Scent of Danger Read online

  Bess touched her arm. “Wow. Sorry about that,” she said awkwardly. “I thought she’d be mad at Owen, not you.”

  “Maybe I should go talk to her,” Nancy said quietly.

  “You’d better wait awhile,” Bess said. “Give her time to cool off.”

  “I guess so.” George’s accusations really hurt. Nancy didn’t think her work was more important to her than her friendships. Sometimes in the course of her detective work, things became dangerous, and protecting her friends was more important than sparing their feelings.

  As though reading her mind, Bess said, “I’m sure George knows we didn’t mean to hurt her. She’s just upset about Owen.” She sat down and buried her head in her hands. “You were right. I should have kept my big mouth shut.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Nancy said.

  Suddenly they heard a loud, whirring noise from upstairs.

  “That’s George’s stationary bicycle,” Bess said as Nancy looked up, puzzled. “She takes out all her frustrations on it.”

  “It sounds like she’s going a hundred miles an hour,” Nancy said.

  “Good! Exercise is the best medicine,” said Bess briskly. “It’ll distract her. And speaking of distraction,” she added brightly, “I think you need one, too. How about lunch and maybe a little shopping?”

  Nancy shook her head, smiling. She appreciated her friend’s attempts to cheer her up, but she knew she couldn’t rest yet. The quickest way to win George’s friendship back was to solve the mystery.

  “Could you drop me off at Daly’s?” she asked Bess. “I want to ask Ms. Willert a few more questions about civet oil. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the key to why the civets have been disappearing.”

  Bess nodded knowingly. “It’s got to be, and she’d be the one to know.” Nancy’s friend looked up at the ceiling where the sound of George working out on her bicycle could still be heard. “I just hope we get to the bottom of this soon, Nancy.”

  “Me, too, Bess. Me, too.”

  • • •

  “Nancy, Bess, how nice!” Felicity Willert smiled and stood up from behind her desk.

  Before Nancy could say anything, Bess cried, “Oh, I love your outfit!” The perfume buyer was wearing a white silk jacket over a soft, plum-colored wool dress. The effect was simple yet very elegant.

  “It’s Italian, isn’t it?” Nancy asked.

  Ms. Willert nodded. “You have a good eye. It’s by Gianni Moscatelli, the designer.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Bess said.

  “I wanted to ask a few more questions about perfume making,” Nancy explained.

  Ms. Willert nodded. “What would you like to know?”

  “Is civet oil expensive enough that someone would want their own personal supply of civets?” Nancy asked, searching for a motive for stealing the civets.

  Felicity Willert looked confused. “It costs quite a lot, since civets are rare animals. But it would be impossible to have your own supply of civets. That has to be illegal.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Bess said.

  “Actually,” the perfume buyer went on, “it’s such a coincidence you should be interested in this whole issue. After I talked to you the other day, I got a phone call about a very rare perfume called Belle Soirée. It’s been off the market for ten years, but it was one of the most famous perfumes made with civet oil.”

  “Belle Soirée?” Nancy repeated. “Do you have a sample?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” Felicity Willert took an ornate book off a shelf behind her desk. “But this history of perfume will tell you everything you need to know about it.”

  Nancy examined the ornate book the buyer held out to her. As she looked at it, a thrill went through her. Fit for a Queen! It was the same book Zoe Spelios kept in her office!

  Nancy’s mind started to race. If the zookeeper was interested in perfume and had access to civets . . .

  Ms. Willert interrupted her thoughts. “Fit for a Queen is an important reference work on the history of perfume,” she explained.

  Eagerly Nancy leafed through the book. She arrived at the page describing Belle Soirée and quickly scanned the page. “It says here that the formula for Belle Soirée was lost when the man who developed the perfume sold his company.”

  “That explains why the perfume is so valuable,” Bess said, leaning over Nancy’s shoulder to read from the book.

  “Exactly,” Felicity Willert said.

