Nancy Clue Mysteries 2 - The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (21 page)

Nancy carefully hoisted herself through the window. "Are you all right?" she asked Midge.

Midge groaned. "Yeah," she grumbled, helping Nancy off the table. "I hit my head, but it's okay. Velma always says it's the hardest part of my body," she grinned.

A creaking noise from the room directly above them startled the two girls. "It's Hannah!" Nancy cried excitedly.

"Who's there?" a deep, harsh voice demanded. "I've got a gun and I'll shoot!" The footsteps grew louder.

"That's not Hannah!" Nancy cried. "Whoever it is, he's coming this way!"

Before the girls could find a hiding place, the basement door swung open. Light streaming in from the upstairs threatened to give them away. They took cover behind stacks of old newspapers tied in tidy bundles and piled almost to the ceiling.

"I'll bet it's the same man who threatened me over the telephone," Nancy whispered, her ire raised. She picked up a jar of Hannah's homemade marmalade and took aim.

"Reveal yourself," the sinister voice demanded. But the girls stayed hidden. "All right, I'm coming after you," the voice snarled.

The light snapped off. It seemed like hours before their captor began his descent. Although the girls couldn't see a thing in the dark basement, a slow shuffling sound from the direction of the staircase alerted them to his movement.

"The bottom step squeaks something awful," Nancy whispered. "Wait for that sound; then pelt him with these jars." Midge nodded and quietly gathered up jars of marmalade. She wanted them to be close by if one round wasn't enough!

A sudden sharp click made Nancy jump. "He really is armed!" she thought fearfully as she recognized the sound of a gun being cocked.

The soft shuffling noise grew closer. "Any second now," Nancy thought, holding her breath, waiting for the creak of the bottom step that would alert them to the stranger's presence.

Suddenly, a small furry animal raced over Nancy's foot, causing her to jump in alarm. Her flashlight fell out of her pocket and hit the cement floor. A thin beam of light flashed on just long enough to reveal the feet of the approaching stranger.

Nancy gasped in horror, for the light revealed muscular, hairy legs shod in brown leather slippers-her father's slippers!

"He's alive!" she shrieked, before fainting right into Midge's strong arms.

The overhead light burst on, and Midge was delighted to find their stalker was a handsome, dark-haired girl with short wavy hair and a shocked expression on her face. And right behind her was a curvy blonde clad in pink flannel pajamas and bunny slippers. The ears on her slippers quivered as she raced down the stairs.

"Oh, Nancy! " the girls cried in unison. The dark-haired girl slipped off her plaid bathrobe and covered Nancy, who was out cold.

"What have you done to her?" the blonde cried in alarm. "And who are you?"

Midge knew immediately who they were. Why, Nancy had spoken many times about her closest chums. "You must be Bess and George," Midge grinned. A sudden pounding at the front door interrupted their introductions. "That's the rest of our gang," Midge explained.

Bess trembled with fear. "You're part of a gang? You kidnapped Nancy, that's why she's been gone so long. You have, haven't you?" She jumped behind her chum. "Honey, do something," she fretted.

The brunette looked Midge square in the eyes. "Who are you, and how do you know our names?" she demanded in a gruff voice.

Midge quickly explained her presence in the Clue basement. A relieved grin broke over the brunette's handsome face. She put out her hand and gave Midge a hearty handshake.

"There's tons more to tell," Midge added. "But let's get Nancy someplace more comfortable and let the others in before they wake up the whole neighborhood." She scooped up Nancy and carried her up the stairs to the comfortable couch in the Clues' attractively furnished living room.

By the time they opened the door and let in the rest of the girls, Nancy was beginning to revive. Nancy laughed in relief as she spied George. "I'm all dizzy with happiness!" she exclaimed. "George, for a minute there, when I saw you on the stairs, I thought you were ...well, never mind. I'm home and I'm safe, and that's all that matters! Oh, Bess and George, how I've missed you! " she cried, throwing her arms first around Bess, an attractive plump girl with a soft halo of white-blond hair, then around George, a handsome girl with a tomboy's disdain for feminine apparel.

The three chums had been thick as thieves since their first meeting seventeen years earlier at Miss Margie's Ballet School. Although George was eventually asked to leave the school when she refused to don a tutu for her part as a sugarplum in a school production, the trio had been inseparable ever since and had solved many exciting mysteries together!

"And here's Gogo!" Nancy exclaimed happily as a little white terrier raced into the room and jumped onto her mistress. The perky little dog covered Nancy's face with kisses.

"We've been taking care of her since Hannah called us at Lake Merrimen after the murder. And we've been worried sick about you," Bess scolded her wayward chum. "Where have you been? Why didn't you call us?"

"I'll tell you everything later," Nancy promised. "But now I must see Hannah. I know I really shouldn't wake her, but I'm so eager to see her! I'll bet she was thrilled when Chief Chumley let her out of jail! Hannah, I'm home! " Nancy cried, joyously jumping off the couch.

George and Bess exchanged puzzled glances. "Hannah's in jail, Nancy," George said softly. "Charged in the murder of your father. Jury selection for her murder trial begins later today."

Nancy looked stunned. "I know that!" she cried. "But I thought ...I mean, Chief Chumley promised me he would..." was all she could gasp out before falling back on the couch in deep swoon. Bess watched in alarm as Cherry pinned on her cap and efficiently took Nancy's pulse. "Why does Nancy have a nurse with her?" Bess asked. "Oh, she's not sick, is she?"

