The Picture of Guilt Read online

  Pam was standing by herself on the bank of the lake, tossing breadcrumbs to a cluster of eager ducks and geese. She waved. "Isn't this nice?" she said as Nancy and George joined her. "I love picnics, even when it's not summer.''

  Then she lowered her voice and added, "Don't worry, I'm not forgetting our investigation. What's the program? Is there anybody you want me to grill?"

  "Not just now," Nancy said, hiding a smile. She stopped herself from pointing out that at picnics what usually got grilled were hot dogs.

  "Nancy?" one of the girls in the group called. As she came over, Nancy tried to recall her name, but couldn't. "I've got a message for you."

  Nancy accepted the envelope with her name written in block letters on the front and ripped it open. The note inside was short and to the point.

  WATCH OUT, SNOOPER. THERE ARE LOTS MORE TRUCKS IN PARIS.

  Chapter Twelve

  PAM NOTICED Nancy Staring at the threatening note and peered over her shoulder to read it. "Oh!" she exclaimed, shuddering. "How awful! Maria, where did this come from?"

  The giri who had brought Nancy the note seemed to be confused. "It was in one of the food bags," she said. "I came across it when I was hunting for the paper napkins. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," Nancy said quickly. There was no point in sharing this latest development with everyone at the picnic.

  "That's the same trick David claims somebody used to get that note to him." George said quietly. "Simply leave it where someone's bound to find it and pass it on. What about the handwriting?"

  Nancy was already studying the note more closely. The writer had obviously tried to make the block letters as anonymous-looking as possible. No feature stood out, but if she could compare the note to samples of the suspects' handwriting, she might be able to spot something.

  Nancy folded the note and put it in her jacket pocket. Ellen would probably have various forms that the students in the exchange program had fdled out. She could ask to look through them later, when she got home.

  "Did you see who put the note in the food bag?'' she asked Maria. "They forgot to sign it."

  Maria shook her head. "I found it there, that's all," she said.

  "Okay, thanks," Nancy replied. As Maria went back to putting out the supplies for the picnic, Nancy turned to George and Pam and said in an undertone, "Let's separate and talk to as many people as we can. Find out what they did at the end of the party last night, and with whom."

  "Why?" Pam demanded. "Did something happen?"

  "I'll tell you about it later," Nancy replied. "And ask people about that envelope, too. Somebody may have noticed the person slipping it into the bag."

  George and Pam strolled off in different directions. Nancy watched them for a moment, then looked around for Cindy. Would she conj&rm giving David the note at the open house?

  Nancy finally located her on the fringe of a group of picnickers. "I thought it was a little funny, finding an urgent message just sitting next to the telephone like that," Cindy admitted with a frown. "But I figured whoever took the message got distracted and forgot to pass it on. It gave me a real shiver when I heard about Jules. That may have been his last message. Did David meet him the way he was supposed to?''

  "I don't think so," Nancy replied. So David's story had been correct, though there was still the possibility that he had written the note himself.

  "Were you at that studio party last night?" Nancy added. "There was such a crowd—"

  "I dropped in," Cindy said. "But I wasn't feeling well, so I stayed only a few minutes. How late did it go on?"

  "I don't know," Nancy replied. "I left around one. Oh—you didn't see anyone put this note in one of the food bags this morning, did you?"

  Cindy looked at her, puzzled. "No, why?" she demanded.

  "It wasn't signed, so Fm trying to find out who it's from. Oh, well, I'll just keep asking."

  Twenty minutes later she began to think she was wasting her time. No one admitted knowing anything about the note, and the information people gave about leaving the party the night before was vague. When Nancy collected Pam and George, they reported the same frustration.

  "Listen," Nancy said with sudden decision. "You guys stay here. I want to go home and try to fit some more pieces of the puzzle together."

  Pam seemed surprised, but all she said was, "Sure, Nancy. We'll join you there later.''