  Next to the description of the perfume was an old-fashioned black-and-white photograph showing a tall, thin man in a black suit. He was staring straight at the camera with a challenging look on his face.

  The photo’s caption read, “Jacques Mathieu, creator of Belle Soirée.” Nancy stared intently at it.

  “When did you say the creator of Belle Soirée died?” she asked Ms. Willert.

  “About ten years ago,” she replied.

  Nancy looked up, baffled. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course,” the buyer told her, frowning slightly. “It was an important event in the perfume industry.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to doubt you,” Nancy told her. “It’s just that I’m positive I’ve seen this face before.”

  Bess, who had been studying the picture over her shoulder, looked at Nancy in surprise. “That’s funny, I was just thinking the same thing!” she commented.

  Ms. Willert shook her head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Maybe you saw someone who resembled Jacques Mathieu.”

  “Maybe,” Nancy said, not wanting to seem rude. Still, the longer she stared at the photograph, the surer she became that she’d seen him somewhere before.

  She sat, lost in thought, until Bess nudged her. “You probably need to get back to work,” Bess was saying to Ms. Willert. “Thanks very much for your help.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Nancy echoed, jumping to her feet.

  Ms. Willert smiled. “My pleasure. Come back anytime.”

  Bess led the way out of her office and down the escalator. “You know, that Jacques Mathieu looked really familiar,” she told Nancy again as they went down the escalator.

  Nancy nodded thoughtfully. The photograph was very old-fashioned—where had she seen one like it recently?

  Suddenly Nancy grabbed Bess’s arm. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “At least, I think I do.”

  “Got what?” Bess asked.

  “Where I’ve seen a photo of Jacques Mathieu. I need to find a telephone,” Nancy continued.

  “There’s a bank of them by the front door,” Bess told her. Nancy jumped the last few steps of the escalator and went running for a pay phone, with Bess in hot pursuit.

  Swiftly Nancy called information. “Do you have a number for Classic Sense?” she asked.

  The operator gave her one. “How about an address?” Nancy asked. She wrote it down: 449 Bridgewater Road. “Could you tell me how that’s spelled?” She paused. “No, not the street, the company. Thank you.”

  “What’s Classic Sense?” Bess asked as Nancy got off the phone.

  Nancy explained the conversation she’d overheard in Zoe’s office earlier that day. “I thought it was S-e-n-s-e, but it’s S-c-e-n-t-s.”

  “Classic Scents! A perfume company?” Bess guessed. “What does Zoe Spelios have to do with a perfume company?”

  “A lot, I’m starting to think,” Nancy told her. “She keeps a copy of that photograph of Jacques Mathieu in her office, along with a copy of that history of perfume. I just realized that that was where I’d seen the picture before!”

  She tapped the address in front of her. “Forget lunch, Bess, we’re headed for Four forty-nine Bridgewater Road.”

  “But that’s in the factory section,” Bess protested. “I can’t believe a glamorous perfume company would have offices there.”

  “Maybe it’s a perfume factory, not an office,” Nancy said. “Either way, we’re going to find out,” she added. “Let’s go!”

  • • •<
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  As Bess drove, Nancy summed up what they knew so far. “First, Zoe has something to do with a company called Classic Scents. It’s probably a perfume company, but we’re not sure.”

  She continued. “Second, Zoe also has some connection with Jacques Mathieu, who created Belle Soirée—a perfume that’s made with civet musk.”

  “And Zoe works with civets,” Bess put in excitedly.

  “And the civets keep disappearing,” Nancy reminded her. Her pulse raced, as it always did when she was getting close to the heart of a mystery.

  Bess turned the car onto Bridgewater Road. “Some neighborhood, huh?” she commented. The street was full of potholes and lined with warehouses and abandoned buildings.

  “There’s one thing about all this I don’t get,” Bess continued. “That picture we saw of Jacques Mathieu looked familiar to me, too, but I’d never seen the photograph in Zoe’s office.”

  “Maybe it’s in other reference books,” Nancy suggested. “Didn’t you read a bunch of them when you were doing research for the party?”

