“We just lost six hours,” Bess yawned.
“Cheer up,” her cousin replied. “You’ll gain them all back when we go home. ”
“Promise?” the other girl said.
She closed her eyes again while Nancy opened her handbag.
“It’s gone!” she cried suddenly.
“What’s gone?” George asked.
“The paper—the letterhead!
“Are you sure?” Bess put in.
“Look for yourself,” Nancy said.
She pulled out her wallet, a checkbook, various cosmetics, an airplane ticket, and passport, leaving only a set of small luggage keys in the bottom of the bag. The Photini letterhead was, indeed, missing.
“Maybe you threw it away with your dinner napkin,” George suggested.
Nancy shook her head. “Don’t you remember we played tic-tac-toe on the back of it, then I put it into my purse before we ate?” She sank back into her seat. “Someone took it,” she added.
She told about being half-awakened the night before when she felt the bag being moved. “But I guess I was so tired I just dismissed it.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Bess consoled her. “At least we know that one out of all the passengers on board has contact with Dimitri.”
“So all we have to do is interrogate 300 people!” George quipped.
Nancy wrinkled her nose. “You and Bess take coach and I’ll go through first class,” she replied, chuckling.
The girls dismissed the incident temporarily from their minds as they debarked and collected their suitcases. Outside, the sun blanketed the area of Glyfada in thick layers of heat.
“It’s sweltering,” George declared, feeling the temperature seeping through her sandals.
“We’ll get used to it,” Nancy said and darted toward a taxi stand. Within moments, the girls were on their way to the Hotel Skyros, a charming place located near Omonia Square.
“Gor-geous!” Bess exclaimed as a porter led them to their room.
It was large, with sliding glass doors that opened onto a terrace view of the Acropolis. On the walls were embroidered tapestries and beside each bed was a small flokati rug.
“When we get up in the morning,” said Bess, “we’ll think we’re floating on an Athenian cloud!”
Nancy and George laughed as they opened their suitcases.
Nancy removed a folding umbrella and remarked, “This could have stayed home!”
Before she could unpack anything else, there was a knock on the door. The porter had returned with a basket of delicious-looking yellow apples.
“For you,” he said, setting it on the table in front of the glass doors.
“Thank you,” Nancy replied.
“Maybe Ned sent them,” Bess suggested after the porter left, referring to Nancy’s special date. “Is there a card?”
“I don’t see any,” Nancy said. “Perhaps it’s a welcome gift from the hotel.”
She was tempted to sample it but decided to hang up her clothes first. George, on the other hand, scooped an apple off the top. As she bit into it, she glimpsed something green and scaly inside the basket. It was slithering upward between the fruit! George dropped the apple on the floor and stepped back.
“There’s a snake in here! Nancy! Bess!” she cried.
Now the venomous head emerged. George held her breath and took another step away as Nancy reached for her umbrella.
“Don’t move!” she told George, then slid the tip of the umbrella under the reptile.
It swooped forward abruptly, then swung back again.
“Oh!” Bess shrieked. “Be careful!”
“Sh!” her cousin chided her.
Seconds ticked by slowly as Nancy edged closer, hoping to bait the snake onto the umbrella. This time, to her relief, it curled across the folds of the material.
“Get the wastebasket and one of the flokati rugs,” Nancy said to Bess. “We’ll use it as a cover.”
Trembling, Bess obeyed Nancy’s instructions. She placed the basket near the table, dropped the rug in a heap next to it, then darted out of range. Nancy turned slowly and steadily on her heels, never letting her eyes leave the poisonous creature, and lowered the umbrella into the basket.
“Whew!” she sighed in relief as the snake slid off.
Instantly George stuffed the rug over it while Nancy dialed the hotel desk.
“Someone will come to dispose of it,” she told the girls.
“When?” Bess asked, still shivering.
“Soon, very soon.”
As promised, a young hotel worker appeared within minutes. He did not say anything, but when Nancy handed him the wastebasket and lifted the rug, he gasped. He turned quickly and ran down the hall with it.
“Give him the apples too!” Bess said. “Porter! Porter!” she called after him, but it was too late. He had disappeared through a stairway exit.
“It’s just as well,” Nancy said, removing the apples from the basket. “Maybe there’s something else hidden inside.”
“Like a scorpion?” Bess squirmed.
“If anything, there are probably dollar bills,” Nancy announced mysteriously. “Remember the Greek myth about the Golden Apples? They were guarded by a snake that twisted itself around the pillars of Heracles, and that’s how the dollar sign came into being.”
“I always thought apples were a love gift from Aphrodite,” Bess said dreamily.
Ignoring the comment, Nancy glanced inside the basket. “Nothing here,” she said, refilling it.
“So now what?” Bess asked, flopping down on her bed. “I’m beat.”
“You’re just suffering from delusions,” George giggled. “Come on. Get up. We have work to do.”
“Right this minute?” Bess muttered.
Nancy glanced at her watch. “We may be able to catch Mr. Vatis before he leaves his office,” she said, referring to the attorney who handled Helen Nicholas’s inheritance from her uncle.
