They raced toward the little crowd of officials and spectators, but before Nancy could ask the head finish-line judge to postpone the race, he blew his whistle. A split second later, the starter’s pistol went off with a bang.
Nancy let out a cry of dismay. “George, I have a feeling something terrible is about to happen, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it!”
16
Winners and Losers
The pack of girls dashed up the track toward the finish line. Soon they were close enough for Nancy and George to recognize faces. Cheryl and Marta were so evenly matched that it was impossible to tell which one was ahead. The crowd in the stands was on its feet and cheering wildly.
Suddenly, Nancy thought she saw Marta and Cheryl glance at each other instead of staying focused on the finish line. Apparently their concentration broke for a split second, and with it, their stride.
“Oh, no!” George wailed.
She and Nancy watched in amazement as the runner in third place surged into the lead. Two ticks of the clock later, and she was raising her arms to breast the tape.
Annelise had won the gold medal!
Marta and Cheryl were only inches behind her, still so evenly matched that Nancy had no idea which of them had reached the line first. Nancy had to speak loudly to be heard over the applause of the crowd. “I’ll be right back,” she told George.
Nancy hurried toward the gym. She wanted to be sure to get to the locker room before the runners did. As she made her way across the field, she heard the announcer give the results of the race. The winner, of course, was Annelise Dumont, of Basel, Switzerland. Nancy noted that Annelise’s time was a few hundredths of a second slower than Cheryl’s time of the day before. That was surprising since in finals athletes usually turned in better times than in preliminary heats.
When Nancy entered the locker room, it was empty. She paused for a moment, trying to recall the location of the locker she was looking for. About halfway down the left side of the aisle, but which? The corner of one of the doors was slightly dented, and the paint was scratched. That was it! She rummaged quickly through her shoulder bag, found her lock-picking tools, and set to work on the locker door.
Just as the lock snapped open, she heard footsteps in the corridor. Glancing briefly over her shoulder, she tugged the locker door open. Right in front of her, in a heap at the bottom of the locker, was the proof she was looking for!
She picked it up, gave it a quick inspection, shoved it into her shoulder bag, then slammed the locker closed. She hurried out of the locker room just as a woman wearing a security-guard uniform was coming in. The guard looked closely at Nancy but didn’t stop her or ask any questions.
Nancy raced back to the track. Lionel Hornby was standing near the finish line, and the dismayed look on his face told Nancy that things weren’t going smoothly.
Cheryl and Helga were arguing hotly with each other and with the finish judges and referee. Eric and Steve were taking picture after picture, and Barbara’s pen raced across her pad. Willy was talking softly to George and Bess, while Marta stood by silently, a look of misery on her face. Annelise, alone, was hovering nearby as well. Her face looked almost as unhappy as Marta’s.
Mr. Hornby looked up as Nancy approached. He must have seen the look of triumph on her face, because a flash of hope appeared in his eyes.
“Nancy,” he said. “You have something?”
“A solution, I think,” she replied. She talked to him for a few moments. A frown came over his face as he listened. At last he nodded and said, “I guess we don’t have any choice, do we?”
“I’m afraid not,” Nancy told him.
“Then let’s get it over with.” He stepped over to Helga and Cheryl and said, “I think Nancy Drew has a way to resolve your disagreements. Nancy?”
The other athletes and officials drew closer.
“Since the first day of the games,” Nancy began, “two of the athletes have been the victims of threats and harassment—Cheryl Pierce and Marta Schmidt. For lots of reasons, each of them suspected the other. And when Mr. Hornby asked me to investigate, that was my first thought, too—that each of them was harassing the other.”
“Nancy!” Cheryl exclaimed. “And I thought you believed me!”
“I did,” Nancy replied with an apologetic glance. “But only later. There were some other suspects, too, such as Ramsay or Willy or Helga, who might have had reasons to get back at either Cheryl or Marta. Not to mention the possibility that some of the incidents were a smoke screen to hide the real motive.”