  “That could be it—I guess,” Bess said, thinking, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  They reached number 449, an old warehouse with boarded-up windows. “This doesn’t look like much of anything, let alone a perfume company,” Bess commented as they parked.

  Nancy led the way to the door of the building. She looked for a bell, but couldn’t find one. Instead she knocked several times. No one answered.

  “I think I hear something or someone moving around inside,” Bess whispered nervously. Nancy put her ear to the door. Sure enough, something was moving around.

  She knocked again, harder this time. Just then she noticed a strong, musky odor in the air. “Do you smell something?” she asked Bess.

  Bess sniffed, and the two girls exchanged glances. “Civets!” Nancy said.

  From behind them a heavily accented voice barked, “Put your hands up!”

  Startled, Nancy spun around—to find herself staring straight into the barrel of a pistol!

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  BESS TURNED AROUND and gasped. “Not you!” she said slowly.

  A small sneer caught the side of the dark-haired man’s mouth. But behind the mirrored sunglasses it was impossible for Nancy to read the man’s full expression.

  “Did you hear me? Hands up!” the man commanded them. “You two are much too nosy,” he said ominously. He pointed with the gun to the door. “Inside.”

  As Nancy turned the knob, the musky smell grew stronger. What would they find inside? She whispered to Bess, “Get ready to run. The civets might be loose.”

  Bess didn’t seem to hear her. She was staring at the man in sunglasses as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “What is it?” Nancy asked, nudging her friend. “What’s wrong?”

  Bess’s voice shook as she whispered, “Don’t you recognize him? It’s Jacques Mathieu!”

  Nancy gasped. Bess was right—their captor bore an uncanny resemblance to the man in the photograph!

  With an impatient wave of his pistol, the man motioned them inside. Her heart in her throat, Nancy pushed the door to the warehouse open.

  Inside it was dark except for a few rays of light filtering in around a boarded-up window. One of the narrow shafts of light fell on a fenced-off area in a far corner of the room.

  Nancy breathed a sigh of relief. The civets were penned up, not free. Then she felt Bess clutching her arm.

  “Is—is it him?” Bess whispered, shivering from the cold and, Nancy suspected, from fright.

  “Of course not—he’s much too young,” she said, trying to reassure her friend, who was obviously terrified. “Although there’s definitely a resemblance.”

  Meanwhile, the man had been groping for something with his free hand. He kept the gun trained on them at all times. Now he was holding up a length of rope.

  “I regret that I will have to leave you here,” he said. “It is very cold, but at least you will have the satisfaction of being with your little furry friends.” He waved his hand at the civets. “Filthy animals, no?” he asked, looking at them with disgust. “That smell, mon dieu! But even their fear serves its purpose.”

  “To make oil for your perfumes?” Nancy asked, hoping to draw him out.

  “How clever you are,” he said with a sneer. “You have wasted a lot of our time, you and your friends.”

  “Why don’t you just buy civet oil from suppliers?” Nancy asked, fishing for information.

  “Be quiet,” the man snapped at her, “or I will leave you inside the pen with the civets, not outside it.” He threw something into the pen, causing one of the civets to give a frightened yelp and release more of the odorous musk.

  Nancy’s teeth were beginning to chatter from the cold. If he ties us up and leaves us here, we’ll freeze to death, she thought. She had to come up with a plan, and fast.

  Their captor was coming toward them, the rope in one hand and the gun in the other. As he prepared to tie them up, he grasped the rope with his other hand, relaxing his grip on the gun for a split second.

  Nancy sensed her opening and used it. She lunged forward, knocking the gun out of his hand and sending it bouncing and skittering across the open space of the warehouse. “Run!” she screamed to Bess, but her friend was frozen to the spot.

  Rubbing his wrist, the man moved menacingly toward them. “I can take care of you even without a gun,” he said, backing them up against the door to the civet pen.

