Playing With Fire Read online

  “Of course,” the secretary said instantly. “I’ll put you through to our chief seamstress.”

  After a minute’s silence, a woman’s voice said pleasantly, “Hello. This is Mrs. Terry.”

  “My name is Nancy Drew,” Nancy said. “I’m looking for someone who can copy a gown in a hurry. It’s a famous gown—the Empress’s Flame. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  Mrs. Terry laughed. “Heard of it? That must be the most popular dress in Hollywood,” she said. “I’ve already produced two copies.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened. So this was the seamstress Amanda had said was out of town! And why had there been two copies of the dress? “Two copies?” she asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. “Of course, you’ve already made one for Amanda Hyde-Porter. You made the other for—?” She paused, hoping Mrs. Terry would finish the sentence for her.

  “That’s the funny part,” the seamstress said. “I don’t really know who commissioned it. The whole thing was handled over the telephone, and I worked from a photo of the dress. A courier service picked it up.”

  “The courier service wouldn’t have been Security Unlimited, would it?” Nancy asked. Sheik Abdullah had said they’d provided him with the Flame.

  “Why, I think so,” Mrs. Terry said in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Just a lucky guess,” Nancy said grimly. “Anyway, I do need another copy of the Flame. Price is no object, but it has to be ready by Saturday/ Can you do it?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Terry said. “In fact, I still have plenty of the same material. I’ll start on it right now. Things are slow today. Where do I deliver it when it’s finished?”

  Nancy gave her the sheik’s address, thanked her, and hung up.

  “Judging from the look on your face,” Bess observed, “you’ve learned something important. What is it?”

  “There were two copies of the Flame,” Nancy told her.

  “Two?” George asked. “You mean, one in addition to the one that Amanda had made up?”

  Nancy nodded. “Mrs. Terry, the seamstress, said that the commission came over the telephone, and the transaction was handled by courier—Security Unlimited.”

  “So that’s our next stop,” George said.

  Nancy nodded. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. I think we’re really onto something this time!”

  It was midafternoon by the time the girls finally made their way through the L.A. traffic to the offices of Security Unlimited.

  “My name is Nancy Drew. I’m investigating an extortion case,” Nancy told the woman behind the desk. “And I’d like to check your records. You handled two transactions recently. One involved the pickup of a package from the costume department at Kincaid Studios. The other involved the delivery of a package to Sheik Hassan Abdullah in Malibu.”

  The woman behind the desk stared at Nancy suspiciously. “Why should I tell you anything?” she snapped.

  Nancy just smiled politely. “If I can’t get these questions answered,” she said, “the matter will be turned over to the police. Their investigators will take all your records down to the—”

  With a sigh, the woman hauled out a large order book. “Let’s see what we can find,” she said, leafing through the pages. She stopped. “Here’s the record of the pickup from the studio. The package was delivered here and picked up an hour later.”

  Nancy stared at the signature on the pickup line. It was indecipherable.

  “What about the delivery to Sheik Abdullah?” George asked. “Maybe that will tell us something.”

  The woman turned several pages. “Here it is,” she said. “A package was brought in to the office on Tuesday.” She pointed to the book. “As you can see, it was delivered to the sheik’s address an hour later.”

  “Do you happen to remember who brought the package in?” Nancy asked.

  The woman shook her head. “The girl who usually works this desk quit yesterday. I don’t know where she went.”

  Nancy wrote down her name and the phone number of the Victory Hotel. “If you should hear from her,” she said, “here’s where I can be reached.” She thanked the woman, and the girls left.

  Bess shook her head disgustedly as they went back to the car. “It looks as though we’re really down a blind alley. We haven’t found out a thing.”

  “Well,” George said, “maybe something will turn up at Diana’s.”

  Just then the car phone rang, and Nancy picked it up. “This is Nancy Drew,” she said.

