The brick pile teetered on the skids, then collapsed toward Nancy. She dove to the side, hitting the ground hard facedown and throwing her arms over her head. The bricks landed with a crash, sending up a cloud of dust, just to the right of where Nancy lay.
“Nancy!” George cried, racing to her side. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t move,” Ellie May cried, running to join them. “Did you break anything?”
“I-I’m fine,” Nancy managed. She ran a hand down her forearm and winced.
“You’re bleeding!” Bess exclaimed.
“I just got scraped,” Nancy said, getting up. “I’m fine, Ellie May. Nothing some soap and water and a bandage won’t fix.”
Ellie May shook her head vehemently. “That’s a pretty nasty scrape. I’ll have someone take you down to the curator’s cottage. You could use some antibiotic ointment on that once you clean it up.”
“I’ll go with Nancy,” Bess volunteered.
“You could have been killed if those bricks had beamed you!” Danny remarked.
“It was just an accident,” Nancy said, feeling a little sore.
As Bess went to get Nancy’s small backpack from the studio, George commented, “An accident? I guess so, but one that could have been prevented. Someone was behind those bricks just before they fell.”
“I’m almost sure I also saw someone walk back there a minute before the bricks fell,” Danny admitted. He checked out the remaining piles. “Not that anyone would knock them over on purpose, of course.”
George exchanged a quick glance with Nancy. “Of course not,” she said.
While Danny and the crew cleaned up the mess, Nancy motioned for George to follow her. As soon as they were out of earshot, she said softly, “I’m sure this was no accident. Not after last night. I bet whoever’s behind this knew about our discovering that truck at the barn.”
“But who? Danny’s one of your prime forgery suspects, but he wasn’t anywhere near those skids. He was standing next to me when they fell, Nancy.”
Nancy studied the layout of the skids. They were lined up in front of two of the woodsheds. There was certainly space between the sheds and the skids for someone to hide. And making a quick getaway was easy in the maze of small buildings. She was tempted to search the whole area, but she didn’t want to draw more attention to herself. “Do you know if it was a guy or a girl?”
George pursed her lips. “I think it was a guy, though I can’t swear to it.”
Nancy stooped to check the ground behind the skids, but the dirt was packed hard and too dry for any footprints to be visible. Whoever had been lurking behind the skids hadn’t left a trace. As Nancy stood up, her eye caught the gleam of something metallic half hidden beneath the skid. Quickly she dropped down and pulled out a metal ring. It looked like a circular key ring but was larger than most. Instead of keys, it held an assortment of different-size brass rings.
“What’s that?” George asked.
“Nancy, have you gone for first aid yet?” Ellie May called out.
“I’m leaving now, with Bess,” Nancy replied, quickly pocketing the large ring. To George she added, “I have no idea what this is. Maybe it’s a clue. Maybe whoever was hanging out back here dropped it. Or maybe it’s been there for days. I’ll have to find out.”
Nancy joined Bess and started for the curator’s cottage. George walked them a few feet down the road. “You still going to the pewter workshop at one?” she asked.
“Yes. I want to feel out Jonathan. He knows a lot about antiques and forgeries. Maybe we can learn something from him,” Nancy explained.
“I’ll pass, if you don’t mind,” George said. “I want to see the kiln finished. Meanwhile I can keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
Nancy cast George a grateful look. “That’s a very good idea!”
By afternoon the heat was stifling, and tall thunderclouds were building over the western horizon. After bandaging Nancy’s arm, the girls had cleaned up a bit, grabbed lunch in the dining room, and headed over to the metal shop. It was housed in a low modern building, and when Bess opened the door she was greeted by a blast of cold air.
“Air-conditioning!” Bess was overjoyed. “I thought the Junction didn’t believe in it.”
“But our students do,” Jonathan quipped as the girls walked into the studio. He wore a Cubs baseball cap, bill turned backward, and had a leather apron over his work shirt and jeans. “This new shop was well funded.” Jonathan noticed Nancy’s arm. “You look like a wall walked into you or something.”
“Funny you should say that,” she replied as he guided them over to a long worktable. “There was an accident over at the pottery studio this morning. I seem to have survived a close encounter of the firebrick kind.”
“But you seem to be okay.” He ushered them toward two stools. “You’re a lot tougher than you look.”
Nancy arched her eyebrows. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Jonathan responded with a rakish smile.
