Enigma in Red

Ned was waiting to tee off when Nancy joined him. He had glimpsed the outcome of her conversation with the black-haired golf star.

“What’s the matter with Kim Vernon? ” he asked.

“Some questions I asked upset her, ” Nancy confessed ruefully, taking a deep breath. “Ned, I may be on to something that has a bearing on her withdrawal from the Charleston match. Do you know where I can get in touch with Russ Chaffee? ”

“Sure, he’ll be over at Oakville this morning, filling in for the club pro.”

“Oh, good! ” Nancy exclaimed. “Maybe I can catch him there when we finish our nine holes.”

The pretty young sleuth called from the clubhouse as soon as she came off the course. Although she was unable to reach Chaffee, the telephone operator at the Oakville Country Club promised to give him Nancy’s message.

Then Ned drove her home, where Nancy transferred to her own blue sports car. Soon she was whizzing along the highway that led to Oakville.

Russ Chaffee was waiting to greet her as she pulled into the country club parking lot. “The phone girl said you wanted to see me, Nancy. Is it anything to do with Kim Vernon? ”

“Yes, very much so. Where can we talk? ”

“Let’s go in the club lounge.”

As soon as they were seated in comfortable wicker chairs by the window, with tall glasses of iced tea on the table between them, Nancy asked, “Does the name of Madame Arachne Onides mean anything to you? ”

Kim’s trainer frowned. “Well, I’ve heard of her, of course. She was that famous opera star. Died in a transatlantic plane crash, I believe.”

“That’s right. But you never met her? ”

Chaffee shook his head, his expression somewhat puzzled by Nancy’s line of questioning.

“No.”

“Was Kim acquainted with her? ”

“Not that I know of. Why”

Nancy described the strange urgency with which Maggie Farr had been trying to communicate something that seemed to concern Kim Vernon, but also to involve Madame Arachne and a spider–or something resembling a spider.

Russ Chaffee gave a low, startled whistle.

“Does what I’ve said ring any bells? ”

“I’ll say it does! Though I probably never would have remembered if you hadn’t brought up the subject.”

Nancy waited for the coach to explain. Chaffee told how, on a tournament trip to Florida, Kim came bursting out of her motel room one morning looking angry ad near tears, and how he had seen her hurl away a crumpled-up piece of paper.

“Did you discover why? ” Nancy asked.

“Yes, I picked up the paper and uncrumpled it, just to see what has upset her. Believe it or not, it bore a drawing of a spider---in red ink!

This time Nancy was the one who looked startled. “How strange! Is Kim afraid of spiders? ”

“Not that I ever heard of, ” the coach replied. “Which doesn’t prove anything, of course. But that wasn’t the only incident of its kind.

“During another tournament, in Chicago, she didn’t come down to breakfast one morning at the hotel where most of the players were staying. So I went up to her room to see what was wrong. Kim had been crying and wouldn’t tell me why. Her eyes were all red and swollen. Then when she went to the bathroom to bathe her eyes, I saw this little transparent plastic box sitting on the writing table. In it was a red spider! ”

Nancy was both intrigued and baffled. “have you any idea how it came into her possession? ”

Chaffee shrugged. “Only a guess. There was some wrapping paper lying nearby, with some postmarked stamps and Kim’s hotel address on it. My hunch is, the spider had been sent to her through the mail by special delivery.”

“I don’t suppose that helped her game any, ” Nancy remarked sympathetically.

“It sure didn’t! As a matter of fact, on both those occasions I just described, the emotional upset put her off her stroke completely.”

“Can you remember any other such occasions? ”

Russ Chaffee frowned and was silent for a moment. Then he rose from his chair to pace uneasily toward the window and back again.

“Yes, ” he said, “now that you mention it, I do recall another time. This was in summer, almost exactly three years ago. Kim came on the course one day in the middle of a match, looking terribly upset, and... well, her game went all to pieces. She’d been tied for first place, but that day she bogied three times and dropped eight strokes behind! Black Thursday we called it. I remember it especially because most of the time Kim’s a very cool, unflappable player.”

“Any idea why it happened? ”

“Not really. But now that you’ve got me digging up the past, something else comes back to me! ” Chaffee remarked with a touch of uncertainty.

“What’s that? ” the young detective inquired keenly.

“You asked me if Kim knew that opera singer, Madame Arachne Onides. Well, she may have seen her at least once.”

“When was this? ” asked Nancy.

“On the evening of that same day I just told you about, when Kim got all upset and blew her game. The tournament was being held near Oceanview, and that evening Kim insisted on going to the festival, to see some opera that was being performed there. But mind you, I’m not absolutely sure that Madame Arachne was in it.”

Chaffee could offer no reason to explain Kim Vernon’s sudden operatic interest.

