The Clue of the Leaning Chimney

by Carolyn G. Keene

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - The Mysterious Stranger

  CHAPTER II - A Double Theft

  CHAPTER III - The Secret Panel

  CHAPTER IV - The Blinding Glare

  CHAPTER V - A Chinese Puzzle

  CHAPTER VI - The Vanishing Vase

  CHAPTER VII - Three on a Clue

  CHAPTER VIII - Mystery in Manhattan

  CHAPTER IX - Pursuit

  CHAPTER X - New Developments

  CHAPTER XI - The Impostor

  CHAPTER XII - A Jade Elephant

  CHAPTER XIII - A Bold Plan

  CHAPTER XIV - Mad Dash!

  CHAPTER XV - Hot on the Trail

  CHAPTER XVI - The Riddle Unravels

  CHAPTER XVII - Reunion

  CHAPTER XVIII - Meeting the Enemy

  CHAPTER XIX - Escape

  CHAPTER XX - A Fitting Reward

  THE CLUE OF THE LEANING CHIMNEY

  AS a result of an encounter with a sinister stranger on a lonely country road, Nancy Drew and her friend Bess Marvin discover that a rare and valuable Chinese vase has been stolen from the pottery shop of Dick Milton, a cousin of Bess.

  Dick had borrowed the vase from his Chinese friend, elderly Mr. Soong. He is determined to repay Mr. Soong for the loss and tells Nancy that if he can find “the leaning chimney,” he feels he will be on the track of a discovery which will solve his financial problems.

  Nancy finds the leaning chimney, but it only leads her into more puzzles. Can there be any connection between the vase theft—one of a number of similar crimes—and the strange disappearance of the pottery expert Eng Moy and his daughter Lei?

  Join Nancy and her friends in their exciting adventures as they unravel all the twisted strands of this intriguing mystery.

  A man was stepping through a panel in the rear of the closet

  Copyright © 1995, 1967, 1949 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam &

  Grosset Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

  NANCYDREW MYSTERYSTORIES® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster,

  Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-20845

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07727-6

  2007 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  The Mysterious Stranger

  “OH, Nancy, this road is so lonely! And here we are with all this money. It’d be awful if it were stolen!”

  Bess Marvin gripped the handbag in her lap a bit more tightly and peered nervously through the windshield of the convertible.

  A dark forest flowed past the car on either side of the road. Black clouds were gathering in the night sky, and the wind whispered dismally through the swaying trees.

  The pretty, somewhat plump girl shivered slightly.

  “Cheer up, Bess,” comforted the slim, titianhaired driver. “We’ll soon be home.”

  Nancy Drew spoke with more confidence than she felt. As she deftly steered the car around a turn in Three Bridges Road, her blue eyes mirrored a slight uneasiness in her own thoughts. She glanced at the handbag in Bess’s lap. It contained three hundred and forty-two dollars and sixty-three cents, the proceeds of a charity rummage sale the two eighteen-year-old girls had run that evening in Masonville.

  Nancy, who was treasurer of the group, had the responsibility of depositing the money in a River Heights bank. Studying the dark, deserted road ahead, she wondered if she had not made a mistake in taking the lonely short cut. The attractive girl tucked a stray wisp of hair into place and put the thought firmly out of her mind.

  “Don’t be a ninny,” she chided herself. “Just because there’s no traffic, that’s no reason to start imagining things.”

  “Nancy, can’t you drive faster?” Bess asked.

  Stealing a look at her nervous companion, Nancy smiled with affection. Bess was one of her closest friends.

  There was a sudden flash of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder. A few drops of rain spattered against the windshield.

  “Oh dear!” wailed Bess. “More trouble.”

  Nancy did not comment. The car was approaching a series of sharp, twisting curves in the road just this side of Hunter’s Bridge. Driving safely around them required all her attention.

  As they rounded the final turn, the headlights suddenly focused on a man. He was bending over something in the road, directly in the path of the car! He was unaware of Nancy’s car!

