Nancy Clue Mysteries 2 - The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (40 page)

Cherry, who knew Nancy's gems better than anyone, gasped when she trained the spyglass on the crowd of socialites hanging on Mrs. Meeks's every word. She was able to identify most of their accessories.

"I'm going up there and snatch that brooch off her suit," Cherry declared angrily.

"No, don't," Mr. Donald implored.

"Why not?" the girls chorused.

"Because Nancy may need some insurance," he said mysteriously. A mischievous grin spread over his handsome face. His green eyes sparkled with delight. "I think I've got the perfect plan," he whispered. "Midge, Jackie, George, I may need some muscle on this. You interested?"

"And how!" they cried. Just then Micky Meeks slipped into the bench beside them. "Hey," she said softly. "I hear it's all over town about the Chief and Nancy."

"Good job, Micky," Midge praised their new chum.

"Want to do another job?" Mr. Donald asked with a sly grin. Micky nodded eagerly.

"Go persuade your mother to go to the ladies' lounge," Mr. Donald directed. "Tell her her slip is showing. That will send her off in a panic," he chuckled.

Micky eagerly obeyed. Soon Mrs. Meeks was racing out of the courtroom, gingerly holding the hem of her skirt.

"The Leading Lady exits," Mr. Donald said with delight.

The girls exchanged puzzled glances. Something very exciting was going to happen; but what?

"Now, girls," he said to Cherry, Velma, and Bess. "I'll need to borrow your cosmetics." They gladly turned their compacts and lipsticks over to their friend, who stowed them in the pocket of his white canvas summer slacks. A matching white duck smock brightened by a lime-green neck scarf tied in a gay knot at his throat completed Mr. Donald perfect-fora-summer's-day ensemble.

"Let's go," he said to Jackie, Midge, Micky, and George, with a twinkle in his eyes. The grin lighting up his handsome face told the girls they were in for a delightful surprise! They raced out of the courtroom.

"All rise."

The spectators eagerly jumped to their feet. Nancy was led to her table from a side door and sat down next to Defense Attorney Gerald Gloon.

The girls could scarcely keep their minds on the courtroom drama at hand, so curious were they about Mr. Donald's plan. They soon stopped wondering about Mr. Donald, however, when Attorney Gloon stood up and declared, "The defense rests, your honor."

Everyone gasped. He hadn't cross-examined any of the prosecution's witnesses that morning, and now it looked as if he wasn't planning to call any of his own! Why, it was practically unheard of! "That's it?" Bess cried. "The trial's over? Just like that?" An excited roar raced through the courtroom. The bailiff spent several minutes restoring order.

"Sit down!" Judge Milton Meeks ordered. Just then, Mrs. Milton Meeks raced into the courtroom with Midge, Jackie, George, and Micky right behind.

But where was Mr. Donald?

"I've got something to say," Mrs. Meeks stated as she clutched her purse to her bosom and gasped for breath.

"No, I've got something to say! " Nancy said suddenly. The courtroom grew still.

Nancy turned around in her seat and searched the gallery until she found her friends. "Did you get the letters?" her glance asked. Bess nodded and pointed to her purse.

Nancy stood and ripped off her mask and wig, revealing her true identity!

"It's not Hannah at all; why, it's Nancy Clue!" everyone gasped in alarm. Matrons fainted; somewhere outside a dog began to howl.

"What a story!" Miss Gladys Gertz cried from the press gallery as Miss Mannish snapped Nancy's picture. "Stop the presses!"

"What is the meaning of this?" Judge Milton Meeks pounded his gavel. "Order in the court. Sit down, I tell you. Sit! " Once a semblance of order had been restored, Judge Meeks pointed his thick wooden gavel at Nancy and declared, "You've got quite a bit of explaining to do, young lady! The first order of business is to determine the location of the real murderess!"

A hush fell over the courtroom.

Nancy broke the silence: "She's right here in the courtroom, your honor."

The spectators looked around the room with dread. Was Hannah hiding somewhere in their midst?

"She must be in disguise!" a man cried out. People began peering at one another in suspicion. "It could be anyone," a woman replied. "Oh, horrors!"

The courtroom again dissolved into general mayhem.

"Let her speak!" someone shouted.

Nancy took a deep breath. Her next words were perhaps the most important of her life. She had waited years for this moment. She wanted to make sure she said it just right.

