Mystery of the Winged Lion Read online

  “Guess it’s my turn,” George went on. “What are you wearing tonight, Bess?”

  “Oh, something exotic. My silk dress perhaps,” she said, referring to a cream-colored outfit that complemented her fair skin. “Of course, I was hoping to have a tan by now, but. .

  Her words faded as she rumbled through her shoes, while Nancy made her own selection of clothes, a pretty ruffled skirt with a blouse to match and low-heeled sandals. Those, she concluded, were not only comfortable for walking but perfect for chasing any would-be assailant!

  “Speaking of kidnappers—” Nancy said offhandedly.

  “Oh, do we have to?” Bess put in, as she buttoned a cuff.

  “It is a dreary subject,” Nancy agreed, “but unfortunately it’s also a reality for us. I’m sure the duchessa is wondering why she hasn’t heard from us.”

  “And I’m wondering if she’s been contacted again,” George said. “Do you suppose we should also try seeing her later?”

  “That’s a thought,” Nancy said. She picked up the phone, ready to dial the woman’s private number but changed her mind. “We can call from the restaurant.”

  “Whew!” Bess grinned. “For a minute there, I expected you to cancel out on dinner.”

  Nancy grinned back. “Come on, everybody. Let’s go.”

  When they reached the downstairs lobby, they glanced at the registration desk looking for the night clerk but he wasn’t there, and Nancy inquired about him.

  “Erminio Scarpa is on vacation, signorina,” his replacement informed her. “Perhaps I can help you.”

  The young detective hesitated, then continued.

  “Could you, by any chance, give me his home address?” Nancy asked, causing the man’s face to become animated.

  “As a rule, we do not—” he started to say. “The police are looking for him,” Nancy interrupted boldly.

  “He tried to kidnap us,” Bess blurted. “What?” their listener answered, shaking his head in puzzlement. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. Not only that, it’s quite impossible, too. As I said, Mr. Scarpa is on vacation.” “Well, perhaps we aren’t talking about the same person,” Nancy said. “The man we have in mind has thick black hair that sits like a cap over his ears. He’s about your height—”

  “I tell you he hasn’t been here,” the clerk insisted, admitting that the description fit Mr. Scarpa. “Perhaps you have him mixed up with someone else.”

  “May we have his address, please?” George cut in.

  “I’m sorry. It’s against our policy. Now if you will excuse me.”

  The man turned on his heel, leaving the girls utterly stunned by his lack of sympathy.

  “He’s covering up, that’s all,” Bess told her friends as they headed for the piazza. “We’ll just have to track Scarpa down on our own.” “That’s the old spirit,” George said. “Got any brilliant ideas how to do it?”

  “We can start with the telephone directory,” Nancy replied, “and if that fails, we’ll speak to our hotel manager in the morning.”

  Soon the trio arrived at the belltower. The boys were there already, and Ned and his two friends hugged the girls joyfully.

  “Are you ready to eat?” Burt asked. “We’re starved.”

  “So are we,” the girls replied in unison and Nancy mentioned Do Forni.

  “It’s supposed to have wonderful risotto,” she said gleefully.

  “Then let’s go!” Ned exclaimed, taking her arm.

  Once they were there, however, they spent less time on the meal and more on news of the past twenty-four hours. When the boys heard what had happened to their friends, they were shocked and angry.

  “We tried to find you at the Lido,” Ned said. “The night clerk told us that’s where you went.”

  “That figures!” Bess groaned.

  “He sent us on a wild-goose chase,” Ned said, “and then told one of his buddies to sink our boat.”

  “There was this creep hanging from a rope,” Burt muttered. “Too bad he didn’t fall into the drink—”

  “But we found a clue!” Dave cut in. “Ned, show Nancy the cap.”

  The girl looked it over carefully. “Someday I'll find out whom this belongs to” she vowed.

  ‘But now tell us why you were thinking of rlying home? Did you really believe we had left Venice?”

  “Of course not,” Ned said. “As a matter of ract, we—” He stopped speaking instantly as three pretty girls emerged from the restaurant doorway.

