This Side of Evil (2 page)

Monique shook her head. “Not unless it was the blackmailer.” She gulped. “I can’t pay any more. Maybe he got tired of waiting for me to pay and decided to kill me.”

“How much have you paid altogether?” Nancy asked.

“Hundreds of dollars,” Monique moaned. “Maybe as much as five hundred.”

Nancy shook her head. Five hundred dollars was not that much, really. And there was no reason to believe the blackmailer would gain anything from Monique’s death. “What did the letters say?”

“They all said the same thing: Tut the money into a red plastic bag and throw it in the trash can at Nelson’s Column. If you don’t, your mother will find out that you are a forger and a thief.’ It was so long ago,” she added, “and in another city even. I never
dreamed
anyone would find out about it! I thought I was safe!”

“Why your mother?” Nancy probed.

Monique broke into tears. “My mother is old and sick. News like that could
kill
her!” She looked up imploringly, tears streaming down her face. “You’ve
got
to find the blackmailer, Ms. Drew! My mother’s life depends on it, and so does mine!”

“Have you still got the letters?”

“They’re at home.” She turned her head away, sniffling loudly. “You can have them if you want.”

“What about the bottle of sleeping pills?” Nancy stood up to go.

“The police took it, but I know it was empty.” She turned back toward Nancy and smiled weakly. “If you see Ms. Amberton today, please tell her that I’ll be back at work very soon. And thank her for coming to my apartment yesterday and bringing me flowers. They’re beautiful.”

I guess I’ll have to revise my opinion of Ashley Amberton, Nancy thought as she left the room. Lending money to one of the blackmail victims, bringing flowers to a sick employee. Maybe she wasn’t really as unfeeling as she appeared.

Nancy walked down the front stairs, biting her lip with a puzzled frown. It hardly seemed possible that a blackmailer—any blackmailer—would run the risk of discovery over such small amounts of money. And was it only hysteria, or did Monique have reason to believe that she had narrowly escaped being a
murder
victim?

The chauffeur was waiting outside the hospital to drive Nancy back to the Cherbourg Building. She was silent most of the way, thinking through what she had learned so far. Monique’s story seemed convincing. Nancy was sure she honestly thought she hadn’t taken enough of the sedative to cause any harm. Had someone slipped something else into the bottle?

“I have one more question,” she said, leaning forward to talk to the chauffeur as they wove through the heavy late-afternoon traffic on Université Avenue. “Do you have any idea how the blackmailer could have learned about your drug use?”

Jacques shook his head. “No,” he replied, “but I did spend two years in prison, so I suppose it is a matter of public record.” He hesitated, glancing nervously at Nancy. “I even changed my name from Xavier to Olivier on my application for this job—just to make sure my past was not found out. I don’t know how the blackmailer has managed to trace me.”

“
Merci
,” Nancy replied. “Oh, and one more thing, Jacques. Please be careful.”

“But why?”

“Because at least one person,” Nancy said slowly, “believes that our blackmailer may also be trying his hand at murder.”

In the lunchroom at the Cherbourg Building, Nancy met with the file clerk, Becky Evans. Becky was a nervous little blonde with large frightened eyes. She kept glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody was listening.

“I’ve heard about Monique,” Becky whispered. “Is—is she going to be all right?”

Nancy nodded. “She’s still a little groggy, but she’ll be fine in a day or two. I must tell you, though, that Monique suspects that the medication she took was poisoned,” Nancy said, stirring her coffee.

Becky was staring at her, her eyes dark with fear. “Poison?” she whispered.

Nancy nodded. “There’s no way to be sure, at least not yet. But you should be careful.” She took out her notebook. “Now, what can you tell me about the blackmail letters you’ve received?”

“I’ve gotten three of them over the last six months,” Becky said, swallowing hard. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she pulled out an unopened envelope. “And here’s the fourth.” She thrust it into Nancy’s hands. “This was in my mailbox when I went home for lunch today.”

Nancy examined it closely. It was a plain white envelope, postmarked in Montreal. “How do you know it’s from the blackmailer?”

Becky pointed at the typed address. “Because it looks just like the others. It’s addressed to Rebecca Veronica Evans, and I
never
use my full name. Besides, it doesn’t have a return address. You open it. I just can’t look.”

