Nancy nodded. “All right,” she agreed. “Do you mind my asking why?”
Su-Lin grinned. “Just trust me,” she said. “It’s a family secret.”
As Nancy got out of the car, she turned and gave Su-Lin a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks again for everything,” she said.
• • •
At seven o’clock the next morning Nancy took a cab out to the museum and picked up her car. Shortly after she returned home, the phone rang.
“Yes, Mr. Stone,” she said, recognizing the curator’s nervous voice. “I’m glad you called. There were a few things I wanted to ask you about.”
“Well, I’m rather shook up at the moment,” he said. “My neighbor’s spaniel is very ill.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nancy said. “Is the dog going to be all right?”
“I don’t care about the animal,” he snapped. “It’s me I’m worried about.”
“Are you sick, too?” Nancy asked politely.
“No, no. I didn’t eat the Gold Flag chocolates. Rusty did,” Mr. Stone said.
“You mean you gave a dog chocolates?” Nancy said in disbelief. She remembered how the curator hadn’t offered any of his candies to Bess.
“I didn’t give them to him,” Mr. Stone explained impatiently. “Rusty stole the chocolates out of the garbage can. You see, I just didn’t feel safe eating them. I didn’t even know who they were from. For all I knew, the chocolates could have been poisoned. So I threw the box out. Rusty must have found it in the garbage can.”
“How can I help you?” Nancy asked.
“The point is,” Mr. Stone said, “that I’m sure those chocolates were poisoned. I tell you, someone’s trying to kill me.”
“Please calm down, Mr. Stone,” Nancy replied. “Any dog that eats a whole box of chocolates is going to be sick. It doesn’t necessarily mean the chocolates were poisoned.”
“Dr. Morgan at the animal clinic pumped Rusty’s stomach in case of food poisoning last night,” Mr. Stone insisted.
Nancy bit her lip. Maybe the chocolates were poisoned after all. “I’ll look into it,” she said, making a mental note to phone Dr. Morgan herself. “By the way,” she added, “I was just wondering. . . . Where were you last night?”
“Why, here at home,” Mr. Stone answered. “I always watch ‘Wheel of Chance’ on Thursday nights. Wouldn’t miss it.”
Nancy had a hard time picturing the stuffy curator watching a TV game show. She said goodbye to Mr. Stone, agreeing to keep in touch. She wanted to talk to him about the hacksaw, of course, but she’d decided to wait until later, when she could see his reaction in person. There was something about Nelson Stone’s manner that didn’t seem quite right.
It was still too early to phone the vet, so Nancy went upstairs, sat down at her desk, and scribbled some notes in her spiral notebook.
Nancy turned to a clean page and printed “STONE.” Underneath she wrote:
1. Receives threatening letter
2. Brake pipe cut with hacksaw—brakes fail
3. Looks for hacksaw in toolshed—gardener fired
4. N.D. locked inside toolshed—hacksaw stolen
5. Dog poisoned after eating chocolates sent to Stone
6. Curator watches “Wheel of Chance” regularly?
Suddenly Nancy sat up straighter. Remembering her conversation with George at the club, she ran downstairs and grabbed a newspaper. She thumbed through the TV listings, until she found what she was looking for. “Aha!” she cried. “ ‘Wheel of Chance’ was canceled last night for the tennis tournament. Nelson Stone was lying!”
7
A Setup
Nancy threw down the newspaper. “I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed. She wondered if Nelson Stone had been at the museum the night before. Could the curator have been the one who had locked her in the toolshed?
A short while later Nancy was on the phone with Rusty’s vet. But after a brief conversation with Dr. Morgan, all she had learned was that the spaniel had been poisoned and would recover. But since Rusty had finished the box of Gold Flag, there was no way to prove the poison was in the chocolates. “It could have been in any of the garbage he ate,” the vet pointed out.
Nancy hung up and thought for a moment. She’d have to find out who had actually sent Nelson Stone the package. What she needed now was an expert in chocolates.
Quickly she called Bess, who told Nancy that there were only two shops in the local area that carried the exclusive Gold Flag brand.
An hour later Nancy met Bess at the mall, and the two of them headed toward the Candy Boutique.
“You have to understand,” Bess told Nancy as they neared the gourmet candy shop, “that this is a dangerous place for me when I’m on a diet.”
Nancy quickened her pace. “Come on, Bess. We’re not going there to buy candy,” she reminded her friend. “We have to find out who sent Mr. Stone those chocolates.”
The girls entered the trendy shop, which was decorated in chrome and glass. Nancy walked up to the counter, while Bess browsed around. “May I speak with the manager?” Nancy asked the young saleswoman.
“The manager is off today,” the woman replied. “Is there something I can help you with?”
