A Developing Pattern

As hundreds of buttons swirled out, Nancy hurried to the other side of the wall. She felt a lump harden in her throat as the three men ran out of the office.

“Again someone knocked over this cabinet, ” Belini complained. “Why don’t people watch where they’re walking? ”

Two assistants seemed to appear from nowhere. “That whole setup is just terrible, ” one said. “We’ll have to get a different type of cabinet. This one is so wobbly it falls at least once a week! ”

While Belini mumbled something, they scooped up the buttons, separating them into their respective drawers. The three men, meanwhile, went back into Belini’s office. When the clerks finished with the cabinet, they hurried upstairs, allowing Nancy to position herself behind it once more. This time she carefully avoided touching it.

“How well do you know Mrs. Jenner? ” she heard the phony Chris Chavez ask.

Belini said something in reply, which Nancy could not understand. Then his voice rose as he added, “Mrs. Jenner has a reputation for being abrasive. But she was a good worker, Mr. Henri, the best stylist around! ”

Henri! Nancy couldn’t believe her ears. Could it be that the phony Chris Chavez was really the reporter, Ted Henri?

A jumble of thoughts raced through the girl’s mind. Why all the pretense? she wondered. And what was Ted Henri’s affiliation with the phony Russell Kaiser, alias Pete Grover?

Was Henri investigating the same design thefts that Nancy was? Did they relate at all to the fake auction scheme he, as Chris Chavez, had revealed to Nancy?

Or maybe he trumped up the auction story for my benefit, hoping to sidetrack me onto another mystery! Nancy concluded.

As she continued listening, more questions came from the two men. They wanted to know what Belini’s association with Millington was!

The young detective missed hearing Belini’s answer as several customers entered the room from the stairway. They were chattering about a choice of colors, but then paused long enough for the girl to hear a few more remarks pass between the men.

“Do you supply fabric to Millington? ” Henri questioned.

Belini grumbled something unintelligible.

Then Nancy heard Henri ask if Belini had sold material to Mrs. Jenner.

“Sure. So what? She likes to sew.”

Clearly, the man was on the defensive, but before any more was said, the reporter and Grover strode out of the room. Nancy remained out of sight until they went up the stairway and she heard Mr. Belini’s voice again.

“Henri will be at the Crystal Party tomorrow night, ” the man said. Then there was a click as he put down the telephone.

Obviously, he had called someone. Nancy stood stock-still, hoping to hear more, but the man made no other calls. She decided it would be better for her to try and follow the two men, rather than eavesdrop on Belini, so she hurried up the stairs and out the door.

Her eyes roamed the street, but the pair was nowhere in sight! They couldn’t have gone too far on the ice, Nancy reasoned. They must have taken a taxi.

Disappointed, she headed back to the restaurant, digging in her rubberized heels to avoid slipping. On the way, she picked up a newspaper. When she arrived, Bess and George were not there.

After the two girls had seen Russell Kaiser leave in the police car, they assumed that he was on his way to the local precinct.

“Let’s go there, ” George suggested. “Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk to him.”

The girls asked the doorman for the address. He gave it to them but said, “I wouldn’t recommend bothering poor Mr. Kaiser now. He’s very upset, as you can well imagine.”

“Don’t worry, ” George said. “We only want to talk to him because we might be able to help him.”

The doorman raised his eyebrows and was about to ask them how, but the girls just smiled sweetly and left.

When they arrived at the police station, they did not see the bald-headed man. Upon asking at the desk, they learned he was talking to the captain, but would be done in a few minutes. Bess and George sat down to wait.

“I bet Nancy has eaten our lunch as well as hers by now, ” Bess murmured to her cousin.

“I just hope she’s still there, ” George said. “Of course, Millington may only give her a half hour off, in which case she’s probably left.”

The cousins’ conversation ended abruptly as Mr. Kaiser appeared. The girls stood up quickly.

“Mr. Kaiser, ” George said when he strode toward them.

He paused.

“Remember us? We met you at the Speers’ auction the other evening, ” Bess continued.

