025 Rich and Dangerous (12 page)

George and Bess looked at each other, then at Nancy. They were all speechless. Carson shook his head.

“Awfully childish, if you ask me,” he muttered, brushing the dust from his suit. Suddenly he stopped and looked hard at his daughter. “This isn’t a joke, is it?” he asked, peering into her eyes.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I’ll explain everything later.
Right now, I can’t. I’m
this
close to solving the case.” Nancy’s palms almost touched.

Carson looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Just take care of yourself, will you?”

“I will,” Nancy promised.

“And by the way, here’s the information you wanted from Interpol.” Carson drew an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Nancy. She opened it and began reading with intense concentration.

“Hmmm,” she murmured, nodding her head slowly.

“I hope it helps,” said Carson, with more than a tinge of fatigue. “I had to sweat blood to get it. Interpol usually reserves case histories for registered members of police forces.”

“Dad,” said Nancy, looking up and tucking the papers back into the envelope, “I can’t thank you enough. This is great, really. Now, I know this is a bit much to ask, but—”

“Hold it right there,” said Carson, putting up a hand and shaking his head. “If you’re going to ask me to go back and get you more information . . .”

“Just one or two more things, really, Dad,” begged Nancy. “I’m so close, so close!”

Carson took a deep breath. “Sometimes I wish I had become a baker. That way if you got involved with my business—”

Nancy looked up from the table where she was
writing down her request for information. “Dad,” she said soberly, stopping his thought. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

“I know,” said Carson. “Give me the request. FU see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Nancy, hugging him and stuffing the paper in his suit pocket. “When you’re old and gray, I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”

“Never mind that.” Carson laughed, rising tiredly to his feet. “Just promise me you’ll make our matinee Sunday. We’ve missed one show already.”

“I wouldn’t miss this one if my life depended on it,” Nancy said, planting a quick kiss on her father’s cheek.

“Bye, girls,” he said, going to the door. “I’m going to see if I can wake anyone connected with Interpol. Be careful. All right?”

“Promise,” said Nancy, already planning her next move.

• • •

The minute the door closed behind him, the three girls took up their positions. Bess and George had been in some pretty tight situations with Nancy, so remaining still and quiet wasn’t so bad, except that it gave them time to consider what a terrifying thing they were doing.

An hour went by, and still nothing had happened. The three friends began to grow uncomfortable
and nervous in the darkness of the room. Only the shadows thrown by the city lights gave them any sense of where things were in the room.

Nancy couldn’t help worrying. This was her last chance to catch her quarry. If the killer didn’t rise to the bait, all her work would have been for nothing. Sarah Amberly’s killer would get away, and Nancy would have to go back to River Heights empty-handed.

But time was running out. Nancy knew she couldn’t ask George and Bess to hang around much longer. They were frightened, and they had good reason. If the murderer
did
show up, the odds were he’d be armed—and they knew it.

Bess kept sniffling and blowing her nose. The dust from the netting was getting to her. George was bearing up somewhat better, but Nancy knew that her friends’ patience was wearing thin. This wasn’t their idea of a good time in New York City.

To pass the time, Bess started to tell a ghost story. It was one she’d heard around the fire at camp, a long time ago. Then George told one, and then Nancy. By the time midnight rolled around, their nerves were jumping.

“What was that?” screamed Bess, when a window rattled in its casing. The others nearly leaped out of their skins. They were walking a razor’s edge, and the tension was high.

“Nancy, come on.” Bess sighed. “Can’t we just
forget the whole thing? I mean, this is the Big Apple! There’s one huge party going on down there, and we’re missing all the fun!”

“Bess has a point, Nan,” agreed George. “This doesn’t exactly seem to be panning out. Can’t we—”

Suddenly the girls fell deadly silent. A floorboard had creaked outside—someone was coming!

“I sure hope it isn’t my dad again,” whispered Nancy.

“What do you mean?” said George, her jaw tight with terror. “If it’s not your dad, then—”

Their eyes fell to the doorknob as it started to turn. It clicked, and the door creaked slowly open.

Just then, just when they had the killer in their grasp, Bess leaned back and sneezed the biggest, noisiest “kerchoo” in world history.

As quickly as the door had opened, it shut again, and running footsteps sounded down the hall.

“Bess!” said George angrily. “How could you?”

“Never mind that!” said Nancy. “After him!”

Throwing down the net, the girls ran into the hall, making for the elevator bank. They got there just in time to see a raincoated figure duck into a closing elevator.

“He’s heading for the lobby! Come on!” yelled Nancy. The girls ducked into the next elevator.
Bess pushed
L
about a hundred times. Nancy leaned against the wall of the car and gathered her strength as they headed down.

“I’m
so
glad I wore my running shoes,” said George, looking down at her high-heeled pumps with a weak smile.

Nancy tried to smile back, but she was too tense. Her heart racing, she peered up at the elevator indicator making its way from the penthouse to the lobby. The antique brass markers seemed to crawl.

And when the doors opened on the seventh floor to admit a party of Japanese sightseers, her heart almost stopped. After what seemed an eternity, the three friends finally poured out of the elevator into the lobby, looking around for their quarry.

“We couldn’t have missed him!” George said, more in hope than in confidence.

“But which way did he go?” asked Bess. “The Plaza exits let out on three different streets.”

It was Nancy who noticed the swirl of khaki material in the glass revolving doors. “There!” she cried. Once outside, the three girls watched as the figure sprinted up to the hansom cab parked beside the curb on Fifty-ninth Street.

They saw him push aside the stunned carriage driver, who landed on the pavement. The figure in the raincoat hopped into the driver’s seat, cracked the reins, and took off, heading into the park. The driver picked himself up and started
shouting and running after his cab in hopeless pursuit.