  Reaching behind her for something to hold him off, Nancy made a discovery—the door to the civet cage was unlocked! As the man’s hands reached toward her throat, she ducked under his arms and darted forward, pulling the cage door open.

  The terrified civets burst out, yelping and howling.

  Nancy grabbed Bess’s arm and dragged her to the door of the warehouse, pushing her roughly into the street. Then she turned back, just in time to see one of the civets leaping at the man’s face.

  After she ran out, Nancy slammed the door shut behind her. Bess was already in the car. Nancy jumped into the passenger seat, and they roared off.

  “Stop at the next phone booth,” Nancy said after they’d gotten a few blocks away. When Bess did, Nancy leapt out and called the River Heights police.

  “I told them where they could find the stolen civets,” she told Bess as she got back in. “The man with sunglasses will probably get away, though.”

  Bess took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she admitted. “I really didn’t think we were going to get out of there.”

  “Well, we did,” Nancy said, reaching over and giving her a hug. “And I’ll tell you one thing—I’m positive Owen had nothing to do with this. He would never let the civets be treated so badly.”

  Bess nodded. “I still want to know what he was doing with Zoe, though.”

  “There’s got to be some explanation,” Nancy concluded. “First, though, we’d better get back to the zoo. I think it’s time to confront Zoe Spelios once and for all.”

  Bess agreed, then Nancy had another thought. “Hang on a second. I want to call George and warn her to stay away from the zoo.”

  “Good idea. But make it quick. If that guy gets away before the police arrive, he’ll go straight to Zoe. Now that we’re on to them, they may get desperate.”

  Nancy nodded, jumped back out of the car, and dialed George’s number. Mrs. Fayne answered the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy, she’s not here,” Mrs. Fayne told her. “She went to the zoo with Owen. They said something about talking to Mr. Berry. You just missed them.”

  “Thanks.” Nancy said goodbye and hung up. Then she jumped back in the car. “I think we’d better get to the zoo right away,” she told Bess. “George and Owen are on their way there.”

  “They don’t know about any of this!” Bess cried. “They could be in serious danger.” She bore down on the accelerator.

  Nancy and Bess sped to
the zoo, parking in the visitors’ part of the lot to avoid running into Zoe in the staff lot.

  “How on earth are we going to get in?” Bess wailed. “There are security guards all over the place, and they know we’re not allowed in.”

  “Let’s see if they recognize us,” Nancy suggested. “Maybe we can get away with it.” They walked casually up to the gate and peered into the security booth. No luck! The guard on duty was none other than Harper Anderson.

  “Duck!” Nancy said quickly as he swung around in their direction. The two girls darted under the guardhouse window.

  As they were creeping away from the guardhouse, Nancy noticed a yellow school bus about fifty yards from the gate. A class of high school students was piling out of the bus into the parking lot.

  Talking and laughing, the students headed for the gate. “Know any of them?” Nancy asked Bess.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, puzzled.

  “We do now,” Nancy told her. Taking her arm, they ran into the middle of the group of students.

  “Hi, I’m Nancy,” she said to a cute boy with curly black hair. “Mind if I go in with you?”

  The boy looked at her, then looked up at the sky. “Hallelujah, my prayers are answered!” he said with a smile.

  Taking her cue from Nancy, Bess attached herself to a slim, athletic-looking redheaded boy in a green ski jacket. “Nice jacket. I bet you’re a skier,” she said breathlessly.

  “I play soccer, actually,” he said. He looked at her appreciatively. “But I’ll go skiing with you anytime.”

  Still flirting with the guys, Nancy and Bess walked through the gate in the middle of the group of teenagers. Harper didn’t even look up as they went by.

  As soon as they got inside, Nancy turned to her escort. “I’ve got to go now,” she said quickly. “But thanks.”

  “That had to be the world’s shortest date,” he said, shrugging good-naturedly.

  Bess said to her soccer player, “It’s been nice knowing you.”

  “Where to?” Bess asked after they were safely inside the zoo.

  “The main administration building,” Nancy told her. “That’s where Mr. Berry’s office is.”