The Phantom of Venice 1 страница

Nancy Drew Mystery Stories: Volume Seventy-Eight

Carolyn Keene

Copyright © 1985 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Nancy travels to Venice to investigate the kidnapping of a famous glassblower and the disappearance of an artist.

1. Mid-Air Meeting

The plane lights had been dimmed while the jetliner winged across the Atlantic through the midnight darkness. Nancy Drew had dozed off twice already during the flight from New York, but each time had awakened after only a short nap.

Why am I so restless tonight? she wondered. It can’t be just the thought of riding in a gondola tomorrow and seeing the sights of Venice!

The famous young sleuth had been called to Italy to help solve a baffling crime connected with one of her father’s law cases. The prospect was exciting, but Nancy had investigated many other mysteries before, and she was too experienced a traveler not to be able to sleep aboard a plane.

No, her restlessness tonight, Nancy sensed, had nothing to do with crimes or mysteries, even in glamorous foreign settings. She suspected her unsettled state was an emotional response to a question that had been troubling her ever since her plane took off from Kennedy Airport:

Am I or am I not in love with Ned Nickerson?

Recently the two had decided to date other people and cool their own romance, which had been simmering since high school days. Since then, Nancy had had one or two romantic encounters which struck sparks, but Ned remained always in the back of her mind as someone safe and rocklike and comforting—someone she could always count on and turn to, no matter how the shifting winds of fancy might blow.

Their phone conversation just before she boarded the jetliner seemed to reignite all the feelings they had had for one another when they first met... and now, hours later, the warmth of that exchange still glowed in Nancy’s heart.

Somehow, it seemed, she and Ned would always be on the same wavelength. But was that emotional rapport love?

She still wasn’t sure...

With a sigh, Nancy flicked on her overhead seat light and glanced at her wristwatch. Almost 12:45. They had been in the air for six hours, with two more to go before landing in Rome.

Nancy set her watch ahead six hours to Italian time, then picked up the paperback mystery she’d been reading, which had fallen into her lap the last time she dozed off.

A girl was walking up the aisle. Somewhat taller and slimmer than Nancy, she had straight, pale blond hair and large gray-green eyes, and looked about nineteen or twenty. Seeing a fellow traveler her own age awake, she smiled vaguely in passing.

Nancy returned the smile and was surprised when the girl stopped. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all. Please do!”

The other girl dropped into the empty aisle seat beside Nancy. There was something shyly appealing about her manner and appearance, Nancy thought.

“I expected the plane to be more crowded, didn’t you?” she murmured.

“Yes, there must have been quite a few cancellations,” said Nancy. “Not that I mind... I prefer having a little more elbow room.”

“Have you done a lot of traveling?”

“Well, yes... a fair amount, I suppose.”

“I wish I had! This is the first time I’ve ever been so far away from home on my own.”

Nancy smiled again. “Are you on a vacation tour?” she asked politely.

“No... I wish I were.”

There was such a sad, pathetic note in the girl’s voice that Nancy immediately regretted having asked. “I—I’m sorry if I reminded you of something unpleasant,” she murmured.

“You needn’t be. I’d much rather be flying to Italy than staying in New York!”

Her response sounded defiant. Nancy was intrigued by her sudden change of tone.

“You live in New York City?” she asked.

“Yes... And you?”

“In a town you’ve probably never heard of, River Heights.” As she spoke, Nancy found herself wondering about the other girl’s background.

Her yellow silk shirt and beige designer slacks had obviously come from an expensive boutique, yet the total effect seemed oddly lacking in chic. It was as if the girl hadn’t yet achieved her own distinctive style. The one uniquely personal touch was a flame-colored East Indian kerchief loosely knotted about her throat. It seemed to hint at secret fires within.

I’ll bet she has plenty of spirit, deep down, Nancy speculated. She just hasn’t learned how to express her real self yet.

As the thought flickered through her mind, she realized the other girl was studying her closely.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Nancy shrugged. “It’s possible.”

The girl continued observing her for a moment, taking in Nancy’s red-gold hair and vivid sapphire-blue eyes. Then she shifted her glance with a sudden awkward little laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that your face seems awfully familiar. Maybe that’s why I sat down—because I thought we might know each other. My name’s Tara Egan, by the way.”

