Part Two

You will find part one of this story at Vivian’s site.

“That’s not at all what I was expecting,” Honey commented, as Trixie stuffed the mannequin back into the closet.

Nancy indicated the door. “Now you’ve seen everything.”

“We’re just getting started,” Trixie replied. “I’ll just collect my fingerprint kit from the car.”

“I’ll do that while you take another look at the answering machine,” Honey offered.

“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Nancy asked, apparently unsure which of them to follow. She trailed Trixie to the office.

“We won’t find out until we crack the code.” Trixie stood and gazed at the bookshelf. “Did you touch any of these books?”

Nancy shook her head. “I didn’t need to. After all, I know all of my uncle’s work very well.”

Trixie nodded absently and kept looking at the books. Nothing seemed to be out of order, or illogical. She turned to the answering machine and tried out a few more guesses, including the numbers corresponding to her initials and Honey’s and the initials of the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency. Frustrated, she turned back to the bookshelf.

“I’m sure there’s nothing unusual there,” Nancy announced, waving Trixie towards the door.

“You don’t need to watch me work,” Trixie snapped back.

But Nancy would neither leave, nor remain quiet. After a lengthy delay, during which Nancy followed Trixie everywhere she went, Honey returned with the fingerprint kit. Trixie wasted no time in applying powder to the frosting knife stuck in the kitchen wall.

“Nothing,” she announced, moments later. “Not even a smudge. No one has touched this recently.”

“They might have wiped off their fingerprints,” Nancy pointed out.

Trixie did not directly respond, instead saying, “I’m going to try a few other surfaces.”

She dusted the books on the same shelf she had examined earlier, along with a few other places around the house.

“Any luck?” Honey asked, when the process was complete.

Trixie shook her head. “I found some smudges, but no prints.”

“Are you finished, now?” Nancy asked again, with an impatient tap of her toes.

“Not yet.” Trixie glanced towards the bedroom. “There’s a couple more things I need to do, but one of them is probably better for you to do, since as you say, you are a close family member. Could you please check his wardrobe and see if there are clothes missing? Maybe he really is just away.”

“I suppose so,” the other woman answered. “But I don’t like to invade his privacy that way.”

“Would you rather we do it?” Honey asked, but Nancy shook her head. “Thank you. It could be important.”

They entered the office, as Nancy stepped into the bedroom. Trixie waited a moment, then eased the door shut.

“Have you got the letter, Honey?” she whispered. “What was the weird thing he said about his next book?”

Honey pulled it out and pointed to the place. “Here it is.”

They both read, ‘I think you’ll enjoy Intrigue in Athens when it hits the shelves. But it does beg the question, Could our dreaded enemy, weary of reason, dwell in secret for uncounted, restless years? The answer, when we find it, will tell us everything we need to know.’

Almost silently, Trixie smote herself on the head, then spoke in an agitated whisper. “It’s right there! Look! The first letters of the question spell out the code word.”

“But how do we make Nancy leave before we play it?” Honey wondered. “There’s definitely something suspicious here and I’m not sure I want anyone listening in.”

“I don’t think we have that option,” Trixie answered. “She’s determined to stay and to keep on interrupting our investigations.”

After peeking out into the hallway, she softly closed the door again, then crossed to the answering machine. She entered 3-8-7-9, which spelled FURY. The robotic voice numbered the new messages and announced message one.

“Trixie and Honey,” Marvin Appleton’s voice greeted. “I’m in a lot of trouble. My editor is offended by something that’s in my next book and is out for revenge. I’ve hidden the digital file of the manuscript and you’ll have to be pretty smooth to find it. Also, I’ve sent Clarence for repairs. Can you please sign for him if he arrives while you’re there? Thanks.”

The machine beeped and went on to the next message, which was from Honey. Trixie pressed pause and it stopped.

The two exchanged looks. Trixie mouthed the word ‘smooth’ then in unison they glanced in the direction of the kitchen. Moments later, they both stood staring at the kitchen wall. The frosting knife was gone!

“Where’s Nancy?”

Honey headed for the bedroom. “I’ll check.”

Trixie, meanwhile, searched the kitchen for clues, without success.

“She’s not here,” Honey announced, a short time later. “It can’t be a coincidence that both Nancy and the frosting knife disappear right after we hear that message. What have we done? We should have made her leave before we played it.”

“I’m not sure it matters.” Trixie smirked. “I’m pretty sure that smooth clue was a red herring, or at least, that interpretation was.”

Honey’s eyes widened. “The fingerprints! Or, the lack of fingerprints, to be more accurate; because even if someone had wiped them off, there would have been smudges.”

Trixie nodded. “And someone has wiped fingerprints off just about everything in the house except the frosting knife. We know that Mr. Appleton was only expecting to finish the next book about now, so it’s not as if he could have hidden something inside it over a week ago, which is how long I’d expect fingerprints to take to disappear.”

“What about the title?” Honey asked, not for the first time. “Do you have any thoughts, yet, on why his letter calls the new book Intrigue in Athens, instead of Intrigue in Istanbul? Especially when Escapade in Athens was only three books ago.”

“Other than to draw our attention to the clue?” Trixie shook her head. “There might be another meaning, but I don’t know what it is, yet.”