Nancy drove back to River Heights in time to keep a lunch date with her father. Mr. Drew had reserved a table for two at their favorite Chinese restaurant, the Golden Pavilion. Over delicious servings of moo goo gai pan and tiny cups of scented tea, Nancy told him the latest startling developments in the mystery.

“Where do you suppose I could find out if Madame Arachne did perform on that occasion? ” he mused aloud.

“Well, you might consult old Judge Drake, ” the lawyer suggested.

“Judge Drake? ” echoed Nancy, looking somewhat intimidates. “But, Dad, you’ve told me he’s one of the greatest jurists in the state! ”

Carson Drew chuckled. “he’s also one of our greatest opera buffs. You should see his collection of photographs and programs–and you probably will, if you get him talking on the subject! I’m sure he’d like nothing better than to have you ask him such question, my dear.”

“well, in that case perhaps I will, ” Nancy decided with a smile.

Her father’s prediction turned out to be correct. When Nancy telephoned from the restaurant, Judge Drake invited her to come over that very afternoon as soon as she pleased.

A valet ushered her into his large and old-fashioned but lavishly furnished apartment. Nancy noticed a bronze gavel on the mantelpiece along with framed photographs of his law school friends and legal colleagues. But most of the wall space was taken up with autographed pictures of famous opera stars and colorful posters announcing their appearances at opera houses throughout the world.

The retired judge himself, a short, heavyset man, looked like a jolly, gray haired gnome with spectacles. He came bustling out of a back room with an armload of albums and opera programs.

“What a pleasure to meet you, my dear! ” he beamed, putting down his burden to squeeze Nancy’s hand. “I might have known that any daughter of Carson drew’s would have the good taste to be interested in grand opera! Now The, I understand you wish to know something about Madame Arachne Onides. Ah, what a voice she had! Without doubt, one of the greatest prima donnas of this century! ”

As if to lend atmosphere to their chat, Judge Drake put a stack of her recordings on his stereo player. The room soon throbbed with her dramatic soprano arias. Meanwhile, the elderly judge showed Nancy numerous programs and other mementos of Madame Arachne’s career.

“Do you know if she sang at the Oceanview Festival three years ago? ” Nancy inquired.

“Three years ago?... Hmm.” Judge Drake frowned thoughtfully and pushed up his spectacles, which were slipping down his nose.

He fingered through the material heaped on the coffee table in front of them. At last he came up with a festival-week program as large and thick as a good-sized magazine. “Ah, here we are. Yes, Arachne Onides sang in all three operas that were performed that year. Which one were you interested in? ”

The one that was staged on a Thursday evening.”

“Thursday? But that’s not possible. The festival operas are always staged on the same days every year---one on the Saturday that opens the festival, one on Wednesday of the ensuing week, and one on the closing Saturday night.”

Nancy was startled. From the way Russ Chaffee had spoken of “Black Thursday, ” it seemed unlikely that he had misremembered the day.

“What about the Wednesday performance, then? ” Nancy queried after a pause.

“That would have been... let me see.” Judge Drake leafed through the pages of the program. “Ah yes, Carmen.”

Nancy looked at the names in the cast. Madame Arachne, of course, had starred as Carmen. And the tenor who sang the role of Don José had been Renzo Scaglia!

It was almost an hour later when Nancy was finally able to break away, after thanking her elderly host. She had an idea which might be far-fetched yet seemed worth investigating.

From the judge’s condominium, she drove to a large wooded estate near River Heights. The sprawling stone house, with glassed-in greenhouse extensions on two sides, was the home of a noted arachnologist named Paul Taggart. Schoolchildren often came here with their teachers to see his fascinating collection of live and mounted specimens. Nancy herself remembered such a visit by her ninth-grade science class.

Taggart, in turn, had read several news stories about the pretty young sleuth’s exciting mystery cases. When Nancy explained why she had come, he was more than willing to help.

“A red spider? ” Taggart mused. “Well now, red or reddish brown is certainly not an unusual color for spiders. In fact certain varieties, such as this Australian Nicodamus, or this Jamaican orb weaver hanging fro its web over there, may be a quite brilliant red.”

“Then the color itself doesn’t suggest anything in particular to you? ” asked Nancy.

The tall, slender expert shook his head, with its bushy mop of sandy, graying hair. “None that I can think of. There are many superstitions about spiders, for instance, but I can’t think of any that concern their color alone.”

Taggart stopped short and flashed a sudden puzzled glance at Nancy.

“Didn’t I read something in the paper recently about a mysterious attack on that young jewelry designer, Brett Hulme, while you were in his shop? ”

Nancy nodded. “Yes, why? ”

“Well there may be no connection, but I recall Hulme coming here some time ago, to look at various kinds of red spiders! ”