Lance was waiting in a classroom. His face was pale and there were beads of sweat along his hairline. His maroon polo shirt showed damp splotches. Penny, next to him, had tear stains on her cheeks.
“I swear, Cyril,” Lance burst out, when he saw them come through the doorway. “I have no idea how—”
Cyril held up a hand, palm outward, like a traffic cop stopping a car. “Easy, mate. No cause to fret. We’ll soon sort it all out.”
On a table near Lance, Nancy noticed a metal cash box and a bulging manila envelope with the flap undone. A few pieces of typing paper, cut roughly to the size of a dollar bill, had escaped from the envelope and lay scattered across the tabletop.
“Nancy,” Cyril said. “You’re our official investigator. What do we do now?”
“From what you told me, this is a case of grand larceny,” Nancy replied. “That’s a serious felony. We’d better call the police, right away.”
“The police!” Penny gasped. “Oh, no! We can’t!”
“Why not?” Bess asked her.
“Well . . . ” Penny began. She seemed to grope for words. “Our members. Lots of them are from countries where the police are . . . well, where most people don’t trust them. If they think we’re connected to the police, they may drop out of the IFC. Besides, once the police are on it, everything will have to come out. There’ll be a huge scandal. It’ll wreck the festival.”
“And cops don’t understand what campus life is like,” Lance said. “Who knows what they’d make of the fight between Vlad and Dina, for instance.”
Cyril frowned. “We can’t cover up a major theft,” he said slowly. “I imagine that would be a crime itself. But suppose we went to the police with the crime already solved. They wouldn’t need to poke into things as much, would they? It’d be better all around.”
“I think I catch your drift,” Ned said. He gave Nancy a sympathetic look.
“So do I,” Nancy said. “All right, we’ll see what we can do. But we can’t hold off reporting this for long. Unless we can unmask the thief by the end of the festival tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have to bring in the police. And believe me, they won’t be happy with us for delaying.”
Cyril’s shoulders slumped forward a little in relief. “Thanks,” he said. “I know this isn’t the sort of weekend you were expecting, Nancy. Sorry we couldn’t oblige.”
“It’s certainly turning out to be interesting,” Nancy told him. She turned to Lance. “That’s the envelope the money was in?”
“That’s right,” Lance replied. “At least, it looks the same.”
“What happened?”
“I wish I knew,” Lance said. He shook his head. “I was taking admissions the same way I usually do. I made change from the cash box and put the bigger bills away as they came in.”
“You put them in the envelope, you mean,” George said. “I noticed you do that earlier, at the picnic.”
“That’s right,” Lance said.
“Where did you keep the envelope?” Bess wondered.
“I put a chair behind the table next to me,” Lance explained. “The envelope was on the seat of the chair. I know it sounds pretty careless, after what happened. All I can say is, it made sense at the time. I never let it out of my sight. That’s what’s so weird.”
“You were at the admissions table the whole time, nonstop?” Nancy asked.
“Well, no, I did take a break partway through,” Lance admitted. “Joann covered for me. I wasn’t gone long.”
“Did you look inside the envelope when you got back?" George asked
The question seemed to surprise Lance. He thought for a moment, then said, “Not exactly. But I’m pretty sure I put more bills in it after that. I think I would have noticed if anything was wrong.”
Nancy turned to Bess and George. “Would one of you see if you can find Joann?” she asked.
“She went back to die dorm,” Penny said. “She’s been feeling pretty low. I think seeing all these kids having fun just made it worse.”
“I’ll go,” George volunteered. She left.
“So how long did you stay at the table, and when did you discover the money was missing?” Nancy asked.
“I closed up shop about an hour ago,” Lance said. “I figured anybody who’d already missed most of the dance ought to get in free. Besides, I’d promised Penny I wouldn’t stay on duty the whole time. What’s the point of a dance if you don’t dance?”
“What did you do with the envelope and cash box, then?” Ned asked. “You didn’t carry it around on the dance floor.”
Lance looked abashed. “No, I went downstairs and put it in my locker. It was perfectly safe. It has a top-notch combination lock on it. And when Cyril and I went down to get the stuff, it hadn’t been disturbed. We brought everything up here to count the proceeds. Then we opened the envelope and saw it was stuffed with paper. What a mess!”
Nancy rubbed her forehead. It helped her concentrate. “So you were behind the table, with the envelope in plain sight, the whole time—”
“Except when Joann took over,” Lance interjected.
“Right,” Nancy said. “Then you carried the envelope straight to your locker and locked it .inside. But when you and Cyril retrieved it, the money had vanished.”
“I know it sounds impossible,” Lance said desperately. “But that’s what happened.”
“You’re right, it sounds impossible” Ned said. “Lance, are you one hundred percent sure that you were right there behind the table every minute of the time? Except for Joann, I mean.”
“Of course I’m—“Lance’s face changed. “Hold on! I just remembered. There were these two clowns who started getting into a fight. I went over to cool them down. They called me a name and left. But I wasn’t away from the table for more than a minute or two.”
“That’s all it would have taken,” Nancy said. “Did you recognize the guys? Would you know them again?”
