy in a friendly way, and they sat down to chat in her kitchen over cups of instant coffee. But she shook her head regretfully to Nancy's question.

  "Remember, I was only a little girl at the time you speak of. I imagine in those days I hardly even realized my dad was a history prof," Mrs. Grale added with a smile.

  "Then you've no idea what kind of research he may have carried out for Miss Louise Duval?"

  "I'm afraid not, dear. You see, I turned over all his academic papers and records to West-moor U. after he died."

  Nancy thanked Mrs. Grale and rose to leave.

  "I'm sorry I can't be of any more help, Miss Drew, after you've come all this way," the woman said as they stood in the doorway.

  Nancy smiled cheerfully. "That's all right. I really enjoyed the ride."

  On her way back to River Heights, Nancy stopped off at a delightful old inn for a late lunch. Then, with an eye on the time, she sped back to town to keep her appointment at Pierre's workshop, where she wa
s to meet his backer, Mr. Varney.

  Nancy felt somewhat out of place when she found the young Frenchman talking to a shrewd-looking, businesslike individual named Marston Parker. Aparently they had been discussing the technical details of Pierre's computer memory device.

  "Don't let me interrupt," Nancy said hastily. "Why don't I come back a bit later when you're free, Pierre?"

  "No, no! Please stay," he insisted. "Mr. Parker represents one of your big American computer companies, and I am about to demonstrate my invention to him. This is a chance for you to see what my work is all about, Nancy, and perhaps if my demonstration is successful, it will also mark the first step in an important business deal."

  Nancy's blue eyes twinkled. "Very well. If you don't mind an audience, I'll sit and watch."

  Pierre bustled about, preparing the demonstration. This would involve the desktop computer model that she had seen him assembling the day before. He looked annoyed at the fact that some of his tools seemed to be out of place, and as a result he could not lay hands promptly on a particular one that he needed.

  "My assistant, Nyra Betz, is home ill today," he explained, "and I cannot seem to find anything when I need it. She must have moved things around before we closed up the shop yesterday evening."

  At last, however, all was ready. Pierre was speaking to Mr. Parker, just before flicking a switch that would turn on the computer.

  Nancy felt vaguely uneasy for some reason that she could not understand. Then she noticed several scratch marks around the screws holding the cover of the computer in place. Perhaps the scratches on the door lock of the museum workshop had made her especially aware of such evidence.

  "Those scratches weren't there yesterday," she murmured with a frown.

  They were also completely out of character with Pierre's deft, craftsmanlike way with tools. He would never have driven in screws so carelessly as to mar the glossy finish of the plastic cover.

  A sudden, dismaying thought flashed through

  Nancy's mind. The young Frenchman was about to press the switch that would turn on power to the computer.

  "Pierre, don't!" she cried out in alarm.

  But it was too late to stop him. An instant later, a loud explosion echoed through the workshop as the computer blew up!

  11. English Settlers

  Warned by Nancy's cry, Pierre and Marston Parker had drawn back and flung their arms over their faces. So despite the force of the blast and the flying debris, no one was hurt except for some scratches and bruises. But the computer itself was badly damaged, as was Pierre's invention.

  "What went wrong?" Parker asked, frowning and obviously disturbed by what had happened.

  "I'm afraid the setup was booby-trapped," put in Nancy, and she explained what had aroused her suspicions. "Evidently, someone doesn't want Pierre to succeed in selling his memory device."

  The young Frenchman was at first bewildered, then grim and tight-lipoed, as he surveyed the results of the blast. "Obviously I cannot go on with the demonstration. My equipment is ruined. I apologize for wasting your time, Mr. Parker."

  "Too bad," the manufacturer's agent commiserated, although he seemed not wholly convinced by Nancy's explanation of the explosion. "Does this set you back very far?"

  "I have lost about a month's work," Pierre said in a discouraged voice. "Not to mention the cost of replacing the parts that have been destroyed." Then he shrugged and smiled bravely. "Eh bien, thank goodness no one was hurt."

  There was a sharp rap on the half-open door. A big, vigorous-looking man in his fifties entered the workshop and looked around in astonishment. "Well, well! I'd say something violent occurred here. What happened?"

  "Ah, Mr. Varney!" Pierre hurried toward his visitor, hand outstretched. "You come at an unfortunate time. Some unknown enemy has sabotaged my work."

  "I warned you to be on the lookout for trouble, son." Varney, who had the tanned, weathered face of an outdoor sportsman, was frowning. "Did anyone see anything suspicious?"

  He flung a questioning glance at Marston Parker and Nancy.

  "Miss Drew is quite famous for solving mysteries," Pierre explained. "Luckily, she detected trouble just in time to save us from injury/'

  After introducing his guests to each other, Pierre added to Nancy, "You remember I told you that Mr. Varney is financing my work."

  "Oh yes, of course." Nancy smiled at the big man. "How lucky for Pierre that you're helping him. How did you happen to hear of him?"

  "Miss Drew, all my friends know that I'm on the lookout for promising young business people and inventors. So they keep me well informed."