The teen from River Heights smiled. “Nice to know you, Tara. I’m Nancy Drew.”

“Nancy Drew?!... Of course! I knew I recognized you. You’re the famous detective who keeps solving all kinds of mysteries!”

Nancy nodded, slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know about ’famous’. I’ve been lucky enough to unravel a few cases.”

“I saw you on TV just the other day, in connection with some witchcraft case in England.”

Nancy nodded again, racking her brain for some polite way to change the subject, as the other girl went on, “And now you’re flying to Italy!”

“Yes, to meet my father. He’s there on business. Er, whereabouts in Italy are you heading, Tara? Rome?”

“No, Venice.”

Nancy smiled. “Well, well—small world! That’s where I’m going, too.”

“Hey, how about that!” Tara exclaimed. “I wonder if we’ll be traveling together all the way?”

When they discovered that they were booked on the same connecting flight from Rome to Venice, she was delighted. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Nancy! Suddenly I don’t feel all alone any more.”

“I’m glad, too, Tara. It’ll be nice having company.”

The discovery that they would be fellow passengers all the way seemed to inspire Tara Egan to confide in her new friend. She explained that she lived in Manhattan with her mother and her mother’s second husband, in a high-rise condominium overlooking the East River.

“My stepfather is a real estate broker,” she added. Nancy was surprised at the sudden venom in her voice.

“You sound as though that’s a crime,” she said gently, smiling to soften her words. “I know several realtors back home who are very nice.”

“You wouldn’t think my stepfather’s very nice,” Tara retorted. “He’s a slumlord.”

“You mean he owns rental properties in poor neighborhoods?”

“Yes—and spends as little as he can to keep the places liveable. But mother thinks he’s wonderful! They were both against my going to Italy. I was shocked, Nancy. I couldn’t believe they’d try to stop me from going over to collect Daddy’s last personal belongings. They said we could simply have them shipped to New York. Isn’t that awful? Imagine not caring enough to go over to find out what happened to him, and how he spent his last days! I told them I was going anyhow—like it or not. I had enough money of my own saved up to pay for the trip, so they finally realized they couldn’t stop me.”

As Tara paused indignantly for breath, Nancy did her best to sort out what she had been saying. “When did you last see your father?” she asked.

“About five years ago. He’d just come back to New York from the Far East and he called up—right out of the clear blue sky, you might say. Mom didn’t want to see him, and she wasn’t too crazy about me seeing him, either, but I made such a fuss that she finally had to agree. He took me out to lunch and dinner and a Broadway show, and then the next day we drove down to the Jersey shore and swam and laid around on the sand all afternoon, soaking up sunshine—it was just a terrific day! I loved every minute of it!”

Tara choked up for a moment, and Nancy saw tears glistening in her eyes. She squeezed the other girl’s hand and said, “Your father spent most of his time out of the country, did he?”

“Oh, yes! Daddy traveled all over the world. In fact, from what Mom’s told me about him, he always seemed more like an adventurer than an artist, which is what he was supposed to be. He could never bear to be tied down to one spot. That’s what led to their divorce, I guess. He was the art director for an advertising agency when they were first married. But he quit to go paint in Mexico, and after that I guess he never did hold a steady job. He’d sell a few paintings through a gallery and use the money to go off and paint somewhere else. After a while Mom got tired of not having a home of her own.”

“I can imagine,” Nancy said sympathetically. “Did you hear from him after your parents broke up?”

“Oh, yes. He’d send me postcards and letters from all over, or copies of travel articles he’d written and illustrated for various magazines... At least he used to. During the last few years, though, I didn’t hear from him very often.”

Daylight was already visible outside the window, and the plane’s cabin lights had gone on. Nancy opened the curtains to the first rays of morning sunshine. She didn’t mind the fact that she’d probably missed her last chance for a final nap before landing. She wasn’t feeling at all sleepy, and she was too eager for another glimpse of Italy to want to drowse off again. Besides, people and their problems always interested Nancy, and she found Tara Egan’s story genuinely engrossing.

“Had your father settled in Italy, or was he just visiting there?” she inquired.