Nancy opened the envelope and carefully unfolded the single sheet of paper. It was a blackmail letter all right, but it wasn’t for Becky. It was for somebody named Annette LeBeau!

“Just a reminder that it’s almost time for the third installment,” the letter said. “So you can start getting the $20,000 together. If you don’t pay, all your fans will know that you kept Dutch Medina out of jail, where he belongs.”

Nancy quickly folded the letter. She hoped her face didn’t betray her surprise as she turned back toward Becky. “I suppose you’ve kept the letters,” she remarked in a deliberately casual voice.

The girl nodded. “I’ll bring them in tomorrow and leave them with Ms. Amberton.”

“One more question,” Nancy said. “Do you have any idea how the blackmailer found out about the theft and the sentence you served?”

“I don’t have a clue,” she replied bitterly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. This last letter—and Monique’s poisoning—are the
last
straw. When this is over, I’m going to quit my job and get out of Montreal for good!”

After Becky had left, Nancy sat for a few moments, thinking. She had her first real lead now. The blackmailer had made a careless mistake in mixing up the letters. It proved that Ashley Amberton had been right when she said there might be other victims. But who
was
Annette LeBeau, and how could she afford to hand over sixty thousand dollars? Nancy read the letter again. The blackmailer mentioned her
fans
. Was she a movie star?

On the way back to Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy looked at her watch. It was only four o’clock, plenty of time. She stopped at a pay phone and called the apartment. Ned answered.

“I hope you’ve had enough sightseeing,” Nancy told him, “because there’s work to be done. I need you to run over to the
Journal
morgue and find out everything you can about Annette LeBeau and Dutch Medina.”

“No problem,” Ned agreed. “Are you on to something already?”

“I think so. It looks like our blackmailer has expanded his territory,” Nancy explained. “He might even be getting into murder. I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

“Speaking of tonight,” Ned said, teasing her by speaking in an exaggerated French accent, “I’ve found a great little place for dinner—a
romantic
dinner just for two.”

Nancy giggled. “Sounds terrific, Nickerson,” she said. “But don’t forget about George.”

“Right,” Ned said with a resigned sigh. “Dinner for three.”

In Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy reported what she had learned from the blackmail victims.

“Do you think Monique really tried to kill herself?” Ashley Amberton asked.

Nancy shook her head. “You’d know that better than I would, but I’d say that her fear is genuine. She really thinks somebody tried to kill her. Of course, it is possible that she just got sleepy and forgot how many pills she’d taken.”

Ms. Amberton sat down in her leather chair. “I don’t like it,” she said, tapping her red nails on the desk. “This is getting serious.”

“There’s more,” Nancy went on. She opened her purse and took out the letter she had gotten from Becky. “Do you know somebody named Annette LeBeau?”

Taking the letter, Ms. Amberton scanned it quickly. Her face became clouded with concern. Then she picked up a remote control and snapped on the TV.

“This isn’t small-time blackmail anymore,” she said, flicking across the channels. “This is the big time.” Just then the face of an attractive, vivacious blonde filled the screen. The camera zoomed back to show that the woman was holding a microphone in her hand. With her was a man whom Nancy recognized as the prime minister of Canada.

“That,” Ashley Amberton said, putting down the remote control, “is Annette LeBeau!”

Chapter Three

“
I
THOUGHT THIS
was going to be a quick, simple case,” George said at dinner that night. Nancy had just told her and Ned about her afternoon’s work. George stabbed a bite of Cafe Renoir’s famous spinach salad. “And here we are, up to our eyebrows in crime already. Four blackmailings, one attempted murder—”

“Hey, not so fast,” Nancy warned, finishing the last of her shrimp. George loved to solve mysteries almost as much as she did—the more the merrier. But it never hurt to be careful. “Let’s not leap to any conclusions. We don’t know for sure that somebody actually tried to kill Monique.
She
claims it’s true, but it may not be.”

“Yeah,” Ned agreed in his usual, cautious way. “Maybe she actually
was
sleepy and just lost count of her pills.”

Nancy turned to Ned. “What’d you dig up at the
Journal
this afternoon?”

