The Thirteenth Pearl Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER I - Mr. Moto

  CHAPTER II - Hidden Camera

  CHAPTER III - Sudden Flight

  CHAPTER IV - Rising Sun Insignia

  CHAPTER V - Shocking News

  CHAPTER VI - Conked Out!

  CHAPTER VII - Chase in the Park

  CHAPTER VIII - Nancy Accused

  CHAPTER IX - Identification

  CHAPTER X - Night Scare

  CHAPTER XI - A Detective Assists

  CHAPTER XII - Suspicious Taxi Driver

  CHAPTER XIII - The Party Thief

  CHAPTER XIV - The Trap

  CHAPTER XV - Phony Papers

  CHAPTER XVI - Mysterious Invitation

  CHAPTER XVII - Pounds of Jewelry

  CHAPTER XVIII - The Weird Ceremony

  CHAPTER XIX - The Thirteenth Pearl

  CHAPTER XX - The Captive’s Story

  THE THIRTEENTH PEARL

  NANCY is asked to locate a stolen pearl necklace that is unusual and very valuable. She soon learns that strange and dangerous people are responsible for the theft. They harass her at home and intensify it when she and her father go to Japan, and they finally manage to kidnap Nancy and her friend Ned Nickerson when she returns to River Heights.

  Through clever sleuthing, Nancy is able to penetrate the rites of an amazing group of pearl worshippers, some of whose members are far from devout, and she uncovers underhanded dealings of certain employees of World Wide Gems, Inc., a tremendous international jewelry company. Readers will love accompanying Nancy, disguised as a Japanese girl, in this adventure in Tokyo.

  “It’s some kind of weird cult!” Nancy whispered.

  Copyright © 1979 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., a member of The Putnam &

  Grosset Group, New York. Published simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

  NANCY DREW MYSTERY STORIES® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster,

  Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07757-3

  2008 Printing

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER I

  Mr. Moto

  “How would you girls like a drink of pearl powder?” Nancy Drew asked her friends Bess and George. “It’s calcium and is guaranteed to cure anything that’s wrong with you.”

  The two girls laughed, sure that Nancy was joking. The attractive, blue-eyed, strawberry blond sleuth shook her head.

  “I’m not kidding. It’s true.”

  Bess, a slightly overweight blond who, like the others, was eighteen years old, made a face. “You know how I like to eat, but powder made from pearls!”

  George, to whom food meant little, was a slender athletic-looking brunette. “So far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with me, so I’ll pass.”

  “Well, Nancy,” Bess urged, “tell us what the joke is.”

  Once more Nancy insisted that pearl powder had been used extensively as a cure-all. “In an cient Japan and other Asiatic and Oriental countries, it was very popular. Nowadays physicians prescribe other medications, but pearl powder can still be purchased in certain pharmacies.”

  George stopped smiling and looked intently at her friend. “My guess is that you’ve started working on a new mystery, and it has something to do with pearls. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” Nancy replied. “There’s a Japanese jeweler in town who’s a specialist in repairing fine old pieces of jewelry. His name is Mr. Moto. Recently he came to my Dad asking for help on a mystery.”

  Bess spoke up. “But your dad isn’t a detective. He’s a lawyer.”

  “True,” Nancy agreed, “but in this case, a fantastic theft took place. Mr. Moto didn’t want to go to the police because, if the loss became known, he feared it might cause international complications.”

  George took a deep breath. “I’m hooked. Tell us more.”

  Nancy told the girls that a large firm with offices all over the world might be involved.

  Bess interrupted. “Is this very confidential?”

  “Very,” Nancy replied. She went on to say that her father was unable to help with the case at the present time and had told Mr. Moto that Nancy was an amateur detective. Mr. Drew had suggested that the three girls start working on the mystery until he could take over.

  “What did Mr. Moto say?” Bess asked.

  “He agreed.”

  “Greatl” George exclaimed. “When shall we begin?”

  “Right now,” Nancy replied. “I’ll tell Hannah where we’re going.” She was referring to the Drews’ lovely housekeeper, who had acted as a mother to Nancy since she was three years old and her own mother had passed away. At the moment Hannah Gruen was in the kitchen bak ing a lemon meringue pie, which happened to be Mr. Drew’s favorite dessert.

  Minutes later the girls drove off in Nancy’s sleek blue car to the center of River Heights. As they turned into a side street looking for the jewelry shop, Bess suddenly said, “Oh, there it is. But what’s happening?”

  Nancy and George gazed at the front door of the shop. A young Asiatic man was racing from the store with a pearl necklace dangling from one hand.

  “I’ll bet he’s a thief!” George cried out. “Let’s nab him!”

  But by the time Nancy stopped her car at the curb across from the jeweler’s, the young man had jumped into an automobile and sped off in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the car had been too far away for Nancy and the others to glimpse the number on the license plate.

  “I’ll bet he’s a thief!” George cried out.

  “Oh dear!” Bess said with a sigh. “There was our chance to be heroines, and we lost it!”

