The Secret in the Old Lace (10 page)

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Authors: Carolyn G. Keene

BOOK: The Secret in the Old Lace
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“Did you hear that?” George said excitedly. “The man in this picture was an admirer of Gelder, and so was François Lefèvre! I’ll bet they’re one and the same person!”
“If so,” Bess added, “perhaps there’s a hidden clue in the artwork that would help unravel the secret in the lace cuffs!”
Nancy nodded eagerly. She opened her handbag, took out her magnifying glass, and trained it on the lace cuffs.
“There’s a clue in one of these cuffs!” she exclaimed.
14
A Threat
 
 
 
“What’s the message, Nancy?” Bess asked eagerly.
“Here, look for yourself,” the girl detective replied, handing the magnifying glass to her friend.
“Oh, I see it!” Bess exclaimed, playing the glass over the lace cuff. “It says,
‘Je vous aime.’
”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘I love you’ in French?” George asked Hilda.
Hilda nodded, causing Bess to look dreamy-eyed. “How romantic!”
Nancy, in the meantime, was studying the intricate pattern in the lacework. Woven around the words was a scene of some sort. A geometric figure seemed to be the focal point. It was oblong with vertical stitches that curled into a knot at the top. Above the figure was a diagonal design that formed a baseless triangle. Nancy thought it was very strange.
“Is there anything in the other cuff?” George asked.
Nancy shook her head. “Unfortunately, the details are blurred. Maybe the artist deliberately chose not to paint them.”
“Remember the piece of paper that was found in François’s bedroom fireplace,” George reminded her friends. “Wasn’t the word
marry
on it?”
“So possibly the same word appears in the other cuff,” Nancy said. “Of course, there must be more than one word. Perhaps the message was ‘Marry me’ or ‘Don’t marry anyone else.’”
“Or,” Bess suggested, “‘Will you marry me?’”
“Or ‘Marry Harry?’ ” George snickered.
Soon they were all laughing so hard the curator asked them to be quiet or leave. Hilda was already eyeing the door.
“My mother and father want all of you and Madame Chambray to come to dinner at eight o’clock,” Hilda told her new friends. “Afterward, we’ll watch the procession on the canal. Does that sound all right to you?”
“Oh, how exciting!” Bess replied promptly.
When the girls returned to Madame Chambray’s house, there was only a short time to bathe, dress, and exchange news. Madame Chambray had found her desk key and used the opportunity to show the girls the letter she had written to Mrs. Marvin about.
The paper was yellow and splitting apart in the folds so Nancy held it carefully under a lamp. All that remained readable was part of a sentence, written in French, which Madame Chambray translated.
“I, Friedrich Vonderlicht, also known as François Lefèvre, leave to my wife, Elaine Warrington, the treasures of my family protected by our golden—
Nancy stared at Madame Chambray. “Where did you find this?” she asked.
“Under a loose floorboard in one of the bedrooms. ”
George shook her head incredulously. “Isn’t it odd,” she said, “that none of the previous owners of this house ever discovered the will?”
“Not so odd,” Madame Chambray replied. “I only came upon it because I was having the old floors refinished. The vibration of the sanding machine moved the loose section a little. I was helping the man who was about to nail it back into place when I noticed something yellowish underneath. ”
As she spoke, Nancy and George continued to study the document closely. “What are you thinking?” George asked her detective friend.
“The name Elaine Warrington sounds very familiar to me. Wasn’t she a well-known actress in her day?” Nancy replied.
“I believe she was,” Madame Chambray said.
“In that case,” Bess declared, “we ought to be able to find out about her easily. Maybe she was married to François!”
“I wish we could start looking into that right now, but we’ve really got to get ready for dinner.” Nancy sighed. They all agreed, and a short time later were seated in the Permeke home while the professor entertained the Americans with more historical stories about Brugge.
“Did you know,” he asked, “that the Gruuthuse where you were today was once the refuge and hiding place of an English king?” Dr. Permeke explained that King Edward IV of England was forced into exile there for political reasons.
“Speaking of our tour,” Nancy said, “we saw a most interesting portrait at one of the galleries.”
Hilda repeated the name of the picture in French. “Joseph, have you heard of it?” she asked the student, who had joined the group for dinner.
“Yes. I believe it was painted by a man named Dirk Gelder. A young Frenchwoman, who was a friend of the man in the painting, asked him to do it. ”
