“Why would Mr. Sandback’s handkerchief be a clue, though?” Bess asked.
“I’m not sure,” Nancy said. “But I think we need to keep searching. The courthouse is on the corner of Main and Drake. Let’s go there. According to the book, we’re supposed to find a compass there.”
The kids walked a block down Main Street until they reached the River Heights courthouse.
They began searching the big courtyard in front of the building. Nancy looked on the courthouse steps. Bess searched the lawn, but Orson Wong just yawned.
“This clue hunt is getting kind of boring,” he said. He walked over to the flagpole and began spinning around it. He spun faster and faster until he got dizzy.
“Ugh,” he yelled, grabbing the flag rope so he wouldn’t fall down.
Nancy glanced at Orson and rolled her eyes. Then she looked again. Orson was peering at something attached to the end of the flag rope. Then he took the thing off and waved it in the air.
“The clue!” Orson yelled. “I think I found the clue!”
Nancy ran over to Orson. He showed her a pencil. Instead of an eraser on top, there was a little round dial.
George peeked at the instrument. “It’s a compass!” she said. “My dad and I used one on our last camping trip.”
“Look,” Nancy said. “It has a little mark on it.”
Nancy squinted at the compass. There was a tiny red X on the dial, right over the W.
“According to this compass, we’re supposed to go west on Drake Street,” she said. “Maybe the next thing we’ll find is Mr. Sandback’s book!”
8
Suspect: Sandback?
Nancy and her friends headed west down Drake Street.
“I wonder where this clue will take us,” Bess said excitedly.
“I don’t know,” Nancy said, fishing the slip of paper out of her pocket. “The directions say, ‘When you find a story—brake!’ I wonder what that means?”
The group tromped down Drake Street for a half block.
Then another half block.
And then another whole block!
“I don’t see anything,” George said.
“Neither do I,” Nancy answered.
A block farther Drake Street hit a dead end.
“Oh, no!” Nancy cried. “Where do we go now?”
She looked up.
And then she gasped.
“It’s the Book Nook!” she said. “I didn’t even realize it. ‘When you see a story—brake!’ The Book Nook is full of stories. The compass and the directions were leading us right to it.”
“Let’s go inside,” Josie said.
The kids ran up the stairs and into the bookstore. The first person they saw was Mr. Sandback. He was sitting behind the front desk. His long, skinny arms were folded across his chest. He was wearing his familiar big grin and his black vest with all the funny patches.
“Hello, children,” he said. He didn’t seem very surprised to see them. “Have you found the missing book yet?”
“Well,” Nancy said, “we found a lot of clues, and they led us here, to the Book Nook.”
“I wonder why,” Mr. Sandback said.
Suddenly, clue after clue fell into place in Nancy’s mind.
“I think I know why,” she burst out. “And I think I know who the thief is.”
“Really?” Mr. Sandback said. “Do tell!”
“But . . . it doesn’t make sense at all,” Nancy said. Her forehead crinkled in a confused frown. “Because, Mr. Sandback, I think the thief is you.”
“What!” exclaimed all the other kids.
Mr. Sandback didn’t look angry. In fact, he looked as if someone had just told him a wonderful joke.
“I’m the thief?” he asked. “Why do you say that, Detective Drew?”
“The clues all point to you,” Nancy said. She reached into her book bag and pulled out all the things she and her friends had found.
“I found this piece of red felt in the hinges of the box that the book was stolen from,” Nancy said. She pulled the bit of fabric from her clue notebook and showed it to Mr. Sandback. Then she pointed to a red typewriter on Mr. Sandback’s vest. Part of the patch was ripped away.
“It looks like the felt came from that patch!” Nancy exclaimed.
Next she pointed to the half-moons propped on Mr. Sandback’s nose. “You wear glasses,” she said.
She held out the case that Kyle had found on the bench in front of the school. “So, maybe this blue leather eyeglass case belongs to you.”
Mr. Sandback nodded. “Go on,” he said.
Feeling more confused than ever, Nancy showed Mr. Sandback the handkerchief she’d found in the bush.
“Your middle name is Alvin, which makes your initials M. A. S.,” she said. “And those are exactly the initials on this handkerchief.”
“Hey, what about the pencil, I found?” Orson said.
“Remember what Mr. Sandback said here on Sunday,” Nancy pointed out.
“I always write with a good old-fashioned pencil,” Mr. Sandback said. “Nancy, you’ve found me out.”
With that, Mr. Sandback reached beneath the front desk and pulled out a ragged copy of Foul-up at the Floss Factory.
“The first edition!” George exclaimed. “You had it all the time!”
“But why would you steal your own book?” Nancy said.
Just then Nancy heard the click of a door opening behind her. She turned around to see Julia coming out of the office. She was wearing a grin much like her father’s. Behind her was Anderson Quilling. He was smiling, too.
“I see you reached the bottom of the mystery,” she said. “You see, Nancy, this was another one of Dad’s little pranks.”
“I thought it would be fun to bring one of my mysteries to life,” Mr. Sandback said. “So I re-created The Absent Award for my fans to solve. And you did a bang-up job, Nancy!”
“My friends helped with the clue hunt, too,” Nancy said.
“I warned you,” Julia said, placing a hand on Nancy’s shoulder. “My father has lots of tricks up his sleeve.”
“Were you in on it, Julia?” Nancy asked.
“Yup!” Julia said. “And so was Anderson, here. And Mrs. Goldstein. We thought it would be a fun game for you all.”
“So,” Mr. Sandback said, turning to the small crowd of kids in front of the desk, “did you enjoy the mystery?”
“Yeah!” Nancy and her friends shouted.
“And most of all,” Nancy added, “I’m glad you have your rare book.”
“Well, actually,” Mr. Sandback said, patting the book cover fondly, “I thought I’d donate this book to the River Heights Public Library. They could put it on display for all readers to see—not just me.”
“That’s so nice, Mr. Sandback!” Bess said.
“And it may not end there,” Mr. Sandback said. He gazed down at Nancy with another big grin. “I have a feeling Nancy Drew might see her name in my next mystery story, The Crook Who Took the Book.”
“Wow!” Nancy said. “Thanks, Mr. Sand-back!”
While her friends crowded around the famous author, Nancy picked up her clue notebook and pulled a pencil from her book bag. She sat in a chair and opened her notebook to the “Missing Mystery” page. Then she wrote:
Not only did I get to meet my favorite author, I got to solve one of his mysteries. It just goes to show that Mr. Sandback was right—there are adventures all around us. You just have to know where to look. And sometimes, the best place to look is in a book!
Case closed.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Aladdin Paperbacks edition April 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ALADDI
N PAPERBACKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
The text of this book was set in Excelsior.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2001098779
NANCY DREW and THE NANCY DREW NOTEBOOKS are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN 0-7434-3761-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-3958-9 (eBook)
Carolyn Keene, The Crook Who Took the Book
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