  Nancy was eager to see if Mr. Moto was all right and hurried across the street into the shop. Bess and George followed. No one was inside, but in a few moments an elderly, kind-looking Japanese man came from a rear room.

  He smiled and bowed to the girls. “May I assist you?” he asked.

  Nancy spoke quickly. “We just saw a young man run from your shop with a pearl necklace in his hand. Did he buy it?”

  “No. I have been in the back room. I did not see or hear anyone.”

  He looked into a display case, then clasped his hands in dismay. “It is gone! A very expensive necklace!”

  Nancy, Bess, and George described the young man as best as they could. Mr. Moto did not recognize him.

  “He was a thief, indeed!” the jeweler lamented.

  The girls expressed their sympathy, and Nancy asked Mr. Moto if he was going to call the police. The rather frail-looking jeweler shook his head. “Not now. I have a bigger problem on my mind.”

  “I know,” Nancy said and introduced herself and the other girls. “You came to see my father about the theft of an unusual piece of jewelry. He told you that until he is free, we would work on your case.”

  Mr. Moto frowned. The girls assumed that he was thinking, “What do they know about solving mysteries?”

  Bess spoke up at once and glibly told how many cases Nancy had successfully concluded. “And sometimes George and I helped her,” she added.

  Mr. Moto stroked his chin. “Ah, so. Then I will tell you about my trouble. But you must promise to keep this matter to yourselves.”

  Each girl said she would honor his secret.

  “I have a client named Mrs. Tanya Rossmeyer,” the jeweler began. “She is a very wealthy lady and owns a great deal of expensive jewelry. Her most precious piece is a necklace of pearls. There are twelve on each side of a very large one, which has the luster of the moon. The strand is made of natural, not cultured pearls.”

&nbs
p; “It must be worth a fortune!” Bess burst out.

  “It is,” Mr. Moto agreed. “I believe there is no other one like it in the world.”

  Nancy asked him about the theft.

  “Someone entered my shop and opened the safe,” Mr. Moto replied. “He cut off the thirteenth pearl from the rest of the strand. Mrs. Rossmeyer will be very angry and sue me for a lot of money. I will lose my insurance and will be forced to close my shop!”

  The three girls were surprised that the burglar had cut only one pearl from the necklace. How much easier it would have been to steal the whole thing!

  Nancy said, “Would you let us see the part of the necklace that you still have?”

  The jeweler obligingly opened the safe, which was built into the counter and was well-hidden from view.

  Nancy thought, “A casual customer would not realize this is a safe. The thief must have been somebody who knows about it, besides being an expert safe-cracker.”

  Mr. Moto twirled the dials of the lock left and right, then opened the heavy door. Inside were many small drawers. He pulled one out and reached in for the pearl necklace.

  “You see where—” he began, then stared at the strand before him. Finally he cried out, “This is not Mrs. Rossmeyer’s necklace! The thief substituted this one! These are smaller than Mrs. Rossmeyer’s pearls. Oh—she—”

  The jeweler suddenly put a hand in his pocket, then fainted, sinking to the floor. The girls ran behind the counter. Nancy and Bess picked him up and carried him to the back room.

  “George, shut the front door and lock it!” Nancy called out.

  After putting Mr. Moto on a couch, she felt in his pocket where he had put his hand, and she discovered a small bottle of heart tablets. Quickly she placed one under the man’s tongue.

  “Don’t you think we should call a doctor?” Bess asked worriedly.

  Nancy thought that Mr. Moto probably had attacks like this from time to time and carried the special pills for that reason. “If he doesn’t revive in a few minutes, then we’d better call an ambulance.”

  George had locked the front door and had gone behind the counter. She restored the pearl necklace to the safe and closed the heavy door. Then she twirled the knob back and forth and tried the handle. The safe was locked.

  By this time Mr. Moto had recovered in the back room but was glad to lie on the couch. He insisted he did not need a doctor but asked the girls not to leave him for a while.

  George reported that she had locked everything, and he thanked her. “You are most kind,” he said. “When I first noticed that the thirteenth pearl was gone, I was so excited that I did not examine the rest of the necklace. Now I know the substitute is not nearly as valuable as the stolen one. Oh, oh! What shall I do?”

  Nancy suggested that Mr. Moto lie still until he felt completely well. He agreed and used this time to tell them the full story of what he suspected had happened.

  “I believe the thief who was here is working for an international organization called World Wide Gems, Incorporated, which deals in old and rare jewelry. Recently it has been hinted in the trade that an underworld organization has infiltrated World Wide Gems. This does not mean that the whole company is dishonest, but it is felt that certain employees are not above steal ing. No one dares accuse World Wide Gems, since it might stir up real trouble and even cause blood-shed at the hands of the powerful underworld group.”

  “But why did the thief leave the substitute necklace?” George asked, puzzled.

  “Probably he did not want to leave that compartment in my safe empty. With the other necklace in it, I might not have noticed the loss for a while,” Mr. Moto replied.

  “Where is World Wide Gems located?” Nancy inquired.

  “They have branches in many big cities all over the world,” Mr. Moto replied. “You can see that an investigation of them would cause many problems.”

