“Was it a beautiful glass horse, perchance?” “Obviously. Francesco had flown to Vienna to sell it to a prospective customer, but unfortunately the deal fell through. He couldn’t very well leave it aboard his plane but naturally he was afraid to bring it back through customs since he assumed the officials had been alerted. So he planted it in the boy’s suitcase.”
“He must’ve overheard Ned say he and his friends planned to stay at the Gritti Palace Hotel,” Nancy put in.
“Exactly, Miss Drew. And since Erminio had access to the rooms there, it would be easy enough to retrieve the statue, or so he thought. By the way, what did your friends do with it?” “The customs people broke it by accident.” “Oh, what a shame, and it was such a lovely piece, worth quite a bit of money, too.” Alberini sighed.
“One thing puzzles me,” Nancy addressed the hotel clerk. She riveted her eyes on his. “You probably knew the boys had been arrested and you must’ve realized that the police wouldn’t have permitted them to leave with an expensive glass sculpture that they had allegedly smuggled into the country. So—why did you bother looking for it?”
“Because Alberini told me that he had fixed it with the police to let the boys keep the piece. He said he paid off the captain—” Scarpa’s words faded as he stared at his accomplice. “Why did you tell me that?”
“I know why,” Nancy said. “Because he wanted you to steal the statue from Ned’s room and then have you arrested for it. It was a frame-up to get you out of the picture. He probably intended to get rid of your brother as well by a similar scheme.
Now it was Francesco Scarpa’s turn to glare at Alberini. “Why, you double-crossing—” he roared. “You lied to us!” A string of Italian utterances spewed angrily from his mouth until he swallowed hard and stopped. “Oh, why did we ever listen to you? You even fooled Lucia and Antonella.”
Antonella, Nancy thought, must be his younger sister. “I saw Antonella’s photograph,” she said, hoping to bring the duchessa’s nephew back into the conversation. “She was standing next to Filippo Dandolo.”
“It was through her that we were able to persuade Filippo to do some designs for us,” Erminio Scarpa said. “It was all Beppe’s idea. He gave the designs to an American business associate. He wanted to expand his operation to the United States.”
“Shut up!” Alberini hissed, “or we’ll all end up in jail. Let’s silence this little busybody and get out of here before her friends alert the police!”
But he had barely finished his sentence when a flurry of noise stirred outside. Then the door flung open and a team of uniformed officers, followed by Mr. Drew and Nancy’s friends, dashed forward.
“Dad!” the girl cried, running into his arms as Ned and the others circled her. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”
“I hope we didn’t interrupt an interesting conversation.” Her father grinned.
“Not at all. The interesting part just finished. They were about to get rid of me, and I think they meant for good!” Nancy said, as Ned pinched his eyes in worry.
“I knew this plan of yours was risky!” he said.
“But it worked, didn’t it?” Nancy exclaimed jubilantly. “I can tell you their entire scheme—everything!”
Mr. Drew, however, held up a hand. “Before you do, there are a few other people who would like to hear it, I’m sure,” he said.
A moment lafer, Andreoli stepped into the room followed by another police officer and the duchessa.
“Oh, Duchessal” Nancy exclaimed, hugging her and helping her to a chair.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t too coherent before, was I, my dear?”
“Nonsense,” the girl said.
“That’s kind of you to say,” the woman said, sinking back wearily. “But the drugs seem to have worn off now and I should be able to understand everything much better. First, I want to thank you, Nancy. You saved my life, you know!” •
Nancy did not reply, however, as she lit on Ned’s gaze. “I’m not sure your life really was in danger—”
“But it was,” Andreoli insisted in perfect English. “You see, my sister is not very strong, and another night in that awful, damp cellar would have been detrimental to her health.”
“Your sister?” Nancy and her friends repeated, gaping at him.
“Yes. You see, I’m Filippo’s father.”
What?’ Bess cried, as the man pulled off the black beard he had worn, now revealing the distinguished face of a man in his early sixties.
“I put this on so no one would recognize me. Only Maria knew of my disguise.”
“But when she asked us to help her, why didn’t you tell us?” George inquired.
“I was afraid to. Suppose you had fallen into the hands of our adversaries? They could have pried the information out of you.”
“It’s not that we didn’t trust you,” Maria Dandolo inteijected. “We simply felt it wasn’t essential for you to know where Claudio was, and we wanted to avoid even the slightest slip on anyone’s part.”
Then, she turned to the manager. “I had no idea, Giuseppe, that you were part of all this. How very sad. How very, very sad indeed.” Her listener merely looked away, unable to respond.