“That’s just what the curator told us,” George remarked. “Do you remember her name?”
“I read it somewhere,” Joseph said. “Tissot—yes, that’s it. Antoinette Tissot.”
Nancy, Bess, and George were struck with the same startling thought. Was she not the same person whose name was stitched on the linen wrapping around the diamond cross?
“Do you know anything else about Antoinette Tissot?” Nancy inquired.
Joseph shook his head. “No. Sorry. I only saw her name in an article I once read about the painting. ”
Nancy’s mind was racing. Perhaps Antoinette had given François the cross! If so, it now belonged to his descendants. But where were they? First thing the next morning, she and her friends would check the local telephone directory.
“There is another famous picture,” Dr. Permeke told his guests. “The subject is a stout gentleman wearing breeches which just covered his knees. He has on long white stockings and at the top of them is a three-inch flounce of lace! Can you imagine dancing with him?”
Peals of laughter rang across the table. Bess, however, stopped giggling abruptly when the Permekes’ housemaid placed a plate of eels in green sauce in front of her. The girl lifted her eyes from the dish and turned to her cousin. George was smirking.
“I dare you to try them!” George whispered in Bess’s ear.
Bess poked her fork into the slippery meat, cutting off a small portion and popping it into her mouth. “It’s delicious,” she announced with a gulp.
Later, when everyone was seated at the edge of the canal waiting for the procession to pass by, Bess admitted to her friends, “I hope we don’t have to eat again tonight. I’m not feeling very well. ”
“It’s all in your mind,” George said.
“Uh-uh, it’s in my stomach.”
The rest of Bess’s remark was lost in the din of motorboats chugging past. Each craft was decorated with strings of lights rigged from pole to pole. Passengers on board wore all kinds of costumes, among them clowns, giants, monkeys, robbers, and even Dracula.
“Some of them are really scary,” Bess commented, as another boat swung into view.
A ghostly figure was standing near the helm. He was completely covered by a sheet, only his feet were sticking out, and in his hand he held a small package.
Bess laughed. “Look, a ghost in cowboy boots!” she said, pointing to the man’s footgear.
“He reminds me of that creep in Madame Chambray’s basement,” George declared. “He wore boots, too, only it was too dark to see much of them.”
Soon the craft swerved close to the canal edge where the girl detectives sat and the strange figure hurled the package toward them. It fell a couple of feet away from them.
“I’ll get it,” Hilda volunteered. As she picked it up, she glanced at the writing on it. “Nancy, your name is on this!”
“My name?” the girl replied in surprise.
Quickly she opened the package. Inside was a small toy dagger and a note printed in bold letters.
“What’s wrong?” Hilda’s father asked, seeing the deepening frown on the detective’s face.
“It says, ‘Stop interfering or you will get this,’ ” Nancy said.
“How dreadful!” Madame Chambray exclaimed.
Everyone began talking at once and hardly noticed Nancy excuse herself and follow the route of the slow-moving boats in hopes of catching up with the ghostly stranger.
She hurried along the towpath and through the adjoining park that bordered the canal which curved just ahead of her. For a moment she lost sight of the boat, but caught up to it a few minutes later. Suddenly she gasped. The mysterious ghost had vanished!
“Where is your passenger?” the young sleuth asked the boatman as she ran alongside his craft.
“I do not know, he replied in halting English. ”He made me pull over and jumped out.”
“Thank you,” Nancy said in disappointment, and hurried back to her group.
When they heard her report, Dr. Permeke suggested that Madame Chambray lock all the windows and doors in her house. “And please,” the professor urged, “do not go out of your house alone. ”
Everyone agreed that was a good idea. Madame Chambray and her young guests thanked the Permekes for the delightful evening and took a taxi home. Upon arriving at the house, they discovered an open window on the first floor.
“I don’t understand it,” Madame Chambray said. “I’m sure I closed everything before we left. ” Fearfully she slipped her key into the front door lock.
“Let me go in first,” Nancy suggested.
Cautiously she stepped into the hallway. A lamp was burning dimly in the living room. At first glance none of Madame Chambray’s belongings were missing, but everything looked slightly out of place to Nancy. Thinking of the diamond cross hidden in a corner cabinet, Nancy ran up to it and opened the middle drawer. The purple velvet box was missing!
15
Cowboy Suspect
 
