025 Rich and Dangerous (9 page)

“Maybe . . .” Nancy pursed her lips, unimpressed.

As for George, she had other things on her mind. “Did you notice his eyelashes? They have to be an inch long—and those eyes are pure amethyst. . . .”

But George’s poetic rhapsodies were lost on Nancy. She was busy thinking about Alison Kale. She remembered Sarah saying not to blame Alison for whatever might happen. Did Sarah Amberly know that her sister might be dangerous? Or did she sense that someone else might want her to look that way?

“Where?” Nancy asked earnestly, thinking out loud. “Where did Alison go? Was she kidnapped? Has she been killed? Or is she in hiding? Right now, Alison Kale is the key to this mystery. Without her, we’re as much in the dark as good old Joe Ritter.”

“Nancy,” Bess interjected, “in case you forgot, this is a big city. She could be anywhere! Where are we supposed to start looking for her?”

“Well,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “why not at the beginning? In her bedroom, that is? Maybe she left some clue to her whereabouts.”

Once again the three friends made their way silently to the Amberly suite and opened the door, which was unlocked.

“Oh, boy—this place is beginning to really scare me,” muttered Bess as they made their way to Alison Kale’s room and slowly pushed the door open.

Instantly, they froze in their tracks. There, sitting calmly on the bed, pointing a small silver pistol at them, was Pieter van Druten.

“Wait!” screamed Nancy. “Don’t shoot!”

But it was too late. With a cruel smile on his lips, Pieter pulled the trigger.

B
ANG—YOU’RE DEAD
!”

A small flame emerged from the hammerlock of the pistol. Pieter used it to light his cigar. “Fooled you, didn’t I?” he said. “That will teach you to come barging into other people’s rooms uninvited.”

A cigarette lighter! The girls all nearly collapsed in relief. Bess giggled nervously, but Nancy and George were not amused in the least. “I notice you’re in someone else’s room yourself, Mr. van Druten,” she pointed out.

“Ah, brilliant! You’re a very observant young lady, Miss Drew,” he said, complimenting her.
“I’m sure that’s one of the things Sarah found so attractive about you.” He blew a smoke ring in her direction. Coughing, Nancy waved her hand to disperse the noxious cloud.

“Of course,” he continued, turning the cigar over in his fingers and regarding it lovingly, “the lady whose room we’re all sitting in isn’t here. Nor is she anywhere to be found. You, of course, Miss Drew, with your keen powers of observation, will have already noticed that fact.”

Nancy nodded slowly, waiting for him to say more. Pieter van Druten obviously had a lot on his mind, and if she let him, Nancy was sure he would go on.

“Won’t you have a seat—you and your charming young companions?” He gestured around the room at several chairs and a divan. Nancy, George, and Bess took seats, feeling rather uncomfortable and put off by Pieter’s condescending tone.

“My, my—Sarah would have been so happy to see us all here together,” he said, smirking a bit. “How I wish she could have been here. . . .” He carefully flicked the ash from his cigar into a marble ashtray at his elbow.

“Unfortunately, Sarah was simply not careful enough. She allowed her family to take advantage of her constantly—and
this
is how they have repaid her.”

“Just what are you implying?” Nancy asked.

“Her nephew Jack has been robbing her blind
ever since her husband passed away,” he said, watching the plume of blue smoke trailing up toward the ceiling. “And her sister—well, I told Sarah a thousand times to have her put away, for safety’s sake, but she refused to listen, poor trusting soul. And look how she’s been repaid.”

“You’re saying Alison Kale is responsible for Sarah Amberly’s death? That’s a pretty heavy charge.” Nancy watched Pieter’s face carefully. He shook his head lightly and sighed deeply.

“Well, you must agree, the woman is mad, completely mad. Did you know she was committed for several months when she attempted to take her own life a few years ago? She’s totally irrational and she never could adjust to the fact that Sarah was out of her league in every way.”

Nancy frowned. The one thing Alison Kale had
not
seemed was jealous. Shy, yes—even neurotic —but jealousy just hadn’t seemed to enter into her relationship with her sister.

“They were born poor, you know,” Pieter van Druten continued. “Dirt poor. Sarah was able to transcend the circumstances of her birth, but Alison was not. It’s that simple.

“In fact, I informed Detective Ritter of all this not an hour ago. Someone had to let the poor man know of her disappearance. The entire police force is out there searching for her right now, their butterfly nets in hand, I suppose.” With that, Pieter chuckled.

Nancy caught George’s eye, and she could tell George was thinking the same thing she was: for a man who’d just lost his fiancée, Pieter van Druten seemed remarkably collected.

Nancy wondered if she should speak her mind in front of Pieter. Giving him the benefit of her thinking was like baiting a barracuda, she knew. On the other hand, she wanted to hear what else he had to say. There was something about him. . . .

“I think you’re wrong,” said Nancy. “This crime was too calculated for a person as unstable as Alison. She could never have planned it, much less carried it out.”

Pieter van Druten threw Nancy a dazzling smile and stubbed out his cigar. “Brilliant, truly brilliant, Miss Drew. And that is where Jack Kale comes in. Between the two of them, they had one brain, and with that little brain they were able to plan and execute poor Sarah’s demise.”

Nancy saw George shiver when she heard that. That night, she and Jack would be off on their date together—alone.

“I don’t understand,” said Nancy, hoping Pieter would explain.

He did. “You see, Miss Drew, Sarah and I were to be married. If that happened, both Alison and Jack stood to lose millions. On their own, they are penniless, yet they’ve grown used to living the life of wealthy people through Sarah’s generosity.
I myself—again he laughed his cruel little laugh—“I am not so generous. They would have both been out on their ears and they knew it.”

