Into Thin Air

  “Oh” was all George could say as she continued examining the rows of antique furniture.

  As she wandered through the auction, Nancy was struck by an idea. She left her friends and found the manager of the auction house in an office at the end of the hall. He was a man of about fifty with glasses and a cap covering what had to be a bald head.

  “Excuse me, sir. Have many people been here to look at the furniture?” Nancy asked.

  He raised his head from the papers he was examining and eyed her up and down. “Many,” he said with a sarcastic edge to his voice. “Why?”

  “A man with a mustache, sunglasses, and a flat cap?” Nancy prodded. “He’s my uncle. We were supposed to meet him here.”

  The manager put his pen down and thought for a moment. “No, nobody like that. There was a very rude young lady, though. She seemed interested in that desk over there, the one that man is studying now.” Going over to the office window, he gestured out at the floor.

  Nancy saw Mark examining a large, antique Chinese enamel desk.

  “What did she look like?” Nancy asked.

  “Young, attractive, long brown hair,” the manager commented, peering down at Nancy over the rims of his glasses. “She was rifling through the drawers and banging at the sides of the desk. It seemed as if she were searching for something. When I asked her to stop, she practically bit my head off.”

  Nancy’s heart beat a little faster. Searching for what? she wondered. It sounded as if the woman had had something specific in mind.

  For the first time Nancy began to wonder if maybe Mark was on the trail of Johnson’s embezzled money.

  Maybe someone else was after the money, too!

  Chapter

  Six

  HOW ODD,” Nancy said, throwing the manager an understanding smile. “Did this woman say what she was after?”

  The manager shook his head. “I finally asked her to go,” he told Nancy. “She just wouldn’t leave the desk alone, and I was afraid she would damage it.”

  When Nancy returned to her friends, she saw that more people had filed in, all waiting for the auction to begin. Mark was still studying the desk. She debated whether or not to mention the mysterious dark-haired woman to him, but decided against it. She didn’t want to set him off unless she had a definite lead.

  Mark beckoned her over and said in a cautious low voice, “This desk is a Shenzu original, Nancy. When I was a kid, I used to help out at my uncle’s antique store, and he told me all about these. They’re worth thousands of dollars and have all sorts of secret compartments! Each is hidden in a different way, too. Something could be in this desk, and the police would never have known about it! Look, I’ll show you.”

  As she watched, Mark found no less than three hidden drawers. All were empty, unfortunately. Then, before they could examine the desk any further, the auctioneer banged his gavel for the sale to begin.

  After registering they took seats in front of the auctioneer’s podium. The hall had filled quickly, with a substantial crowd of potential bidders. Nancy glanced over the crowd, looking for a man with a mustache or a young woman with long brown hair. All the women she saw were middle-aged, though, and the two men who had mustaches didn’t look like the guy in Mark’s instant photo.

  “I’ve got to have another look at that desk!” Mark whispered furiously.

  ’There’s no more time, Mark,” Nancy whispered back. “How are you going to get another look?”

  “If I have to buy the desk, I’ll buy it, that’s all,” he said in a determined voice.

  “But you said yourself that type of desk is worth thousands of dollars!”

  Mark shook his head. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and nobody else will bid on it. Not many people know the difference between a Shenzu and an ordinary Chinese desk.”

  “What if the price gets too high?” Nancy demanded.

  Mark stared at her for a second. “How much can you lend me?”

  Nancy drew back. “Forget it! I’ve helped as much as I can, but this is asking too much. I mean—”

  “Nancy,” Mark interrupted, “we can always resell it! Consider it as an investment!”

  Nancy sighed. Well, she told herself, I could resell it. And also, I do think it’s worth trying to find out what that woman was after.

  “Okay,” she muttered at last.

  George reached over the backs of the chairs and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Nan, they’re up to the desk.”

  Nancy came alert and so did Mark. From his podium the auctioneer said, “Now we have a lovely antique Chinese desk. The bidding will begin at one hundred dollars. Do I have a bid?”