The girls took a taxi to the address Mr. Drew had given Nancy for the law firm Vatis & Vatis. To their astonishment, the attorneys had moved and another name was painted on the entrance.
Inside, Nancy introduced herself to the receptionist, who smiled politely when she heard Nancy’s question concerning the law office. “All I know is that the father, Vatis Senior, died some time ago. I have no idea where his son is. No one else does, either.”
“Thank you anyway, Nancy said in disappointment.
Turning to leave, she and the others almost bumped into a man who was standing behind them apparently waiting to talk to the young woman. The girls apologized and left, a little embarrassed.
“I wonder where Vatis went,” Bess remarked.
“Who knows?” George sighed. “The question is, where do we go from here?”
3
Unwanted Mask
“We’re not far from Plaka,” Nancy replied to Bess’s question.
“Then what are we waiting for?” her friend asked. “I hear it’s mysterious and exciting!”
Within ten minutes, the girls found themselves in the quaint district of old Athens where the capital of modern Greece had formed in the early 1800s.
“The houses are charming,” Nancy observed.
The buildings rose in craggy steps like layers of stone carved out of an ancient hill. Most were trellised with vines and had window boxes and clay pots filled with colorful flowers. Jasmine and honeysuckle permeated the air.
“Smells wonderful,” Bess said. She breathed deeply as they wandered down the narrow, winding street.
They had paused in front of a small Byzantine church when a bearded clergyman wearing a black robe darted ahead to enter. Nancy gazed up at the faded red dome.
“It must be several hundred years old,” she said. “Shall we go in, too?”
“Sure,” George replied.
The odor of incense filled the church as the service ended, and in the entrance thin, white candles burned dimly, creating a soft glow around the icon on t
he stand next to them. It was a small wood panel on which a saint’s picture had been painted. The bearded priest placed a beautiful silver box in front of it.
“What’s he doing?” Bess whispered as he hurried out.
“He’s leaving a present for the saint,” Nancy explained. She stepped closer.
To her surprise, there was a nautical crest engraved on the lid of the box. Was the young man related to a shipping family? If so, might he know Constantine Nicholas?
“Come on!” the girl detective exclaimed, leading the way out.
By now, the Orthodox priest was far ahead of them. To Nancy’s dismay, he disappeared quickly into the crowd of pedestrians at the foot of the hill.
“Oh, dear,” Nancy said with a sigh as they lost sight of him completely.
The smell of roasted corn now drew the girls farther into monastiraki, where a variety of wares hung across open shop doors.
“Look at those embroidered blouses,” Bess remarked. “Aren’t they pretty?”
“I’m going to buy one,” George announced.
“Me too,” her cousin replied.
Nancy had her eye on two lovely linen tablecloths across the way. She bought them, then stopped in front of another store window. The sign above it said CHRYSOTEQUE.
“That must mean ‘gold store,’ ” Nancy said as Bess and George caught up to her. “Just look at all that fabulous jewelry!”
Even more intriguing was the gold mask displayed in the middle!
“It’s beautiful,” George remarked.
The girls leaned forward for a closer look when suddenly it was pulled out of the window.
“I guess somebody wants to buy it,” Bess said, and entered the shop followed by Nancy and George.
To their amazement, though, there were no customers inside. Behind a curtain at the rear, angry voices shouted at each other.
“Maybe we should leave,” Bess murmured as a young boy appeared from behind the curtain and raced out of the store in tears.
Then a woman stepped into view and smiled. “May I help you?” she asked.
“I was interested in the mask in your window—” Nancy said.
“That’s been sold,” the shopkeeper replied curtly. “We have no more like it.”
“In that case,” Bess put in, “I’d like to buy this pin.” She pointed to one in the form of a mask. “What do you think, girls?”
“Don’t forget you have to lug all this stuff through customs,” her cousin reminded her. She gazed at her friends’ shopping bags. They were filling up rapidly.
“But this won’t weigh a thing,” Bess insisted and asked the shopkeeper the price.
“Not much at all, less than a thousand drachmas,” the woman said.
“How many American dollars is that?” George inquired.
“Three—four.”
“It’s more like thirty,” Nancy whispered to Bess.
“Even so,” the girl said, “I’ll take it. Somehow, spending drachmas is more fun than spending dimes!”
George rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m going to save my traveler’s checks for something I really want,” she said as they stepped outside. “Like a cruise on the Aegean.”
By now, the girls were beginning to feel tired from their long walk. Nancy laid her heavy shopping bag on the sidewalk whenever she could. She had done so twice, and the second time the bag was nearly trampled on by tourists who window-shopped beside her.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bess suggested at last. “I can’t take all of these people.”
The girls walked toward Syntagma Square, where a din of children’s voices circled an old man who wore a flat hat made of natural sponge. He carried others over his arm. They were all different shapes and sizes.
“Barba Yanni! Barba Yanni!” a small boy cried, eagerly trading a few coins for a big sponge.
“He sure won’t need an umbrella,” George said. “That sponge could soak up an entire cloudburst!”
“I’d like to soak up something cool,” Bess said as they passed an ice-cream vendor.