  “Nancy Drew, this is Nicole Ronsarde,” the heavily accented voice said on the other end of the line. There was a burst of static, and then Nancy made out the words “Calling from San Francisco.”

  “Professor Ronsarde!” Nancy exclaimed, pulling off the road and turning off the ignition. “We were just talking about you. We’ve been so worried. We stopped by to see you the day before yesterday. Your cats hadn’t been fed, and the door was open. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” The professor sighed. “I left in a hurry. I left a note for a neighbor, but it must have blown away. But she’s taking care of my cats now. I am safe, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “We found some blood on your blouse,” Nancy said. “We were really worried about that.”

  The professor laughed a little. “Oh, I cut my hand slicing some bread. I didn’t have time to clean up before I left.” There was another burst of static. “Phoning about the manuscript,” Nancy managed to hear.

  “The manuscript?” Nancy asked. “You mean Amanda’s manuscript—the one that was burned?”

  “Burned indeed!” Professor Ronsarde exclaimed heatedly. “The Napoleon is—”

  Static nearly drowned out the rest of her sentence, and Nancy wasn’t sure she’d heard it correctly. She sat staring at the phone in shock.

  “What is it, Nancy?” George asked urgently. “What about the manuscript?”

  Nancy shook her head, looking dazed. “If I heard right, Professor Ronsarde has discovered the manuscript that was supposedly burned. It’s in the possession of a San Francisco dealer—and it’s in perfect condition!”

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  BUT I DON’T understand!” Bess exclaimed. “How could it be burned and still be in perfect condition?”

  Professor Ronsarde was talking again now, and Nancy was listening. “A dealer called me yesterday morning to say that he’d bought the manuscript last week on the black market. He knew of my interest in the play, and he’s letting me study it.”

  “But you’re sure that it’s the same manuscript?” Nancy asked. “It’s not a copy?”

  “But of course!” Professor Ronsarde said. “I am an expert in these matters. I know that this is the original.”

  Nancy thought fast. This new information eliminated Professor Ronsarde as a suspect—if she was telling the truth. But more than that, it opened up a whole new line of thought. Maybe the fire had been staged to cover a theft. “I’ve got an idea, Professor,” she said. “But I need your help. Would you find a copier and send a copy of the first few pages of the manuscript to me at the Victory Hotel?”

  “Yes, of course,” the professor said. “I’ll do it right away.”

  “Goodbye, Madame Ronsarde. Well,” Nancy said after hanging up the phone, “it’s beginning to look as if the manuscript that was burned was a copy. And that suggests that the portrait and the gown might have been copies, too—burned to cover the theft of the real thing!”

  Bess looked totally confused. “I can’t keep all this straight,” she complained.

  George sighed. “You’re not the only one.” She turned to Nancy. “But one thing seems clear. If Professor Ronsarde is the person who turned up the real manuscript, then she isn’t the person who burned it, right?”

  Nancy nodded. “I think we can take her off our list of suspects, and Sheik Abdullah as well. That leaves us with Peter Wellington. He wouldn’t have destroyed the real things, but he might have stolen them and arranged fo
r the burning of the copies. And there’s another suspect.” She glanced quickly at George.

  “Oh no!” George said defensively.

  “It could be Chad,” Nancy said.

  “Chad?” Bess exclaimed.

  Nancy nodded. “We know that Chad was at the scene when the gown was burned. We know that he’s talked with Mr. Wellington. It’s entirely possible that he’s masterminded this whole thing and that Mr. Wellington is in it with him. In fact, Peter Wellington might even be helping to dispose of the stolen originals.”

  George looked miserable. “It sounds so logical,” she said. “But I just can’t believe it. Chad’s so fantastic!”

  Nancy switched on the ignition. “Chad lives right behind Diana, doesn’t he? Well, I suggest that we pay him a visit this evening to see what we can learn. When we’re finished there, we can go over to Diana’s and see if we can find the remains of that brooch.” She looked at George. “Okay, George?”

