THERE WAS A GASP of horror from Nancy’s listeners.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” Samantha cried sharply. “It’s my fault! If only I hadn’t asked Brock to come here!” Burying her head in her hands, she burst into tears.
Tim patted her shoulder awkwardly, but his green eyes showed no emotion. Nancy wondered fleetingly what he was thinking. What would it feel like to console your girlfriend over another guy’s death?
Mrs. Tagley was sitting as if paralyzed, her face so pale that Nancy was afraid she was going to faint. And Jake was biting his lip as if he, too, feared that he might cry.
There were tears in Bess’s eyes as well. “I—I can’t believe it,” she said in a trembling voice. “I thought he was doing so much better!”
Great acting, Bess! Nancy cheered silently. In a sober voice she said aloud, “He was. But the doctor says his system was so weak that when he ran a fever, his body couldn’t hold out against it.”
“Then that makes it murder we’re dealing with, doesn’t it?” asked George, her brown eyes wide as she looked around the room. “Now that Brock is dead, one of these people is a murderer,” she said in a hushed tone.
“That’s right,” said Nancy. She, too, eyed the roomful of people. “One of you is Brock’s killer.”
Mrs. Tagley shook her head in disgust. “This is all a little melodramatic, isn’t it?” she asked harshly. “Do you suspect one of us in particular, or did you just bring us together for the fun of it?”
“You’re all suspects,” Nancy replied. “And since you started this conversation, Mrs. Tagley, I’ll start with you.”
Taking a few steps toward Samantha’s mother, Nancy said, “From the very beginning there seemed to be two different ways to read this case. It was possible that someone was out to sabotage the Chocolate Festival. It was also possible that someone was out to get Brock. In your case, Mrs. Tagley, sabotage was unlikely. But there was a good reason you might be out to get Brock.”
Nancy met the older woman’s glare steadily. “In fact, you probably had the strongest motive of anyone in this room,” she said. “Brock’s father ruined your first husband’s life. You could even say he killed him.”
Samantha turned to stare at her mother. “You never told me that!” she breathed.
“It wasn’t worth telling,” Mrs. Tagley answered in a strained voice. “It was all in the past.”
“But was it?” Nancy continued. “Your life was very difficult for a long time after Mr. Patton’s death. Any sane person would feel a grudge toward the son of someone who’d inflicted such a terrible wound.”
“But he and I talked that whole mess over,” Mrs. Tagley burst out, her face red. “Brock wasn’t my favorite person, but I would never have poisoned him!”
“That’s what you say now,” said Nancy. “But I’m not sure I believe you.
“You had a strong motive, too, Tim,” she went on, turning to face him. “Jealousy is one of the most common motives for murder. You could see that Brock’s feelings for Samantha hadn’t disappeared—and that her feelings for him might be stronger than she thought.”
Tim just stared sullenly at the floor, but Samantha cried, “No! I was just being polite!”
Nancy paid no attention. “You also had reasons for wanting to sabotage the Chocolate Festival,” she told Tim. “It was eating up a huge amount of Samantha’s time. Maybe you were jealous of the festival instead of being jealous of Brock. Maybe you poisoned Brock without actually wanting him to die.”
Tim raised his head to glare at her. “You’re being ridiculous,” he growled. “I thought you were a lot smarter than this, Nancy. Anyone who would come up with such a stupid solution has to be pretty dumb.”
“I didn’t say it was the solution,” Nancy reminded him. “I just said it might be.”
Now Nancy turned to Jake. “Jealousy might be your motive, too. I couldn’t help noticing that even though you’ve been very helpful all week, it’s Samantha who gets most of the attention in your family.”
Samantha and her mother flinched guiltily at that, Nancy noticed.
“You’ve had some good ideas over the past few days—ideas everyone has ignored,” Nancy continued. “Has it been too hard for you being around a stepsister whose rank at the inn is so much higher than yours? Did you feel left out in the cold?”