  Burt and Dave had seen them too, but pretended not to, downing large helpings of the creamy rice dish in front of them. “You were right, Nancy. This risotto is spectacular,” Burt said, steering George’s gaze away from the threesome they had met at the Hotel Excelsior.

  But upon seeing the boys, the girls waved and came forward. “Don’t forget,” Christine said to Dave, “we’ll be here until Saturday.”

  As she spoke, Bess smiled pleasantly. “That’s nice,” she said. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “We are?” Dave coughed, gulping on his glass of water.

  “Yes, if you make a date with her!” Bess giggled under her breath.

  13. An Inescapable Snare

  As the blush of embarrassment faded from Dave’s face, Christine and the Austrian girls strode to the far end of the restaurant, leaving Ned and the other boys to explain how they had met.

  “It all started with a mistaken identity,” Ned said, telling about the titian-haired girl who closely resembled Nancy.

  “Of course, we soon discovered she wasn’t you,” Burt piped up, “and we took up the hunt all over again.”

  “Oh, we knew you wouldn’t abandon us,” George said, smiling.

  “And now that we’re all together, we can really help the duchessaY’ Nancy exclaimed.

  “A real duchessa?” Burt asked.

  ‘Mm-hmm. She lives on San Gregorio opposite the Gritti,” Bess offered, “and she wants us to find—”

  The sting of her cousin’s eyes caused her to stop mid-sentence. “Don’t talk too loudly,” George said, so Nancy could continue.

  “Maybe we ought to let the duchessa tell you the story herself. I did promise we wouldn’t discuss it with anyone.”

  “Including me?” Ned chuckled.

  “I’m afraid so,” his friend said. “But you’ll hear all the details very soon.” She excused herself momentarily, fishing a gettone, or token, out of her purse to use in the public telephone that stood near the door. “I’ll only be a minute. Order me a mascarpone for dessert!”

  “Now look who’s being extravagant!” Bess laughed. “Make that due—two!”

  When Nancy rejoined the group, she seemed less jovial; and the elegant dish in front of her registered only mild satisfaction on her face.

  “Is something wrong?” Ned asked immediately.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I started to tell the duchessa that we wanted to bring you and Burt and Dave over to meet her and she cut me off before I could finish. She said she had no need to talk to me again.”

  “What?” Bess replied in astonishment. “Maybe she just isn’t up to having visitors,” George remarked.

  "I don't think that's it," Nancy said. "She sounded perfectly fine, not at all tired, but something was definitely wrong. I wish I knew what it was.”

  She took one spoonful of dessert, then let the utensil fall on the dish, a spark of sudden awareness in her eyes.

  “She said, ‘Do not come now. I do not need only you,’” Nancy repeated. “The way she spoke sounded so awkward.”

  “Maybe she was trying to tell you just the opposite of what she meant,” George said.

  “Exactly,” Nancy replied, as Ned asked the waiter for the bill.

  “How do we get to San Gregorio?” the boy said shortly.

  “By vaporetto, motoscafo, or—how about taking a traghetto?” Bess grinned.

  “Since when did you learn so much Italian?”

  George asked her cousin teasingl
y, “and what on earth is a traghetto?”

  “It’s a short ride in a gondola from one side of the canal to the other. Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Bess continued, laughing lightly as the group left the restaurant.

  “Not just now, thank you,” her cousin said, and hurried ahead with Burt, who was aiming for a fleet of gondolas parked behind the restaurant.

  “I gather we’re going to take a traghetto,” Bess called out breathlessly. She stopped to adjust the strap on her shoe, but Dave grabbed her hand before she could do so.

  “Come, Miss Italy. The boat’s going to leave without us!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, it is not,” she said. Nevertheless, she picked up her pace, soon finding herself and her friends in one of several gondolas, all of them filled with eager tourists whose voices barely tittered under the booming shouts of the gondoliers.

  “Isn’t this fun?” Bess said. She leaned against her seat to watch the lead boat with its jaunty pilot.

