The Scarlet Slipper Mystery (2 page)
Read The Scarlet Slipper Mystery Online
Authors: Carolyn Keene
Tags: #Art Thieves, #Jewel Thieves, #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Girls & Women, #Mystery & Detective, #Dance Schools, #Juvenile Fiction, #Adventure and Adventurers, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Fiction, #Adventures and Adventurers, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Adventure Stories, #Mystery & Detective Stories, #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #General, #Smuggling, #Mystery and Detective Stories
Although Nancy could both read and speak French, she listened attentively as he began:
You will lose your lives if you do not leave this area at once. Do not communicate with any friends you have made in the United States.
When Henri finished reading, Helene burst into tears. “I’m so afraid,” she said. “This is the second note that we have received.”
“Recently?” Nancy asked.
“No,” Henri replied, and he went on to explain that the first note was sent to them in France about eighteen months before. That one had ordered the brother and sister to leave their country.
“Is that when you came here?” Nancy inquired.
“Yes, it was,” Helene answered. Then, looking around furtively and lowering her voice, she added, “The other note also contained a threat. It said that the secret police from our native country were going to kidnap us and take us back there. I’m afraid that’s what this one means.“
“I’m so afraid,” Helene said.
“Isn’t France your native country?” Bess broke in.
“No,” Henri replied. “We are Centrovians.”
“Centrovians!” Nancy exclaimed. “I wonder—”
As she stopped speaking, Helene asked if they had said anything to offend Nancy. The young detective said no. She was just startled because a short time before she had been talking with a man on a plane from New York who was a Centrovian.
“Oh!” the brother and sister cried out, and Henri added, “He was probably the one who left this note! What did he look like?”
Nancy described the man, adding that he was apparently a very nervous, excitable individual. The Fontaines failed to recognize him but were convinced that he was the guilty person.
“If this man is staying in River Heights, I ought to be able to find him,” Nancy said.
The Fontaines begged her to do so. The girls rose to leave and Henri walked to the door with them.
“I have one very special request to make,” he said. “We have never told anyone here that we came from Centrovia. France was our adopted country and we want it to be known that we came from there.”
“I understand,” said Nancy. “But perhaps you should tell me more about what happened and why you left Centrovia. I promise to keep everything confidential.”
Henri related a terrifying tale of how Centrovia had been overrun by enemy forces. Due to the horrors of the occupation, many people had fled to other countries.
“This happened about eight years ago,” the young man explained. “Our parents were among those who found refuge in France. Our name was Provak. When we reached Paris, we changed it to Fontaine.”
Helene took up the story. “My parents—perhaps I should not tell you this—joined an organization that aimed to overthrow those new rulers in Centrovia. But both of them died before anything was accomplished.” Helene pointed to the slippers on the wall. “Those belonged to my mother. She was a famous ballet dancer.”
Henri put an arm about his sister’s shoulders. “Our mother’s death was caused by worry,” he said. “When we fled from Centrovia, another family asked us to take a fortune in jewels with us to be used to help the underground movement. Unfortunately, the new rulers suspected this, and thus caused my parents a great deal of worry by accusing them of stealing the fortune and trying to make them reveal where it was.”
“But they didn’t steal it! They didn’t!” Helene cried out. “The jewels were sold a few at a time to provide money for the work of freeing our people.”
When the Fontaines stopped speaking, Nancy asked if there was any connection between the slippers on the note and those on the wall.
“I don’t know,” Helene answered. “Oh, what do you think we should do? Obey the warning and give up our work here?”
It was several seconds before Nancy replied. Then she said, “Please don’t make any hasty decisions. I’m sure I can help you. Furthermore, my father is a lawyer and I’ll talk to him.”
The Fontaines agreed to delay leaving.
“Surely whoever sent the warning note would not expect you to wind up your business affairs on a moment’s notice,” Nancy added. “In the meantime, I may find a way out for you.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Helene. “You are a true friend and, just think, we have known you only a few minutes. May I call you Nancy?”