  As Nancy nodded, he went on. "Now, in Pierre's case, a friend in Europe saw an interview with him and a report on his computer work in a French newspaper. After reading that Pierre was about to come to the U.S.A., he notified me.

  Varney turned to Pierre, who had just seen Marston Parker out the door. "By the way, my boy, have a list ready this afternoon of whatever you'll need to replace all this damaged material. My secretary will call you."

  Pierre thanked him sincerely.

  The financier clapped the young Frenchman on the back, saying, "In the meantime, don't be too downhearted." Then he smiled at Nancy—

  "A pleasure to have met you, Miss Drew"—and left.

  The girl detective looked at Pierre. "You look considerably more cheerful, I'm glad to see. ,,

  "Vraiment." He smiled. Then his face became somewhat more serious. "Nancy, I've been meaning to ask if you have had any further word from Lisa—er, Miss Thorpe. Do you think . . ."

  He paused uncertainly.

  Nancy replied, "fm glad you reminded me. I must phone her. May I call from here?"

  "Oh, but of course," Pierre said eagerly.

  "Would you care to speak to her when I'm through? Fm sure she'd like to hear from you," Nancy said as she dialed Lisa's number.

  A servant's voice answered, but Lisa herself soon came on the line. Nancy explained that she was calling from Pierre Michaud's workshop, then asked, "Lisa, did your great-aunt, Louise Duval, leave any personal belongings or papers that are still in your family's possession?"

  "Let me think." After a moment's pause, Lisa said, "I'm not certain. But there are lots of old family things, trunks and so on, in the attic. There may even be things going back to Paul and Yvette Duval's time."

  "Oh, wonderful!" Nancy exclaimed. "You see, I've been wondering if Miss Louise might have left anything among her personal effects that would shed some light on her letter to Pierre's grandfather."

  "It's certainly possible." Lisa cleared her throat nervously. "Nancy, why don't you come over tomorrow afternoon and we'll go through the stuff together."

  Nancy hesitated. "I'd love to, but are you sure it won't. . ."

  Lisa interrupted, "Don't worry, my father won't be here. And anyway, it's my house too," she finished boldly.

  Nancy laughed. "Fine. See you then. Now, here's Pierre, who'd like a word with you before I hang up." And she handed the phone to him.

  Gathering up her purse and car keys, Nancy waved goodbye to the young inventor. He was already deeply engrossed in conversation and barely seemed to notice her departure as she slipped out the door with a smile.

  Nancy drove home and had no sooner arrived in the house when the telephone rang. Hannah Gruen, the Drews' housekeeper, answered it.

  "Just a moment, please," she said, then with her hand over the mouthpiece murmured to Nancy, "It's for you, dear. A Mr. Teakin."

  Dropping her shoulder bag on a chair near the door, Nancy took the receiver from Hannah.

  "Miss Drew," the pleasant voice of the historical society's secretary greeted her, "I've found something that may interest you, so I thought I'd let you know right away."

  "Oh good, Mr. Teakin! What did you find?"

  "A local newspaper article, dated in 1796. It tells how Paul and Yvette Duval had just settled in River Heights."

  Nancy listened with keen interest as he went on. "Acc
ording to this report, they arrived here from London, England, and it goes on to say that Paul Duval had been a director of the Mercantile Exchange Bank there for the past six years."

  After exchanging a few more remarks with the society secretary, Nancy thanked him for the helpful information and hung up, surprised and puzzled.

  Despite their French name and the family tradition of their French background, the Duval couple had come from England! In fact, from what the newspaper article told about them, they might not have been French at all. At any rate, they had apparently been living in England for some time before coming to America.

  Nancy spent the rest of the afternoon mulling over what bearing all this might have on the mystery.

  Just before dinner, as Nancy was helping Hannah set the table, Lisa Thorpe called. She asked if Nancy could come to her house that evening instead of tomorrow afternoon.

  "Of course, Lisa, no problem. About eight-fifteen or so? Fine. See you then."

  The Drews and Hannah sat down to a leisurely dinner of lamb chops and minted peas, topped off by a flaky-crusted blueberry pie for dessert. Afterward, Carson Drew left to keep an appointment with a client, while Nancy helped Hannah clear the table and load the dishwasher.

  Then, running a comb through her hair, Nancy slipped on a beige raincoat and started out for Lisa's house.

  It was a cloudy, windy evening with a promise of rain in the air. As Nancy parked in front of the Thorpes' house, the first few drops of rain began to spatter the windshield.

  Lisa answered the door with a welcoming smile. Taking Nancy's raincoat, she whispered, "I have an unexpected guest, I'm afraid," and then led her into a charmingly decorated drawing room.

  A blond, wavy-haired young man stood up to greet the new arrival. "Ah, Miss Drew! You do get around, don't you?" he said in his affected, man-of-the world voice. To Lisa he added by way of explanation, "We met just the other day at the art museum."

  Settling himself on the sofa again, Lee Talbot crossed his legs gracefully and went on, "Lisa and I were just enjoying a cozy evening for two. I'd no idea she was expecting company."