  The man was unaware of Nancy’s car!

  Bess screamed. Nancy twisted the steering wheel frantically, at the same time jamming her wrist against the horn and stepping on the brake. There was a screech of tires as the car swerved past the man and came to a stop thirty feet beyond.

  “D-did we—?” Bess stuttered, unable to speak the awful thought that they had hit the man.

  Nancy quickly took a flashlight from the front compartment and got out of the car. The man was lying in the middle of the road!

  “Oh, Bess!” she cried fearfully. “He’s hurt!”

  But even as she hurried toward him, the man stumbled to his feet and began looking around him in the road as if he had lost something.

  “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you?” Nancy asked.

  To her astonishment he growled, “Go away!”

  The brim of his battered felt hat was pulled low over his forehead and the turned-up collar of his topcoat concealed his mouth and chin. But Nancy got a quick glimpse of a pair of piercing, black eyes. Abruptly the man ran across the road and ducked behind some bushes.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” Nancy called, picking up a bundle which had rolled off to one side.

  “Put that bundle down and get out of here!” he ordered sharply.

  “But I want to help,” Nancy protested. “You may be hurt—”

  “Listen, sister, I’m okay,” his rough voice cut in. “But if you don’t go now, you’ll get hurt!”

  As if to emphasize the threat, a rock, hurled out of the darkness, struck the road a scant six inches away and bounded into the ditch.

  Bess, who had come up behind Nancy, tugged at her friend’s sleeve. “Come on!” she whispered nervously. “He means it!”

  But Nancy, her suspicions aroused, turned over the bundle she was holding. As she stared through a large tear in the paper, another rock, well aimed this time, smashed Nancy’s flashlight. It also shattered Nancy’s chance of getting a better look at the stranger’s bundle.

  Bess uttered a squeak of fear. “Oh, Nancy, hurry! Put that thing down and come on!”

  This time Nancy obeyed the warning and hurried back to the car. Rain was falling in large drops as she started the motor. Nancy looked back, but neither the man nor the bundle was in sight.

  “Whew!” said Bess as they drove through the downpour. “Next time you stop to talk to a man on a deserted road, count me out!”

  Nancy laughed. “He certainly was nasty,” she agreed. “Too bad we couldn’t get a good look at him.”

  “What do you suppose was in that old bundle that made him act so funny?” Bess asked.

  “A vase,” Nancy told her. “At least, from what I could see, it looked like one. Green porcelain with an enormous red claw.”

  “Green porcelain with a red claw?” Bess repeated. “That’s odd.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it sounds an awful lot like a vase on display in the window of Dick Milton’s pottery shop,” Bess went on. “Dick’s vase is green, too, and it has a bla
ck Chinese dragon with red claws!”

  Dick Milton was a cousin of Bess’s. He had a small shop on Bedford Street in River Heights where he made and sold pottery. The young man also held classes in ceramics, one of which Bess was attending.

  “The vase is beautiful,” Bess went on. “Dick didn’t make It—somebody lent it to him, I think.”

  Bess babbled on, explaining the perfection of the vase with the enthusiasm of one who has just learned how various pottery pieces are made.

  “You ought to join our class,” she said. “It’s lots of fun.”

  Nancy found her attention wandering. Her thoughts went back to the man in the road. What was he doing in such a deserted place so late at night? Obviously he had not wanted to be seen. Her car, suddenly rounding a curve, had caught him unawares. And why had he behaved so strangely about the vase? Could it, by any chance, be the one from Dick Milton’s shop?

  “Why, Nancy, you’re not even listening!” Bess’s voice broke in accusingly.

  “I’m sorry, Bess,” she apologized. “I was thinking of that man and how suspiciously he acted.”

  “I know what that means,” Bess declared. “You’re itching for a new mystery to solve!”

  Nancy, the daughter of a prominent criminal lawyer, was well known for her ability as an amateur detective. People who were in trouble frequently came to her for assistance.