The young detective smiled at Helene’s charming old-world manners and said that from now on they would be Helene and Nancy to each other.
“And will you please call me Henri?” Helene’s brother asked, a twinkle in his eyes.
Nancy eagerly agreed.
Bess retrieved her purse and a short time later the girls said good-by to the Fontaines. Nancy promised to get in touch with them the next day.
As they drove along the main street, Bess asked about the stranger in the plane who was from Centrovia. The words were hardly out of her mouth when, at an intersection, a man suddenly stepped from the curb, directly into the path of the car.
Nancy slammed on her brakes so fast that the tires screeched. Instantly the man leaped back to the sidewalk and she cried, “Bess, take the wheel! That’s the Centrovian I met on the plane. I must talk to him!”
Before Bess could object, Nancy was out of the car and hurrying toward the stranger.
CHAPTER II
Mysteries Multiply
As Nancy bounded around the front of her car, the traffic light changed. The automobile in the right lane rounded the corner, cutting off her dash to the curb. By the time she reached the sidewalk, the man she was chasing had disappeared.
Bess parked the convertible and watched as Nancy dodged in and out of nearby stores, looking for the stranger. Finally the young sleuth returned and climbed into her car.
“That man certainly vanished suddenly,” she said. “But I intend to find him.”
Nancy was greatly admired in River Heights because of her unusual ability to track down elusive clues, as well as her courage and quickwittedness.
The girl’s reputation as a detective went back to the time when her father, a prominent lawyer, had turned over to her the case known as
The Secret of the Old Clock.
Since then, Nancy had been engaged in countless adventures. Recently she had finished working on a strange circus intrigue—The
Ringmaster’s Secret.
The Secret of the Old Clock.
Since then, Nancy had been engaged in countless adventures. Recently she had finished working on a strange circus intrigue—The
Ringmaster’s Secret.
Now she was eager to solve the Fontaines’ mystery and was annoyed that the first good lead in the case had slipped through her fingers.
Bess, still at the wheel, drove to her house. She alighted and said she would see Nancy the next day. “Please be careful,” she added as the young detective drove away.
Nancy headed home, a spacious dwelling on a street lined with old sycamores. She parked in the winding, flower-bordered driveway.
As she hurried up the walk to the kitchen door, Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ housekeeper, came out to meet her. Nancy embraced the pleasant-faced woman who had lived with the family since Mrs. Drew’s death many years before.
Nancy’s little terrier, Togo, barked sharply and bounded to greet her. She caught him up in her arms, then turned to the housekeeper. “How is everything? Is Dad home?”
“Things are fine,” Hannah replied. “Here comes your father now.”
At that moment Carson Drew pulled into the driveway. Nancy ran to greet him. He was a tall, handsome man. Nancy loved his pleasant disposition, the twinkle in his eyes, and his keen mind.
During dinner, Nancy told Hannah and her father about her trip. Then she mentioned the Fontaines and their problem.
“It sounds very serious,” Mr. Drew said. “I’d rather you did nothing about this until I consult government authorities on the subject. I’m flying down to Washington this evening.”
Nancy nodded. “But may I search for that mysterious man who was on the plane?”
“All right,” the lawyer conceded, “but be careful. If necessary, get the police.”
After dinner Nancy began telephoning local hotels. But no one known to be from Centrovia was registered at any of them.
At nine o’clock a taxi came to take Mr. Drew to the airport. He had been gone only a few minutes when the doorbell rang.
“Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Boyd,” Nancy said, greeting a slender, gray-haired woman, who was red-faced and seemed upset.
“I want to see your father right away, Nancy.”
“I’m sorry, but he’s not at home. Can I do anything for you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Mrs. Boyd answered as Nancy led her into the living room. “It’s about Mr. Howard, down at the jewelry store. I think I ought to sue him!”
