Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew (14 page)

“The building’s on fire!” Nancy cried out.

Rosalind made noises through her gag, trying to indicate a spot on the wall where several overalls hung on a hook. Nancy removed the garments, and found a key hanging behind them.

With shaking hands, she inserted it into the lock. To her great relief, it worked!

Instantly, the girls pulled Rosalind to her feet, took the gag out, and dragged her along out the door. Tongues of fire were lapping over the racks of clothing, spreading quickly and threatening the group’s escape.

Nevertheless, they hurried on bravely. The young detectives covered their mouths and kept their heads low. Rosalind, however, allowed the rising heat to bite her face and the smoke to settle in her throat as they ran toward the entrance.

Flames had torn through the door by now and the girl could not get out without being injured. Nancy looked for another exit, but none seemed to exist!

Would they all be consumed by the fire?

As the frightening thought occurred to everyone, a blast of water suddenly shot through the door. Then another blast, and another!

The girls quickly ducked out of range, knowing the pressure of the deluge could sweep them back into the raging flames.

“Are you all right?” Nancy asked Rosalind, whose eyes were flooded with tears.

The woman gulped back the smoke in her mouth, coughing hard, and nodded.

Then a man kicked in the door and called for them to come out.

Nancy’s eyes were smarting, but she clearly saw Ted Henri near a fire truck. He and Pete Grover were talking to police officers who had laid handcuffs on Woody, Frank, Belini, and another man whose back was to Nancy.

When she stepped in front of him, she gasped. “Mr. Iannone!” she cried.

“He was the go-between at the Millington Company,” the reporter explained as someone slipped Nancy’s cloak over her shoulders.

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “And what were you, Mr. Ted Henri, alias Chris Chavez?”

“Then you knew—”

“Of course! I admit I didn’t figure out the ruse right away, but when I ran into the real Chris Chavez, and Bess and George overheard your conversation with Jacqueline, not to mention the one I overheard between you and Belini, I figured it all out.”

“Including the Galen Kaiser story?”

“That’s right. My friends went to check the mug shots for the man who turned out to be the real Russell Kaiser, and found instead a picture of your friend Pete Grover over here!”

“Pete Grover?” Ted stared at Nancy, then at his companion.

“I do look like him, don’t I?” the man asked with a grin.

“Are you telling me you’re not Pete Grover, who’s wanted for check forgery in California?”

“No. That’s my cousin. I’m Alan Grover, and I work in the garment industry. That’s why Ted asked me to help him on this case. He needed an inside man.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nancy apologized.

“That’s all right.” Grover smiled. “A pretty girl like you can make a crook out of me any day.”

“How did you know about Galen Kaiser?” Nancy asked quickly, hiding her embarrassment.

“Oh, I read his obituary. Then, when the real Russell Kaiser started to bid on the medallion that had belonged to his uncle, I put in a coun terbid to attract your attention. I figured he really wanted the piece, and I wouldn’t be taking too much of a risk competing for it.”

Nancy chuckled. “That’s what I thought, until I almost had to part with several hundred dollars!”

George and Bess, who had been explaining to the police about Rosalind’s capture, now came up to the group.

“It wasn’t very nice to send us on a wild-goose chase,” George said to Ted, drawing a sigh from the man.

“I know. I’m sorry, really I am,” he replied, and dug his heels into the gravelly soil. “If it weren’t for you, Nancy, I might never have wound up this story.”

The girl bit her lips in a smile.

“The fact is,” Ted continued, “I heard about your visit to the Millington office.”

“Am I right that Rosalind went to work there after she left Reese Associates, then quit Millington, along with Mr. lannone?”

“Yes. She was afraid you’d find out too much too soon. Obviously, she didn’t want you to poke around Millington, figuring you would discover information about her deal with Ian none.”

“I gather that they were using this pier building as a drop for clothes—smuggled imports, mostly—which would be sold to a dress house like Millington. Since they were smuggled, there were no export taxes to pay.” Nancy laughed. “So they were priced lower than clothes made by manufacturers in the States.”

“You really do amaze me, Nancy,” Ted said admiringly. “Anything else I ought to know?”

“Just that I heard a boat outside the building, and I have a hunch that the two guys who tied me up inside the warehouse are on it.”

“We saw the boat,” Bess put in quickly. “It headed out into the river.”

Nancy advised her and George to report their observations to the police while Ted Henri nodded his head.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” he said, “I think all the accolades belong to you, Nancy.”

“Well, I still haven’t figured out everything,” she said, striding toward the prisoners who were about to depart in two patrol cars.

At the same moment, she noticed a man emerge from a darkened taxi several yards away.

“The meter’s still running,” he said, “and nobody’s even thanked me.”

“For what?” Nancy asked.

“For calling the police,” he replied. “Your friends stayed in that building a bit too long to suit me. I was too chicken to go in after them myself, so I buzzed my radio and somebody sent the cops. Good thing, too, ‘cause they swarmed on those guys just as they started to set the fire.”

