The Mysterious Mannequin (6 page)

Authors: Carolyn G. Keene

BOOK: The Mysterious Mannequin

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“She’s lived in this neighborhood for many years.”

Nancy rang the bell of Mrs. Beimer’s apartment and a pleasant-looking woman came to the door. The girl smiled and said she was trying to find the mannequin that used to be in Farouk Tahmasp’s window. “Have you any idea where she was taken?”

Mrs. Beimer shook her head. “Please come in,” she said and led the way to her living room. She motioned Nancy to a chair near a front window.

In the conversation that followed, Nancy learned that the mannequin had never been left in the window overnight and at times it did not even appear in the daytime. Her costume was often changed.

“I thought this might be some kind of Moslem custom,” Mrs. Beimer said.

“Have you any idea,” Nancy asked, “where Farouk Tahmasp went?”

“No. The whole thing happened so suddenly everyone around here was puzzled. We assumed that the rug dealer had taken the mannequin with him. No one knew why he had left. Although he seemed to have no particular friends, he was a nice person. I understand he didn’t owe anyone a cent when he left.”

The woman sighed. “I sometimes think he got homesick and went back to his native land.”

Since Mrs. Beimer could not provide any further information about Farouk, Nancy changed the subject. “Do you know who the humorous old man is who spends a lot of time in the tailor shop? The one who laughs a lot?”

Mrs. Beimer grinned. “Oh, I know who you mean. He’s half cracked, but sometimes he hits the truth in what he says.”

“What’s his name?” Nancy asked.

“His last name is Hyde and his nickname is Haw-Haw. He likes to be called that.”

Mrs. Beimer warned Nancy to be careful of telling Haw-Haw anything she did not want passed along. “He’s a great gossip.”

Nancy stood up. “Mrs. Beimer, I appreciate all this information.”

She happened to glance out the window and gasped. A young man lounging in a doorway across the street was the Drews’ burglar!

Nancy hurriedly said good-by to Mrs. Beimer and ran down to the street. Knowing that it would be unwise to confront him alone, the young sleuth went into the bakery and asked the owner to telephone the police.

“In the meantime I’ll trail the suspect if he leaves.”

The baker was very glad to cooperate. Nancy watched from inside. The man in the doorway suddenly started up the street at a brisk pace.

Nancy turned to the baker. “Please ask the police to follow me up the street.”

Nancy dashed to the sidewalk and hurried after the young man. She wondered if he was wearing a gold filigree bracelet studded with turquoise.

He began walking so fast that it was almost a run. Nancy was still nearly a block behind. Between milling pedestrians and heavy street traffic she had a difficult time keeping him in sight. Fortunately he did not turn any corners.

“Oh, I hope the police will hurry!” she said to herself.

At that moment the suspect stopped abruptly. A young woman coming up a side street also stopped. Nancy noticed that she was very pretty and had long black hair.

The man whipped a letter from a pocket and handed it to her. She opened it quickly and read the message, which apparently was short but disturbing. She burst into tears.

“It really must be bad news,” Nancy thought.

She continued to move closer, but at a slower pace in order to see more of the drama. The young man put an arm about the girl and drew her to him. She pushed him away and shook her head violently. He tried again. This time she used her fist against his chest to shove him away.

Nancy was so intent on the scene that she had not noticed a car coming up alongside her. Now she turned to look at it. The police! And Bess and George were in the rear seat.

“What’s up?” George called our.

At that instant the Drews’ burglar spotted Nancy and the police. He said something to the girl with him. They turned in opposite directions and fled along the side street.

“Bess and George, follow that girl!” Nancy said. “The police and I will go after the burglar!”

CHAPTER VIII

Shocking News

BESS and George jumped from the police car and sped down the street after the fleeing girl. Nancy stepped into the rear seat and the driver took off after the Drews’ burglar. A block farther on he dodged into an office building.

One of the officers turned to Nancy. “You stay in the car and blow the horn if you see the man. We’ll go into the building and investigate, okay?”