The distraught woman settled down in a comfortable chair. “This morning when I was in the store,” she went on, “I saw a bisque figurine that appealed to me. It was expensive, but I bought it. After I got home, what do you think? There was a long crack in the little statue.”
From her handbag Mrs. Boyd lifted a dancing-girl figurine. Inspecting it closely, Nancy could see a flaw that ran along a fold in the skirt.
“When I saw it,” said Mrs. Boyd, “I took the piece right back to Mr. Howard. And he refused to return my money! He implied that I had damaged the statue after I left the store. Now, what do you think, Nancy? Shouldn’t I sue him?”
The young detective wanted to hear Mr. Howard’s side of the story before answering the question.
“Mrs. Boyd, I think my father will have to decide that,” she replied hesitantly. “But, in the meantime, suppose I take the statue down to the store and talk to Mr. Howard? Perhaps we can straighten this out.”
“Oh, thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Boyd gratefully as she rose to leave. “Maybe you can talk some sense into Mr. Howard.”
The next morning Nancy arrived at the jewelry store soon after it opened. Mr. Howard was standing behind a counter near the door.
Nancy showed him the figurine and told him about Mrs. Boyd’s complaint. Mr. Howard looked annoyed. “I didn’t think that crack was bad enough for me to have to take the figurine back,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” Nancy said. “But it does look as if the figurine had been tampered with, and I’m sure Mrs. Boyd didn’t do it.”
Mr. Howard got a magnifying glass and studied the statue. He admitted that Nancy’s suspicion might be right. With a thin knifelike instrument, he deepened the crack a tiny bit. The figurine fell apart in his hands!
“Well, for Pete’s sake!” Mr. Howard cried. “I wonder if the rest are this way!”
The jeweler went to the rear of his shop, where five other statuettes were standing on a shelf. “Every figurine has the same flaw,” he announced after examining them. “I’ll call the company that sold me these.”
Nancy watched as the jeweler telephoned the New York firm. Finally, he grew pale and said, “You mean you have no salesman named Warte? But he showed me his business card!”
Nancy guessed that Mr. Howard had been cheated by an impostor.
“What am I going to do?” the jeweler cried despairingly, as he hung up.
The young sleuth expressed her sympathy and said she was afraid there was nothing he could do. “What did the man look like?” she asked.
Mr. Howard said the salesman was about five foot eight and pale, with graying hair and deep-set eyes.
“He was some salesman,” the jeweler went on. “He had an accent. He dropped French and German phrases into his conversation. Talked about the figurines as a foreign art dealer might.”
Nancy advised Mr. Howard to notify the police. “I suspect the flaws are not just evidence of poor workmanship,” she said. On a sudden hunch, she added, “Would you sell these figurines to me at a reasonable price?”
Mr. Howard shrugged. “The lot for five dollars.”
“Fine,” Nancy said. “And now, Mr. Howard, will you please take them apart for me?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why?”
“I think we may find something inside one of them,” said Nancy. “Mr. Warte probably wanted to get rid of these figurines in a hurry. The reason may be hidden inside them.”
Mr. Howard halved the first figurine. “Nothing in here.”
The next three bisque dancing girls contained no clue. But as the last came apart, Nancy and Mr. Howard gasped in amazement.
Inside lay a small piece of paper with a number on it. 10561-B-24!
“That can’t be a manufacturer’s number,” Nancy declared. “If it were, it wouldn’t have been sealed inside the statuette.”
Tucking the paper into her handbag, the young detective asked Mr. Howard if he would glue the figurines back together. She would return for them later.
“And don’t you think,” she said, smiling, “that you ought to refund Mrs. Boyd’s money now?”
“By all means,” the jeweler conceded.
Later that day, when Mr. Drew returned from the capital, his daughter told him about the figurines, the impostor, and the strange number. The lawyer complimented her for having settled the matter so quickly and satisfactorily.
Nancy asked her father what he had learned about the Fontaine case in Washington.
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