A Painting Puzzle

The loud crash was followed by a dead silence. Bess went pale, then blushed crimson with shame.

Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at her!

Her predicament became even worse as Velma Deene gave way to a fit of rage. " Just look what you've done! " she shrieked. " Ruined one of the prize pieces in the exhibit! How dare you teenagers come into my gallery and behave like rowdies! "

Sputtering with anger, the woman strode toward Bess, looking as if she were about to slap her.

Nancy remained calm despite the owner's display of bad temper. " There's no need to make a scene, " she said in a quiet but clear voice. " We'll pay for the damage."

" I’ll believe that when I see your parents walk in and hand me the money, " Velma Deene retorted sarcastically. " In the meantime, you can clean up the pieces. Sheer vandalism, that's what it is. I knew you three spelled trouble the moment I laid eyes on you! "

This was too much for Nancy. " What was the price marked on that piece, Bess? " she cut in.

Bess groped nervously on the floor for the fragment of sculpture bearing a price sticker. " N-N-Ninety-nine dollars, " she reported.

The gallery owner shot a withering glance at Nancy Drew as if to emphasize that this was far more money than any teenaged girl was likely to carry in her purse.

To the woman's surprise, Nancy took out her checkbook and a pen and coolly proceeded to write a check for ninety-nine dollars to the Deene Art Gallery.

" Good for you, Nancy! " George spoke up. " Bess and I will pay you our share as soon as we get home."

The other shoppers in the gallery had been watching in silence. But it soon became apparent from their expressions and their murmured comments that they sympathized with the three girls and thoroughly disapproved of the woman's harsh, insulting manner. One even turned and walked out with a look of disgust.

Seeing this, Velma Deene seemed to undergo a change of attitude. " Perhaps I overreacted a bit, " she purred to the girls with a sudden, artificial smile, " but I've been through a very trying week, getting this exhibit organized."

As Nancy tried to hand her the check, she gushed, " No, no! You needn't pay for the figurine. I was forgetting all about the gallery's insurance policy. That covers any breakage."

The young detective would have insisted on paying, but Velma Deene brushed the check aside. So Nancy shrugged and put it in her purse, murmuring, " Whatever you say."

The spectators smiled and seemed almost ready to applaud as the three girls walked out. The owner, with a frozen smile on her face, was left to regain her poise and repair her shattered image in the eyes of her customers as best she could.

Outside, as the girls got into Nancy’s car, Bess was tearfully apologetic over her clumsiness. " Oh, what an awful scene! " she quavered. " Breaking anything in a china shop or art gallery is bad enough, but a masterpiece like that! And then to have everyone stare at you with that woman carrying on the way she did! "

" Oh, forget it! " George said. " Nancy soon put her in her place."

" Even so, " Bess said remorsefully, " I did break a ninety-nine-dollar ceramic sculpture! "

" Never mind, Bess." Nancy paused before starting her car to give her friend a comforting pat on the hand. " Well make sure it's paid for one way or another."

She explained that Velma Deene was a possible suspect in the Shooting Star case, and that Roger Harlow had insisted on paying any expenses incurred in the investigation. " So I’ll ask him to mail a check to the gallery, in case there's any problem with the insurance."

" Would you, Nancy? " Bess exclaimed, brightening gratefully. " I'll feel better knowing that, even though it doesn't make up for my clumsiness."

By the following morning, the girls had forgotten the unpleasant incident. Bess was not needed in any of the scenes of the vampire movie to be shot that day and had promised to go shopping with George, so Nancy drove to the Grimsby Mansion alone.

Bright sunshine was flooding down through the forest trees, and the old house looked almost cheerful with young people bustling in and out.

Nancy changed quickly into her costume and applied her makeup with a bit of help from Sara.

The first scene to be shot involved her and Mike Jordan, who was dressed in old-fashioned clothes to play her suitor. Nancy was supposed to be nervous over various spooky events that had happened the night before while Mike tried to soothe her fears.

Although he flubbed his lines on the first take, the scene was soon completed smoothly. Then everyone helped shift the lights and other equipment to the third floor. Here the script called for Nancy to discover strange footprints on the floor of an old room that supposedly had been kept locked.

" Move that light a bit closer, Jack, so we'll get some spookier-looking shadows, " Ned suggested.

A sudden thud sounded on the stairway just below as if a foot had slipped on one of the steps.

Ned's eyebrows rose in surprise. " What was that? "

" Search me, " said Jack. " We're all here, aren't we? "

There was a moment of silent counting. Everyone in the film club was either inside the room or hovering in the doorway.

Jane Logan seemed to finish counting first. " We must have a visitor! " she announced uneasily.

Her words were a signal for most of the group to run out into the hallway and down the stairs. Just as they reached the second floor, Ernie Gibson, who had played the role of the doctor on the first day of shooting, heard a sound from the corner room.

" In there! " he cried, pointing the way. Footsteps pounded in a rush to investigate.

Mike Jordan entered the room first. There was no one in sight, but he reached the open window just in time to glimpse a young man sliding down a back-porch roof to the ground. " There he goes! " Mike exclaimed.

As the others gathered around the window to peer out over his shoulder, two figures could be seen running off through the woods.

Another wild rush ensued, downstairs to the back door, in a frantic effort to nab or identify the figures. But as the club members emerged onto the back porch, they heard a car start up in the distance and speed away.

" What do you make of it, Nancy? " asked Sara.

" I've no idea. I never even got a look at them."

" I'll bet it was Lenny and Gwen, " Jack said. " It would be just like those two to come back and try to cause some trouble."

But Ned shook his head doubtfully. " The intruders both looked male to me."

Nancy said nothing, but could not help thinking of the weird warning marked on the table top and the odd indications that Ned and Mr. Ullman had noticed of earlier visitors who had somehow gained entry to the mansion.

Rather than waste time dwelling on the incident, the group resumed filming. By early afternoon, an impressive amount of footage had been shot. " Were doing great, " Ned congratulated the other members of the film club. " Keep this up and we may beat our own schedule! "

Turning to their movie heroine, he added, " And you're doing a terrific job of acting, Nancy! "

The others joined in with praise that made her blush.

Nancy's scenes were finished for the day. So after changing back to street clothes, the titian actress started happily out to her car.

As she walked through a room that led to the front hallway, Nancy paused. Almost without being aware of it, her trained eyes told her that something about the room seemed different. But what? In a subtle way, the sparse furnishings of the room had changed.

Puzzled, Nancy glanced over the few items of furniture but could not discover anything amiss. Then her gaze shifted to the walls, and suddenly she realized what had alerted her to attention.

A painting was gone!