Nancy swerved back onto the road and sped toward the residence. She pulled in behind one of the police cars and jumped out, slamming the door behind her. Nasty plumes of dark smoke shot out of the basement windows, but the rest of the building seemed okay.
“Danny’s in there!” Bess cried, rushing up and gripping Nancy’s arm. Bess steered her through the small crowd milling outside the building. The old-fashioned hatch doors to the basement were open, and several firefighters were standing on the steps aiming hoses at the blaze. Bess gestured wildly toward the upper floors of the house. “He ran in there just when the fire trucks came. He wanted to rescue some quilts or something from inside.”
Bess and Nancy worked their way toward George, who was standing right at the edge of a police barricade. “Where’s Theresa?” Nancy asked, quickly scanning the crowd.
“Inside,” George said grimly. “Lots of people were in the building, though most have gotten out already. Theresa stopped back here with Andrea to help her carry materials over for her demo later.”
Nancy cast a worried glance upward. “Isn’t their room on the top floor?”
George nodded as two other firefighters came down the front steps of the building, guiding Theresa and Andrea. “Oh, here they come. They’re all right!” Bess cried with relief.
“There’s Danny, too,” Nancy noted as the dark-haired potter emerged, coughing, from a side door. He was wearing his knapsack on his back and carrying a large wicker basket. He lifted the basket toward the crowd, holding it to display one of the folded quilts inside. A cheer went up from the onlookers, followed by a round of applause.
“Are you crazy?” one of the firefighters yelled at Danny, obviously not impressed by his act of heroism. “You could have been killed in there if the fire had gotten out of control.”
“But I wasn’t,” Danny said, shrugging off the man’s concerns.
“More to the point, someone else—like one of my men—could have been hurt trying to save you,” the fire chief broke in.
Danny’s jaunty expression faded. “Hey, man, I didn’t think of that.”
“Well, you should have,” the fire chief added. Then he turned to address the crowd. “The fire seems to have been confined to the basement and is out now. As soon as we’re sure everything’s okay, you can go back in.”
“What started the fire?” Nancy wondered.
One of the officers nearby overheard her. “The chief says the fire probably started with a pile of papers and rags in the basement.”
“Who’s in charge around here?” the fire chief asked.
Ellie May stepped up from the fringe of the crowd. “I am—at least for this week,” she said, introducing herself. “Was the fire suspicious? Is there anything I need to do now?”
The chief answered, “We can’t rule out arson so quickly, but most likely the fire was not intentionally set. Those rags and papers in the basement were stacked too close to the heating elements of the water heater.”
Ellie May frowned. “What rags and newspapers?”
“Oh no!” Melinda gasped. “From that papermaking workshop earlier this month. We had to move the workshop into the kitchen of the residence. Someone must have put the leftover materials in the basement when they cleaned up.”
Ellie May pursed her lips. Turning toward the fire chief, she said tightly, “I can’t imagine how this happened, but I assure you I’ll run a tighter ship.”
The fire chief looked appeased. “I’m issuing you a warning. Our fire inspection team will be checking the whole village, and if we find any more violations, you could be closed to the public until everything meets our fire code.”
“Of course, of course,” Ellie May said, sounding nervous.
Theresa touched Nancy’s arm. “I’m going back upstairs to help Andrea haul stuff out of the room.”
“Need help?” Nancy volunteered, hoping for a chance to get Theresa alone.
Theresa nodded, then with a furtive look around added, “Did you see the curator at the museum?”
Nancy nodded, but just then Andrea walked up with Bess and George. “George said you’d help haul my gear over to woodworking in your car.”
“Glad to help,” Nancy said, then exchanged a quick glance with Theresa. Filling her in on the details of her visit with Mr. Darien would have to wait until later.
Inside, the house smelled only slightly smoky.
“This’ll only take a minute,” Andrea assured them, opening the door to her third-floor room. The room was spacious and airy but somewhat cluttered. As in most old farmhouses, there were no closets, but near the foot of each bed was a tall oak wardrobe.
Andrea walked over to the open wardrobe. She poked her head in and let out a horrified cry. “I don’t believe this! It’s gone!” She turned, ashen faced, toward the other girls.
“What’s gone?” Bess asked.
“My lap desk!”
Theresa gasped. “No way! It was there before the fire. You’d started pulling it out of the bottom of the wardrobe when your mom rang you on the cell phone. Then the fire started.”
“What’s a lap desk?” George asked, stooping to check the bottom of the wardrobe. “Like, how big is it?”
“It’s small, not much bigger than Theresa’s laptop. It was a traveling desk, probably made for a lady, dating from about 1800,” Andrea said, her voice trembling. “It’s really valuable, plus it’s sentimental. It’s been in my family for ages. It’s what made me decide to become a woodworker.” Her words dissolved into tears.