Nancy and her friends weaved through the careening traffic, waving their hands up over their heads and ignoring the red Don’t Walk sign.

“Sorry!” yelled Bess at the irate drivers who blew their horns at them in a rhythmic city cacophony.

Another hansom cab was parked across the street. Its driver was standing on the curb, a cup of coffee in his hand, shocked that someone had stolen a cab.

“Cab!” called Nancy.

“Are you available?” asked Bess as they ran up to him.

The driver looked over, obviously trying to decide what to do. Should he follow the other cab or take this fare? “Sure, honey. Hop in.” So saying, he turned to tell the chauffeur of a stretch limo what had happened.

Nancy watched the other horse-drawn cab disappear into Central Park. “Please, sir—we’ve got to hurry!” she cried.

“Just a minute, just a minute,” he said.

“We don’t
have
a minute!” George yelled, climbing into the driver’s seat as Nancy and Bess clambered into the passenger seat.

“Hey! What are you girls doing?” screamed the driver.

Nancy turned back and shrugged. “Sorry, it’s
an emergency!” With that, George cracked the reins and they were off.

The
clip-clop
of the horse’s hooves turned to a fast gallop. Nancy and Bess had to hold tight to the edge of their seats to keep from falling. But George had done it—the other cab was in sight.

“Stop!” Nancy yelled at the top of her lungs as they pulled closer. “Stop!”

The intruder in the first cab turned to see how close they were, and in that moment George was able to gain on him, cutting the distance between the two carriages in half.

Around the scalloped curves of Central Park Drive they went, dodging angry motorists who swerved to avoid them. At Eighty-third Street, where the great gray bulk of the Metropolitan Museum loomed up out of the night, the girls’ cab pulled up almost beside the lead carriage.

Thinking quickly, and acting even faster, Nancy climbed over a stunned Bess and opened the low door of the cab. “Wish me luck!” she shouted, before taking a flying leap.

“Nancy—
No!”
Bess cried out, too late. In horror, she watched as Nancy grabbed hold of the other cab just in time to avoid falling and being crunched under the rear wheels and those of the oncoming traffic.

Nancy climbed to the roof of the cab, unnoticed by its driver, who was intent on making his getaway.

Finally, with lightning speed, Nancy pounced, landing a karate chop to the base of the driver’s skull. He slumped forward, letting the reins go limp.

Instantly, to stop him from falling, Nancy grabbed the unconscious driver with one hand and reached for the reins with the other. She pulled the horses to a halt at the side of the road.

Bess and George drew up just in front of them and ran to where Nancy was bent over the limp figure. They strained to see better as Nancy removed the oversize hat, revealing the face of Pieter van Druten!

Just then, the wail of a police siren split the night, and an officer came running, his gun drawn.

“What in the world is going on here?” he cried.

“Take us to the Plaza Hotel, officer,” said Nancy, rising to her feet. “We’ve just caught a murderer!”

A
LL RIGHT,
M
ISS
Drew, now suppose you just start at the beginning and tell us what this is all about.” Detective Ritter, his eyes baggy and his face pasty from hours of wakefulness, glowered at everyone—except the detective and uniformed officer from New York’s police force.

George and Bess sat on easy chairs in one corner. Behind George’s chair stood Jack Kale, his hand on George’s shoulder. On an ottoman in the other corner sat Alison Kale, and next to her, Nancy Drew, who now prepared to tell her story.

“She assaulted me, officer!” shouted Pieter van
Druten to the police detective. “I want to press charges to the full extent of the law!”

“This man poisoned Sarah Amberly, and killed Maximilian, too,” said Nancy gravely, rising to her feet and indicating Pieter. “I’m sure of it.”

Ritter looked at the police detective and got a nod to continue before he walked over to Nancy. “Go ahead, let’s hear how you came to this so-called conclusion of yours.”

Nancy took a long, deep breath. Convincing Joe Ritter was going to be even harder than netting Pieter van Druten had been.

“I felt he was threatening from the first,” she began, pacing the room to clear her head. “The way he snapped at Maximilian, the way he tried to control Sarah . . . When she died, I suspected Pieter immediately.

“The problem was, it seemed as though he couldn’t have done it. I mean, Bess and George and I saw him at Trump Tower, right about the time the murder was committed—”

“Unbelievable!” gasped Pieter, his pale eyes flashing with hatred. “You saw me there yourself, and yet you have the absolute gall to accuse me—

“Hold on, buddy. Why don’t you let her finish, and then you can yell your head off, okay?” snapped Ritter, his patience thin. He seemed to feel it should have been
him
explaining things,
not Nancy, and he wasn’t at all comfortable with his position as a part of the audience.

“So,” continued Nancy, “at first I didn’t think he could have done it. That left two possibilities —Jack Kale and Alison Kale.

“Both of them had reasons for killing Sarah Amberly. She had threatened to disinherit Jack, and she’d quarreled with Alison just the night before. No offense, but both of them are, well—a little unstable, and both of them had plenty of opportunity to give her the overdose.

“Every piece of evidence pointed to one or the other of them—the stolen ruby ring and jewelry box, and the note of Alison’s that I found, the one that said ‘Kill—Kill—Kill—’ ”

“Wait a minute!” Ritter jumped to his feet. “You never told me anything about that. I ought to turn you in for obstructing justice!”

“If you’ll just wait a few minutes,” said Nancy calmly, “I think you’ll change your mind about that.”

Scowling more than ever, Ritter took his seat again.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Nancy resumed, “all the evidence pointed toward the Kales, and away from van Druten. But I just didn’t feel right about it somehow. Sarah herself had told me, whatever happened, not to blame Alison. And everything I found out about Alison after that made me agree with Sarah.” Nancy glanced over
at Alison, who looked up at her, her grateful face red with embarrassment.