“So, will Nancy come back? If that really is her name.”

“Probably.” Trixie looked around. “We’ve probably got half an hour or so; long enough for her to hack apart the handle of the frosting knife and find out there’s nothing hidden inside.”

“I’ve put the chain back on the front door,” Honey mentioned. “The spare key is gone from its place, but it only opens the front door and the rest of the house is locked up tight, so she can’t get back in without our permission. But, if we leave, we won’t be able to get back in again.”

“That message for us assumes that we’d be inside his house.” Trixie gave a shrug. “I think we have implied permission to be here. But Nancy doesn’t.”

“Are we assuming, then, that Nancy is the offended editor?” Honey frowned. “Wouldn’t she already have the manuscript? Especially if she knows enough to be offended by it? She must have read it already.”

Trixie shook her head. “Not necessarily. We know, from his letters, that Mr. Appleton’s writing process involves him keeping the manuscript hidden until the last minute. He would have to share some details with his publisher, so that covers and blurbs and things could be arranged. But he was intending to submit the file to the editor this week. And he always insists that there’s only ever one copy.”

“So, you think she wants to destroy the book?”

“I hope not, because I really want to read it,” Trixie answered, “but that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“That explains the bags under her eyes,” Honey noted. “If the editor is Nancy, I mean. She possibly stayed up all night searching for that manuscript.”

“It doesn’t answer the question of who she thinks we are. Or why she kept switching between the past and the present tense when talking about her supposed uncle.” Trixie looked up as someone knocked on the front door. “Is that her, do you think?”

Honey peeped out through the front window, then opened the door with the chain still on.

“Delivery. Sign here.”

Honey reached through the narrow gap and did so. Once the man left, she unlatched the door and dragged the large parcel inside. Trixie closed and chained the door behind her.

The pair of them stared down at the large box.

“Is it Clarence, do you think?” Honey wondered.

Trixie examined the shipping information. “Only if the repair people are called ‘Smooth Operators’.”

“Operators. Operatives?” Honey gasped. “The letter! Let me take another look.” She scanned down it for a minute or two. “Got it! Here.”

Trixie read silently, ‘Since my other operatives take hostages, Lucy always keeps every necessary guard against rogue delegates.’

Leaving the box, she strode through to the office and found a copy of Escapade in Athens. Flicking through the pages, she found the scene where Lucy received a document in a rendezvous by the lake in the National Garden in Athens.

“If he wants us to find it, but not anyone else, it has to be something that’s been added, but not something obvious that anyone might find,” Trixie mused, in a low voice.

Honey pointed a finger at a faint pencil mark. “What does it spell? L-K-E-D-B Maybe it’s a code of some kind?”

Trixie flipped back a page. “It starts here.”

In moments, they had the message: Stalked by crazy ex-editor. Find me at place we met.

Trixie’s eyes widened. “What if she wasn’t just searching for the manuscript, but was cleaning up the scene of a disturbance?”

“We need to get there fast,” Honey added. “But not until we’ve dealt with Nancy.”

Trixie rapped firmly on the door to a room at Pirate’s Inn. It opened a crack and an eye peered through the gap.

“Oh, it’s you,” Marvin Appleton greeted, with relief in his voice. “Did they catch her? Is it safe?”

“Nancy Drew is back in the secure facility, where she belongs,” Honey assured him. “We got your spare keys back and signed for your package.”

“It isn’t Clarence,” he admitted, after letting them in. “He was irreparably damaged some years ago. His replacement is called Clarice. I’ve found her very useful for writing scenes where Lucy wrestles with another woman.” He sighed. “I do miss Clarence. Maybe I could have two dummies.”

Honey nodded her approval. “I’m afraid, however, that your frosting knife has been destroyed.”

He waved the matter away. “I wasn’t good at cake decorating, anyway. I was acting out the kitchen scene from Action in Antwerp a couple of years ago. It was surprisingly easy to get stuck there and surprisingly difficult to get back out again.”

“We never did find your manuscript, either,” Trixie admitted.

“I have it here, with me,” he replied, with a small smile. “It’s not quite finished yet, but I’m working on it. I mentioned it in my message to you to throw Nancy off track.”

“Was she really your editor? And why was she offended?” Trixie wondered.

“I sacked her after she tricked my publishers into printing a version of Action in Antwerp that she’d altered so that the character Felicity Turner’s description met hers.” He grimaced. “I’m afraid she has a delusion that she’s actually a secret agent, with enemy agents after her.”

Honey’s eyes widened. “So that’s why Felicity’s hair turned blonde in that one book and back to brown in the next.”

He nodded. “Nancy sometimes thinks that she killed me. She almost killed a man who looked like me. That’s how she got institutionalised. So, when she got into the house, I ran away.”

“The police only started listening to me when I mentioned her name,” Honey admitted. “She was in your house when we got there.”

He grimaced. “I hope it’s not too messy.”

Trixie shook her head. “Everything looked clean and neat.”

“That’s a relief.” He smiled. “I knew you two could solve the case, even with such scant clues.”

“We’ll leave you to your writing now,” Honey offered. “All the best for the new book.”

“I’ll send you advance copies,” he promised. “Signed, of course.”

Trixie grinned. “We can’t wait.”

The End

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