Nancy nodded, though disappointed she could not continue the chase herself.

The policemen disappeared inside while Nancy kept an alert look on all the buildings. It occurred to her that the suspect might go to the roof, jump to the next building, and make his way to the street again unseen.

“That fellow wouldn’t dare show himself here now,” Nancy decided. “I’ll get out of the car so I can see better.”

She stepped to the sidewalk and stared upward. Several passers-by paused to look also.

“Somebody up there?” a man asked Nancy.

“I don’t know, but the police are looking for a man who ran into that building.”

More people stopped until a good-sized crowd had focused their eyes on the rooftops. Nancy was sure that if the suspect were up there, someone would spot him. She decided to watch the jewelry and clothes shops on either side of the office building in case he should run out of one of them.

The crowd of onlookers attracted the attention of Bess and George, who had searched in vain for the burglar’s acquaintance. As they rushed up to see what had happened, Nancy caught a glimpse of the suspect. He was just emerging from a drugstore a little farther down the street.

Instantly Nancy said, “Bess, blow the car horn and keep blowing it until the police come back. Then follow me. George, come along!”

Taking deep breaths, the girls started after the man. Within seconds there was a din on the street. The shrill siren of the police car kept wailing. People shouted and pointed toward Nancy and George who were running at top speed down the street. The burglar looked back. Seeing the girls racing after him, he doubled his pace.

Nancy and George ran faster, but the distance between them and the fugitive remained the same.

“Look!” George panted.

The suspect was pulling a wallet from a rear pants pocket. He brought both hands in front of him and evidently took something from the wallet. Then he returned it to the pocket. Within seconds the wallet popped out and dropped to the sidewalk. The suspect apparently did not know he had lost it because he did not wait to retrieve the wallet.

Nancy and George ran even faster. Nancy scooped up the wallet and yelled at the man. “Stop! You lost your wallet!”

She was sure he had heard her but he paid no attention and sped on.

“Nancy, it’s no use,” George called to her friend, who was a few paces ahead.

“Don’t give up now!” Nancy replied.

George, loyal to Nancy, ran faster. The girls tried their best to overtake the man. He suddenly cut across a parking lot filled with cars. Presently he dodged behind a small truck and they could not see where he went. Unfortunately there was no fence around the place, merely a barrier about a foot high.

“I’m afraid he’s gone,” Nancy said.

Nevertheless, the two girls scurried in and out among the cars and looked beyond the barrier, but could not see their quarry anywhere. Finally they gave up the chase and returned to the street.

At the same time Bess arrived with the police. Nancy told her story and one of the men said, “That fellow sure acts as if he’s guilty of some crime.”

Nancy handed the wallet to the officer who said his name was Parker.

“Hm! All identification has been removed.” Nancy was sorry to hear this. She had been hopeful of finding out who the suspect was.

“There’s nothing in here but a letter without an envelope,” Parker remarked.

He unfolded the sheet and stared at the writing. Nancy looked too.

“Is that in Greek?” she asked.

“Is it?” Parker asked his companion. When he said yes, Parker introduced him as Officer Paras of Greek descent.

“Will you translate this for us?”

Paras read it through silently, then said, “The handwriting is rather poor but I think it says, ‘I made an investigation here in Istanbul. Farouk Tahmasp is dead.’ It is signed Seli.”

“Dead!” Bess shrieked.

The two officers looked at her in amazement and Parker asked, “You know this Farouk?”

“No, not personally,” Bess answered. “Nancy Drew here will tell you about it.”

Without revealing all the angles of the mystery, Nancy said, “He was a client of my father’s before he disappeared. We have been trying to find out something about him.”

Officer Paras said, “I guess this note answers your question.”

Nancy did not contradict him but a sudden suspicion had entered the young detective’s mind. “May I see the note, please?”

The officer handed it to her. She scrutinized the paper carefully, then held it up to the bright sunlight. She was not surprised to find that it had been manufactured in the United States.

“See something?” George asked her.

Nancy revealed what she had discovered, and added, “I believe this letter is a fake. It was written to make the girl he was talking to think that Farouk is dead.”