Cherry assured them that Nancy would be just fine. "She's had an awful fright and needs some rest," she explained. Midge and George carried Nancy to her attractive, blue and white second-floor bedroom, leaving her in Cherry's capable hands. "I'll take over from here," Cherry declared as she unzipped her chum's frock and loosened her undergarments.

While Cherry tended to her patient, Bess and George explained their presence in the Clue house.

"A couple of nights ago the house was burglarized. When we heard about it, we decided to stay here to prevent further breakins," said George.

"When we moved in, I found Nancy's lovely old hope chest on its side, and the sweaters she stored in there strewn in untidy heaps all over the floor. I set everything in order," Bess added. "I didn't want Nancy coming home and knowing someone had been in her bedroom."

"Yes. Then we had all the locks changed. We tried to scare you away because we thought you were the thief," George interjected.

"What did the police say?" Midge asked.

"Well, since it appears nothing was taken, there was no major investigation," George replied.

"For the life of me, I can't figure out what the thief was after. The Clues have many lovely and expensive things, and nothing is missing," Bess mused. She then sighed in relief. "Golly, I was so scared when we heard that noise in the cellar, I shot right out of bed, didn't I honey?" she turned to George, who grinned and put an arm around Bess's plump waist.

"Yeah, you shot right out of bed and ran and hid in the closet," George teased. Bess blushed. It was a well-known fact that George was the bolder of the two.

"I was simply deciding which pajamas to wear," Bess explained unconvincingly. "If we were going to catch a crook, I wanted to do it dressed!"

George shot her a delighted grin, but then her grin faded and she grew solemn again. "Why did Nancy think Hannah would be here?" she wondered. "Hasn't she read a newspaper in the last two weeks? They're full of stories about Hannah."

Midge quickly filled them in on the events of the last week and a half. "So Nancy did go to San Francisco as reported," Bess said. "That's where she met that nice nurse!"

"We didn't know whether to believe news reports that said she had been working a case there," George explained. "We don't know what to believe anymore. The newspapers are reporting the existence of iron-clad evidence against Hannah, but we know that she couldn't possibly have committed murder!"

Velma nodded. "When Nancy heard that, she called the Chief and..."

"...and gave him information that would allow him to release Hannah and drop all charges," Midge finished, purposely keeping her information vague.

"So that's why Nancy thought Hannah would be here!" George cried. "What could Nancy have told him to make him release Hannah?" she wondered.

"How much do you know about this case?" Midge asked Bess and George.

"You tell it, honey," Bess shivered.

George started from the beginning. "The day Nancy's father was shot, we were at our cabin at Lake Merrimen. We got a frantic telephone call from Hannah. She was so upset that at first we could barely make out what she was saying."

Bess picked up the story. "She made us promise to tell the police that Nancy had been with us that day. She begged us to lie, saying it was a matter of life and death. But before we could question her, she hung up."

"We'd do anything for Hannah, so we agreed," George blurted out. "The minute the police were through questioning us, we started looking for Nancy. That's all we know," George said sadly. "Mr. Clue is dead, and poor Hannah is languishing in the River Depths jail. We've scoured this house looking for clues to the real murderer, but haven't found a thing," she added miserably. "We just know that evidence leading to the true killer must be in this house somewhere. There must be someone Carson Clue crossed, someone angry enough to exact revenge at the point of a gun!" She jumped off the couch and paced about. "It looks like Hannah is going to stand trial for murder, and there's not a thing any of us can do about it!"

"Why, Hannah is incapable of harming anyone!" Bess cried out.

"Even creepy old Mr. Clue," George added, half under her breath.

Midge and Velma exchanged a knowing glance. "What do you mean by that?" Velma asked.

"Ignore George," Bess said lightly. "She's got some strange idea that Mr. Clue was, well, a little odd."

Midge glanced at Velma. Should they tell Bess and George the real circumstances surrounding Carson Clue's death?

But before they could speak, Lauren, who had been busy playing with Gogo all this time, took care of that. "Nancy killed her father!" Lauren blurted out. "Now, what do you have to eat in this house? Golly, I'm hungry."

"There's some yummy deviled eggs in the refrigerator and half a chocolate cake on the kitchen table," Bess said, pointing Lauren toward the kitchen. When Lauren was gone, Bess exclaimed, "Golly, where'd you get her? The very idea; saying Nancy killed her father! Why, she must be so lightheaded from hunger, she's imagining things. Why, Nancy would never, ever... "

But Bess stopped talking when she saw the expression on Velma's face. She gasped, and put her hand over her mouth. "You mean, it's true? Nancy really did kill her father?"

"It was justifiable homicide," Velma said hurriedly.

"He deserved it," Midge stated firmly. "He did unspeakable things to Nancy!"

"I knew he was too perfect to be true," George said, springing up from the couch and pacing around the charmingly decorated living room. "There was always something suspicious about that man," George shuddered. "He was a little too attached to Nancy, if you ask me."

Bess shivered. "He had a penetrating glance that always made me feel like he could see right through my clothes," she admitted. "I never said anything to Nancy about it because I didn't want to upset her. Besides, I thought I might be imagining it."

"He was always commenting on your outfit or hairstyle," George remembered with anger.

"Once when I was eleven, I could have sworn I saw him peeking at me through a crack in the cabana at the country club while I was changing into my swimsuit," Bess recalled. "When I opened the door, I bumped right into him."