“And now, where is Filippo?” Signore Dandolo asked at last. He fired an angered glare at the men who remained defiantly closemouthed until Erminio Scarpa spoke.
“What’s the use?” he said, coughing out the answer. “He’s on Torcello, in a room behind the museum there.”
“Opposite Santa Maria Assunta? Yes, I know it well There is a stone on the wall that bears the winged lion. I can still see Filippo’s face when I took him to the island as a small boy. He loved it so, and I believe that was what he had in mind when he adopted the symbol as his artist’s signature.”
Instantly, the police captain ordered some of his men to the island.
“Before we leave,” Mr. Drew said, “I have a question for Francesco Scarpa. Just what is your connection with my client, Giorgio?”
The man scowled. “You figure it out.”
“I think I already have,” the attorney replied. “You planned to push Giorgio out of a very successful business by accusing him of stealing designs that you forced Filippo to create under threats of harm to the rest of his family. You showed the designs to Giorgio and his sales people, then gave them to another American manufacturer who began to mass market them. Correct?”
Erminio’s brother did not answer.
“That was all he and Alberini needed to start a lawsuit,” Burt added.
“Actually,” Mr. Drew continued, “they had no intention of going through with it. That’s
why I got no action from the lawyer in Rome and why Giorgio sent me over here to look into things.”
“But then what were they after if not damages from a lawsuit?” Bess asked.
“A settlement.”
“And don’t forget Giorgio’s business!” Dave concluded.
“With the Dandolo formula in hand, they could double it quickly and successfully all over the world,” Nancy observed.
“By the way, where is the formula, signore?” Ned asked Filippo’s father. “Safe and sound, I hope.”
“It’s right here,” the man said, tapping his forehead. “I destroyed all the written copies, even my sister’s, just to make sure no one could possibly get hold of it. Unfortunately, she left for Murano before I could tell her what I had done.”
“I—I could not stand the pressure and the threats any longer,” the woman admitted. “I feared for Filippo’s life, which, for both of us, is worth much more than anything else in the world. You understand that, Claudio, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” the signore said gently. “Were the men at your apartment when I called you yesterday and you said you needed not only me?” Nancy asked the duchessa.
“Yes. That’s when I was going through my desk looking for the formula. When I couldn’t find it, they brought me here.”
“We came to the facto
ry this afternoon,” Nancy said. “I saw someone in the inner storeroom who resembled you. Was it you?” The woman closed her eyes for a moment. “I tried to get to the window to attract your attention, but the men pulled me away and out of sight before I succeeded.”
Now, as the prisoners departed, Nancy wondered whether her next mystery would pose as much of a challenge as the one she had encountered in Italy. She would find out very soon when she found herself caught in a Race Against Time.
Meanwhile, though, she was more than happy to see Filippo reunited with his family. He proved to be an attractive young man in his thirties with sparkling eyes that betrayed his sense of humor.
Later that evening when everyone gathered for their last dinner in Venice, Nancy presented one question that only Filippo could answer.
“How did you manage to send the note with the winged lion on it to your aunt?” she asked.
“Before they took me away, I heard one of the men say we were going to Torcello,” the young man said. “I had a piece of paper in my jacket and I always carry pencils in my shirt pocket. So I quickly scribbled the note and Aunt Maria’s address and dropped it on the street. Apparently someone found it and delivered it to the house.”
“That was clever of you, Filippo,” George complimented him.
“I wanted to write a message, but as you can imagine, I didn’t have time. Once I had put down the address and the symbol, I realized the men were watching me. I told them I had an idea for a new design and stuck the paper back in my pocket for a second. Then, when they weren’t looking, I pulled it out and dropped it.” “Unfortunately, neither I nor Claudio connected the message with Torcello,” the duchessa said, chiding herself.
“Now, now,” Filippo said, “let’s not talk about all this unpleasantness anymore. Especially since this dinner is really in honor of my favorite detective.
“Only one detective?” his aunt asked brightly. I count six of them!
“Well, my dear aunt, I intend to make five more of these, if you’ll all accept them?
“Oh, my goodness. How wonderful1. Bess cried, watching the veil of gauze fall away from a magnificent glass etching.
On it was the artist’s famed signature—a large winged lion—and underneath the words, My most grateful thanks to Nancy Drew.
“And ours, too,” the duchessa said on behalf of herself and Filippo’s father.
“This really belongs to all of you,” Nancy told her friends, rising to accept the gift.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry! I said I will make more! A hundred of them, if you like!” Filippo exclaimed, bringing a round of applause and laughter.
Mystery of the Winged Lion Page 11