“Oh, he’d been living in Venice for quite a while. He wrote me once that it was the most beautiful city in the world—the perfect place for an artist to live. He wanted me to come and stay with him, but he—well, he never had enough money to send me a plane ticket, I guess, and of course my mother and stepfather would never have dreamed of paying my fare just so I could see him!”

Again Tara’s voice broke with an edge of bitterness, and again Nancy squeezed her hand.

“He must have been fairly young,” the titian-haired teen murmured reflectively.

“Yes, he was in his early forties, just a year older than Mom. He died in an accident. He... he drowned in a canal.”

“Oh, how awful, Tara! I’m so sorry. How on earth did it happen?”

“We don’t know exactly. In fact we know nothing at all of the circumstances. We were simply notified by a telegram that gave no details—which is another reason why I made up my mind to go over.”

The stewardesses began to serve breakfast, and the girls’ conversation lagged. When they resumed chatting, Tara deluged the teenage sleuth with questions about her mystery cases.

Presently the pilot announced over the intercom that they would soon be landing, after which both girls become too excited and absorbed in preparing to disembark to have much time for talking.

At last the jetliner touched down, and the passengers filed out into a reception lounge at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. It was jammed with people waiting to greet arriving friends and relatives.

Lines moved quickly and within minutes after claiming their luggage, the girls cleared Customs. A single skycap in an orange uniform grabbed up both Nancy’s and Tara’s suitcases and led the way past busy airport shops and through a corridor that connected to the domestic flight terminal.

After less than half an hour’s wait, they were able to board the airliner that would carry them to Venice. As they winged across the Italian boot, Tara fidgeted and chatted in bursts. She seemed to grow more and more ill at ease the closer she came to her destination. Finally she asked, “Will someone be meeting you when we land, Nancy?”

The strawberry blond shook her head. “No, Dad planned to, but at the last moment a business meeting was scheduled that he can’t avoid.”

“Then would you come with me?”

“Of course, if you’d like company.”

“Oh, I would, Nancy! You see, Daddy wasn’t living by himself in Venice at the time of his accident. He had a—an Italian lady friend.” As she said this, Tara threw a sidelong glance at her companion. When Nancy nodded understandingly, she went on with a forced, nervous laugh. “Now that I’m almost there, I guess I’m a little uptight about meeting people and introducing myself as his daughter!”

Suddenly Nancy realized that her new friend was on the verge of tears again. She sensed, too, that for Tara, what lay ahead would be almost like attending her father’s funeral.

“I’ll be glad to come!” she said warmly. “And don’t worry, Tara, you’ll bear up, I’m sure of that. Just think how happy your dad would be to know you’ve come all this way for his sake!”

This time it was Tara who squeezed Nancy’s hand.

As their plane circled in for a landing, the scene below was almost like a map. They saw part of the Eastern shore of the Italian boot, bordering the Adriatic Sea. The shoreline was indented by a vast shallow bay, or lagoon. This was protected from the sea by a thin sandy strip of shoal or beachland, called the Lido, which stretched across the mouth of the bay like a chain. Inside this chain, on the blue-green waters of the lagoon, floated the island city of Venice.

They debarked at Marco Polo Airport just outside the coastal town of Mestre. From here they rode a bus across the double railroad-and-car bridge, which extended out over the lagoon for five miles, to the nearest tip of Venice.

Thus it was from the bus window that the two girls had their first glimpse of the lovely city rising from the water, the Serenissima, or Most Serene, as Venice was called centuries ago, when she was an independent republic and a great maritime power.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” said Tara. “Just like all the pictures I’ve ever seen of it. But I still don’t understand why they built Venice on water.”

“From what I’ve read,” said Nancy, “they hadn’t much choice. Rome was crumbling, and Italy was being invaded by barbarians. The only place people could take refuge was on the marshy little islands out in the lagoon. And their settlement gradually turned into Venice.”

“When you think of it like that, the result seems almost like magic!”

The bus left them on the car-landing, called the Piazzale Roma, just across the Grand Canal from the Santa Lucia train station. The place was a beehive of activity. A vaporetto, one of the steam launches that serve as public buses in Venice, was unloading passengers, prior to leaving on a return trip down the canal.