"I killed Father!" she blurted out.

"What?" everyone cried in alarm. "It just can't be!"

"But it's true! " Nancy cried. She told them the whole sordid story, sparing no detail.

"I have a secret; a secret I've kept for many years," Nancy began in a low tone. Everyone crowded close to hear with the young sleuth had to say. A murmur spread through the crowd. "Nancy? A secret?"

Nancy put up her hands to quiet the court. Her voice was shaky, but her words rang loud and true.

"It was only to protect me and my secret that Hannah confessed to the murder," she said dramatically.

"My father was not who you thought he was," Nancy revealed. "To you he was a civic leader and a respected attor ney, but in his own home he was a bully," she paused for a moment, "and worse!"

"Worse than a bully? How can that be?" someone cried.

"He forced me to do things!" Nancy exclaimed. "At night. In my bedroom." She shook in anger. There was a fire in her eyes.

"Go, Nancy," Midge murmured. She squeezed Velma's hand.

Everyone recoiled in horror as it became clear Nancy was talking about something so monstrous, so evil, there were scarcely words to describe it. "Don't tell us any more," someone gasped.

"No, I must!" Nancy cried.

She struggled to continue. "I would awake in the mornings and tell myself I'd had another bad dream. But they weren't dreams at all. What happened to me was all too real!

"After a few years, Father stopped coming to my room, and I thought it was all over. I did my best to forget and after a while I even believed, sometimes, that I had made the whole thing up. That it had been a bad dream.

"But it all came flooding back one dreadful day when I found Father in the back yard behind the lilac bushes paying particular attention to the neighbor girl.

"When I saw him with that little girl, I knew I had to do something! I ran and told Hannah, and when she threatened to report him to the proper authorities, Father attacked her!"

Nancy trembled when she remembered the sight of the elderly, gray-haired housekeeper pinned in the strong grasp of her angry, evil father. "I was so afraid he really would kill her, I ran to the den to telephone someone, anyone, and that's when I spied father's hunting rifle on the gun rack above the mantle. I grabbed it and raced back to the kitchen.

"I had no intention of shooting him," Nancy explained earnestly, adding, "I thought I could... could... scare him into releasing her. But I must have pulled the trigger, because the next thing I knew, he was lying on the floor, right in front of our twodoor Goldenrod Frigidaire. And there was blood everywhere."

Bess clucked in sympathy. "They redecorated the kitchen just last summer, and Hannah was so proud of the way it looked," she whispered sadly.

"I threw some frocks in a bag and headed for San Francisco to start a new life. But I found I couldn't! I had to come home and tell the truth.

"And I'm not sorry I shot him," Nancy cried out angrily.

"I'd do it again!"

There was not one sound in the courtroom save the surprising, soft sobs coming from Mrs. Milton Meeks. Then an angry murmur started.

"How can you possibly think we'd believe such loathsome libel about our beloved Carson Clue?" a man cried from the back of the room.

"You shouldn't have come home, Nancy Clue!" someone joined his protest. "You should have stayed away and kept your filthy lies to yourself!"

"Wait! I have the evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what my father truly was!" she cried. "Letters written in his own hand. Letters whose contents would sicken and shock any decent person's sensibilities."

"How could evidence of this nature possibly exist?" someone demanded.

"I'll tell you how, if you only let me!" Nancy retorted. "One summer, while I was away at Camp Winnebago, father wrote me letters revealing his feelings for me. Although he didn't sign them, anyone who knew him will surely recognize his bold, slanted penmanship," she added hastily.

"I was so afraid someone would see these dreadful letters," Nancy confessed. "I was tempted to throw them in the bonfire at the nightly weenie-roast, but I changed my mind and when I returned home, I hid them in the false bottom drawer of my hope chest, where they sat for years. Until now." Nancy turned an eager eye to Bess. She held out her hand. "The letters please," she said.

Bess opened her purse and handed Nancy a packet of letters. When Nancy unfolded one so she could present it to the court, a queer look crossed her face. She caught a glimpse of the words, "Darling Rebecca," written in the girlish penmanship of her Aunt Helen Clue. "Oh no, Bess, these are another mystery!" Nancy half-smiled as she handed the packet back to her chum.

"Oops," Bess giggled nervously. She gave Nancy the correct bundle.