George interposed, “But why would this guy write the letter in Greek of all things?”

“Maybe he’s Greek,” Bess said simply.

Nancy did not enter into the cousins’ conversation. Instead she gave a more detailed account of the whole episode to the police officers, including the fact that the girl, after reading the letter, had burst into tears.

“The man seemed to be trying to soothe her but she kept repulsing him. Then when he saw me, he told her to run and not be caught. He went in the other direction.”

“The whole thing does look fishy,” Parker admitted.

Bess burst out, “What a terrible trick to play on anyone!”

“Do you suppose,” said George, “that the girl the burglar met is a relative of his or possibly of Farouk Tahmasp?”

“She could be,” Parker answered.

He asked Nancy for a description and said the police would look for her. “Perhaps if she learns the note is a fake, she’ll reveal the identity of the man who showed it to her.”

Paras added, “If we find out anything at all, we’ll be in touch with you.”

The two men drove off. Nancy, Bess, and George returned to the convertible.

“It’s certainly been an exciting morning,” Bess remarked. “When we saw you run out of that bakery, we rushed. The police arrived. We told them we were working with you and they took us along.”

George observed, “Well, we got one new clue in the mystery. That suspect is connected in some way with Farouk. He must know Farouk sent the rug. I wonder if the burglar is a Turk or a Greek.”

“He could be a Greek who lived in Turkey,” Nancy replied. “When I first saw him in our house, I thought he might be Turkish.”

A large clock in a jeweler’s window told the girls that it was lunchtime. Bess suggested that they all go to her house.

“I’ll make one of those fluffy cheese soufflés,” she said.

Nancy smiled. “It sounds good, but an idea just came to me of how we might do a little more sleuthing.”

Bess groaned. “I vote for it if it includes food.”

George looked at her cousin in disgust. “You and your appetite ! How about our going to a diet restaurant?”

Nancy laughed. “Not today. I know of a wonderful restaurant in the section of town where most of the people speak Greek.”

George said she knew the one Nancy meant. “It has an odd name, Akurzal Lokanta. It’s been there a long time and the food’s delicious.”

“Lokanta is the Greek word for restaurant,” Nancy added. “Akurzal must be the owner’s name. I thought we might have lunch there and possibly pick up some information.”

Bess was delighted with the idea until Nancy brought up a new subject. As they were driving toward the restaurant, she said, “It’s just possible that burglar dropped the wallet on purpose to mislead us.”

“I agree,” George said. “First he removed all the contents except the letter, so he couldn’t be identified.”

A worried expression came over Bess’s face. “Nancy,” she said, “if he’d do that, maybe even that little drama of the girl crying was part of the act.”

“You’re probably right,” her cousin said.

Bess looked frightened. “Nancy, I don’t think we should go to the Greek restaurant. Suppose that awful burglar decides to have lunch there too? Oh, Nancy, I have a feeling you’ll be in real danger if you go there!”

CHAPTER IX

Silent Warning

GEORGE looked at Bess and said, “You know perfectly well Nancy wouldn’t give up the case. She’s not a scaredy-cat.”

Bess defended herself. “It’s not a matter of being scared. I think Nancy’s in danger.”

As often happened Nancy had to play the part of peacemaker between the cousins. Now she said, “Probably you’re both right. But I’m sure nothing is going to happen to any of us while eating in that Greek restaurant. It’s a perfectly respectable part of town, even though it is old and some of the buildings are a bit shabby.”

“And besides,” George put in, “I bet there’s more than one Greek restaurant in town. The burglar has a choice.”

“Oh, all right,” Bess conceded. “Next you’ll be telling me there are zillions of Turkish restaurants there.”

As the girls rode along, conversation turned to the subject of the mannequin.

“Do you really think,” George asked Nancy, “that Farouk hid something in her and that’s the reason he wants her brought to Istanbul?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she answered. “I admit I’m puzzled.”

“If he did,” George went on, “why didn’t Farouk take whatever it was with him?”