  The rain had ceased and a few stars began to flicker as Nancy drove through River Heights. When she turned into Bedford Street, Bess noted their new direction with surprise.

  “This is the way to Dick’s shop!”

  “I know,” said Nancy. “I want to look at his window.”

  Soon she eased the convertible to a stop under a street lamp in front of the pottery shop. The two girls got out and hurried to the plate-glass window.

  Nancy frowned with anxiety as she peered at the clay dishes and bowls displayed on a black velvet background. There was no vase. Nancy tried the door. It was locked.

  “The dragon vase has been stolen!” Bess whispered.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Nancy as she tried to quell her own fears. “Perhaps Dick put the vase somewhere else for the night. I’ll phone him to make sure.”

  They walked quickly down the street to a corner drugstore. Nancy slipped into a telephone booth and dialed Dick’s number. A sleepy hello answered.

  “Dick Milton?” asked Nancy. “This is Nancy Drew. I’m sorry to call you so late, but it’s urgent.”

  “What’s the matter?” Dick asked excitedly.

  “It’s about the dragon vase in your store window,” replied Nancy. “It isn’t there now. Did you remove it?”

  “The dragon vase? No!” Dick Milton’s voice trembled with emotion. “It was there when I closed the shop. You say it isn’t there now? This is terrible!”

  “I’ll get the police,” Nancy offered.

  “Tell them,” Dick gasped, “the vase doesn’t belong to me—and it’s worth thousands of dollars!”

  CHAPTER II

  A Double Theft

  DICK said he would come right down. He arrived as a police car pulled up to the curb and two officers stepped out. Nodding to the girls and the police, the young proprietor unlocked the shop door and entered. He switched on the light.

  “You say a vase has been stolen?” queried Officer Murphy.

  “What kind of vase?” his partner put in quickly.

  “A Chinese vase,” Dick replied dejectedly. “A rare Ming piece over two thousand years old.”

  “Whew!” exclaimed Murphy. “Let’s see where the thief entered. It’s evident it wasn’t by the front door.”

  “Then we’d better check the back,” the other officer said.

  The two policemen hurried to the rear of the building, followed by Dick, Nancy, and Bess.

  “Look!” Murphy exclaimed, pointing to an open window in the back of the shop. Marks of a jimmy were visible on the sill.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Officer Reilly said to Dick, who reached up to close the window. “We’ll take fingerprints.”

  Quickly he opened his kit and dusted the sill and a nearby chair which the thief might have touched as he entered. But not a print was to be found.

  “The thief must have worn gloves,” Nancy whispered to Dick.

  “No doubt he left footprints outside,” declared Murphy.

  Nancy hurried out the back door with the officers, who beamed their flashlights on the earth beneath the window. Big, oval prints indicated the thief’s feet had been covered with something to keep them from making shoe prints.

  “What’s your guess, Miss Drew?” Murphy asked.

  “The thief tied burlap bags over his shoes.”

  “And I think you’re right.”

  Suddenly they were startled by a cry from Dick, who had gone back to the shop. They ran inside.

  “What’s the matter?” Nancy asked.

  “The small, green jade elephant!” he exclaimed. “It’s gone, tool”

  “Oh dear!” Bess cried out. “Was that loaned to you, too?”

  “Yes,” moaned Dick. “It was another of Mr. Soong’s pieces. How can I ever repay him!”

  “Who’s Mr. Soong?” asked Reilly.

  “He’s a retired Chinese importer who lent me the vase and the elephant,” explained Dick. “Business hasn’t been so good, so Mr. Soong let me display his pieces, hoping they would attract customers to the shop.”

  “They attracted more than customers,” put in Murphy. “And not a clue to the thief.”

  “Maybe I have a clue,” Nancy spoke up.

  Often she stumbled upon a mystery as she had this one. The first case the young sleuth had solved was The Secret of the Old Clock. Recently she had unraveled a mystery involving The Ghost of Blackwood Hall.

  Nancy told the police about the man and the green vase with the large red claw she had seen at Hunter’s Bridge.

