Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew (2 page)
Read Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew Online
Authors: The Twin Dilemma
Tags: #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Family, #Models, #Girl Detectives, #Juvenile Fiction, #Girls, #Fashion Shows, #Fiction, #Teenage Detectives, #Fashion, #Mystery Fiction, #Theft, #Stealing, #Siblings, #Twins, #Mystery and Detective Stories, #Teenage Girl Detectives, #Missing Persons
Suddenly, a man in a turtleneck sweater and jeans appeared from behind a screen carrying an empty box. He dumped it on the floor, his face a contortion of rage.
“They’re gone! Every last one gone!” he shouted angrily.
“But what about these?” Marjorie said, touching one of the pastel gowns on the rack.
“Never mind these,” he roared. “They’re the ones the thief left!” With that, he snapped them off the metal hanger and stormed past the two women.
“Mr. Reese!” Majorie pleaded. “Please tell us what’s going to happen. This is Nancy Drew, Jackie’s replacement. She’s all ready to—”
“Forget it!” the designer snapped. “I don’t care who she is. All I know is that my clothes are gone!
2
Design Scoop!
The force of his words made Nancy flinch. She knew it was futile to try to stop the man. He had already ignored Marjorie Tyson and was marching forward, blinded by the puffed sleeves of an organza dress he was clutching tightly.
“Out of my way!” he bellowed at no one in particular.
But it was too late! Bess and George, who had left their seats to talk with Aunt Eloise, were just crossing the room in front of him. He crashed into them, causing them to stumble in different directions. Mr. Reese himself tripped over the metal foot of the rack, and fell headlong into the clothes that hung on it, ripping them off hangers.
“Oh, Mr. Reese!” Marjorie squealed, running to help the man up.
Aunt Eloise and the girls joined her, but he refused their assistance. He sputtered as he tried to get to his feet, then slipped on the hem of a satin skirt and wound up on the floor again.
The young detectives tried to keep from laughing, but the designer heard Bess’s giggle and gritted his teeth. He flung the satin skirt aside, clearing his path at last. When he stood up to face Miss Tyson and Aunt Eloise, he glared at them.
“I should never have listened to Sheila,” he complained.
“Who’s Sheila?” George whispered.
“Maybe his wife?” Bess guessed, as the girls picked up the fallen clothes and hung them on the rack.
“Those don’t belong there,” Mr. Reese snarled, pointing to the four outfits he had held in his arms before he fell. “Can’t you read?”
The sign on the rack said STEINER, referring to another designer in the fashion show.
“Did you want to leave your things on the floor?” a voice from behind them asked.
It belonged to a woman who wore a smock and a pincushion on her wrist that contained plenty of needles.
“And you’re fired, Rosalind!” he growled back, sending the woman into a flood of tears.
“You can’t walk out on us now,” Aunt Eloise begged him.
“What do you mean I can’t? I can and I am.”
“Mr. Reese,” Nancy interrupted in the sweetest tone she could muster, “perhaps I can be of help. I’m a detective.”
He looked at the girl, his expression changing dramatically. He gave a war whoop and laughed loudly.
“Sure. And I’m the Emperor of China!”
Bess and George bit their lips to keep from saying something they might regret later.
“Nancy is a detective.” Aunt Eloise defended her niece.
“Of course, maybe Mr. Reese doesn’t need a detective,” Nancy challenged. “He hasn’t told us yet what his problem is!”
“I’ll tell you what I need—a bodyguard for my clothes!” he stated flatly. “The ones I selected for you, Miss Drew, were taken.”
“Stolen?” George asked.
“Exactly.”
“What makes you so positive they were stolen ?” Nancy inquired. Then, seeing the irritation grow in his face, she quickly changed the question. “Might they have been misplaced?”
“No. I personally rode over here with everything, and up until an hour ago when I had to make a phone call, I did not leave this room.”
As he talked, Nancy walked toward two chairs, leaving her friends to discuss the situation among themselves. By now, the man’s temper had subsided and he followed her, anxious to know her thoughts on the situation.
“It was all Sheila’s idea—my wife‘s,” he said. “She’s involved in practically every charity in New York, including this one. She asked me if I’d mind showing a few of the new spring designs before their official debut. Well, I said I would look over the lot and pull what I could for this show.”
“How many outfits in all?” Nancy questioned.
“In the spring collection or for this show only?”
“For this show.”
“Seven.”
“There were four in the alcove,” Nancy muttered, “so three are missing.”
“That’s right.”
“I still don’t understand, though, how they could’ve disappeared without someone seeing the thief.”
“I can’t figure it out, either.” The designer moaned. “I’ll have to leave that mystery up to you.”
The girl detective had only been in New York a short time and already she had encountered two mysteries—Jacqueline Henri’s strange behavior and the theft of the Reese creations.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Aunt Eloise checking her watch. The fashion show was scheduled to begin in fewer than forty-five minutes, and Nancy wondered how they would compensate for the missing portion of the program.
Richard Reese saw the anxiety in her eyes, cleared his throat several times, and finally spoke. “You’re not Jacqueline, but you’ll do.”
“You mean it?” Nancy gasped in excitement. “You’ll let me model your clothes?”
He nodded, somewhat embarrassed, then regained his composure and ordered her into the dressing alcove.
“Rosalind?” he called out, but there was no response. “Where is she?” he asked Marjorie Tyson.
“You fired her, remember?”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Mr. Reese said. “She knows I have a bad temper.”
Even so, his assistant did not return and another young woman was asked to help out.
“This is Yolanda. She’s one of our stylists and she will help you dress,” the designer announced. “We don’t have much time left and I must fit you before you go onstage.”
It was decided that instead of introducing the program, Nancy would be third.