“How about sitting down, too?” George asked.
The three found a sidewalk table. After they gave their order, a young man pulled up a chair.
“You American?” he asked in halting English.
“Yes, we are,” George replied.
“I show you Athens,” he announced.
“Oh, we couldn’t—” Bess said.
“No, thank you,” Nancy interrupted coolly.
“Entaxi,” he said, heaving a sigh. “Okay, girls. So long.”
Giggling, Bess leaned toward her friends. “I think we broke his heart,” she said, watching him leave.
Instantly George changed the subject. “May we see your tablecloths?” she asked Nancy, who promptly opened her shopping bag.
“Hey, what’s this?” she said, discovering an extra package. It was wrapped like the others from the jewelry store. She pulled it out and removed the paper.
“It’s the gold face mask we saw in the window!” Bess exclaimed.
“How did it get into my shopping bag?” Nancy wondered.
George shrugged. “It sure looks like a real ancient piece,” she replied, “not a reproduction.”
She took the mask from her friend and turned it over, examining it closely. “How about this?” she declared, pointing to a gold-colored sticker affixed to the metal behind the chin.
“It’s that doodle!” Nancy said excitedly.
“Doodle?”
“Yes, like the one someone drew on the Photini letterhead. It’s the letter phi, but instead of curlicues at each end, this one has the head of a snake.”
“The whole symbol is actually the body of a snake,” Bess observed. “What do you suppose it means?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Nancy said, announcing her plan to return to the jewelry shop immediately.
“Right this minute?” Bess asked. “Can’t we relax a bit longer? I really feel dizzy.”
“Maybe you ought to go back to the hotel,” George said, as her cousin rose unsteadily from her chair.
“I think you’re right,” Bess replied. “It must be the heat or something.”
Nancy insisted that George accompany her cousin, adding that she would not be long at Chrysoteque’s. To her disappointment, she found the jewelry store closed.
Siesta time, Nancy thought, snapping her fingers. Maybe the archeological museum could give her some information about the mask!
She took a taxi there and found it also was ready to close for a few hours. The guard at the door rattled at her in Greek as she pleaded in English to be let in.
It’s no use, Nancy thought anxiously.
Then she showed him the gold mask. To her astonishment, he grabbed it from her and said something in Greek. Nancy shook her head in puzzlement. He took her arm and pulled her toward an office at the end of the corridor.
I hope he’s taking me to see the curator, she murmured to herself. And I hope he speaks English !
When they stepped into the room, the guard flew past a secretary to an inner office. Seated behind a desk was a brown-haired man with a trace of gray in his sideburns. The guard spoke in Greek and laid the gold mask in front of him.
“I am in charge of this museum,” he said to Nancy in a thick accent. “Who are you and where did you get this?”
The girl detective introduced herself, explaining, “I found it in my shopping bag. ”
“In your what?” the curator replied.
“In—”
“Just a minute,” he interrupted and dialed a number on his telephone.
Within seconds, another man appeared breathless in the doorway. The curator told Nancy he was a detective who had been recently assigned to the museum after a series of art thefts.
“The mask was stolen from this museum, Miss Drew,” the curator announced. “Did you know that?”
“No. How could I?”
The detective’s glaring
eyes made Nancy suddenly feel like a criminal.
“As a matter of fact,” the curator went on, “this mask should now be in the United States with a traveling exhibit. ”
“You mean to different museums?” Nancy answered.
“Then,” the detective interrupted in sparse English, “you know something.”
“No, I—no, I don’t. I was shopping at the flea market and—”
“And you bought this mask?” the curator asked.
The guard, who understood no English, remained stone-faced while the detective laughed. “A joke—she bought mask monastiraki! Ha!”
The three men conferred quietly for several minutes. The curator turned the mask over. He seemed to be making comments about the symbol on the back, then pointed accusingly at Nancy.
This is ridiculous, she thought. They think I’m a thief!
“When the thieves realized they could not sell the mask, they got rid of it,” the curator stated. “Does that make sense to you, Miss Drew?”
“I suppose so. Maybe they figured you were close to catching them and planted the mask on me.
“Perhaps you belong to gang,” the detective put in haltingly. “You American girlfriend or cousin to one of the members?”
“No,” Nancy said indignantly. Trying to remain calm, she added, “Even if I were, which I’m not, I’d hardly have stepped into such a flimsy trap.”
“Even so, we must keep you here until we know otherwise!” the curator exclaimed.
4
The Intruder
As the curator spoke, a flush of anger rose in Nancy’s cheeks. “You are going to hold me?” she repeated.
“That is correct, Miss Drew,” he replied. “We cannot let you go, now that you have given us the first clue to the thieves. Tell us about this symbol.”
“I can’t—I don’t know how it got on the mask or who put it there.” Nancy asked if she might make a phone call to her hotel.
“You may use this telephone. ”
To the girl’s relief, George answered on the first ring. When she heard Nancy’s predicament, she was astounded.
“We‘ll—I mean I’ll—come to the museum right away,” George said. “Bess still isn’t feeling well, so she’d better stay here. Bye—”