  “He just might be our thief,” said Murphy. “Come on, Reilly. Let’s try to track him down. Thanks for the tip, Miss Drew.”

  After the officers had gone, Bess asked Dick when he was going to tell Mr. Soong about the locs.

  Dick groaned. “That, Bess, will be the hardest part. And after all Mr. Soong has done for me!”

  With leaden feet he walked to the telephone and dialed. The shop was strangely quiet as the three waited for someone to answer at the other end of the line.

  “I guess Mr. Soong is either out or asleep,” said Dick. “I’ll phone him first thing tomorrow morning. Well, it’s late,” he added. “You girls had better go home.”

  “If the police don’t catch the thief,” said Nancy as Dick locked the pottery shop, “I’d like to help you solve the mystery. I’ll drop in to see you tomorrow.”

  The next morning, when Nancy went down to breakfast, her head was still full of the stolen vase mystery. Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ middle-aged housekeeper, noticed Nancy’s preoccupation as she came from the kitchen carrying a breakfast tray. Mrs. Gruen put the food in front of Nancy, but the girl didn’t seem to see it. She sat as if in a trance.

  “Wake up, Nancy,” the housekeeper said, laughing.

  “Oh, Hannah,” Nancy said with a smile. “I was just thinking about dragons.” She went on to relate the previous night’s adventure.

  “How strange!” Mrs. Gruen remarked. “But please eat, dear.”

  Nancy’s mother had died many years ago, and the housekeeper had run the Drew household for so long she was regarded as one of the family. Mrs. Gruen was proud of the young detective’s accomplishments, but she always worried when Nancy was working on a case.

  Nancy ate quickly and rose from the table. “I must go to Dick Milton’s right away,” she announced.

  On the way, Nancy deposited the rummage-sale money at the bank. When she arrived at the pottery shop, she found the young man in better spirits.

  “I told Mr. Soong about the theft first thing this morning,” he said. “He was very calm about it a
ll and said that unfortunately the loss was only partly covered by insurance. Of course money can’t replace such a rare, old piece. I must somehow repay the part not covered by insurance.”

  “Any report from the police?” Nancy asked.

  “No trace of the thief,” Dick answered. “I guess you’d better join in the hunt. But first, will you please do me a favor, Nancy?”

  “Surely.”

  “I want you to take this piece of jewelry back to Mr. Soong. I’ve explained to him who you are.”

  Nancy inspected the sea-green jade pendant that Dick held in his palm.

  “It’s lovely,” said Nancy. “May I hold it?”

  Dick placed the pendant in her hand. “It’s the last piece from Mr. Soong in the shop,” Dick explained. “I don’t want this to be stolen, too!”

  “Oh, I’d be thrilled to take it to Mr. Soong. I’ve heard his home is like a museum,” replied Nancy. “I’d love to meet Mr. Soong, too, and have him tell me about the vase and the elephant. Then, if I ever see his prize possessions, I’ll be able to recognize them.”

  Dick placed the jade on top of a fluff of cotton in a tiny white box, wrapped it, and gave the package to Nancy. Ten minutes later she arrived at the address Dick had given her and parked her car in front of the attractive Colonial house.

  She went up the walk, and lifting the brass knocker, rapped on the door. It was opened by a short, inscrutable-looking Chinese servant wearing a black alpaca jacket. He regarded Nancy silently.

  “Is Mr. Soong at home?” she inquired.

  He bowed slightly and stepped back to let her pass. Nancy waited in the foyer while he closed the door, then he showed her into a study and motioned for her to be seated.

  Nancy sat down on a nearby couch and turned to thank the servant, but he had silently disappeared. Her eyes wandered over the study.

  As she gazed at the fireplace, her attention became fixed on a square piece of tapestry hung over the mantel. Nancy rose and studied the tapestry more closely. It was richly woven, with a Chinese dragon embroidered in black and red against a background of jade green.

  “Do you like it?” a soft voice behind her inquired.