Tara said that her travel agent, for reasons of economy, had booked her into a pensione, or boarding house, rather than a hotel. “It’s in the San Polo district,” she said, fishing out the address.

“Oh, good! We’re in San Polo now,” said Nancy. “That’s the first district on the Right Bank of the Grand Canal. We might even be able to walk it from here, if we had no luggage to carry.”

In the end, the girls hired a gondola, which soon deposited them on the narrow quay in front of a pink-stuccoed house with a sign over the door, Pensione Dandolo.

The motherly landlady, Signora Dandolo, welcomed her new guest with a warm smile and readily agreed that Nancy could leave her suitcases in Tara’s room while the two girls went on to the home of Tara’s late father.

“Ah, si! That is only a few minutes’ walk from here!” Mrs. Dandolo told them after hearing the address. “My son, Zorzi, will show you the way!”

The lively ten-year-old proudly escorted the two pretty Americane to their destination, a stately but rather narrow, yellowish-brown building that looked about two centuries old.

“Grazie tanto, Signorine!” the boy exclaimed when the girls tipped him. “Any time you need a guide, please to call on Zorzi!”

“We’ll remember!” Nancy promised.

Inside the vestibule, Tara rang a bell under a small card bearing the name, Sra. Angela Spinelli.

Moments later, the ring was answered by a Venetian quite different from anyone either girl had expected. Nancy caught her breath and her heart skipped a beat as their eyes met.

The young man who had just opened the door was, beyond question, the most gorgeous man she had ever seen!

2. A Shot in the Dark

The young man’s hair was dark and curly, his eyes a rich greenish-amber. When he smiled—and he was smiling now as he regarded the two pretty girls standing on the doorstep—he revealed gleaming, even white teeth and a dimple at each corner of his mouth.

“Si...?”

His questioning voice as he looked at them sounded, to Nancy’s ears at least, as melodious as Luciano Pavarotti’s. He was not quite as tall as the average movie hero—perhaps five-nine or five-ten, at most—but his slim figure was beautifully proportioned, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and his chest and bare arms, revealed by his open-necked, short-sleeved knit shirt, were smoothly and gloriously muscled.

His smile gave way to a throaty chuckle, and Nancy became abruptly and embarrassingly aware that she had been staring at him, and so had her girl friend.

“Ah, si! Ma certo!” he exclaimed to Tara. “You must be Signorina Egan!”

“Y-y-yes, I am. And this is my... my friend, Nancy Drew.”

A thrill ran through the teenager from River Heights as his lustrous eyes rested on her—for only a brief moment, but long enough to notice her attractive face and figure.

“Delighted to meet you both, Signorine! Please to come in!”

As he led the way from the tiled vestibule up a dark, well-worn flight of stairs, the young man went on, half turning as he spoke, “Mi perdonate for not introducing myself. I forget my manners. I am Giovanni Spinelli, but you must call me simply Gianni!”

He pronounced his nickname like “Zanni.” Nancy suddenly realized that this was Venetian dialect, which meant that Zorzi’s real name therefore was “Giorgio.”

The stairway led to a second-floor apartment with a cluttered and disorderly, but cheerful, lived-in look. The furniture and carpeting seemed old and worn, but there were gay, colorful touches all about in the form of batik drapes, oriental cushions, sculptured ornaments and wall paintings.

An attractive blond woman in her late thirties emerged from the kitchen in response to a volley of Italian from Gianni. As he gestured toward Tara, the woman rushed up to her and, with tears in her eyes, embraced the American girl emotionally. “Ah, mia poverina! To think that we must meet at last under such unhappy circumstances! I am Angela, of course, Angela Spinelli, your father’s dear friend! He loved you so much and spoke of you so often and so fondly!”

It was obvious from the moisture glistening in her own eyes that Tara Egan was deeply moved. She introduced Nancy to Angela, who in turn explained that Gianni was her younger brother. She begged the American girls to join them in a meal of pasta, but upon learning that they had already lunched aboard the plane from Rome, she contented herself with serving them caffe espresso and dainty little almond-flavored Italian cookies.

“And now,” Signora Spinelli said when her two visitors had been shown the proper hospitality, “I know that the time has come that we must talk about your father, my dear Tara, even though this will pain us both. No doubt you will wish to know the unhappy facts concerning his death.”