  Mark raised his hand.

  “One hundred from the young gentleman over there,” the auctioneer began to chant in a singsong voice. “Do I have two, two hundred dollars?”

  “Two hundred!” The bid came from a little man with glasses sitting in the row behind them.

  Mark gritted his teeth. He raised his hand. “Two-fifty,” he shouted.

  “Four hundred,” cried the little man.

  “I have four hundred!” crowed the auctioneer. “Do I have five? Five hundred dollars, will you give me five?”

  Mark tugged at Nancy’s sleeve. “Do you have any credit cards with you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Five hundred!” Mark shouted.

  “I have five hundred dollars!” the auctioneer cried. “Will I get six? Who’ll bid six—”

  “One thousand!” the little man cried out, waving his hand furiously.

  Nancy felt herself breaking out into a cold sweat. She looked hard at the little man, carefully committing his face to memory.

  “Eleven hundred!” shouted Mark, throwing a hand into the air again.

  Nancy grabbed his arm. “No, Mark!” she said angrily. “No more. You’re already over the limit on my credit card.”

  “Two thousand!” the little man called out.

  There were murmurs from the audience, and it was evident that people were enjoying the bidding war.

  “Mark, that’s it!” Nancy warned. “No more! I’m serious.”

  Mark’s face fell, and he slumped down in his chair. The auctioneer called for higher bids but the room was silent.

  “Two thousand once, two thousand twice . . .” The auctioneer waited briefly, then slammed his gavel down. “Sold, to the gentleman in the second row, for two thousand dollars!”

  Nancy, Mark, George, and Bess filed out of the auction house and stood in the cool evening air, thinking about what had happened.

  “Maybe he knew it was a genuine whatever-it-was,” Bess said with a shrug.

  “Shenzu,” Mark said. “Maybe. But maybe not. I’m going to find out.”

  Just then the little man emerged from the auction house, the moonlight glinting off his glasses.

  “Excuse me,” Mark said, turning to the man. “Would you mind telling me why you bid so high on that desk?”

  The little man recognized Mark as the person he had been bidding against.

  “I’m only a designated bidder,” he told them. “I’m not the new owner of the piece.”

  “Well, who is?” Mark pressed him.

  The little man smiled. “I’m not permitted to divulge that. If you’ll excuse me . . .” He brushed past Mark and walked up to a waiting van. Two husky men in dark clothes were waiting beside it. At the little man’s instructions, they went inside the auction house and soon emerged carrying the heavy desk. As Mark, Nancy, George, and Bess watched, they loaded the desk into the van.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Mark said to the girls in a louder than normal voice.

  They piled into the Mustang, and Nancy drove out of the parking lot.

  “Pull over!” Mark commanded. “And turn off your lights. We can wait for the van here.”

  Nancy smiled. This time, Mark was right on target. She had planned on doing exactly the same thing. She wanted to know where the desk was going—and to whom. It would be
very interesting if the new owner turned out to be a young woman with long, dark hair.

  “Oh, no.” Bess sank back in her seat. “We’re following them, aren’t we? Oh, I hate car chases.”

  Just then the van pulled out of the lot. After giving it a good head start, Nancy slipped her Mustang onto the road and followed.

  The van drove to the outskirts of River Heights. It turned off on a narrow road marked by a sign that read Landfill.

  “Hey,” mused George. “It’s the dump. What do you suppose—”

  “Shhh!” Mark said.

  Nancy doused the lights and slowed the Mustang to a crawl as she turned off on the road to the landfill site. The van drove uphill and disappeared over the crest.

  Nancy noticed a gravel road off to her left. She turned onto it. The road twisted along the slope of the hill and ended at the edge of a woodlot. Nancy stopped the car.

  “Do you think they can see us?” George wondered.

  “It’s too dark out,” Nancy said. “And we are pretty much hidden by the hill.”

