“I’ve been out of town for a few days,” Annette said, “and when I got back this evening I received the strangest phone call.”
“A phone call?” Nancy asked.
“Yes. Someone—I’m not sure whether it was a man or a woman—wanted me to call you with a message.” Nancy heard a rustling of paper. “I wrote it down so I could give it to you exactly.”
With growing excitement, Nancy reached for a pencil. The message had to be from the kidnapper. “Okay,” she said eagerly. “Let’s hear it.”
“ ‘Nancy and Ned are going to have a lovely day sightseeing tomorrow,’ ” Annette read. “ ‘The view from Mont-Royal is the best in the city. The Chalet is the place to wait.’ ” She cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I ask you what this is all about?” she added curiously.
Nancy’s jaw tightened. “Our blackmailer has added a new crime to his repertoire,” she said grimly. “Kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping!”
“Our friend George Fayne was kidnapped this morning from Olympic Stadium.”
“Have you called the police?”
“No, not yet,” Nancy replied. “But if we don’t have any leads by tomorrow, we may have to.”
“Well, if I can help in any way, just let me know,” Annette said. “The resources of the station are at your disposal, if they would help.”
Nancy thanked Annette and put down the telephone. Then she remembered to call Ms. Amberton to update her. After hanging up she said to Ned slowly, “You know, this whole thing feels like some sort of scavenger hunt. It’s as if we’ve been following a trail of clues that somebody deliberately laid out for us. And George is the grand prize.” She looked down at her notes. “Tomorrow, we’re supposed to look for clues at the top of Mont-Royal.”
Nancy and Ned spent most of the next day, Sunday, in the mountaintop park, in the center of the city. But it was as fruitless as the afternoon they spent on Sainte-Hélene’s Island. No call, nothing.
The view was stunning, though. They could pick out the Cherbourg Building in the middle of the other skyscrapers in downtown Montreal. To their left was the oval of Olympic Stadium. The distance made it look tiny.
But Nancy and Ned spent the entire, endless day sitting on the terrace in the Chalet near the pay phone. They kept going over and over the details of the case.
“I feel so helpless,” Nancy told Ned. It was five-thirty in the afternoon and getting cool. She pulled her yellow cardigan closer around her. “I feel like a puppet on a string, jumping whenever the kidnapper says jump. I’m sure this creep is our blackmailer, too,” she added bitterly.
Ned shaded his eyes from the late-afternoon sun as he looked toward the river. He pointed to the wharves. “You know what,” he said. “Those big warehouses along the river would make a great hiding place. I wonder if George is in one of those buildings along the docks.”
Nancy leaned both elbows on the table, shrugging. “I’ve decided,” she said, “that the kidnapper-blackmailer is sending us on these wild-goose chases just to keep us busy.”
“Maybe we were getting too close,” Ned suggested. “Maybe the blackmailer got nervous.”
“Exactly where are we?” Nancy asked thoughtfully. “We’ve eliminated Emile Dandridge and Lake Sinclair as suspects, we’ve established that—”
The telephone on the wall rang, interrupting her.
“It’s the kidnapper!” Nancy exclaimed, dashing for it. “I’m sure of it!”
But when she picked up the phone, she was greeted by Ashley Amberton’s voice. “I just received a telephone message, instructing me to call you at this number,” Ms. Amberton said. “We’re supposed to be in my office in exactly thirty minutes,” she said. “I’m at home now, but I’ll meet you there in a half hour. You’ll receive another message when we get to the office.”
Nancy looked at her watch. “We’re on our way,” she said.
“Oh, and Nancy—there’s more to the message. Something very odd.”
“What is it?” Nancy asked.
“It says, ‘Playing blindman’s buff has been fun, but the game’s getting boring. Isn’t it time you cried uncle?’ ”
The Sunday afternoon traffic was heavier than Nancy had expected, and it was nearly six-thirty when Nancy and Ned finally got to Ashley Amberton’s office.