“ ‘Dig up’ is right,” Ned said, pulling out a notebook. “It looks like there’s plenty of dirt in this case.” He tore out a couple of pages and handed them to Nancy. “Annette LeBeau, as you already know, is a prominent TV personality up here. Sort of a cross between a gossip columnist and an investigative reporter. She makes a lot of money finding out who’s up to something dirty and then tattling on them.”

George grinned. “Sounds to me like an ideal blackmail victim. Poetic justice, you might say.”

“What about Dutch Medina?” Nancy asked.

“The plot thickens. Medina, it turns out, is a big-time mobster, a real creep. The police have been after him for years, but he’s slick, and they’ve never been able to pin anything on him.”

“According to the blackmail note,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “Annette LeBeau kept Dutch Medina out of jail.”

“So,” Ned said, “things are getting a little more complicated. Looks like we’ve jumped from bargain-basement blackmail up to the real thing.” He took a bite of his broiled fish. “I wonder what Annette LeBeau is like.”

“Well, we’ll know tomorrow,” Nancy told them. “I’ve got an appointment with her at eleven—courtesy of our not-so-friendly client, Ashley Amberton.”

“Why ‘not-so-friendly’? What’s she like?” George asked eagerly.

“Brisk and businesslike,” Nancy replied. “If it weren’t for the flowers she took to Monique and the money she’s lent Jacques, I’d say she was as warm as an Arctic glacier. Now, who knows?” She grinned and pulled out the typewritten blackmail notes she had collected. “How about an assignment for the two of you?”

“Sure,” George agreed with a shrug. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to get to run in Olympic Stadium, anyway. The track’s there, but it turns out that it’s covered with Astroturf most of the time. They only uncover it for track meets. So, what do you have in mind, Nancy?”

“Typing detail,” Nancy said, spreading the notes on the table in front of them.

“Oh, I get it.” Ned picked up one of the notes and studied it. “You want us to check out the typewriters and letter-quality printers at Cherbourg Industries, to see if the blackmail notes were typed there.”

“You got it,” Nancy replied. “I’d say that these notes were all typed on a typewriter rather than done on a word processor. Anyway, it’s possible that the blackmailer is connected with Cherbourg since three of the victims are company employees. We need samples from all the machines in the building—and that’s going to take quite a while. You’d better polish up your typing skills.”

“ ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,’ ” Ned murmured, flexing his fingers.

George gave Ned a disdainful glance and laughed. “Speaking of parties,” she said, leaning toward Nancy and Ned, “how about trying out that club down the street? Chez Soda, it’s called.”

“Sounds like a winner to me,” Ned said enthusiastically. He carefully refolded the notes and put them in his pocket. “Especially if there’s dancing,” he added. “Maybe I’ll even get to put my arms around my favorite girl for a while.” Ned flashed Nancy a grin.

“Sure,” she said a little absently. She was already preoccupied with thoughts of her interview with Annette LeBeau the next morning. How would Annette feel, being the target of somebody else’s questions for a change?

But after an hour at Chez Soda, Ned’s arms tight around her and his lips against her cheek, Nancy had nearly forgotten Annette—and the case, too. And George had discovered that she could get along fine in Montreal without speaking French.

“All I have to know how to say is
oui
,” she said when she got back to the table after a slow dance with a cute French guy.

Nancy shook her head, laughing. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that saying
oui
too much could get you into trouble?”

George flushed. “Yes,
Mom
,” she said teasingly.

Chuckling, Ned reached out to squeeze Nancy’s hand. “How about another dance?”

And Nancy was delighted to say, “
Oui
.”

At the television studio the next day, Nancy met Annette LeBeau. The newswoman was in her dressing room, getting ready to film an interview with a suburban chief of police on the problem of crime in his area. She was just putting the final touches on her makeup.

“So, you’re Nancy Drew,” she said, turning away from the mirror to look at Nancy curiously. “I’ve heard about you. You’re supposed to be some sort of hotshot supersleuth, aren’t you?”

Nancy smiled. “I’ve had a few successes,” she said modestly.

Annette turned back to the mirror and began to brush on mascara with expert strokes. “So, what do you want with me?” she asked. “Ashley Amberton said it was urgent.”