  He had begun to serenade his passengers, singing a familiar tune to the black silky sky that loomed fuller as they glided down the narrow canal.

  “I have a feeling we should have gone to the gondola station on the square,” Nancy murmured impatiently.

  “We’ll make it,” Ned assured her, touching her hand. Burt, however, made a different observation.

  “I’d say we’re in for a traffic jam,” he said, as the oars stopped turning and the gondolas came to a halt just at the edge of the Grand Canal.

  Shouts relayed from one gondolier to another, and Ned turned to theirs, asking what the trouble was, but the man did not hear him as he yelled out to no one in particular. Then, as if by magic, the gondolas began to move again. Just before they slid under a low bridge, Nancy detected a pair of green fiery eyes staring down at her from a first-floor window of a building on the canal.

  “Oh, Ned, look,” she said. “Have you ever seen such a big black cat?”

  “I hope it’s not an omen for the future,” the boy said, laughing, but his comment slipped past Nancy as she noticed a man’s profile in the same window.

  His hair, thick and black, lay caplike over his ear!

  “That’s the night clerk from the hotel!” she exclaimed, drawing the others’ attention to the window. But it was empty now and the gondola had swept away too quickly, leaving in its wake only a vague impression of the window’s location.

  “At least, we know he’s still in Venice,” Nancy said. “I intend to come back here tomorrow and check out that building.”

  As she spoke, the gondolas, still hugging together, turned up the canal, and George asked if anyone had bothered to tell the gondolier where they wanted to be taken.

  “I didn’t,” Burt said.

  “Neither did I,” Ned chimed in. “I thought you did.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Dave said, causing Nancy to motion to the oarsman.

  “We—want—to—go—over—there,’’ she said. “Prego.”

  But the man shook his head, and she wasn’t sure if that meant no or he didn’t understand.

  “Prego,” she began again, pointing toward the building in the near distance where a lamp shone in the duchessa’s apartment.

  Still the man didn’t respond, and the lead gondolier began to sing, drawing the whole flotilla in line with each other and letting Nancy’s words fade under the applause.

  “You know what?” Bess whispered to the young detective.

  “What?” she said, already suspecting the answer.

  “I think we’re part of a tour group.”

  George groaned disgustedly. “This could take hours!”

  “And by then who knows what may have happened to the duchessa?” Nancy said anxiously. “Oh, Ned, this is terrible. We have to do something.”

  The only idea that occurred to him had worked once before; but the question was, would it work now?

  “Ned, please!” Nancy persisted as she watched the gondolier dip and turn the oars again.

  It was almost unbearable to feel the craft surging forward, away from the troubled woman’s home; and the painful look in Nancy’s eyes was all it took to send the boy into action.

  14. Strange Behavior

  Ned leaped to his feet, causing the gondola to tilt sideways while he removed his jacket.

  “What are you doing, Ned?” Nancy cried while their gondolier poured out a warning.

  “Sit down, sit down,” he shouted in Italian.

  “Ned, please,” Nancy added.

  “But you—” her friend started to say, prompting the girl to repeat her plea.

  “I didn’t mean for you to swim to our destination,” she said, relieved when he was seated once again. “As for the duchessa . . . well, I’ll just say a prayer for her that she’s all right.”

  By now they had drifted further up the Grand Canal, passing graceful palaces built from the twelfth century to the present, their unlit facades a sad reminder of the powerful men and women and great artists who no longer lived there.

  “I wouldn’t mind having my own personal palazzo,” Dave remarked.

  “Then, how about that one?” Nancy asked pointing to a building with festive gold- trimmed poles in front of it. But when she saw that it was a museum, she retracted her suggestion. “I’m afraid the Guggenheim isn’t for sale.” She laughed.

  “I wonder if they still keep a lion in the garden,” Ned put in.

  “A what?” Nancy asked.

  “A lion. The Guggenheim was originally called the Palazzo Venier Dei Leoni because, according to tradition, the Veniers had a pet lion.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” George commented, watching a preoccupied look slowly blossom in Nancy’s face.