Nancy took a seat and looked around. The studio was very large. At one end jewelry students were working at high tables. Most wore some kind of magnifying glass, which Nancy knew was called a loupe, over one eye.
This end of the studio boasted a bank of tall locked glass cabinets. Arranged inside were gleaming silver tea and coffee services, candelabras, and footed bowls. Some designs were clearly modern. Nancy thought others looked ornate and fussy in an old-fashioned way.
A glowing array of copper teakettles, pewter jugs and tankards, candlesticks, and trays were displayed at one end of the table.
“Are some of these old?” Bess asked, picking up a copper teakettle and reverently running her finger down the lustrous spout.
“Not a one,” Jonathan said. “We have some real valuable antiques up in the curator’s cottage. These were all made here by me or other craftspeople.” He offered them each a handout. Nancy saw it was a photocopy of his article on spotting fakes that she had seen in the library. “This might give you some idea of how pre-nineteenth-century metalsmiths fashioned their work. I’ll wait a few minutes longer for the stragglers before beginning.”
“Let’s look around,” Nancy suggested, easing herself off the high stool.
After glancing at the display of silver items, Nancy turned her attention to a peg board full of tools. She was testing the weight of a mallet when Bess let out a startled cry. “Nancy! Look at this!” Bess reached up and took a large metal ring off a hook. Dangling from it were smaller brass rings of various sizes. “It’s just like the ring you found near those skids this morning.”
“Did I hear something about a ring?”
Both girls turned. Jonathan had materialized behind them. “I lost one just like this last night, over by the pottery studio. I had it in my pocket when some of the guys asked me to help clean up the pottery yard and stack those firebricks.”
Nancy struggled to keep her expression neutral. The ring belonged to Jonathan. Somehow he had to be involved in the counterfeit scheme. How deeply, Nancy wasn’t sure, but she suspected that he was involved enough to try to hurt her.
Nancy reluctantly reached into her back pocket. “I had no idea what it was.” She smiled at him sweetly, but her mind was racing. George had said it was a guy that she glimpsed behind the pile of bricks. The only male suspect Nancy had at the moment was Danny, who had been in plain sight when the “accident” occurred. Now Jonathan was claiming he owned the only clue Nancy had.
Would he be so open about it if he had really tried to harm Nancy? Or could he possibly be telling the truth? Had he actually lost the big ring the night before? Nancy decided she’d go back to the pottery studio after the workshop and quiz Ellie May about who had been working late.
Jonathan took the ring from Nancy and hung it back up on the peg board. “Thank you for saving me a lot of work and trouble. Those rings are used for sizing jewelry, among other things.” Jonathan invited the girls back to the table, where he began his lecture.
A couple of hours later Bess and Nancy left the metal shop. The sky had darkened, and thunder rumbled in the distance. “I thought I would die in there when Jonathan said those rings were his,” Bess confided as she and Nancy started across the field toward Meadow House. “Nan, is Jonathan mixed up in all of this?”
“I’m not sure,” Nancy admitted. “But I’m going to check something out now. Why don’t you go find George and see if she heard or saw anything suspicious. I’ll catch up with you guys later, after dinner. I’m going to explore that barn in a while.”
Thunder continued to rumble as Nancy silently prayed, Let the rain hold off. She had to wait until dark before she started snooping, so meanwhile a couple of questions to Ellie May would settle whether Jonathan was telling the truth.
As Nancy approached the studio from the back, she heard voices from inside. Staying out of sight, she peeked in the half-open window. Andrea was facing Danny.
“Danny, all I want is a simple yes or no for an answer. Has anyone ever approached you to fake antique raku pots?”
Nancy’s pulse quickened. Just as she suspected, someone was luring Junction personnel into the lucrative forgery trade.
Danny’s tone was defensive. “No way. Why won’t you listen to me? No one’s even bothered. I’m not famous enough. Anyway, what’s it to you?”
After a moment’s hesitation Andrea answered in a soft, worried voice, “I have been approached—several times already this summer.”
Danny’s face registered pure shock. “By whom? How?”
Andrea shrugged. “I have no idea. I was contacted by e-mail.”
“So what did you do?”
Andrea straightened up. “What kind of person do you think I am, Danny Acero? I told them, no way. And I’m not the only person around here who’s been approached.”
“Who else?” Danny asked sharply.
Andrea bit her lip and shook her head sadly. “She doesn’t know I know, but Theresa was, too.”