Clue in the Ancient Disguise

by Carolyn Keene

  "With the help of his stooge, Louie Bousha, Vernet also tried to steal the original count's portrait from the museum and scare me off the case by chasing me in a red car and tampering with my power steering."

  "You told us that red car didn't seem to have any driver, Nancy," George Fayne spoke up. "How did the big crook manage that trick?"

  "Actually it was his hired hand, Louie Bousha, who was at the wheel," the young detective replied, "and he wore a black hood which made him almost impossible to see in the darkness."

  "Yikes!" George exclaimed. "Pretty neat!"

  "It was also Bousha who broke into your attic," Nancy told Lisa. "That was because Var-ney had heard from Pierre that you'd invited me to come over the next day and search your great-aunt's effects. But we spoiled their plan when you phoned and asked me to come over that same night."

  "What a lucky break!" exclaimed Lisa. "Otherwise they might have found the ring and the miniature before we did!"

  Nancy then invited the French detective, Andre Freneau, to tell his story. He revealed that it was his father who had been hired by Professor Crawford to help investigate the background of the Michaud family and the rightful ownership of the d'Auvergne estate, and who had later been done away with by fitienne Vernet.

  "I always suspected my father's death was due to foul play," Freneau told his circle of listeners. "When I learned that Pierre Michaud and Vernet were both coming to this country, I at first suspected they were engaged in some new criminal plot. Thanks to Mademoiselle Drew, however, I eventually learned which one was the real criminal."

  Nancy added that following Vernet's arrest, she had also found out that during his trip to America thirty years ago, he had paid the then law clerk Maxwell Fleen for information about his firm's client, Miss Louise Duval.

  Chubby Bess Marvin looked shocked on hearing this. "If Fleen's a lawyer now," she said indignantly, "shouldn't he be disbarred from practice for doing such a thing?"

  "That's a matter I intend to take up with my father," Nancy replied discreetly.

  The evening ended on an especially happy note when Pierre Michaud proudly announced that Lisa Thorpe had accepted his proposal of marriage.

  When the applause and excitement had subsided enough for him to be heard, he turned with a somewhat uncertain smile to Mr. Thorpe and added, "I trust her father will not object to our engagement?"

  "He'd better not!" Lisa said, only half jokingly and with a new firmness in her voice.

  Norton Thorpe clapped the young Frenchman on the shoulder and, with a hearty smile, shook his hand. "My dear chap! How could I possibly object to my daughter becoming not only the new Countess d'Auvergne but also the wife of an up-and-coming electronics genius!" Lisa, her eyes moist with tears of joy, not only because of her future marriage but also because of her restored relationship with her father, threw her arms around Nancy in a warm embrace exclaiming: "Oh, Nancy, none of this could ever have happened if you hadn't worked so hard to solve the mystery."

  For a moment, the girl detective wondered how difficult her next case would be. She did not expect an answer so soon when she found "The Broken Anchor."

  "How can we ever thank you?" Lisa asked.

  "You already have," Nancy said, blinking her eyes. "That look of happiness on your face is my greatest reward."