  “Come on!” Mark urged them in a loud whisper. “Let’s watch what they’re doing.”

  They walked to the top of the hill, where they were able to look down on the landfill. Its mass seemed to stretch to the horizon, where the glow of River Heights lit the sky. The van was silhouetted at the edge of the dump in the light from the moon. Mark motioned the girls to get down. Nancy crouched beside him.

  “Look,” Mark whispered. “There’s another car there. I thought I just saw someone get out.”

  Nancy peered through the darkness. Mark was right. A heavyset man of medium height was waiting beside a late-model car.

  The two husky men got out of the van and had a brief conversation with the man who had been waiting for them. Nancy wished she could get closer to hear what they were saying.

  At last the two men opened the back door of the van. They lifted the desk out and pushed it over on its side. It fell to the ground.

  “For the price they paid, they’re sure treating that desk roughly,” Nancy whispered. They watched the third man hand something to the two men from the van, who then got back inside. The van’s engine roared to life. It backed up, and soon disappeared down the road toward the highway.

  As soon as it was gone, the lone man at the landfill site turned on a flashlight and began examining the desk.

  “Obviously he must be the buyer,” Nancy said. She wondered what had become of the dark-haired woman. Maybe she had merely been an overzealous antique hunter. She hadn’t bothered to show up for the auction, that was certain.

  “He’s checking for hidden compartments!” Mark whispered.

  Sure enough, the man was pulling apart the drawers and searching through them one at a time. After he scrutinized each one, he threw it aside and went back to his search.

  “Can you believe this?” Mark asked Nancy.

  The heavyset man went to the trunk of the car and emerged with an ax. Suddenly he began hacking the valuable antique to pieces. From time to time he would stop to search through the splinters of broken wood and smashed enamel. When he was finished, the desk was nothing but a pile of trash.

  From her hillside hiding spot, Nancy watched him step back from his awful handiwork. Then he returned the ax to the trunk and came back with a large can. He started pouring something on the remains of the Chinese desk.

  “It’s gasoline!” Mark cried. He began to get up. “Come on, we’ve got to stop him!”

  But before he could get any further, a match flared. Instantly the pile of splintered wood was engulfed in a ball of fire!

  Chapter

  Seven

  EVEN FROM A DISTANCE, the glow of the blazing fire threw moving shadows across Nancy and her friends’ startled faces.

  Nancy grabbed Mark’s arm and pulled him back. “If there was any evidence in that desk, it’s gone now,” she whispered.

  “The only thing left will be a pile of ashes,” George agreed.

  “Oh, no,” Mark moaned. “Finally I get a lead, and there it goes—right up in flames. Well, that’s the end of it. Now I guess I go back to flinging and delivering pizzas for the rest of my life.”

  Nancy grabbed his shoulder. Despite the Chinese desk’s fiery finish, she had learned a lot from the evening’s adventure.

  First and foremost, Mark Rubin—despite his goofy manner—really was onto something. She wasn’t sure even Mark knew exactly what that something was. But people didn’t secretly buy valuable desks at auctions, have them delivered to landfills, hack them to pieces, and set them on fire unless they were up to something—something quite illegal.

  “You’re not giving up, Mark,” Nancy said firmly. “Not as long as I’m around.”

  Mark studied her. “Aren’t our twelve hours almost up?” he asked. “Or are you saying you’re going to stay on this with me?”

  Nancy nodded slowly. “You got it, Mark. And you’re wrong about the evidence going up in smoke. Whatever that guy was looking for in that desk, we all saw that he didn’t find it. What I’d like to know now is who he was, what he wanted, and why.”

  “He’s leaving,” Bess called in an urgent whisper.

  Nancy glanced back down at the landfill site, where the pile of splintered wood was fast turning into charred embers. The man who had set the fire had climbed back into his car and was starting onto the road that led back to the highway.

  “We can follow him!” Mark said excitedly.

  Nancy nodded. “Let’s go!”

