The Mysterious Image Read online

  “I appreciate your time and courtesy in talking to me, Mr. Stratton,” the teenage sleuth said politely. “But some new information has come up that makes me think it would be worthwhile to know more about each of the layouts that Dallas Curry is accused of copying. In the case of that Knights of the Round Table furniture ad, Mr. Ted Yates was in charge of preparing the layout, is that right?”

  After a pause, Stratton replied with a curt yes. “Then could you tell me something about Mr. Yates, please.”

  There was another pause. Then Stratton said, “Miss Drew, I’ve already told you that a copy of that layout was stolen by someone who broke into my agency. The break-in was definitely an outside job, and no one in the firm had anything to do with it. I’m certain of that. Therefore, I see no reason to discuss Mr. Yates with you, especially since our charge of ethical misconduct is already under review by the Advertising Council. If you’ll excuse me now, I’m a busy man.” With a curt good-bye, he hung up.

  Nancy heaved a rueful sigh and pressed the cut-off button to get another dial tone. Her plan of attack was off to a limping start and had just run into a blank wall. Nevertheless, she proceeded to dial the New York number of Marc Joplin, Inc.

  Unhappily, this call met with an even colder response. Not only did the president of the agency refuse to tell Nancy anything about Oliver Snell, his attitude was downright hostile. When she tried to convince him that her only interest was in finding out the truth about the mysteriously copied layouts, the executive snapped, “The fact remains, Miss Drew, your father is the opposing counsel in our pending lawsuit. The proper place to settle this dispute is now in a court of law—and that’s precisely what we intend to do. Good-bye.”

  Undeterred, Nancy phoned the third advertising agency, Darby & Wallace, which was actually the first one she had called on in New York. The firm’s executive vice-president, Mr. Knapp, was as polite and open as he had been on Tuesday. Nancy was grateful for this, even though she realized this might be at least partly due to his regret and embarrassment over Rick Hyatt’s unpleasant behavior.

  “How can I help you, Miss Drew?” he asked.

  Nancy explained, as she had done on her two previous calls, that she was trying to find out more about the copied layouts and the person who had created them.

  “Meaning, in our case, Roscoe Leff?” Mr. Knapp inquired.

  “Yes, sir. Has he always worked for Darby & Wallace since he entered the advertising business?”

  “Yes . . . well, that is, except for one short period a couple of years ago,” Knapp corrected himself. “He left briefly to try and start up an

  agency of his own, but it didn’t work out.”

  “What happened?” Nancy asked.

  “Well, he had high hopes of landing the Murdo Chemical account. That one account would have earned him a sizable profit and put his agency into the big time in one fell swoop . . . but unfortunately it didn’t work out. So he soon came and asked for his job back with us,” Knapp explained.

  “I see.” Nancy asked him several more questions, then thanked him and said good-bye. Frowning thoughtfully, she put down the phone. What she had learned from her calls was very little. Still, any lead was worth following up.

  Her train of thought was interrupted as she heard someone rapping on the front screen door. Then George Fayne’s voice called out excitedly:

  “Hey, Nancy!. . . Wait’ll you hear the news!”

  17. Secret Images

  Nancy hurried to let her friend in. “What’s up, George?” she asked.

  “Plenty! I just had a call from Pete Domek, and he says your hunch was right, Nancy!” “Something was inserted in the video tapes?”

  “Yes. He’s already spotted about half a dozen weird frames that have nothing to do with the rock videos, and he’s not even through analyzing the tapes.”

  Nancy proposed eagerly, “Can we go and have a look at what he’s found?”

  “I was afraid you’d never ask,” George said with a chuckle. “Let’s go!”

  The two girls hopped into Nancy’s car, which was soon whizzing toward Riverview College.

  Pete Dornek greeted them as they came into the TV studio and led them to his workroom. “I’ve taken all the inserted frames that I’ve discovered so far,” he explained, “and recorded them on a separate tape. I think they may give you quite a shock, Nancy.”

