An Inescapable Snare

As the blush of embarrassment faded from Dave’s face, Christine and the Austrian girls strode to the far end of the restaurant, leaving Ned and the other boys to explain how they had met.

“It all started with a mistaken identity, ” Ned said, telling about the titian-haired girl who closely resembled Nancy.

“Of course, we soon discovered she wasn’t you, ” Burt piped up, “and we took up the hunt all over again.”

“Oh, we knew you wouldn’t abandon us, ” George said, smiling.

“And now that we’re all together, we can really help the duchessa’ Nancy exclaimed.

“A real duchessa? ” Burt asked.

‘Mm-hmm. She lives on San Gregorio opposite the Gritti, ” Bess offered, “and she wants us to find—”

The sting of her cousin’s eyes caused her to stop mid-sentence. “Don’t talk too loudly, ” George said, so Nancy could continue.

“Maybe we ought to let the duchessa tell you the story herself. I did promise we wouldn’t discuss it with anyone.”

“Including me? ” Ned chuckled.

“I’m afraid so, ” his friend said. “But you’ll hear all the details very soon.” She excused herself momentarily, fishing a gettone, or token, out of her purse to use in the public telephone that stood near the door. “I’ll only be a minute. Order me a mascarpone for dessert! ”

“Now look who’s being extravagant! ” Bess laughed. “Make that due—two! ”

When Nancy rejoined the group, she seemed less jovial; and the elegant dish in front of her registered only mild satisfaction on her face.

“Is something wrong? ” Ned asked immediately.

“I’m not sure, ” she said. “I started to tell the duchessa that we wanted to bring you and Burt and Dave over to meet her and she cut me off before I could finish. She said she had no need to talk to me again.”

“What? ” Bess replied in astonishment. “Maybe she just isn’t up to having visitors, ” George remarked.

" I don't think that's it, " Nancy said. " She sounded perfectly fine, not at all tired, but something was definitely wrong. I wish I knew what it was.”

She took one spoonful of dessert, then let the utensil fall on the dish, a spark of sudden awareness in her eyes.

“She said, ‘Do not come now. I do not need only you, ’” Nancy repeated. “The way she spoke sounded so awkward.”

“Maybe she was trying to tell you just the opposite of what she meant, ” George said.

“Exactly, ” Nancy replied, as Ned asked the waiter for the bill.

“How do we get to San Gregorio? ” the boy said shortly.

“By vaporetto, motoscafo, or—how about taking a traghetto? ” Bess grinned.

“Since when did you learn so much Italian? ”

George asked her cousin teasingly, “and what on earth is a traghetto? ”

“It’s a short ride in a gondola from one side of the canal to the other. Is there anything else you’d like to know? ” Bess continued, laughing lightly as the group left the restaurant.

“Not just now, thank you, ” her cousin said, and hurried ahead with Burt, who was aiming for a fleet of gondolas parked behind the restaurant.

“I gather we’re going to take a traghetto, ” Bess called out breathlessly. She stopped to adjust the strap on her shoe, but Dave grabbed her hand before she could do so.

“Come, Miss Italy. The boat’s going to leave without us! ” he exclaimed.

“Oh, it is not, ” she said. Nevertheless, she picked up her pace, soon finding herself and her friends in one of several gondolas, all of them filled with eager tourists whose voices barely tittered under the booming shouts of the gondoliers.

“Isn’t this fun? ” Bess said. She leaned against her seat to watch the lead boat with its jaunty pilot.

He had begun to serenade his passengers, singing a familiar tune to the black silky sky that loomed fuller as they glided down the narrow canal.

“I have a feeling we should have gone to the gondola station on the square, ” Nancy murmured impatiently.

“We’ll make it, ” Ned assured her, touching her hand. Burt, however, made a different observation.

“I’d say we’re in for a traffic jam, ” he said, as the oars stopped turning and the gondolas came to a halt just at the edge of the Grand Canal.

Shouts relayed from one gondolier to another, and Ned turned to theirs, asking what the trouble was, but the man did not hear him as he yelled out to no one in particular. Then, as if by magic, the gondolas began to move again. Just before they slid under a low bridge, Nancy detected a pair of green fiery eyes staring down at her from a first-floor window of a building on the canal.

“Oh, Ned, look, ” she said. “Have you ever seen such a big black cat? ”

“I hope it’s not an omen for the future, ” the boy said, laughing, but his comment slipped past Nancy as she noticed a man’s profile in the same window.

His hair, thick and black, lay caplike over his ear!

“That’s the night clerk from the hotel! ” she exclaimed, drawing the others’ attention to the window. But it was empty now and the gondola had swept away too quickly, leaving in its wake only a vague impression of the window’s location.

“At least, we know he’s still in Venice, ” Nancy said. “I intend to come back here tomorrow and check out that building.”

As she spoke, the gondolas, still hugging together, turned up the canal, and George asked if anyone had bothered to tell the gondolier where they wanted to be taken.

“I didn’t, ” Burt said.

“Neither did I, ” Ned chimed in. “I thought you did.”

“Don’t look at me, ” Dave said, causing Nancy to motion to the oarsman.

“We—want—to—go—over—there, ’’ she said. “Prego.”

But the man shook his head, and she wasn’t sure if that meant no or he didn’t understand.

“Prego, ” she began again, pointing toward the building in the near distance where a lamp shone in the duchessa’s apartment.

Still the man didn’t respond, and the lead gondolier began to sing, drawing the whole flotilla in line with each other and letting Nancy’s words fade under the applause.

“You know what? ” Bess whispered to the young detective.

“What? ” she said, already suspecting the answer.

“I think we’re part of a tour group.”

George groaned disgustedly. “This could take hours! ”

“And by then who knows what may have happened to the duchessa? ” Nancy said anxiously. “Oh, Ned, this is terrible. We have to do something.”

The only idea that occurred to him had worked once before; but the question was, would it work now?

“Ned, please! ” Nancy persisted as she watched the gondolier dip and turn the oars again.

It was almost unbearable to feel the craft surging forward, away from the troubled woman’s home; and the painful look in Nancy’s eyes was all it took to send the boy into action.