  Nancy walked across the park toward the bus stop, her thoughts swirling. What was this case about? Josephine Solo had died in an accident, that was clear. And Jules? The fact that his briefcase had vanished made his death look suspicious. It also formed a link between his death and the life, if not the death, of Solo. The attacks on Nancy that had started after her visit to Censier's gallery made it clear that the attacker knew she was investigating Solo's last months.

  Nancy continued mulling over the case on the bus back. She marveled that Paris was a ghost town on a Sunday afternoon. Every store had its steel shutters down. The sidewalks were empty. There were so few cars that Nancy had an impulse to walk down the center of the street. She resisted, in case a Pizza Pow! mobylette should come along and take her out.

  Upstairs, Nancy took out all her notes on the case, spread them over the kitchen table, and began shifting them around, hoping for some fresh insight.

  Her eye fell on the list she had made of Solo's appointments. Who on earth was BW? Solo had met with him or her at least twice a week, sometimes more often, during her last months. But there was no one in her address book who fit the initials. Maybe they weren't initials at all, maybe Josephine Solo made a note in her appointment book whenever there was Bad fTeath-er. Nancy laughed, but made a mental note to check the weather records for Paris during those months.

  And what about CL? The scrap of paper that Nancy had found in Jules's room linked CL to the other mystery person, G.A. But there was no CL in Solo's address book.

  Nancy found her copy of Jules's note and studied it with mounting excitement. CL 381-44961210 ... She didn't know what to make of the first part, but those eight digits that began with a four could be a Paris phone number. Crossing her fingers, Nancy went over to the telephone and punched in the number.

  After two chimed notes, a recorded voice told her that the number she had reached was not in service. Either her idea was wrong, or CL had stopped paying his phone bills. She went back to the kitchen and spread out her notes again.

  The list she had copied at Jules's happened to end up dead center. Nancy stared at it longer, with growing puzzlement. Why did her mind insist on seeing the initials CL in yellow, against a blue background? Some mental glitch, or was it something she had seen somewhere recently?

  "Of course!" she said aloud. She had walked past it every day! It was the emblem of the Credit Lyonnais, one of the biggest bank chains in France. One of the branches was just down the street. And the long number next to it had to be an account number. The account of Solo's blackmailer, G.A., for example. .. .

  A sudden thought cooled her enthusiasm. Obviously Jules had gotten that list of payments from some sort of financial document of Solo's, such as a bank statement. What if he had jotted down her account number at the same time?

  Nancy couldn't wait to check on this possibility. She called Ellen. "Do you happen to recall what bank Josephine Solo had her account with?" she asked, when the professor answered.

  "Why, yes. I had to deal with them as Jo's executor," Ellen replied. "It was BNP—the Banque Nationale de Paris. Why?"

  "Did she have any dealings with Credit Lyonnais?" Nancy continued.

  "Not that I know of," said Ellen. "But yesterday I came across a big manila envelope of miscellaneous financial records that I haven't had time to check out yet."

  "Would you mind if I came up and looked through them?" Nancy asked. "I'll be careful not to mislay anything."

  The professor hesitated, then said, "No, that's all right. But are you free to come now? I have to go out a little later."

  "I'll be righ
t there." Nancy left a note on the door for George saying where she was going, then went upstairs. Ellen opened the door and led her into her back office. Ellen had already found the envelope of financial records and placed it on the desk. Nancy started to sort through the thick stack of papers.

  She was a little more than halfway through the stack when she noticed the words Credit Lyon-nais on a flimsy slip of paper. She stopped and read it carefully. It was a duplicate of a deposit slip. Josephine Solo had deposited a check for ten thousand francs—about two thousand dollars— to an account whose number matched that on the slip of paper Nancy had found on Jules's desk. And the name of the account holder was Giuseppina Aria— GA.!

  Nancy took a deep breath. Then she sprang up and rushed off to find Ellen. "You remember those payments you discovered?'' she demanded. "Well, I've just found out who they were made to."

  She showed Ellen the deposit slip and explained what she thought it meant.