“Good luck—I mean, break a leg,” George told her friend as she and Bess excused themselves to find their table in the ballroom.
Nancy, however, was busy listening to instructions from the designer and did not hear the girls say good-bye. She was quickly hurried behind the screen in the dressing room and handed a softly ruffled, blue silk blouse and a matching skirt with a short linen jacket.
I hope it fits, she murmured to herself, fastening the skirt waist. It was snug, but not uncomfortable. Then came the jacket over the blouse. The sleeves slid over her arms easily and, to her relief, the cuff length was perfect. She stepped out in front of the mirror, letting Yolanda tug and smooth the clothes until they hung neatly.
“Now the hair,” the stylist said. She pulled a brush out of a pocket and swept it through Nancy’s titian waves. “We want a natural look,” she said as she finished, and then led her to Mr. Reese.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed, then asked Nancy to walk the length of the room. “Just relax,” he told her. “Now turn and come back.”
The grin on his face proved that he was pleased with her performance. A few moments later, he escorted her to the stage, leaving her to wait for her cue.
“The spring season would not be complete ...” Nancy heard the hostess say into the microphone, and she felt someone nudge her onto the runway.
Lights flashed around the ballroom as the girl detective posed in front of the curtain for a few seconds. The hostess, a striking woman in a glittering sequined gown, smiled at Nancy, motioning her to move forward.
“The jacket is reversible,” she told the audience, something Nancy had not even noticed. The girl opened the jacket to reveal the lining and was about to remove it when Mr. Reese suddenly bolted toward the microphone.
“Leave, Miss Drew!” he shouted. “Get off the stage—now!”
Nancy blinked her eyes, momentarily stunned. Surely he wasn’t serious, she thought, and remaining poised, she turned on her heels and walked back to the curtain.
“I am very sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “but I must remove my designs from this program! I have been robbed!”
The hostess quickly cupped her hand over the microphone, begging him to say no more. He shrugged, then grabbed Nancy’s arm and pulled her offstage. “I should never have listened to you,” he snapped.
Nancy stared at him, openmouthed. “What happened?”
Mr. Reese hurried her back to the dressing room and pointed to a large catalog that bore the name Millington.
“Look at it,” he told the girl.
Nancy leafed through the book, unsure of what she was supposed to find. It contained a variety of items, mostly clothing.
“Stop there,” Mr. Reese said as she turned to a page near the end.
By now Bess and George had made their way into the dressing room, wondering anxiously what had caused the latest disruption. Aunt Eloise and Marjorie Tyson, on the other hand, had darted behind the stage to soothe the nerves of the next model.
“I think Reese is a bit daffy,” Marjorie confided to Aunt Eloise. “The way he blows hot and cold, why, it’s enough to drive anyone crazy!”
The designer, however, had not acted on an emotional whim when he took Nancy out of the fashion show. He had a very good reason, which he now explained to her.
“These dresses,” he said, indicating pictures in the Millington catalog, “are copies of gowns I designed for this year’s spring collection. They haven’t even been shown in public yet!”
“It’s not unusual, though, to see copies of originals, is it?” Bess asked.
“No, it isn‘t,” the man replied with a steely glance at the girl. “But usually, and I stress the word usually, copies, or knock-offs, as we say in the industry, appear
after
the originals are shown, not before!”
after
the originals are shown, not before!”
Nancy raised her eyebrows. “You mean, someone actually scooped your designs?”
“That’s right! Now none of my clients will buy my spring collection when they see copies of original dresses on every woman in the country!”
Reese clothing was very expensive, the girls knew, so the designer would probably lose a lot of income as a result.
“Is Millington a retail operation or a manufacturer of clothes?” Nancy asked.
“They’re a manufacturer selling to big retailers all over the United States!” the designer explained. “Now do you see how serious this is?”
“Could you rustle up some new designs to replace the ones that were stolen?” Bess inquired timidly.
“Hardly. They take weeks, months, to create and execute!” Mr. Reese insisted. “No, I’m absolutely ruined!”
3
Stranger“s Story
“But how could anyone get hold of your designs ?” George asked Mr. Reese.
He had collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he kept repeating. “We have very tight security in the office.”
“Maybe that’s part of the answer,” Nancy said.
She was about to inquire into his staff but realized she ought to wait until after the fashion show. The sponsors had lost a precious contribution when the designer pulled out so abruptly, and she was determined to do all she could to reverse the effect.
“Please let me go on,” Nancy begged the man.
“And have these clothes photographed for the Millington catalog, too? Never!”
“But the damage has already been done,” Nancy said. She thrust the catalog under the man’s nose and pointed to a picture of a skirt and jacket that closely resembled the one she wore.
“That’s right,” Aunt Eloise, who was standing in the doorway, chimed in. “Our patrons have paid a lot of money for their tickets, Mr. Reese, and to disrupt every—”
Her voice broke off as tears welled up in her eyes. She started to walk away when Marjorie Tyson strode past her, carrying a message.
“Maybe this will change your mind,” she said confidently.
Mr. Reese glanced at the folded paper with disinterest.
“Please—read this,” the woman persisted.
As he opened it, Nancy could not help seeing that it was a request to buy the same outfit she had modeled only a short while ago.
“Zoe Babbitt is an old customer of mine,” the man mumbled, referring to the signature on the note.
“Then—” Nancy said hopefully.
“Yolanda, get the organza!” Mr. Reese demanded, and the stylist hurried off.
Instantly, Aunt Eloise threw her arms around his shoulders and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You’re wonderful,” she said gaily.
“Oh, stop it,” he replied in embarrassment. “And hurry up!”
“Thank you,” Aunt Eloise said quietly. She and Marjorie followed Bess and George back to the ballroom, leaving Nancy to attend to the next change of clothing.
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