“At least you tried,” Mimsy said. “Thank you, girls. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” She dabbed at her eyes with her lace handkerchief. A few feet away, the judges were moving through the Rose Garden. They stopped at Geraldine DeWitt’s vases. A man scribbled on his clipboard as he leaned closer.
Nancy glanced toward the exit. Her father, Carson Drew, was there, standing by the front doors of Le Chateau, looking at pictures from the previous year’s Garden Society Show. Her father worked as a lawyer and was still wearing his navy suit, even though it was five o’clock on a Saturday. He’d worked overtime before picking the girls up. “We’re not going to give up yet,” Nancy said. “You never know. Maybe we’ll figure this out before the gala. We still have a few hours left.”
Bess rested her hands on her cheeks. “But we’ve searched everywhere,” she said. “I haven’t seen anyone with that jacket. No one remembered seeing a man who fit that description.”
Nancy shrugged. She knew her friends were right. They had searched the Grand Ballroom for the last half hour and found nothing. They’d talked to as many people as they could, asking if they’d seen the man from the picture. They’d even described the white jacket with the gold symbol on the back. Nancy knew it was time to go home, but she wasn’t ready to give up.
“Maybe there’s a clue we missed,” she said. She looked at the vase and the bouquets on either side of it. There was nothing unusual underneath the table or behind it.
Just then Mr. Drew strode over to them. He’d been waiting by the exit for nearly fifteen minutes. “Dad, can we please have a little more time?” Nancy asked. She held up one finger, as if to say just one more minute? “We’re so close to figuring this out. Right, Miss Bouret?”
Mimsy wiped her nose with her handkerchief. “You’ve done terrific work, but I have to get back to my house and get ready for the gala. I guess I’ll have to wait for another show. Maybe with your help, the blooms will be just as impressive next year.”
Mr. Drew rested his hand on Mimsy’s arm, trying to make her feel better. “I’m terribly sorry, Mimsy,” he said. “I wish we could’ve helped more. What kind of person would do this?”
Nancy glanced sideways at Bess and George. They knew exactly what kind of person would do this: a white-jacket-wearing, brown-haired man with shiny black shoes. The only trouble was finding him.
Mimsy leaned down to hug Nancy. “Thank you for being my guests. You put the ‘important’ in ‘very important people.’ I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” She gave a hug to Bess, then George.
“Thanks for inviting us,” Bess said sadly, before heading to the door.
As the three girls walked out, they turned one last time to look at Mimsy. She said good-bye to a few of her friends, then collected her empty vase. She kept staring at it as she headed out a side door toward the parking lot.
“I just don’t understand,” Bess said. “Our suspect has to be somewhere. How could someone just vanish like that?”
She grabbed a cookie from the plate. Even after hours of eating piles and piles of desserts, Bess was still in the mood for Hannah’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Hannah knew how to make them just right, so they were crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.
George reviewed the notes. “Was it possible the jacket was a disguise?” she asked Bess and Nancy, who sat across from her at Nancy’s kitchen table. Mr. Drew had dropped them off at the house, then returned to work. It was already six thirty. There were less than two hours left until the gala started, and they were no closer to solving the mystery.
“It might’ve been. Maybe we could find out where he got the disguise from,” Nancy said. “Even that would be helpful.”
Behind them, Hannah moved around the Drews’ kitchen, cleaning the last of the bowls and pans. She grabbed three spoons covered in cookie dough and handed them to the girls. “It sounds like a lot happened today at the Garden Society Show.”
“Tons. Someone took Mimsy’s rose bouquet,” Nancy said.
George flipped through more notes. She thought about Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the suspect. After all that, it seemed like neither one of them had been right. No one had said anything about a white jacket with a gold symbol on the back. “Is it possible he came from another part of Le Chateau? Maybe the person in the jacket wasn’t from our party at all.”
“But then why would he want the flowers?” Nancy asked. “Whoever it was knew Mimsy had the chance to win. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Bess licked the cookie dough off her spoon, distracted from the conversation. “This is so good, Hannah,” she said. “Your cookies are even better than Jean-Claude’s.”
“Jean-Claude?” Hannah asked. She furrowed her brow.
“He made all the desserts for the party. You probably know him from TV,” Bess explained. But Hannah still looked confused, like she’d never heard his name before.
“I’ll show you his website,” Bess said, getting up from the table. “You’ll see!”
As Bess went searching for Nancy’s laptop, Nancy and George huddled together. They flipped through the notes, looking for anything that might spark an idea. George studied the page labeled Motive for a second time. “Maybe we have the wrong motive. Maybe whoever took the roses didn’t know much about Mimsy.”
“We haven’t ruled out Deirdre and Suzie,” Nancy said. “They still could’ve had something to do with this. Maybe whoever this man is . . . maybe he was just helping—”
“Nancy! George!” Bess’s voice called out from the living room. “Come here! Quick!”
Nancy and George jumped from their seats. They knew Bess’s excitement could only mean one thing . . . she’d found another clue. “What is it?” George asked.
Bess was on Nancy’s laptop. Hannah sat next to her on the Drews’ couch, looking at the website Bess had pulled up. It said Jean-Claude in fancy script at the top. “Does this look familiar to you?” Bess asked, pointing to the side of the screen.
“I can’t believe it!” Nancy cried. On the side of the website was a gold circle with three letters inside. “JCP: Jean-Claude Pastries! It’s the same symbol that was on the back of the man’s jacket.”
“A clue?” Hannah asked. She looked around at the girls’ excited faces.
“A definite clue,” George agreed. “The man in the picture must have gotten the jacket from Jean-Claude . . . or he works for him.”
Nancy glanced at the clock. “Hannah, we need to go back to Le Chateau,” she said. “We have a chance of helping Mimsy find her bouquet. Maybe even before the party starts . . .”
The girls gave Hannah hopeful looks. “Oh, all right,” Hannah finally said. She never could resist helping the girls solve a mystery. “Let’s go. But if you don’t find anything by the party, we head back here . . . and you girls head to bed.” She grabbed her coat from the armchair and started toward the door.
“Deal,” Nancy said as she pulled her sweater on over her dress. As the three girls followed Hannah to the car, Nancy could think only of Jean-Claude and his assistant. As crazy as it seemed, she was starting to think one of them was to blame. . . .