  "Aria," Ellen said thoughtfully. "I don't know anybody by that name in Jo's circle of friends."

  "A blackmailer?" Nancy said.

  "You know," Ellen said thoughtfiilly, "in French, a blackmailer is called a mattre-chanteur, or singing-master, because he makes his victims *sing.' I wonder if this mysterious Aria chose the name for that reason, as a sort of sick joke. And now that I think of it, after Jo's death, I found a key ring on her dresser marked Aria. But why would she have her blackmailer's keys?"

  "I don't know," Nancy replied. "But could I borrow them? They might be important."

  While Ellen went oflF in search of the key ring, Nancy studied the deposit slip. How could she manage to track down Aria? Impossible to ask the bank on a Sunday, and even on Monday, the chances weren't good that they would give her any information about their account holder.

  The rubber stamp indicated that the branch was in Paris near Montmartre. Why not try the obvious approach first? When Ellen returned, Nancy asked, "Do you have a Paris phone book?"

  The professor smiled. "Phone books are out of date. Here in France, there's a computerized system called Minitel." She led Nancy over to what looked like a miniature computer terminal and pushed a few buttons. The screen lit up.

  "Just type the name of the person you want to get the number of, and the address, if you know it," Ellen explained.

  Nancy typed ARIA, then PARIS, and hit the Send button. After a short pause, three names and addresses appeared on the screen. The first was a film company. The second was someone named Philippe Aria. And the third was— G. Aria!

  Chapter Thirteen

  NANCY BLINKED, then looked again at the entry on the Minitel screen. It was still there, in white on black: ARIA G., 37, R POULBOT, 75018 PARIS, 143 48 13 12.

  "Hooray!" Nancy shouted. Then she grabbed a pen and scratch pad and copied the information, just in case she pushed the wrong key and it somehow vanished forever from the screen.

  Ellen, alerted by Nancy's shout, came back. Nancy showed her the entry.

  "This is exciting," Ellen said. "Imagine if I could recover some of Jo's money for my university's museum."

  Nancy reached for the telephone, took a deep breath, and dialed Aria's number. There was a series of rapid clicks, then it started to ring. Nancy let it ring fifteen times before hanging up.

  "No one home," she reported. "But at least the phone is connected. As soon as George gets back, we can pay a visit to rue Poulbot. Will you come with us?"

  Ellen shook her head. "I wish I could, but I have an engagement I can't break. You will keep me informed, though, won't you?"

  "Sure," Nancy promised. She recalled the threatening note she had received at the picnic. "Oh—do you have anything in the handwriting of the students in the program that I could look at?"

  "Why?" Ellen asked.

  Nancy showed her the note and explained how she had received it. "It had to be somebody at the picnic who sent it," she concluded.

  "Hmmm—yes, I think I have something that will help," the professor said. She opened the file drawer in her desk, pulled out a thick folder, and began leafing through it.

  "All the students wrote essays about why they wanted to come to Paris," she said. "I don't think they'd mind my letting you see them."

  Together they leafed through the stack of handwritten essays, pausing now and then to study the note again. Finally Ellen shook her head. "A professional graphologist might be able to say who wrote that note," she said. "But I certainly can't."

  "I can't, either," Nancy confessed. "But it had to be someone at the picnic, and everyone there was from your program."

  "But why would one of our students want to keep you from investigating Jules's death?'' Ellen asked. "You don't really think that Jules was killed by one of our group, do you?"

  "I don't know what to think," Nancy admitted. "Fve been going on the theory that somebody in the program is in cahoots with G.A. and is trying to scare us off the case. But that doesn't mean he or she is a murderer."

  The doorbell rang. Ellen went to answer it "Come in, girls," she said. "Nancy's made an amazing discovery."

  Nancy felt a little superstitious shiver at the professor's choice of words. Wasn't that what Jules had said, not long before he died? It seemed likely now that his amazing discovery was about Giuseppina Aria.

  "Nancy, what is it?" George demanded, rushing into the room with Pam. "What did you find out?"