  The young detective had tried hard not to think about her awkward conversation with the duchessa, but it continued to haunt her. And if it weren’t for George’s sudden canting interruption, Nancy would not have hesitated to voice her thoughts aloud.

  “‘And there afloat on the placid sea . . . lay a great city,’” George said, recalling a passage from a book she had once read. “‘Gondolas were gliding swiftly hither and thither. Everywhere there was a hush.’”

  “Bravo. Thank you,” Bess cheered. “That was beautiful.”

  “Well, don’t thank me. Thank Mark Twain.” George dimpled her cheeks in a smile. “He came to Venice sometime in the 1860s and wrote about it in Innocents Abroad.”

  “You know,” Nancy said, joining in the conversation, “according to tradition, the gondola evolved when the first people who lived on the lagoon got caught in high tide and had to paddle with their hands!”

  I hope we won’t have to do that!” Bess exclaimed.

  “Don’t worry, silly,” George chided her. “This gondola is perfectly balanced, isn’t it, Nancy?”

  “Yes, they’re all built to very specific dimensions. Not only that, but the boat is made up of some two hundred and eighty pieces of wood. Altogether, they weigh over a thousand pounds!”

  “In other words, banish your fears, Bess.” Burt chortled. “Besides, see that iron piece on the prow? On top of those six teeth is the Doge’s hat. He’ll watch over you.”

  “I’d rather Dave,” the girl replied, mockingly defiant, as she coaxed his arm around her.

  When the tour finally ended, the young people walked to the Gritti and Nancy called the Dandolo residence again. This time there was no answer.

  “She must have gone out,” Nancy said, worried.

  “Or to bed,” George pointed out. “It is late, you know.”

  The young people managed to find a gondolier to take them across the canal. When they arrived at the duchessa s apartment, however, the door was securely locked and no one answered their insistent rings.

  “She could be out. She could be sleeping, or she could be in trouble,” Nancy concluded in distress.

  “Personally, I think that you’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Bess said. “I mean even though the phone messag
e was a bit strange, it wasn’t a desperate cry for help either.”

  “I agree,” George said. “Anyway, it seems to me you ought to wait until morning and try to contact her again.”

  Nancy did not answer, but hesitantly, she examined the lock.

  “You can’t just break into someone’s apartment,” Ned said, pulling her away.

  “Okay. You’re right. Let’s go back to the Gritti,” the girl sighed. “I just hope the duchessa will be able to tell me tomorrow what she was trying to say tonight.”

  “How about coming to our pensione for breakfast?” Ned suggested when they reached the other side of the canal. “It isn’t the Gritti, but it’s very comfortable and the food is quite good.”

  “Sounds great!” Bess said, accepting the invitation for everyone. “ Bye!”

  The girls awoke early, and Nancy made a notation to leave a message for her father should he call from Rome while she was out.

  “Dad’s due in tonight,” she told her friends,

  “and I’m sure he’ll phone the minute he arrives.”

  As she spoke, she picked up the receiver to dial the Dandolo residence. There were four long rings before anyone answered, then came a hello that temporarily startled the girl.

  “Andreoli?” she said, recognizing the deep- chested voice.

  “Si.”

  “This is Nancy Drew. Is the duchessa there?”

  “No. No . . . arrivederci."

  “Wait. . . Andreoli,” Nancy said, but the man had already clicked off the line. “I have to go over there right away,” she announced immediately.

  “What about breakfast?” Bess asked. “Can’t you—"

  “You go ahead without me,” Nancy replied. “I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  “I’m coming with you,” George decided. “Bess, how about you going to meet the boys?” “Sure,” Bess said. “But, are you sure you two will be all right?”

  “Don’t worry,” Nancy said. “We’ll be fine.” Since Ned hadn’t called yet, Nancy gave Bess the pensione’s address and the trio parted company. Nancy and George said nothing, however, until they reached their destination. Then they knocked fiercely on the downstairs door.