“Oh, yes, ” he said now. “You were with the young lady who bid on the medallion.”

“Yes. We saw the news item about the burglary and wondered if the medallion had been stolen, too.”

“You followed me here to ask me that? ” he replied, incredulous.

“We’re detectives, ” Bess said.

“Amateur detectives, ” George added. “May we speak to you a moment? We have some information that might be of interest to you.”

Kaiser shrugged. “Why not? ”

Without revealing too much about the mysteries they were working on with their friend, Nancy Drew, George explained their special concern for the distinctive medallion.

“It’s very possible, ” she declared, “that the man who was bidding on it is the burglar you’re looking for. He told us he was you.”

“Not only that, ” Bess spoke up, “but he seemed to want that medallion an awful lot.”

“Enough to steal it, I suppose, ” Mr. Kaiser said with a glint of mischief.

“Exactly, ” Bess said.

“Well, girls, I appreciate the clues, but I’m afraid you’re on the wrong track. You see, the robber wasn’t the least bit interested in the medallion. I had put it in the safe with some other things that he took. He left the medallion, though, probably thinking it was a valueless trinket.”

The girls were disappointed. “Then obviously the burglar wasn’t the man who competed with you at the auction, ” George said. “But why did he introduce himself to us as Russell Kaiser? ”

Mr. Kaiser shrugged. “I have no idea, and to be quite honest, I don’t really care. Now, I have other matters to take care of. If you will excuse me, please.”

He hurried off, and the young detectives left the precinct and headed for the restaurant. To their relief, they found Nancy still there, dallying over a salad.

“We thought for sure you’d be gone by now, ” Bess said as she and George sat down. “What happened to your job at Millington? ”

“I have no job, ” Nancy replied, spearing a piece of lettuce with her fork, “but I do have lots of other news.”

She told about her encounters, the conversations she had overheard, and her current suspicions.

“I’m convinced Ted Henri deliberately tried to send me off on another mystery—” Nancy said.

“The auction scheme, ” George put in.

“Right—because he didn’t want me near the case involving Mr. Reese.”

“And Jacqueline’s been helping her brother, ” Bess remarked.

“Then her story about the kidnapping was phony, ” George added.

“I’m not positive about that, ” Nancy said. “Maybe she really did believe her brother was missing. Otherwise, why didn’t she appear for the fashion show? What makes less sense is that she turned up at the hotel later.”

“Also, we never did see her and Ted together at any time that evening, ” George added.

“Exactly. So it’s possible that someone wanted her to believe Ted had been kidnapped, ” Nancy concluded. “Someone who was determined to keep her away long enough to steal those expensive gowns! ”

After the young detective’s idea took root in everyone’s mind, the other girls related their experiences of the morning.

“I’m glad the medallion wasn’t stolen, for Mr. Kaiser’s sake, ” Nancy said. “And it proves that Pete Grover wasn’t the thief.”

George nodded. “If Grover is working with Ted Henri, and now we have ample proof that he is, I’m sure he’s not a burglar. Yet, he has a criminal record—he’s wanted for check forgery. I can’t figure it out.”

“Neither can I, ” Nancy admitted.

“And why would he pretend to be Russell Kaiser? ” Bess asked.

“Well, if his job at the auction was to set us up for a fake mystery, maybe he’d done some research. Found out about the Kaisers, their family’s lion crest, and the names of surviving members he gleaned from Galen Kaiser’s recent obituary, ” Nancy said.

“Then he and Henri wrote the note to Jacqueline, using the crest as a symbol, ” Bess added.

“But what was all that business about a crooked auction? ” George put in.

“Just a ploy to make the newspaper announcement about the sale of the Kaiser estate even more tantalizing, ” Nancy replied.

“And all of this to keep us away from their case, ” George sighed. “I bet if we had combined forces we’d have solved it by now! ”

“Whatever we do, ” Nancy said, “I don’t think we should let on to Jacqueline or Ted that we know what’s going on.”

“Three can play pretend as easily as two, ” George said, trying to sound less anxious than she was.

“And tomorrow night we’re going to get our chance, ” Nancy replied.