  They raced for Nancy’s car and piled in. Nancy headed back toward the main road with her lights out. She navigated slowly in the darkness.

  “Hurry,” Mark urged. “He’ll get away!”

  “I can’t go any faster,” Nancy cautioned. “I don’t want him to see us.”

  They saw the red taillights of the car when they winked out and turned off the gravel side road onto the main road. Nancy followed at a considerable distance. The car approached the entrance to the highway, slowed, and turned left.

  “He’s heading back to Brewster,” Mark said under his breath.

  Nancy stepped on the gas, and moments later, she turned onto the highway. She put her lights on. The car they were following was almost half a mile away, and traveling faster than the speed limit.

  “Faster!” George cried from the back seat. “He’s getting away.” Beside her, Bess was pale. Car chases really were one of her least favorite things in the world.

  Nancy’s eyes flicked down to the speedometer. The needle was rapidly approaching sixty, and still the car they were following was growing smaller in the distance. She accelerated until the Mustang was traveling just at sixty-five.

  As they approached the Brewster town line, the other car slowed and Nancy began to gain on her quarry. A traffic light loomed ahead, at an intersection with a gas station on each corner. It changed from green to amber. Both cars slowed, and the distance between them lessened.

  “It’s a Chevy,” said Mark. “Recent model.”

  “Can you see the license plate?” George demanded, leaning forward from the back seat.

  Mark was straining against the shoulder harness, with his face almost pressed up against the windshield. He shook his head. “Uh-uh. It looks like it’s covered with mud or something.”

  Nancy kept her eyes on the amber light, silently urging it to turn to red. It seemed to be taking forever. The Chevy was only a few hundred feet ahead and almost at the intersection.

  “Don’t look now,” Bess said from the back seat. “But there’s a police car in the lot of that service station.”

  The light was still amber, but the Chevy had braked to an almost complete stop. Nancy was relieved. She pressed harder on her brake pedal, and the Mustang slowed rapidly. She changed lanes, in order to pull up beside the Chevy to get a look at its driver.

  Suddenly the driver of the Chevy hit the gas. The car zipped across the intersection just as the light changed from amber to red.

&nbs
p; “No!” Mark almost shrieked. Anger distorted his face. “Go for it, Nancy. Don’t let them get away!”

  Nancy bit her lip. The driver must have noticed her tailing him. Should she try to follow him?

  “That police car is pulling out of the service station,” Bess warned. “Maybe they’ll go after them for going through a red.”

  “I can’t go,” Nancy told Mark. “I’ll just get a ticket if I do.” She kept a steady pressure on the brake pedal and the Mustang slowed to a complete stop at the red light.

  Mark slumped back in his seat. The police car pulled up to the light beside Nancy. Inside, the two officers were chatting, apparently unaware of the interrupted car chase that had just taken place in front of their eyes.

  “We were so close!” Mark said, shaking his fist in the direction of the disappearing tail-lights. “Now what?”

  Nancy gave him a tired smile. “Now we go back to River Heights and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

  • • •

  The next day at ten o’clock, Mark met Nancy at her house. Nancy had barely opened the door when the first breathless words tumbled out of his mouth.

  “So what next?”

  She motioned him to follow her to the kitchen. Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ housekeeper, was just putting away the breakfast dishes.

  “I have some things to do in the garden,” said Hannah after Nancy had introduced Mark to her. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk.”

  After Hannah had left, Nancy got glasses out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. Mark sat on a stool. She poured them each a glass of juice.

  “First,” she began, finally addressing Mark’s question, “we go over everything that’s happened. Then we decide on a plan of action.”

  Nancy questioned Mark for more than an hour, going over all the details of the case from beginning to end. Although Mark mentioned a few minor details she hadn’t heard before, Nancy felt stymied when they had finished.

  Mark was staring at her expectantly.

  Nancy laughed. “You think I’m just going to come out with the solution, don’t you?”