“Nancy,” Mr. Hornby interrupted, “we have to resolve this quickly. We’re holding up the games.”
“Okay,” Nancy replied. She looked around and caught Eric’s eye. “Last night, somebody stole all of Eric’s undeveloped color film. Why? To keep Cheryl from winning the public notice his pictures of her might bring?” Nancy shook her head. “More likely, that film was somehow dangerous to the thief.
“During the opening ceremonies, Cheryl felt someone trying to push her off the stands,” Nancy went on. “She could have been really hurt. And Eric was taking color photos at that moment, using a telephoto lens. The person who shoved Cheryl couldn’t have known that at the time, but if he or she found out later, the person would have realized that the photographs could be incriminating.” She turned to the photographer. “Eric? Did you talk to anyone about those photos?”
Eric reddened as everyone turned to look at him. “Well, sure I did,” he admitted. “You remember. You asked me about them the other day, at your house.”
“Do you remember who else was there?”
“Cheryl, of course, and you,” he replied. “And weren’t Ramsay and Annelise there too?”
“Now, wait a second,” Ramsay began. “Are you trying—”
Nancy held up her hand. “Let me go on,” she said. “Yesterday Cheryl received a threatening note that included a mutilated photo of her that had appeared in a German runners’ magazine.”
Nancy pulled the copy of Der Läufer from her bag. “Marta?” she said. “Is this yours?”
“I have such a magazine,” the girl stammered. “But how . . . why . . .?”
“Marta! Say nothing at all!” Helga interrupted loudly. “She is trying to trap you!”
“The photo of Cheryl was on page twenty-three,” Nancy continued, opening the magazine. “You can see that it’s been torn out.”
Marta’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, I did that,” she confessed. “I was very sad, very upset. When I saw that picture, I couldn’t stand it. I tore it out and crumpled it and threw it away. Afterward I was ashamed that I had been so childish. But I did not send any threats to Cheryl.”
“I know you didn’t,” said Nancy. “The photo on the threatening note had been neatly cut from the magazine—from somebody else’s copy of it.”
“I have a copy of it,” Eric said. “But it’s back in Washington, and it still has all its pages. Especially the one with Cheryl’s photo.”
“I didn’t think you’d damage one of your own pictures like that, anyway,” Nancy remarked. “Even just a copy. No, the threatening note convinced me that we were probably looking for someone, a runner, who speaks German and would read the magazine regularly.”
“There are not many Germans here,” Helga said. “And even fewer who are runners. Do you mean to accuse me? I warn you, I have dealt with false accusations before now.”
“I didn’t say someone who is German,” Nancy told her. “I said someone who speaks German.”
Willy looked up from comforting Cheryl. “Of course I speak German,” he said. “In my part of Switzerland everyone does. That is not proof of anything.”
“Maybe not proof, but it does point to somebody. Somebody who speaks German, who knew that Eric might have a damaging photo of the welcoming ceremony, and above all, who profited most from Cheryl’s and Marta’s frazzled nerves. Profited to the extent of winning a gold medal.”
Nancy turned a
nd stared accusingly at Annelise.
Annelise stared back at her defiantly, but her face went pale, and she seemed hardly to breathe. “This is false. You and your friend Cheryl wish to steal my victory today, that is all. You have no proof at all.”
Nancy tightened her lips. As she reached into her shoulder bag, she said, “I’m afraid I do have proof.” She pulled out a pair of warm-up pants and unfolded them to show a series of blotchy pink stains.
“That is nothing but some stains from juice,” Annelise proclaimed. “It has nothing to do with anything.”
Nancy shook her head. “Annelise, you know as well as I do that these stains were made by the hydraulic fluid that spilled on you when you tampered with the brakes of my car. Any police lab will be able to show that.”
Annelise took in a sharp breath but said nothing.
“And your interest in fixing Mr. Fayne’s car last night leads me to believe you have a good knowledge of cars,” Nancy went on.