“Well, we all thank you,” Nancy said, giving the man a big smile. She then turned to Rosalind who was seated next to Belini in the back of the police car. “I have only one question,” she said. “If you had such a good thing going with sales of cheaper merchandise, why did you steal Mr. Reese’s designs and gowns? It seems to me you were trying to ruin his business.”

“I was.” Rosalind sneered. “He was so terrible to my sister, Paula Jenner. She had worked for him for years and then—poof—he fired her. She needed that salary badly and he took it away for no reason at all.”

“But you know the man has a volatile temper,” Nancy said in Reese’s defense.

“Even so, I was determined to get back at him. He has made life miserable for a lot of people, including me.”

Nancy recalled how the woman had cried openly when the designer had screamed at her the night of the fashion show.

“Did you sell any of his designs to Chalmers?” the girl questioned.

“Yes. Arnaud Hans agreed to use them. But he modified them a lot. There’s such jealousy and competition between the men that, as much as it pleased him to scoop the designs, he wanted to change them.”

As the woman revealed her story, Nancy felt pity for her and Arnaud Hans who, despite his natural talent, would lose the esteem he had earned over the years simply because of envy and greed.

The patrol cars began to move forward, and Ted Henri turned to Nancy. “Would you and your friends like a lift home?”

Bess and George accepted gratefully, while Nancy chuckled. “Are you going to figure out a way to get rid of us again?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t trust me.” The reporter grinned. “After all, how could I share my by-line in the newspaper with you if you were to disappear? I do mean to give you the credit you deserve, Nancy Drew!”

Before they left the area, Bess and George had offered to pay the taxi driver several times the amount on the meter, but he refused.

“This trip was on me, girls,” he said. “I’m just happy that you’re all safe. Here’s my card,” he added, “in case you need another ride some day.”

George laughed. “We promise it won’t be anything like this one!” she exclaimed, running to Ted’s car.

On the way back to Aunt Eloise’s apartment, Bess mentioned Jacqueline. That prompted Ted to explain the events of the first night he had met Nancy. When she heard that he had suspected her of being planted by the crooks, she laughed.

“This sure is an initiation for me,” she said.

“Into what?” asked Al Grover, who sat next to her.

“Into the inner workings of a New York reporter’s mind!”

Aunt Eloise was asleep when the girls arrived, and they waited until morning before they told her about their adventures at the West Side pier.

“Oh, how awful!” Miss Drew exclaimed when she heard everything. “Your father will never forgive me, Nancy!”

“Maybe I’d better call him,” Nancy said with a chuckle. “I don’t want him to read about it in the newspaper!”

Before she had a chance to dial, however, the police captain phoned to inform her that the men on the boat had been caught. “That winds up the case, Nancy,” he concluded. “You did a wonderful job. Your dad will be proud of you.”

Nancy giggled. “He doesn’t know what happened yet. I was just about to call him.”

Mr. Drew was amazed by his daughter’s story. When she finished speaking, he said, “You’d be interested to know that the name Kaiser appeared in a news article today.”

“Russell Kaiser?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes. Seems to me it was in a syndicated column, so you’ll find it in the New York papers. I have to hurry for an appointment, so we’ll talk about it later.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

When her father hung up, Nancy asked Aunt Eloise for the morning newspaper. She scanned it and quickly discovered a small headline, which read, KAISER GETS THE LION’S SHARE! Excited, Nancy read the story out loud:

“‘An unusual medallion was acquired by Russell Kaiser during an auction of Speers, Limited. It came from the estate of Russell’s uncle, Galen Kaiser, and bore the family crest—a lion.

“ ‘The medallion appeared to have no great value, but Russell Kaiser, who had been out of the country when the estate was turned over to the auction house, remembered a story his uncle once told him.

“ ‘Galen Kaiser had bought a magnificent black opal during his world travels. Later he was told that opals were known to bring bad luck and that they should never belong to anyone not born in the month of October since its lucky gemstone is the opal. After some misfortune, Galen Kaiser hid the stone and did not look at it again. When he died without a will, no one in the family found the opal.’ ”

“Because it was hidden in the medallion!” Aunt Eloise broke in gaily.

“That’s right,” Nancy said. “ ‘And it was only when Russell Kaiser went to the preview exhibit at Speers and saw the medallion with a small, boxlike clasp on the back of it that he realized the stone might be concealed inside.’ ”

“No wonder he kept bidding!” George said.

“And to think Nancy almost won it,” Bess said, a bit dejected.

“I’m not disappointed at all.” Nancy smiled. “We couldn’t have afforded any bad luck on this mystery!”

When Mr. Reese heard the girls’ story later, he couldn’t have agreed more. “You all deserve medals of honor,” he declared, “and a special celebration!”

“Even though your dresses were ruined last night?” Nancy replied. “You know, Rosalind made me put on an old cotton one so she could take the one you gave me to wear, but it was destroyed, too.”

“My dear,” the designer said, “what’s a little silk and taffeta worth compared to your well-being and that of your friends? I owe so much to each of you and hope you will never ever have such a dangerous experience again!”

He did not realize, of course, that Nancy would soon begin a treacherous hunt through Europe in search of the
Captive Witness.

“On the contrary.” Nancy giggled. “My goal is to be a
model
detective!”