  He flicked several switches and dials on his complicated control board and pointed to one of the monitor screens. Both Nancy and George gasped at the lettering that appeared on the screen:

  DALLAS CURRY IS A CHEAT AND A THIEF!

  Again Pete flicked a switch and a new frame appeared. This one said:

  DALLAS CURRY STEALS OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS!

  A moment later, he switched to still another frame:

  CURRY IS GUILTY—GUILTY—G U I L T Y ! !

  Nancy’s heart beat faster. Even though she had expected the tapes to reveal something like this, now that the evidence was vividly on display before her very eyes, she found herself almost breathless with indignation and anger. “This is really mean and contemptible!” she exclaimed. “What a vicious, underhanded way to ruin someone’s good name!”

  The thought that her own opinion of Dallas Curry had been influenced in this way made Nancy even more upset.

  George heartily agreed. “Whoever did this is sick!” the dark-haired girl declared.

  “Well, that’s not all,” said Pete Dornek, “although the frames you’ve just seen are the most shocking. All those, by the way, were inserted in the video tape you received, Nancy—and there are probably more that I haven’t spotted yet. But the inserts are totally different in the cassettes you got from Curry. Those are both pictorial. I don’t even understand them, but you probably will.”

  He now showed a picture of knights in armor seated at a round table—the second advertising layout that Dallas Curry was accused of copying.

  “About eight or nine frames just like this were inserted in one of the tapes,” Pete commented.

  Then he flicked a switch to show another frame on the monitor screen—this one portraying models’ faces superimposed on flower blossoms in a garden. This was the layout that had brought on the lawsuit.

  “I found this picture cropping up again and again in another of Curry’s tapes,” said Pete.

  Nancy sighed and shook her head. “I can still hardly believe it, but this certainly makes it clear how Dallas Curry got into trouble.”

  For example, after Curry played the first video cassette repeatedly, Nancy explained to Pete and George, the Knights of the Round Table image would be deeply imprinted in his subconscious mind. “So if he were assigned to create an ad for a furniture manufacturer,” she went on, “this is the idea that would naturally occur to him!”

  The same method had been used to trick him into copying the cosmetics layout with the models’ faces superimposed over flower blossoms.

  “Do you think this evidence will be enough to clear him?” George Fayne asked excitedly.

  “I hope so,” Nancy replied. “Dad will be able to answer that question better than I can, of course. But I’m not going to stop there, anyhow, George. I intend to find out who’s responsible for this whole mean, heartless plot!”

  Pete Domek by now was thoroughly caught up in the excitement of Nancy’s mystery case. He promised to finish analyzing the suspicious tapes even before he went back to editing his own tape of last night’s rock concert.

  “The job takes time,” he added. “I have to play over each tape, bit by bit, in slow motion and then freeze-frame each insert so I can record it on a separate tape. But I should be done by tonight.”

  “Thanks ever so much, Pete,” said Nancy. “Your help is really important in cracking this case!”

  George had a tennis date with her boyfriend, Burt Eddleton, at four-thirty that afternoon, so Nancy dropped her off at the Faynes’ house before returning home. After parking in the driveway a few minutes later, Nancy was su
rprised to find Pamela Kane waiting in the living room.

  “Hi, Pam!” the titian-haired teenager greeted her. “This is certainly a pleasant surprise. Have you turned up a new lead on Clare’s disappearance?”

  “No, but I‘ve been doing a lot of thinking, Nancy, since we talked earlier this afternoon. I’m more convinced than ever that Oliver Snell is involved somehow!”

  Nancy stood facing her blonde visitor and pondered her emphatic remark. “And you base this on the strength of what you’ve already told me—that he and Clare dated, and you found his number among her things?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” asked Pamela. “Who else do we know who’s more likely to have been in touch with her just before she vanished?”

  Nancy nodded slowly and mused aloud, “Yes, you may be right about that.” In any case, she had already decided that she would have to return to New York if she hoped to find out who—if anyone—at the three advertising agencies was behind the plot to frame Dallas Curry.

  Now, it seemed, Pamela was pressing for an immediate confrontation with Oliver Snell. “What exactly do you have in mind?” Nancy asked her.