“Hmmm.” Nancy considered Pieter’s hypothesis. It certainly sounded logical. And then there was the little matter of the jewels. She wondered if Pieter knew Alison had them. If he did, then he’d been the one eavesdropping on them. He may have even planted them in Alison’s dresser.

“Then why steal the jewels?” she asked him. “With Sarah out of the way, wouldn’t they have come to Alison and Jack in the end?”

Pieter considered this for a long moment. “Who knows?” he answered. “The working of irrational minds is hard to comprehend.”

“You seem to do all right,” Nancy remarked.

“Surely, Miss Drew, you are not suggesting that
I
took the jewels?” He laughed uproariously. “You may not be aware, but I am the owner of a rather large diamond mine of my own, back home. Money is of no interest to me, my dears. It was Sarah I was after. I loved her. I’m sure you shared my regard for her—her special qualities—”

Nancy couldn’t help but wonder what Sarah had seen in Pieter van Druten. True, he was handsome and debonair, but Sarah Amberly wasn’t the type to go for surface appeal. She was deeper than that. And van Druten was so calculating, so unlikable—had Sarah truly intended to marry a man like him?

It really was too bad, she thought. Pieter would make such a perfect murderer. If only he had had a motive. And if only he hadn’t had such an ironclad alibi. But Nancy had seen him with her very own eyes in Trump Tower at the time of the murder.

Just then, they heard shouting outside, followed by a woman’s screams. “Get your filthy hands off me!” she cried out at the top of her lungs.

“I believe our fugitive has been found,” said Pieter as Joe Ritter and several policemen entered with Alison Kale in tow. She was kicking and shouting. In Felske’s hands was the missing jewelry box.

“Aha!” said Pieter, delighted. “All the loose ends seem to be falling into place.”

“We found her, Mr. van Druten,” Detective Ritter bragged. “She was trying to hide the box up on the roof.” Then he turned to Nancy. “But you’re not off the hook yet, missy,” he said, pointing his finger at her. “I’m arresting this lady for robbery, but the murder charge is still open and up for grabs, understand?”

Nancy was about to explode. She had taken enough from Joe Ritter, and she was going to tell him so in no uncertain terms.

But she never got the chance. Because just at that moment, Felske tripped over the leg of a table, sending the jewelry box flying end over end. It popped open as it landed, spilling a
rainbow of gems all over the marble floor in front of the fireplace.

“Holy smokes!” said Ritter, looking down at his feet. He stopped to pick up a handful of glittering fragments. The diamonds, rubies, and emeralds had smashed into a thousand pieces.

Ritter looked around the room, flabbergasted. “These jewels are fakes—every last one of them!”

A
CHARGED SILENCE
filled the room. It was broken only by Alison’s scream.

“I didn’t kill her, I swear it! Why doesn’t anyone believe me? Why? Sarah—Sarah, you’ve got to tell them, please, I didn’t kill you! I didn’t steal your jewels!”

The poor woman was suddenly reduced to a babbling bundle of terrified humanity. The hotel doctor, who had entered right behind the security men, was on her in a moment, administering a sedative by hypodermic. And after a few moments, Alison collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Felske and one of the policeman carried her out of the room.

“Okay, everybody,” Ritter barked. “I want you to get back to your rooms and stay there till you’re interviewed by the police. And where’s the nephew—that’s what I want to know!”

“Excuse me,” said Bess, in as respectful a tone as she could manage. “You’re not including us in that order, are you? We’re not even staying at the Plaza.”

As she was speaking, Ritter took Bess in from top to toe, and he looked very impressed. “No, no, you and your friend here,” he said, indicating George, “are free to go. But
you”
—now he pointed to Nancy—“stay here.”

George looked at Nancy as if to say, “This guy is too much,” and for a second, Nancy almost felt sorry for him—he seemed so hopelessly foolish.

“Well, Nancy, we’d better go,” George said. “My date tonight, remember? I’ve got to decide what to wear! Wish me luck.”

“That’s enough chitchat!” Ritter yelled.

Nancy shot Ritter a withering look before turning to her dark-haired friend. “I do wish you luck, George. And be careful!”

“Bye, Nancy,” called Bess. “We’ll call you later, okay?”

“Great,” Nancy answered, while the detective rolled his eyes impatiently. “I’m having dinner right here in the hotel, I guess. I hope my dad will be with me.”

After her two friends left, Nancy watched the policemen gather up the shattered “jewels.” They put the fragments they collected into plastic bags for lab analysis. Finally, she spoke up. “Mr. Ritter, if you don’t need me—”

“What, are you still here?” said Ritter.

“Not anymore,” Nancy replied, making her way out of the room.

Back in her own suite, Nancy opened the door on a silent living room. On the coffee table was a note from Carson: “Nancy, I’m held up at Interpol. Order dinner without me, but I should be able to join you for dessert.”

So much for their dinner together. Another lost cause.

Feeling unsettled, Nancy slid open the huge louvered doors of her closet and looked at her clothes. The new peach outfit was just sitting there. She had wanted to wear it to the Broadway show. . . . Well, she’d wear it that night, no matter what. Even if the weekend was falling apart, she still wanted to look good. Maybe she’d call Bess, and the two of them could go to the Oak Room by themselves.

A low rumbling filled the room, and Nancy realized it was her stomach. No wonder—she had missed lunch, and dinnertime was still several hours away. Thank goodness for room service.