  “Okay,” George said reluctantly. “But I’m telling you, I just don’t believe that Chad’s responsible for all this. I don’t believe it!”

  • • •

  The expensive Beverly Hills neighborhood where Chad and Diana lived was quiet and calm in the early-evening dusk. Nancy parked a block from Chad’s and they walked to the house. The Tudor mansion was large, imposing—and dark.

  “I guess he’s not home,” George said. Nancy could hear the relief in her voice. “His car isn’t even in the drive.”

  “That makes it easier,” Nancy said. “Come on.

  Checking to be sure they weren’t being observed, Nancy led the others around to the back of the house. She tried the door of the garage. It opened easily. Stealthily Nancy went inside. The door from the garage into the kitchen was unlocked too.

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” George asked nervously, following Nancy into the kitchen. “What if Chad comes home and finds us?”

  “I’ll stay by the door and let you know if he drives up,” Bess volunteered.

  “Good,” Nancy said. She went into the dining room. “I wonder why he doesn’t have any furniture.” She opened the door to a small room at the back of the house. “It looks as if he might be living in just this room.”

  Nancy and George stepped into the room and looked around. There was a narrow cot against one wall and a small desk and chair against another. On the desk were a microscope, a stack of books, and what looked like chemistry equipment.

  George stepped over to the desk and picked up a manila folder full of papers.

  “What is it?” Nancy asked.

  George handed it to her. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s got your name on it.”

  Nancy switched on a desk lamp. George was right. At the top, the file folder was labeled “Nancy Drew.” It was full of newspaper clippings and notes about Nancy—her past cases, her father’s name, and a description of his work as a criminal lawyer, even Ned’s name and description. There were photos of Nancy, too, and a snapshot of Nancy, Bess, and George grinning into the camera.

  “It’s the picture Chad took yesterday while we were out sailing,” George said, staring at it miserably.

  Nancy put the folder down and picked up one of the books from the stack. It was a biography of Napoleon. Every book in the stack was about Napoleon. “It looks as though Chad’s been doing some research,” Nancy said. She glanced at the chemistry equipment. “And doing something else, too—something with arson, maybe?”

  George picked up a piece of paper and turned it over in her fingers. Silently she handed it to Nancy. It was gray, with a distinctive red border.

  “I guess we’ve found our extortionist,” she said bleakly. “I’ll wait for you outside.” And without another word, she walked out of the room.

  It was almost completely dark when the girls climbed over the fence at the back of Chad’s yard and crossed over into Diana’s garden. Suddenly Nancy stopped. Just in front of them was a large floodlight. Unlike the other lights in the garden, it wasn’t on.

  “That light is probably part of an alarm system triggered by an electronic sensor,” Nancy murmured. “We need to stay clear of it while we search.”

  “Where do we start?” Bess whispered. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the sensor. “It’s spooky in these shadows.”

  “How about the pool?” Nancy suggested. “It might have been cleaned, but it’s still worth a try.”

  But they drew a blank at the pool. The bottom, shimmering in the soft underwater lights, was free of anything that looked like a brooch. Either the brooch had never been there, or it had been taken out when the pool was cleaned.

  “Now what?” George whispered.

  “Let’s try under the balcony where you fell,” Nancy said. “The brooch might have fallen off the gown when you went over.” She began to search for it. Bess and George joined her, and after a minute Bess held something up to the light.

  “What’s this?” she asked eagerly.

  George chuckled. “It looks like a bottle cap. Nancy, I don’t think we’re going to find any—”

  But at that moment Nancy’s fingers touched something hard and lumpy. It was a small, blackened disk, half melted. The pin at the back was bent, and in the center, where the stone should have been, was what looked like a big glob of melted plastic.

  “Here it is!” she exclaimed. “I’ve found it!”

  Bess bent over to look. “Can you tell how it worked?”