  “I’d like to meet him and talk to him as soon as possible. Could you possibly arrange for the three of us to have lunch?”

  Again Nancy nodded, after a moment’s thought. “Yes, perhaps. At any rate, there’s no harm in trying.”

  “Then please try, Nancy!”

  “Very well.” Nancy went over and sat down by the living room phone, and proceeded to dial Oliver Snell’s direct office number, which Pamela had brought along in her purse.

  When Snell answered and heard Nancy Drew’s voice at the other end of the line, his manner became frigid. “Mr. Joplin has told me about your call earlier this afternoon, Miss Drew. Surely you understand why I’d better cut this conversation short right now and hang up.”

  “Yes, I do understand, Mr. Snell,” she said calmly. “But something new has come up, which may be very important—and in all fairness, I think you should have a chance to tell us your side of it.”

  “Who is ‘us’?”

  “A young lady named Pamela Kane. It appears that you and she have a mutual friend.” “And who might that be?”

  “I think I would prefer to let Miss Kane tell you that herself,” Nancy replied. “Are you free for lunch tomorrow, Mr. Snell?”

  There was a brief, strained silence. Nancy could sense his conflicting emotions, even over the phone, with curiosity warring against suspicion and resentment. In the end, curiosity won out. “All right,” he said sullenly. “Where would you like to meet?”

  “Any place that you think would be convenient and suitable, Mr. Snell. After all, you know the restaurants in midtown Manhattan better than I do.”

  “Hmph. Very well.” Snell named a restaurant, suggested they meet at twelve-thirty, and hung up curtly.

  Nancy put down the phone and turned to Pamela with a smile. “All set,” she said. “Terrific, Nancy!” Pamela said and beamed. By the time Carson Drew arrived home that evening, Nancy had had a further report on the video tapes from Pete Domek. He said he had found more insert frames like those he had already shown Nancy and George, but no photos of the Statue of Liberty layout. Nancy told her father the encouraging news.

  “That’s amazing, my dear! It’s the best news I’ve had since Dallas Curry asked me to take his case!” Mr. Drew enthused. “In fact, if we can persuade Professor Jaffee to testify about subliminal perception as an expert witness, this might just be enough to win the lawsuit. Of course, our case would be even stronger if we knew who was behind the plot.”

  “That’s the next thing I’m working on, Dad.” Nancy told him what she had learned from the president of Darby & Wallace about Roscoe LefFs unsuccessful attempt to win the advertising account of Murdo Chemical. “It’s not much of a lead, but it’s a chance to find out more about Leff. You’ve handled several legal assignments for the Murdo Chemical Corporation, haven’t you, Dad?”

  “Yes, their main plant’s just over in Hillport, you know, and the head of the company often lunches here in River Heights. That’s how I came to meet him in the first place.”

  “Could you arrange for me to meet him?” Nancy asked.

  “Hmm . . . yes, I can certainly try, dear . . . though it goes without saying that he’s a very busy man.”

  Nancy was content to leave it at that, knowing that Carson Drew’s legal services were highly valued by all his clients. She felt sure that the head of the Murdo Chemical Corporation would do his best to oblige the distinguished attorney.

  Meanwhile, tomorrow’s lunch with Oliver Snell might prove highly interesting!

  The next morning, as Nancy was eating breakfast, she heard Hannah Gruen chatting with the mailman at the front door. A few moments later, the kindly housekeeper came into the dining room with the morning mail.

  “Anything for me, Hannah?” Nancy asked over the rim of her coffee cup.

  “Yes indeed, dear ... a rather important- looking package!”

  18. A Pair of Enemies

  Nancy eagerly took the package from Hannah. It was a sealed, manila envelope, and she guessed its contents at once after seeing the sender’s name in one comer: PROF. H. JAFFEE, PSYCHOLOGY DEPT., ASHTON UNIVERSITY.

  Her guess was confirmed when she opened the envelope and read the note inside.

  Dear Miss Drew:

  Here is the material on subliminal perception that I promised to dig up for you. I trust you’ll find it interesting and helpful, but if you need any more information, please don’t hesitate to call on me.