Tara could only nod and bite her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

“What I can tell you will not take long,” Angela went on sadly. “Rolf, your father, was returning home late one night in a hired gondola. Suddenly a shot rang out from the fondamenta, one of the quays or stone curbs that they were passing. This is what the gondolier reported later to the police, you understand? He said the noise startled him, and he looked to see where it came from, so at first he did not notice what was happening to your father. But then, from the corner of his eye, he saw his passenger toppling overboard. As he turned in horror, he saw your father fall with a splash into the water!”

“B-but didn’t he try to rescue Daddy?!” Tara exclaimed.

“Oh yes, of course, my dear! He rowed around and around, searching everywhere. But in the dark it was not easy to see, and although he spent much time looking, he says your father did not appear again above water.”

Tara Egan burst into tears. Gianni, who had not taken a chair and was hovering about the room while the others conversed, rushed to comfort her.

“Please! Do not weep, Signorina! It is most painful to Angela and me to see you grieving so! Believe me, we are ready to do whatever we can to help!”

As he spoke, Gianni stroked Tara’s arm and hand. Until now, the smiling, handsome young man had seemed so vain and cocksure that Nancy was startled by his sudden change of manner and his tender concern for Tara Egan.

Aloud, Nancy said cautiously. “May I too ask a question about Mr. Egan, Signora?”

Angela Spinelli flung out her hands. “Ma naturalmente! Of course you may ask, cara! You are a friend of Rolf Egan’s daughter, and the two of you have come here together to learn what happened to him. What is it you wish to know?”

“Are we to understand that he was—shot to death?”

Angela shrugged her shoulders expressively. “As to that, who can say, my dear? The gondolier reported only that he heard a gun go off, or rather, what sounded like a gun going off. He cannot even be sure it was a shot.”

“But if Daddy wasn’t hit, why else would he have fallen overboard?!” Tara hastened to protest.

“Please do not be offended, cara, when I tell you that the gondolier said Rolf had been drinking vino that night, perhaps too much vino. The police say that he was probably tipsy and that is why he fell overboard. Or if there was, indeed, a shot, then the noise may have startled him and caused him to lose his balance—which, again, could explain why he fell into the water.”

There was a sob in Signora Spinelli’s voice as she spoke, and she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Despite her rather operatic manner and gestures, Nancy sensed that she had loved Rolf Egan very much and was as deeply grieved over losing him as Tara.

“What did the gondolier see when he looked toward the sound?” Nancy asked gently. “Could he make out anyone on the quay?”

“He is unsure of that, also. He thinks he may have noticed something move—as if, for instance, someone had darted into a passageway between two buildings. It could have been a gunman, perhaps. But his attention was distracted almost at once by his passenger falling into the water, so he had no chance to see clearly. Besides, it was very dark along the canal at the place where the accident occurred, and the only light came from the gondolier’s own lantern.”

“And Mr. Egan’s body was never recovered?”

“Unfortunately not. The police assume that the current and tide carried it far out into the lagoon, perhaps even out to sea.”

Tara was sobbing softly now, and Gianni continued to comfort her with pats on the shoulder. Angela Spinelli looked at them. Nancy could see that she was proud of her handsome young brother, and it was not hard to understand why. With his dark good looks and sleek athletic build, a good many Venetian girls and female tourists were no doubt attracted to him. Nancy realized her own gaze was continually straying in his direction, and she could feel a tingling warmth spreading through her whenever she let her eyes linger.

It’s a good thing I won’t be seeing too much of this fellow, she thought, or I could easily wind up being Female Victim Number nine hundred forty-seven!

Nevertheless, Nancy’s feelings toward Gianni weren’t totally positive. There was a certain glitter in his luminous dark eyes, and a feline grace to his rippling muscular movements which seemed to hint that he could be as cruel and heartless as he was handsome.

Looking back at his sister, Nancy said, “Tell me, Signora, wh—”

“Please! You must call me Angela.”

“Very well... Angela... what do you think happened to Tara’s father? Did someone kill him?”

“Ah, mamma mia! How can you ask me such a terrible question?! I simply do not know!”