  Nancy pointed to the melted glob. “This was probably a plastic capsule of some kind, colored to look like a precious stone. It could have been filled with an acid, separated from another chemical by a barrier. When the acid ate through the barrier, it set off a violent reaction with the other chemical.”

  “And that’s what made the gown ignite!” George exclaimed. “If you ask me, I’m lucky to be alive!” She bit her lip. “Do you really think that Chad—”

  Swiftly Nancy put her hand over George’s mouth. “Shh!” she said, pulling George and Bess deeper into the shadows against the house. “Somebody’s standing above us on the balcony!”

  There were footsteps on the balcony overhead, and then the sound of a frightened, tentative voice. “Who’s out there?” Diana asked, her voice quavering.

  And then, from the other side of the pool, a figure stepped out of the shadows—holding a gun. “Come out,” he commanded brusquely. “Or I’ll shoot!”

  It was Chad.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  STAY CLOSE TO the house,” Nancy hissed, keeping an eye on Chad. “The pool lights are shining right in his eyes. If we’re quick, he won’t be able to see us.” She grabbed George’s hand. “Come on!”

  As silently as they could, the girls crept single-file around the corner of the house. They scrambled over a small fence and then dashed behind the palm trees and down Diana’s long drive.

  Behind them, they could still hear Diana calling into the darkness and, after a minute, Chad’s answering voice. But no one followed them.

  “Whew!” Bess gasped when they finally reached their car. She collapsed into the back seat. “That was about as close as I want to come to being a moving target for a guy with a gun!”

  George looked at Nancy. “So it is Chad,” she said despairingly. There were tears in her eyes.

  Nancy threw her a sympathetic glance. “We can’t be sure,” she said as she started the car and drove off. “But the evidence does point that way. Especially with the things we found in Chad’s house. He could have rented the house as a front, so that he’d be close to the scene of the crime.” Something was nagging at her—something didn’t make sense. If Chad was policing Diana’s house, how could he be a crook? But the rest of his actions seemed too suspicious to be ignored.

  “What do you think he was doing at Diana’s?” Bess wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he pulled into his drive just as we were climbing the fence, and followed us over there.”

  “D
o you think he recognized us?” George asked in a dull voice.

  “My guess is that he didn’t,” Nancy said. “If he had, he would have called our names.”

  She fell silent, thinking rapidly. Now she needed a way to confront Chad—a way that would surprise him into revealing what he knew. And the germ of a plan was beginning to form in her mind. She turned to George. “Chad’s going to the costume ball tomorrow night, isn’t he?”

  George nodded and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “We were planning to go together,” she said sadly. “I guess I’ll break the date.”

  “I don’t think you should, George. For one thing, we don’t know for sure that Chad is our guy. For another, we need to be able to keep tabs on him. I think it’s time we arranged a little surprise for him.”

  “You know, I’d almost forgotten about the costume party,” Bess said. She turned on the interior light, leaned over the back of the seat, and put her hand on George’s shoulder. “What would you think, George, if I went as Marilyn Monroe?” she asked, lowering her eyelids and pouting in an imitation of the blonde.

  Nancy burst into laughter, and she was glad to see that George laughed a little too. They could always trust Bess to break the tension.

  • • •

  For a long time that night, Nancy lay awake thinking about her scheme. It was complicated, but it might just work. If Chad were the extortionist, he’d be bound to give himself away. At nine the next morning, she put her plan into action by calling Sheik Abdullah.

  “Oh, Nancy!” the sheik exclaimed when she identified herself. “I am glad you called. The seamstress just brought the gown, and Sheila is ecstatic! It is magnificent. Nobody will know that it isn’t the real thing.”

  He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “In fact, I fibbed to Sheila. I told her that the insurance company had returned the original. So now she will never know that her dress is a copy.” He chuckled over his little deception. “I hope that you and your friends will be guests at our wedding. And if there is any way I can show my gratitude, please let me know. I will be delighted to do it.”