  Nancy showed them the Minitel screen and explained how she had tracked down G.A. "Who's up for a visit to the rue Poulbot?" she concluded.

  "I am," George and Pam both said instantly.

  Ellen was studying her Paris guide. "I've located the street," she reported. "It's in Mont-martre, not far from the place du Tertre."

  Nancy was startled. "Really? That's where the gallery of that guy Leduc is. I wonder if there's a connection."

  "Let's find out," George said.

  "Good luck," Ellen said as the three girls headed for the door. "Be careful."

  Fifteen minutes later their taxi dropped them at the mouth of the rue Poulbot. It was a narrow street, paved with cobblestones, that sloped steeply downhill, then curved to the left. The houses along it were low for Paris houses, only two and three stories high.

  Nancy led the way to number 37, which was on the downhill side of the street. The outer door was locked, of course. Next to it were three buzzers. One was labeled Mikolajczak, and a second, Simoneau. The third had no name on it.

  "Aria?" Nancy said to her friends. "Let's try."

  She pressed the buzzer and waited. There was no response. She pressed it again. Nothing.

  "Why don't we try the neighbors?" George suggested. "At least we can ask them some questions about Aria."

  No one responded to the other buzzers either. Frustrated, Nancy glanced at her watch and said, "Let's get a snack and come back in twenty minutes. Maybe someone will be home by then."

  The place du Tertre was just up the hill. Nancy hardly recognized it. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, it seethed with people. The crowd was so thick that it was impossible to take more than two or three steps without stopping.

  The center of the square was divided among half a dozen different cafes and restaurants, each with its own distinctive tables and chairs. Standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, Nancy spotted a family just getting up from a table with a yellow and green cloth.

  "Over there,'' she muttered to George and Pam. She dodged a woman with a baby in a stroller, edged around the easel of a sidewalk portrait artist, and wiggled through the narrow aisle to the vacant table.

  "Whew!" George said, after they ordered sandwiches and lemonades./*Who are all these people, and what are they doing here?"

  Pam smiled. "They're tourists, just like us," she said. "And they've come to see Montmartre because they've heard about it all their lives. Toulouse-Lautrec, the Moulin Rouge, all that. But once they get here, what they mostly see is other tourists."

  When the sandwiches arrived, Nancy realized how hungry she was. She hadn't
eaten since brunch. Was that the reason her brain felt sluggish? She was sure that they were practically on the point of solving the case, yet she couldn't see her way out.

  "This is really the pits," George said, when the three had finished their sandwiches. "The solution is probably right over there in that apartment, and all that stands in our way is a couple of locked doors. Too bad we don't have keys for them/'

  Nancy slapped herself on the forehead and exclaimed, 'We do!" She was vaguely aware of people at nearby tables turning to look at her. With an effort, she took a deep breath and continued in a calmer voice.

  "I'm a hopeless idiot,'' she told Pam and George. "Ellen found a ring of keys labeled Aria among Josephine Solo's belongings. I borrowed them from her, and then forgot all about them. They're right here in my pocket."

  George stared at her for a moment, then pushed her chair back. "What are we waiting for?" she demanded, dropping some money on the table. "Let's roll."

  It seemed to Nancy that the crowd had thickened until it was on the point of setting like cement. Muttering 'Tardon''and "Excusez-moi/' she forced her way through to the edge of the square, with George and Pam close behind, then walked faster to the comer of rue Poulbot. At Number 37, she rang Aria's bell again, just to be safe, then tried the larger of the two keys. It worked.

  "Which floor?" George whispered, once they were inside.

  "It was the top buzzer," Nancy pointed out. "Let's try the top floor, then work our way down if we have to."

  The Stairs creaked loudly. At every step, Nancy imagined someone appearing suddenly and demanding to know what they were doing.

  At the head of the stairs was a single door. A card taped to it said Aria. Nancy knocked on the door and waited a few seconds, but there was no sound of movement inside. She used the second key, pushed the door open—and let out a gasp.