“This is true,” Willy commented. “Her brother is a race-car driver.”
Lionel Hornby stepped forward. “Ms. Dumont, these are very serious accusations. Do you have anything to say?”
Annelise stared sullenly down at the warm-up pants. “No, nothing. It is nonsense.”
Nancy shot Annelise a long, probing look, then asked, “Would you be willing to show us what you have in your gym bag?”
Annelise looked alarmed. “My bag? No, it is personal. There is nothing in there!”
“Then why not show us?” said Cheryl.
Murmurs from Helga, Willy, Marta, and the other runners showed the general agreement to Nancy’s suggestion. Annelise seemed to shrink inside her warm-up suit. Finally she turned to Nancy and muttered, “I will show you.”
Annelise opened the gym bag, reached under some folded jerseys, and pulled out a bulging manila envelope.
“My film!” Eric exclaimed, grabbing for the envelope. “I was sure it had been destroyed.”
A copy of Der Läufer was also in the bag. Taking the magazine, Nancy flipped to page twenty-three and saw that it had been neatly cut out. She pulled out the page Cheryl had received with the threatening message; it was a perfect fit.
“Ms. Dumont,” Mr. Hornby said, clearing his throat. “This is proof that you threatened and harassed a fellow athlete. Such behavior is outrageous and completely unacceptable. You must understand that the referee will have to—”
“He will not,” Annelise said in a tightly controlled voice. “I withdraw from the games and renounce my victory.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It is the best hundred meters I have ever run. I might have won, even without . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Cheryl stepped very close in front of Annelise and looked directly into her eyes. “Why, Annelise? What did we ever do to you?”
Annelise turned her head to avoid Cheryl’s gaze. “Nothing,” she said. “It is . . . before I left to come here, my father became very ill. I thought this might be my last chance to show him a gold medal, and I wanted to be sure of winning. I was not in my right mind, I think.”
She looked around at them but didn’t seem to see any of them. “Excuse me, I must go now. I want to be by myself. When you want me, I will be in the locker room,” she said. With that, she began to push through the crowd.
“But what about the hundred-meter sprint?” one of the other runners demanded. “Are we going to have to run it again, or what?”
“That’s up to the referee,” Mr. Hornby said. “Martin?”
The referee stroked his chin for a moment before saying, “Ordinarily, if the winner has to be disqualified, the second-place runner takes first place, the third-place runner takes second place, and so on. But from what I hear, we have a little problem with that procedure in this case.”
The head finish judge stepped forward. “That’s right, Martin,” he said. “My judges don’t agree about who took second and third places. Marta Schmidt and Cheryl Pierce were clocked in at the same instant. It doesn’t happen often, but I’d have to say that we have a dead heat for second place.”
As the little crowd buzzed over this new development, Mr. Hornby, the head finish-line judge, and the referee moved to one side and talked for a few moments. Then the judge turned and said in a loud voice, “It is my decision that the hundred-meter sprint was won jointly by Marta Schmidt and Cheryl Pierce. Each of them will receive the gold medal.”
Cheryl let out a squeal of delight, then whirled around and gave an astonished Marta a hug. A moment later, Helga solemnly shook Cheryl’s hand, then broke into a smile. Eric was practically skipping around them with his camera, trying to capture the scene from every angle.
Everyone began to applaud, but Cheryl turned to them and raised her arms for silence. In a voice that carried all the way to the grandstand, she said, “You should all know that the real champion here, the one who deserves a gold medal more than any of us, is that champion detective, Nancy Drew!”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characteres, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A MINSTREL PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
A Minstrel Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
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Copyright © 1990 by Simon & Schuster Inc.
Covert art copyright © 1990 Linda Thomas
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ISBN: 0-671-69281-X
ISBN-13: 9-7814-8140-404-4 (eBook)
First Minstrel Books printing August 1990
NANCY DREW, NANCY DREW MYSTERY STORIES, A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
The Case of the Photo Finish Page 10