Carolyn Keene - This Side of Evil

Nancy walked down the front stairs, biting her lip with a puzzled frown. It hardly seemed possible that a blackmailer—any blackmailer—would run the risk of discovery over such small amounts of money. And was it only hysteria, or did Monique have reason to believe that she had narrowly escaped being a murder victim?

The chauffeur was waiting outside the hospital to drive Nancy back to the Cherbourg Building. She was silent most of the way, thinking through what she had learned so far. Monique’s story seemed convincing. Nancy was sure she honestly thought she hadn’t taken enough of the sedative to cause any harm. Had someone slipped something else into the bottle?

“I have one more question,” she said, leaning forward to talk to the chauffeur as they wove through the heavy late-afternoon traffic on Université Avenue. “Do you have any idea how the blackmailer could have learned about your drug use?”

Jacques shook his head. “No,” he replied, “but I did spend two years in prison, so I suppose it is a matter of public record.” He hesitated, glancing nervously at Nancy. “I even changed my name from Xavier to Olivier on my application for this job—just to make sure my past was not found out. I don’t know how the blackmailer has managed to trace me.”

“ Merci ,” Nancy replied. “Oh, and one more thing, Jacques. Please be careful.”

“But why?”

“Because at least one person,” Nancy said slowly, “believes that our blackmailer may also be trying his hand at murder.”

In the lunchroom at the Cherbourg Building, Nancy met with the file clerk, Becky Evans. Becky was a nervous little blonde with large frightened eyes. She kept glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody was listening.

“I’ve heard about Monique,” Becky whispered. “Is—is she going to be all right?”

Nancy nodded. “She’s still a little groggy, but she’ll be fine in a day or two. I must tell you, though, that Monique suspects that the medication she took was poisoned,” Nancy said, stirring her coffee.

Becky was staring at her, her eyes dark with fear. “Poison?” she whispered.

Nancy nodded. “There’s no way to be sure, at least not yet. But you should be careful.” She took out her notebook. “Now, what can you tell me about the blackmail letters you’ve received?”

“I’ve gotten three of them over the last six months,” Becky said, swallowing hard. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she pulled out an unopened envelope. “And here’s the fourth.” She thrust it into Nancy’s hands. “This was in my mailbox when I went home for lunch today.”

Nancy examined it closely. It was a plain white envelope, postmarked in Montreal. “How do you know it’s from the blackmailer?”

Becky pointed at the typed address. “Because it looks just like the others. It’s addressed to Rebecca Veronica Evans, and I never use my full name. Besides, it doesn’t have a return address. You open it. I just can’t look.”

Nancy opened the envelope and carefully unfolded the single sheet of paper. It was a blackmail letter all right, but it wasn’t for Becky. It was for somebody named Annette LeBeau!

“Just a reminder that it’s almost time for the third installment,” the letter said. “So you can start getting the $20,000 together. If you don’t pay, all your fans will know that you kept Dutch Medina out of jail, where he belongs.”

Nancy quickly folded the letter. She hoped her face didn’t betray her surprise as she turned back toward Becky. “I suppose you’ve kept the letters,” she remarked in a deliberately casual voice.

The girl nodded. “I’ll bring them in tomorrow and leave them with Ms. Amberton.”

“One more question,” Nancy said. “Do you have any idea how the blackmailer found out about the theft and the sentence you served?”

“I don’t have a clue,” she replied bitterly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. This last letter—and Monique’s poisoning—are the last straw. When this is over, I’m going to quit my job and get out of Montreal for good!”

After Becky had left, Nancy sat for a few moments, thinking. She had her first real lead now. The blackmailer had made a careless mistake in mixing up the letters. It proved that Ashley Amberton had been right when she said there might be other victims. But who was Annette LeBeau, and how could she afford to hand over sixty thousand dollars? Nancy read the letter again. The blackmailer mentioned her fans . Was she a movie star?

On the way back to Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy looked at her watch. It was only four o’clock, plenty of time. She stopped at a pay phone and called the apartment. Ned answered.

“I hope you’ve had enough sightseeing,” Nancy told him, “because there’s work to be done. I need you to run over to the Journal morgue and find out everything you can about Annette LeBeau and Dutch Medina.”

“No problem,” Ned agreed. “Are you on to something already?”

“I think so. It looks like our blackmailer has expanded his territory,” Nancy explained. “He might even be getting into murder. I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

“Speaking of tonight,” Ned said, teasing her by speaking in an exaggerated French accent, “I’ve found a great little place for dinner—a romantic dinner just for two.”

Nancy giggled. “Sounds terrific, Nickerson,” she said. “But don’t forget about George.”

“Right,” Ned said with a resigned sigh. “Dinner for three.”

In Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy reported what she had learned from the blackmail victims.

“Do you think Monique really tried to kill herself?” Ashley Amberton asked.

Nancy shook her head. “You’d know that better than I would, but I’d say that her fear is genuine. She really thinks somebody tried to kill her. Of course, it is possible that she just got sleepy and forgot how many pills she’d taken.”

Ms. Amberton sat down in her leather chair. “I don’t like it,” she said, tapping her red nails on the desk. “This is getting serious.”

“There’s more,” Nancy went on. She opened her purse and took out the letter she had gotten from Becky. “Do you know somebody named Annette LeBeau?”

Taking the letter, Ms. Amberton scanned it quickly. Her face became clouded with concern. Then she picked up a remote control and snapped on the TV.

“This isn’t small-time blackmail anymore,” she said, flicking across the channels. “This is the big time.” Just then the face of an attractive, vivacious blonde filled the screen. The camera zoomed back to show that the woman was holding a microphone in her hand. With her was a man whom Nancy recognized as the prime minister of Canada.

“That,” Ashley Amberton said, putting down the remote control, “is Annette LeBeau!”

Chapter Three

“I thought this was going to be a quick, simple case,” George said at dinner that night. Nancy had just told her and Ned about her afternoon’s work. George stabbed a bite of Cafe Renoir’s famous spinach salad. “And here we are, up to our eyebrows in crime already. Four blackmailings, one attempted murder—”

“Hey, not so fast,” Nancy warned, finishing the last of her shrimp. George loved to solve mysteries almost as much as she did—the more the merrier. But it never hurt to be careful. “Let’s not leap to any conclusions. We don’t know for sure that somebody actually tried to kill Monique. She claims it’s true, but it may not be.”

“Yeah,” Ned agreed in his usual, cautious way. “Maybe she actually was sleepy and just lost count of her pills.”

Nancy turned to Ned. “What’d you dig up at the Journal this afternoon?”