Jake was stunned. “I didn’t think I did,” he said at last. “I mean, sure Samantha’s done a lot better than I have—but she’s already graduated from hotel school. When it’s my turn, I’m sure I’ll do just as well. And as for Sam getting more of the attention”—he smiled crookedly—“well, that’s just the way families are. Dad gets less attention than my stepmother. He and I are just background people, I guess.”
Glancing toward the love seat, Nancy thought she saw Mrs. Tagley’s stern veneer crack once more. “You’re not background people to me,” Mrs. Tagley said, dabbing at her eyes.
“And, Samantha—” Nancy wanted to be professional, but she couldn’t help speaking more gently to Samantha than she had to the other suspects. “It’s hard to believe that you would try to hurt Brock or sabotage your own festival. But I’ve been wondering whether you might have cracked under all the pressure. Was it too much for you? Did you decide you had to put a stop to the whole thing—without losing face?”
Samantha’s expression was more hurt than angry. “I—I can see why you’d think that, Nancy,” she faltered, staring down at her clasped hands. “What you say—what everyone has been saying—is true. Running the festival has been too much for me.”
Then, as if she remembered the reason they had all been brought to the library, she stared defiantly up at Nancy. “Still, I’m not guilty of those dumb, vicious pranks, and—and I’m especially not guilty of killing Brock. You’ll just have to believe me.”
“I wish I could believe all of you,” Nancy said quietly. “Unfortunately, I can’t. One of you is lying.
“Luckily someone has offered to help the liar come forward with the truth,” Nancy continued. She turned to the living room doors. “Here he is now.”
The handle turned, and the doors pushed slowly open. Brock Sawyer stepped into the room.
“I’ve come to see justice done,” he announced in a solemn voice.
Never in her life had Nancy heard a sound like the eerie, shrieking wail that rose from Jake Tagley’s lips at that moment.
Jake jumped to his feet, staring wild-eyed at Brock. His cheek was twitching uncontrollably, and sweat was pouring down his face.
“No! No!” he screamed. “Don’t come near me! Or I-I’ll kill you again!”
Still making that unearthly noise, he stumbled across the library and out the door.
“Well,” Brock said. “That has to be the best acting I’ve ever done.”
“You’re—you’re not dead!” Samantha rushed over to hug Brock, laughing and crying at the same time.
Mrs. Tagley rose shakily to her feet. “Then it was Jake who—who—”
“I’m afraid so,” said Nancy urgently. “And now we have to find him because I think he may be dangerous.”
Bess, George, and Tim were already on their feet racing out the door.
“There he is!” Bess cried, pointing down the hall. Jake was just disappearing down the stairs to the basement.
Nancy and Tim thundered down the hall after him, shooting past the dining room. The ballroom music that floated out into the hallway sounded horribly out of place.
When they reached the stairs, Nancy took them two at a time.
“He went that way!” Tim shouted, pointing right. “Toward his father’s workroom!”
That’s strange, Nancy thought. Why run to a place where we can corner him?
But there was no time to think about that. In a flash they had reached the doorway to the storeroom.
“Don’t come any closer!” Jake screamed.
His four pursuers froze just inside the room.
Jake was just yanking his father’s circular saw off its stand, the long electric cord still plugged into the wall outlet. He pressed the On switch and held the saw, whirring ominously, up in the air.
Then—with a taunting smile on his face—he moved it up to a pipe on the wall.
“That looks like a gas pipe!” Tim shouted hoarsely.
“Right you are.” Jake gave a mirthless laugh and inched the saw closer to the pipe. “It’s the main gas line, and I’m going to saw through it now,” he growled.
“But you can’t!” George cried. “The sparks will ignite the gas!”
“Right again. The sparks will ignite the gas.” The whirring blade was only a fraction of an inch from the pipe now.
“And then,” Jake went on, “this whole building will go up in a fireball.”