Putting a soothing hand on Andrea’s back, Nancy asked gently, “And you’re sure you didn’t pack it before the fire?” Nancy motioned toward two duffel bags on Andrea’s bed. “Could you have put it in one of those and just forgotten in all the commotion?”
“No. I’d remember!” Andrea insisted, but she grabbed each duffel, unzipped it, and displayed the contents.
Nancy thought quickly. “The police are still downstairs,” she said. “Let’s hurry and report this.”
The girls rushed outside. The fire truck was heading back up the road, followed by one patrol car. The second set of officers were climbing into their car when Nancy ran up. “Officers,” she called, “there’s been a burglary.”
The officer on the passenger side got out and grabbed his notebook. “Slow down. Now, what happened, and when?”
“During the fire, I’m sure of it, someone walked off with my lap desk,” Andrea said, wiping the tears from her face. Bess handed her some tissues. While Andrea blew her nose, the officer cleared his throat.
“I know there was a lot of commotion, but I’m sure I would have noticed someone walking out of the house with a desk.”
Nancy checked out the man’s name tag. “Officer Martinez,” she said, “this desk was small. The size of a laptop computer, maybe a little bigger,” she added quickly, checking with Andrea. “It was old and very valuable, and maybe stealing it was motive enough to start a fire.”
The officer studied Nancy. “It was that portable?”
The officer took the information, as well as Andrea’s cell phone number. “You should start locking your doors if there’s a burglar at work,” he suggested as he climbed back into the car.
“There are no locks,” Theresa informed him.
As they filed back into the house, Nancy asked Andrea, “If the desk is so valuable, why did you bring it here, knowing how little security there is?”
“For demonstrations,” Andrea explained. “Students learn how to make templates from original antique pieces. They learn what forms of joinery were used in any particular period, what kinds of woods or varnishes—everything they need to know to understand good craftsmanship.”
“So I guess when they finish, the better students can make pretty good fakes,” Nancy suggested with a light laugh.
Andrea frowned. “No way. It’d take years to master the craft well enough for that, and even then”—she shrugged—“there are too many variables to pull off a copy good enough to fool experts.”
Nancy’s curiosity was piqued. So Andrea actually taught old methods of fabricating items. Hadn’t buyerbeware.com mentioned counterfeit colonial wooden items as well as fake Asian ceramics turning up at auctions?
George broke into Nancy’s thoughts. “So this sure cramps your style for your demo today. What will you do?” she asked Andrea.
Andrea stopped and shook her head, dismayed. “I don’t know. I hadn’t even begun to think about that problem.”
Theresa gave her a hug. “I’m sure we’ll come up with—” Suddenly she broke off and brightened. “I know. Isn’t there a colonial highboy chest in the curator’s cottage?”
Comprehension dawned on Andrea’s face. “Of course! I can use that and just shift my demo more to the methods of joinery. And maybe we can get some guys to help us move it to the woodworking studio. Now, where are all those guys when you need them?” she exclaimed.
“At your service—I think,” Jonathan Walton boomed, striding toward the group on the stairs. Without his baseball cap and with his longish hair in a ponytail, Jonathan looked even hunkier and more attractive to Nancy than on Sunday, when she had first met the metalworker.
He stopped to sniff the air; it was still acrid with smoke. “What’s that awful smell? Tell me it’s not dinner.” He staggered back comically, then swept a thick lock of auburn hair off his face.
“Where have you been? Didn’t you know there was a fire?” Andrea told him.
“Fire? Here?” He looked stunned.
“How’d you miss it?” Bess wondered, angling herself so she could look right up into Jonathan’s intense green eyes.
Nancy smothered a smile. Even in a crisis Bess would never forgo a chance to flirt.
“Guess I was too busy working in my studio to check out the noise. Though,” he said, scratching his head and looking thoughtful, “I do recall hearing sirens. I thought they were out by the main road.”
“Oh my gosh!” Theresa gasped. “Jonathan, you should check your room. Andrea’s lap desk was stolen during the fire. You should be sure nothing of yours is missing. Don’t you have some really nice old pewter pieces up there?”
Jonathan whistled softly, then bolted up the steps. “You bet I do,” he shouted back over his shoulder. The girls hurried upstairs after him. By the time they reached the top floor Jonathan had already emerged from his room. It was a corner room, next to Theresa and Andrea’s. The door was open. Nancy noticed it was on the small side and had a single bed.
“Nope, nothing’s gone missing,” Jonathan said. He was holding a nicely shaped pewter pitcher in one hand and a candlestick in the other. “Guess the thief wasn’t into metal.”
“Or didn’t know you had those,” Nancy pointed out as George and Bess followed Theresa and Andrea back into their room. George hefted up the heavier duffel bag and carried it into the hall.
“Nancy!” Theresa’s cry made Nancy turn around. Theresa stood in front of her desk, a look of shock on her face. “This is crazy,” she gasped. “My sketchbook! Someone stole that, too!”