004 Smile and Say Murder (13 page)

All at once the door flew open and Nancy found herself face-to-face with the publisher. “Nancy!” Yvonne exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” She gave her a sugar-coated smile.

Nancy smiled, too, just as falsely as Yvonne had. “I have great news,” she said. “I’ve discovered who’s to blame for the murder attempts!”

“Oh, how wonderful,” Yvonne said. Nancy could tell from the tone of her voice that Yvonne didn’t think she’d been found out. “Sit down.” She ushered Nancy onto the black couch. “Tell me all about it.” Yvonne took her customary seat behind her desk.

Nancy sat down coolly on the couch. “It was an interesting case,” she began, “very cleverly planned in the criminal’s mind. I almost didn’t crack it! But in the end I was able to, thanks to my partners—Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and all the other fabulous mystery
writers whose books I’ve read over the years.”

A strange expression crossed Yvonne’s face. It took Nancy a moment to realize that the publisher was scared! And that’s the proof, Nancy decided. She knows I know the truth and she’s frightened!

Nancy hurried on. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve gotten tons of ideas from books. And I’ve found that criminals sometimes get ideas from books, too.”

Yvonne pursed her lips. “What does all this have to do with the problems at
Flash?”

Nancy wasn’t about to answer the publisher’s question—at least not yet. She smiled and asked, “What mystery writers do you like to read, Yvonne? I’ve just discovered a new one who’s very interesting to me. Ivan Green. Ever heard of him?”

But Nancy hadn’t counted on what happened next. Suddenly she was staring into the gleaming barrel of a hand revolver—and Yvonne was smiling evilly at her from behind it.

D
ON’T MAKE A
sound,” Yvonne said smoothly, not lowering the polished revolver, “or your face is going to be such a mess even plastic surgery won’t help.”

“I won’t make a peep,” Nancy replied. She hoped Yvonne wasn’t trigger-happy. Otherwise she was going to be a memory before Ned and Sondra even had a chance to try the toy gun trick.

“You’re smart, Nancy Drew,” Yvonne was saying. “Smarter than I counted on. I didn’t think you’d catch on to my little game. Well, it doesn’t make much difference now because, my young detective, you’re not careful enough!”

Nancy glanced anxiously over her shoulder at the door. Where were Ned and Sondra? They
should have been there already, plastic pistol blazing.

“By the way,” Yvonne added cruelly, “someone left the door to the darkroom open. I made sure it was locked from the outside before I came in here.”

Nancy sucked in her breath. Uh-oh. She was on her own. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked calmly.

“In just a moment, I’m going to let you join your friends,” Yvonne told her gleefully. “Then I will simply dispose of you all. But before I do, I’d like to know how you guessed my secret. I thought I’d created the perfect crime.”

“Even the best-planned crimes have flaws,” Nancy said. “Yours had a few. The most important one was that you lied to me.”

“That’s only a flaw if I did it badly,” Yvonne cut in, “and I obviously did, since you found out the truth. Which lie are you talking about?” she asked.

“The first day I met you,” Nancy continued, stalling for time, “you made a big deal about putting down mystery novels. Then Mick happened to mention that you loved them and had even written a few. I asked myself why you would lie about that to me. What did you have to hide? Then I remembered the copy of
Deadly Potion, Deadly Bite
that I’d seen in Mick’s office just after the tarantula appeared in your desk.”

“You were
supposed
to remember it,”
Yvonne commented sourly. “I planted it there to make Mick look guilty to you. I even stole one of his buttons, to make it absolutely clear.”

“Right, but I realized later that the author, Ivan Green, was
you.”

“I see,” Yvonne said. “Then it wasn’t a flaw in my planning. It was just a silly coincidence—Mick mentioning that I wrote mysteries.”

“Silly coincidences are a detective’s best friends,” Nancy said seriously. “I’ve rarely solved a mystery without one. But you did make one mistake. When I felt your pulse after you ‘fainted’ the day the gunman ‘broke into’
Flash,
it was racing. So your body tipped me off to another lie—you weren’t really unconscious.”

“You’re thorough,” Yvonne said disdainfully, “but clearly not thorough enough.” She glanced down at her gun with a satisfied smile.

She’s so sure of herself, Nancy thought. She studied Yvonne’s face. I’ve got to get a full confession, she told herself. She needed undeniable evidence—just in case she managed to get out of this situation alive. The tape was running inside her bag. All she had to do was get Yvonne talking.

“I have a few questions, too,” Nancy said after a moment. “How did you pull off the ‘shooting’ in your office? There’s no way you could have shot the gun, planted it in Mick’s office, and gotten back to your own office in the few seconds it took for us to run to your aid.”

“It
was
a rather ingenious scheme, if I do say
so myself,” Yvonne bragged. “I shot the bullet into the wall on Thursday, the night before the incident.”

“That’s right,” Nancy said, suddenly understanding. “I saw your signature in the security guard’s book when I came in to
Flash
on Saturday. That explains why the bullet was so far off the mark. You weren’t aiming at any specific target! I figured no one was such a bad shot!”

“Very good,” Yvonne said condescendingly. “Anyway, as you can guess, I also planted a gun in Mick’s desk that night. Then on Friday, I used a second gun to get everyone’s attention. I just shot out the window. Then I took it home with me since I knew you’d search my office. And I counted on your searching Mick’s, too.”

“Well, things almost turned out just the way you wanted,” Nancy responded. “And now I’ve got one more question. Where does David fit into all this?”

“David?” Yvonne smirked. “That wimp? He’s too stupid to pull off something like this. I was just using him to get to the top people at MediaCorp. I did it all, Nancy Drew, with no help from anyone!”