 
 
The diamond cross was stolen! Heartsick, Madame Chambray crumpled into a chair. “It’s all my fault. I was so stupid to tell the newspaper about it!”
While Bess and George tried to comfort her, Nancy darted to the telephone and called the police. She gave a full report of the theft and the earlier events of the evening.
“I’m positive that the man who threw the package at me stole the antique cross,” she said.
The
politieagent
at the other end promised to send a patrol to the area immediately. Before going to bed, Nancy checked her bureau drawer for the old document Madame Chambray had entrusted to her. Fortunately, it was still there.
Nancy had much to report when her father phoned the next morning. Upon hearing the name Elaine Warrington, he said, “She appeared in some very fine plays in this country in the late eighteen hundreds. I may be able to track down some information about her for you, if you like.”
“Oh would you, Dad?” Nancy asked gratefully. “Then all I’ll have left to do is figure out what the mysterious something is that’s mentioned in the will!”
“By the way,” her father went on, “Mr. Miller from
Circle and Square
magazine told me that the unfriendly editor, Herbert Rocke, left New York a few days ago to go on vacation.”
“I have a feeling that he intercepted the first copy of my manuscript,” Nancy declared.
“I’m sure he did, because Mr. Miller found out that Rocke is a friend of your contest rival, Mr. Frieden!”
“What!”
“Of course, the magazine would never have permitted a friend of one of its editors to participate in the contest; but as Mr. Miller said, he didn’t know of the connection until recently. Anyway, Miller has been trying to reach Mr. Frieden about his entry ever since he saw you but hasn’t been able to.”
“Interesting,” Nancy said. “Rocke must have given Frieden my original to copy and submit to the magazine as his own. ”
“Nancy,” Mr. Drew said slowly, “a lot of these things don’t make sense. Why would Rocke and Frieden get involved in something like that? There’s no big money to be made. Other factors must be involved that we don’t know about yet. That’s why I want you to be very careful. ”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“It’s possible both Frieden and Rocke might turn up in Brugge. I want you to watch out for them.”
“What do they look like?”
“I don’t know about Frieden, but Rocke is tall and thin, with a narrow face and thin lips. His complexion is very pale.”
“That’s the man who followed us from the Lace Center and then stole the new shipment from the
Gruuthuse!”
Nancy exclaimed.
“He may be,” Mr. Drew said cautiously. “Unfortunately, I can’t send you a photograph for a more positive identification. Are the police looking for this man?”
“Yes. I gave the people at the museum a good description.”
“I’m glad,” Mr. Drew said. “And I have another piece of information you’ll be interested in.”
“What’s that?”
“Frieden’s address is the same as André Bergère’ s.”
“Oh, dear!” Nancy cried out. “Maybe they know each other and Frieden read Madame Chambray’s letter to Mrs. Marvin!”
“It’s quite possible. So please be extra careful!”
After Hilda arrived that morning, Nancy confided her father’s report to everyone.
“So Rocke’s the lace thief!” George declared.
“And maybe the ghost who threw the dagger,” Bess added, “and stole the diamond cross!”
“Or,” Nancy pointed out, “Frieden or Bergère could be the culprit!”
Despite the recent theft, Nancy decided to find out if any descendants of François Lefèvre were living in Brugge. A quick scan of the local telephone directory revealed nothing.
“Dad’s going to let me know what he can about Elaine Warrington, but I thought we ought to do some digging ourselves about her,” Nancy said. “Why don’t we go to the library and see if we can find anything?”
“Good idea,” George and Bess agreed.
On the way to the library, Nancy noticed a tall man peering into a shop window. He was wearing a ten-gallon hat and a well-tailored cowboy suit. On his feet were beautiful leather boots much like the ones worn by the ghostly intruder!

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