  Sincerely yours,

  Hugh Jaffee

  The note was clipped to a number of technical articles about subliminal perception, obviously photocopied from various professional journals.

  Nancy was sure she would find them interesting and looked forward to reading them. They might be just what was needed to clinch Dallas Curry’s innocence in the minds of a judge and jury.

  But at the moment, Nancy had little or no time to spare. She was due to pick up Pamela Kane at the Fyfes’ house on Possum Road soon after breakfast and then drive to the River Heights airport. The two had arranged to take a short commuter flight to New York City.

  “By the way, I’ll be gone overnight, Hannah,” Nancy said as she set down her coffee cup and dabbed her lips with a napkin.

  “Oh dear, we’ll miss you,” Hannah said, pausing on the way to the kitchen. She was trying hard not to sound like a worried parent, although Nancy knew that the motherly housekeeper always did worry when she was away overnight.

  “I shan’t be alone,” Nancy said, bobbing up from her chair to give the housekeeper a fond hug. “I’ll be going with Pamela Kane, so we’ll be able to keep an eye on each other.”

  “Where will you be staying, dear? With your Aunt Eloise?”

  “Probably not. Pam said she’d make reservations for us, so I’ll phone from New York and let you and Dad know.”

  “Be sure you do, now—please, Nancy!”

  “I promise, Hannah.”

  Nancy scampered upstairs to shower and dress. Half an hour later, after slipping a few things into an overnight bag, she left the house with a final kiss and wave to Hannah Gruen.

  By eleven that morning, she and Pamela Kane were ensconced at the Drury Lane, a small, inexpensive hotel in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, where Pamela had evidently stayed before. While her companion freshened up and reapplied her makeup, Nancy phoned home to River Heights to tell Hannah where they had registered.

  Forty minutes later, the two were embarking by taxi for the restaurant that Oliver Snell had named. The midtown traffic was heavy as always at this time of day. Even so, it was not yet twelve-fifteen when they reached the restaurant.

  Somewhat to Nancy’s surprise, Snell had already arrived and was waiting for them at a secluded corner table. He rose to greet them with a curious glance at her companion.

  “Pamela, this is Mr. Oliver Snell,” Nancy in
troduced them, then murmured in turn to the agency art director, “Miss Pamela Kane. She’s from California and is visiting here in the East.” “I see,” said Snell as they shook hands. He added when they were seated, “I understand that you and I have a mutual friend, Miss Kane.”

  “That’s right,” Pamela said with a challenging smile. “Clare Grant.”

  A look of astonishment passed over Snell’s face. “The young actress who disappeared!” As he spoke, his astonished look changed to an expression that Nancy couldn’t decipher. Was it puzzlement or relief, or possibly just one of wary interest?

  Nancy said, “Pamela tells me that you and Miss Grant were quite friendly at one time.” Oliver Snell frowned. “I’ve taken her to dinner once or twice, if that’s what you mean.” “Clare and I are old friends,” Pamela remarked. “In fact, we shared an apartment for a while in Los Angeles. After Clare came back East, we kept in touch and had long phone chats two or three times a week. She often talked about you, Mr. Snell . . . and from what she said, I certainly got the impression that you had many more dates than just taking her out to dinner once or twice.”

  Pamela spoke in an almost accusatory tone, and Snell’s face took on an irritable flush. “On one of those dinner dates, Miss Kane, I took Clare to a Broadway show. Another time, we attended an agency party and ended up having dinner together. If we had any more dates than those two occasions, I don’t even remember them.”

  The conversation was interrupted as a waiter came to take their orders. Afterward, Nancy tried to ease the tension by changing the subject and chatting about lighter topics, such as current Broadway plays she had read about, and one that Ned Nickerson had taken her to see at a matinee performance.

  Later, as they began eating lunch, when she felt that Snell was sufficiently relaxed and off guard, Nancy said suddenly, “Have you ever seen that Statue of Liberty fashion ad that Dallas Curry is accused of copying from a Darby & Wallace layout?”