Well, I’ve got the confession, Nancy thought. Now if I can just get it and myself out of here. . . . But Yvonne was already standing up, holding a length of rope she’d obviously stashed in one of her desk drawers. Grinning nastily, she walked toward Nancy. Without taking either her eyes or her gun off the girl, she reached
into Nancy’s shoulder bag and removed the tape recorder.

“An old trick,” Yvonne said, triumphantly flicking off the record button and ejecting the cassette. “This one’s been used by mystery writers for a long time, too. Oh, well. I don’t care if the confession’s on tape—as long as
I’ve
got the tape.”

Nancy swallowed hard. She hated being outsmarted.

Yvonne pocketed the tape and nudged Nancy’s cheek with the gun. “Get moving, Detective. You’ve got a hot date—very hot, believe me.

Nancy didn’t know what Yvonne was talking about, but she stood up and allowed Yvonne to direct her out of the office and toward the darkroom. Then the publisher reached into her pocket and handed Nancy the keys to the door. “Open it,” she said. Nancy unlocked the door and Yvonne shoved her inside.

“Nancy!” Ned and Sondra shouted at once.

“Hi, guys. I think we messed up,” Nancy said.

“Are you all right?” Ned cried. “If she’s hurt you—”

“I’m fine,” Nancy assured him. “Besides, there’s nothing you can do to her, so you might as well not make idle threats.”

“Smart girl,” Yvonne said, obviously enjoying her power. “Okay, Nancy, you’re about to become my assistant. I want you to tie up your friends. This gun will be trained on you while
you work, so no funny stuff. If the knots aren’t good and strong, the gun goes off. Got it?”

“Yes,” Nancy muttered.

Yvonne handed Nancy the rope, and the young detective got to work tying Ned’s hands behind his back. Yvonne watched over her shoulder, giving her directions and ordering her to pull tighter at every step. Nancy did her best to put a little slack into the knot, but when she was finished she had to admit that the knot wouldn’t be easy to untie.

Nancy was forced to tie Ned’s feet and Sondra’s hands and feet in the same way. After that, Yvonne tied Nancy’s herself. “Well,” she said, once she was finished, “I hate to spoil the party, so I’ll leave. But first I’ve got to fix you kids some refreshments.”

Yvonne walked over to the cabinet near the darkroom sink where the chemicals were stored and pulled out a few bottles. She opened them and dumped the chemicals into a large bowl, mixing up a vile brew.

“With all the chemicals stored in darkrooms,” Yvonne said nonchalantly, “fires start so easily.” She sloshed the mixture along the floor, leaving a large puddle in front of the door. “This stuff should light up like desert brush in the dry season.”

Yvonne took the tape with her confession on it and deftly deposited it on the worktable. “I can’t think of anything nicer to do with this than start a bonfire,” she said. She produced a book of matches from her pocket and lit one. “All
right, my friends, don’t get too hot under the collar.”

Yvonne walked to the door and stepped just outside it. Then she pitched the match into the puddle of chemicals. They went up in a whoosh of flame. Yvonne slammed the door shut, and Nancy heard her lock it from the outside. The fire began to spread quickly.

Nancy tugged at the ropes that bound her hands. No use—Yvonne had done a professional job. “Ned, Sondra,” she cried, “can either of you pull free of your ropes? It’s our only chance.”

“You kidding me?” Ned asked. “Houdini couldn’t get out of these.”

“Or these,” Sondra called.

“Then that’s it,” Nancy said finally. “We’re trapped!” Slowly the fire inched closer to the three teenagers.

W
HAT ARE WE
going to
do?”
Sondra cried, dangerously close to hysteria.

“Not sit here and burn up, that’s for sure,” Nancy replied. But as if to taunt her, the flames licked her toes. Nancy pulled her legs up to her chest.

“Calm down,” Ned told Sondra. “Nancy’s gotten out of worse situations than this.”

“Well, what
are
you going to do?” Sondra whispered fearfully.

But Nancy didn’t answer. She was too busy thinking. She knew that somehow she had to get free of the ropes that tied her hands and feet. Otherwise, all three of them were going to be burned crisper than a batch of overdone French fries. But how?

Ned had mentioned Houdini, the great escape
artist. He’d been able to get out of complicated knots, metal chains, locked chests—sometimes while submerged in a tank of water! Of course, legend had it that Houdini had been killed when one of his tricks had failed— but that was after thousands of successful escapes.
Come on, Houdini, help us out!
Nancy prayed.

Suddenly Nancy realized the answer! Houdini had sometimes untied ropes with his teeth. Nancy had never done it before, but she was about to try!

“Sondra, Ned,” Nancy shouted, “I’ve got it! Sondra, twist around so that your hands are facing me.” Sondra did so, while Nancy scooted toward her. Meanwhile, the darkroom was growing hotter by the millisecond.

Nancy was so close to Sondra that she could smell her perfume over the scent of burning chemicals. With one more push, she had reached her, her face shoved up against the stylist’s bound hands.

Immediately Nancy began to chew the knots with her teeth.

“Ow,” Sondra shrieked.

Nancy spit the rope out of her mouth. “Did I bite you? I’m sorry.”

“No,” Sondra said, terrified. “It’s the flames —they’re getting closer!”

“Hurry, Nancy,” Ned cried. “I’m about to pass out from the fumes!”

Nancy redoubled her efforts. Suddenly she felt the ropes loosen!

“Nancy,” Sondra screamed, “they’re coming undone! We’re going to get out of here!”

Nancy gave one last jerk at the ropes which held Sondra. “Shake your arms,” she cried. “Shake hard! Get those ropes off before the fire reaches us!”