“Did he have any enemies? Was there anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”

This time Signora Spinelli took longer to answer. At last she shook her head. “No... none that I know of.”

Yet Nancy, observing the expression that flickered over her face, strongly suspected that thoughts had just passed through Angela’s mind that might well have some bearing on Rolf Egan’s tragic mishap.

Tara, meanwhile, had stopped crying with a final convulsive sob. “Nancy’s good at solving mysteries,” she murmured tearfully. “In fact, in America, she’s quite famous as a detective.”

“Èvvero?” said Angela with a look of surprise. “Then perhaps one day she may be able to explain to us all this terrible thing that happened to your caro padre!”

But Signora Spinelli’s voice sounded far from hopeful.

Nancy slipped an arm around Tara’s shoulders and helped her pull herself together. Tara responded to her attentions and also flashed a grateful glance at Gianni. In return, the handsome Italian youth favored her with a dazzling smile calculated to melt the heart of any susceptible female.

“I... I suppose we’d better go over Daddy’s personal effects.” Tara asked.

“Si,” said Angela. “Perhaps now would be as good a time as any.”

As they rose from their chairs, Gianni shifted his gaze from Tara and looked directly at Nancy. To her surprise, it was an arrogantly sensual glance—a smiling macho challenge, loaded with frank and open desire.

Nancy felt a nervous shiver pass through her. How could he look at her like that when just a moment ago he had been showing so much tenderness toward Tara? The vibes he was giving off seemed like a boast, almost a threat, that he could have any girl he wanted, whenever he cared to take her.

The boast or threat, whichever it was, left Nancy with a chill of mistrust.

Angela took Tara through the apartment, showing her Rolf Egan’s belongings. They were surprisingly few—a limited wardrobe of clothing, a drawerful of personal papers including an envelope of snapshots taken over the years, and assorted art equipment, paintings and sketches.

Nancy, who had a keen artistic eye, found his canvases colorful and charming. They reflected Rolf’s adventurous, bohemian spirit and certainly showed a good deal of talent. Yet she doubted that any of them would bring very high prices if exhibited at an art gallery. She privately concluded that Rolf Egan had been a gifted commercial artist, but not a creative genius.

As the two girls finished looking over his work, Angela clapped her hands and exclaimed to Tara with a smile, “Ah, si! Suddenly I remember now!”

“Remember what?”

“There is something your father wanted very much for you to have! In fact he was planning to send it to you just before his terrible accident! Aspetta uno momento! I shall go and get it!”

As she rushed off, Tara and Nancy exchanged curious glances, both intrigued by her words. What special gift had Rolf Egan left his only daughter? The two girls waited with keen interest to see what Angela would show them.

3. The Watcher in the Shadows

To Tara’s and Nancy’s surprise, Signora Spinelli soon returned, carrying some bright-colored fabric. It proved to be a chef’s apron with an attractive pictorial design in blue, yellow and green.

The design showed a figure in a chef’s hat, flipping an egg in a skillet over the stove. Above this was scripted a motto in Italian: Per fare una frittata, si deve spaccare un uovo!

Angela Spinelli was watching Tara with a sympathetic smile. “No doubt you are wondering how your father came to give you such a thing,” she said. “The answer is simple. Recently he was hired by a pottery firm in Milan to design a line of kitchenware to be sold in American department stores. Along with the dishes and bowls and cups, Rolf insisted the complete set should also include an apron—and this is how he saw it. His client was delighted with the results! But do not ask me why he wished to send one to you.”

“I think I know why,” said Tara, and Nancy saw that her lashes were once again wet with tears. “Daddy used to love to play chef!”

“Ah, si, cara! You are so right!” exclaimed Angela. “Here in Italy, most men would be ashamed to take their wife’s place in the kitchen. But Rolf loved to cook! His fettucini was exquisite and so were his American—how do you say?—hamburgers!”

Tara nodded and took out her handkerchief to dab her eyes while she went on, “I can still remember when I was little, before my parents were divorced, we’d have cookouts in the yard, at the summer cottage where we were staying. Daddy loved to put on an apron and a big old chef’s hat while he prepared the meal—and then do funny things to make me laugh... Somehow I knew the whole thing was a show he was putting on, just to amuse me!”

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14