Nancy triumphantly waved the letters around the courtroom. "Who wants to read them?" she cried. "These prove everything I just told you."

The crowd pulled back. No one wanted anything to do with the sordid missives. "What about you, Mrs. Meeks?" Nancy exclaimed bitterly. "Surely you want a peek at these. I know you don't believe me, Mrs. Meeks."

"I do believe you, Nancy Clue!" Mrs. Milton Meeks cried out suddenly. The crowd gasped as River Depths' most influential and respected matron jumped up and hugged Nancy to her ample bosom. Nancy's chums gasped. What had happened to Mrs. Milton Meeks to make her change her tune? Sudden tears came to Nancy's eyes.

Mrs. Meeks took a hankie from her black alligator bag and wiped Nancy's tears. "There, there, dear," she comforted the crying girl. "Mrs. Meeks will make it all better." Nancy looked gratefully at the transformed matron. But to her great surprise, instead of Mrs. Meeks's beady little blue eyes, Mr. Donald's sparkling green eyes-the kindest she had ever seenlooked back. Mr. Donald winked.

Mr. Donald straightened his skirt and adjusted his bosom. He cleared his throat, and when he opened his mouth, the voice of Mrs. Meeks came out.

"I've seen those letters with my own eyes, don't ask me how. I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you they're every bit as disgusting as Nancy claims!" he cried. "And, what's more, anyone who doesn't believe her can just leave town as far as I'm concerned. After all the good Nancy's done-exposing horsetheft rings, finding stolen heirlooms, ridding more than one mansion in this town of a ghost-I'd think you'd all rush to her defense. Nancy deserves our utmost sympathy and deep respect, and no less!"

He hiked up his fitted, straight skirt and sat down. He was so angry, the veil on his cloche hat was all askew. He hastily straightened it.

Judge Meeks dropped his gavel in alarm. Had Mrs. Meeks gone mad?

"I have something to add to that, Myra," Mrs. Tweeds declared as she rose to her feet. The crowd buzzed with excitement. Mrs. Tweeds was the head of the Ladies' Auxiliary, the second most influential society woman in River Depths, and Myra Meeks's best girlfriend. What could she possibly have to add to the perplexing puzzle?

Mrs. Tweeds was too overcome with emotion to speak for a moment. She appeared ready to faint. Cherry accepted the call to duty and raced to her side with a jar of smelling salts. "Thank you, my dear," Mrs. Tweeds said softly. "I certainly don't deserve such kindness after the way I treated you girls the other day," she murmured. Then she took a deep breath.

"I have something terrible to confess, too," she cried. "I know Nancy is telling the truth about her father!" She held up a hand to silence people's protests. "Late one evening, many years ago, I barged into the Clue house with a casserole in hand, and found Mr. Clue," she stopped for a moment to steady her voice, took a deep breath, and whispered, "somewhere he shouldn't have been.

"I was so frightened, I ran out of that house and didn't go back for years. I'm ashamed to say I never told anyone what I had seen. Who would have believed me, anyway?" she cried to the crowd.

"Would you?" she pointed to a businessman in a gray flannel suit. He hung his head in shame.

"I say we put an end to this terrible injustice right now, dismiss all charges against kindly housekeeper Hannah Gruel, and beg Nancy's forgiveness for ever doubting her story," Mrs. Tweeds proposed.

"But she killed her father," the row of townswomen chorused in unison. "And for that, she must be punished!"

Mr. Donald walked up to the women, all the while fingering the horseshoe brooch pin over his right bosom. "I love your new jewels, girls," he purred, in Mrs. Meeks's high, reedy voice. "They're so unusual. I haven't seen anything like them in the shops in town. You'll have to let everyone in on your little secret!"

"We've changed our minds," the matrons cried. "Set Nancy free!"

Midge had to grin when she saw the women furtively rip off their jewelry and sneak it into their purses.

"Set Nancy free! Set Nancy free!" became the cry of the crowd. The citizens of River Depths surged around the young sleuth and offered their sincerest congratulations.

"I don't believe this," Bess whispered in relief. "This is almost too good to be true."

Midge jumped out of her seat. "I'd better untie the real Mrs. Meeks," she grinned. She paused in the doorway of the courtroom to reflect on the amazing events she had just witnessed.

"Who would ever have guessed the truth that could be uncovered by one man in a dress?" Midge shook her head and smiled.