  “Yes, it would,” came the stern voice of an unseen man. “You’d better forget the whole thing if you value your life!”

  Mr. Moto and the girls were startled. Nancy and her friends jumped up and ran to the back door from where the voice had seemed to originate. No one was there! Puzzled, they searched the premises inside and out, but in vain. It was as if a ghost had spoken.

  Bess shivered. “This is positively spooky!”

  CHAPTER II

  Hidden Camera

  THE three girls rejoined Mr. Moto, who had turned very pale. Nancy was afraid he might have another attack. She suggested that he stay on the couch while the girls made a further search for the person who had spoken.

  He agreed but said he did not want to close the shop. “With these losses I cannot afford to prevent customers from coming in,” he explained worriedly.

  Bess offered to work in the store for him. “I would enjoy selling somebody a diamond engagement ring or a wedding ring,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

  The jeweler smiled faintly. “Some time ago I had a special camera put in to take pictures of anyone who seemed suspicious. This neighborhood is not as high-class as it used to be, and sometimes I have dishonest people coming in.”

  He got up and showed Bess where the camera was located in a corner of the ceiling. It pointed directly toward the counter.

  “There is a button under the counter,” he said. “If you press it, the camera will take a picture in stantly and develop it. See, here it is.”

  Bess nodded, sat down on a high stool behind the counter, and gazed at the display before her. Mr. Moto went to lie down again, and when Bess looked at him a few minutes later, he was sound asleep. She smiled and returned to the shop.

  Meanwhile, Nancy and George had gone to hunt for the source of the voice. They could find no shoe prints of the eavesdropper and no noticeable fingerprints.

  George walked up the driveway between Moto’s shop and the next store and questioned pedestrians on the street. None had seen anyone entering or leaving the alleyway. Then she asked people if a man had lingered near the jewelry shop. In each case, the answer was no.

  Nancy inquired in apartments above the stores. Most of the tenants were apparently out because they did not answer their doorbells. The few who were home had seen nothing.

  She returned to the rear of the jewelry shop. When Nancy looked up, she noticed a young woman leaning out of a window.

  Nancy called up to her, “Did you by any chance see a man loitering around Mr. Moto’s place?”

  “When?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, a little while ago, about twenty minutes,” the young sleuth replied.

  “Yes. A fellow was standing by the back door. He spoke to someone inside.”

  “He must be the one,” Nancy said. “What did he look like?”

  The neighbor said she could not see him too well from upstairs. “He was rather short and stocky, had very black hair, and wore a gray suit. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”

  “It’s a wonderful identification.” Nancy smiled. “By the way, was he of Asiatic origin?”

  The woman shook her head. “I couldn’t see his face, but I don’t think he was.” She asked if something was wrong.

  Nancy replied that the man had called into the shop, then disappeared. This answer seemed to satisfy the woman, and Nancy was glad she did not have to go into further details.

  The young sleuth now turned up the driveway and met George in the street. “Any luck?” she asked.

  “None,” George replied. “How about you?”

  Nancy told her about the clue she had just picked up. Then the girls began questioning passers-by, but no one had seen the mysterious stranger. The two sleuths were about to give up when they saw a woman with a large package walking toward a parked sedan.

  To Nancy’s inquiry, she answered, “Yes, a man fitting that description ran up the alleyway just as I parked my car.”

  “Did you see his face?” George inquired. “Can you tell us what nationality he was?”

  The woman smiled. “He appeared
to be of Italian descent.”

  Nancy and George were thrilled by this additional information. Now they had something to work on!

  “Did you see where the man went?” George asked as she helped the woman put her package into the car.

  “Yes. He jumped into a black sedan that somebody else was driving, and they sped off in a hurry.”

  “Thank you very much,” Nancy said. “We’re trying to locate this man, and your information will help.”

  Before the stranger could become inquisitive, the girls turned and walked to the rear of the shop again, letting themselves in through the back door.

  Meanwhile, Bess had had an adventure of her own. A rather large, mannish-looking woman with an abundance of blond hair exaggeratedly coiffed had briskly walked into the store. She came up to the counter and said in a harsh voice, “Please give me Mrs. Rossmeyer’s address in Europe.”

  Bess did not like her customer. She seemed hard and cruel. “I don’t know the address,” the girl replied.

  “Oh, come now,” the woman said. “If you work here, you certainly must know what address Mrs. Rossmeyer left with Mr. Moto. She’s in Europe somewhere. I’m a friend of hers and am going abroad. I want to look her up.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Bess replied, “but I truly don’t know it. Why don’t you come back some other time and talk to Mr. Moto?”

  The stranger was annoyed. “Where is Mr. Moto? Get him. He’ll give it to me.”

  Bess was beginning to worry. The woman did not look or act like a nice person, and she felt that giving her any further information might not be in the best interest of either Mrs. Rossmeyer or Mr. Moto.

  She said, “Please come back another day, perhaps tomorrow.”

  “But I must have the address today!” the woman insisted.

  Bess was not sure she knew how to handle the situation. Finally she said, “I’ll tell Mr. Moto you were here. What’s your name?”

  The stranger grew red in the face with anger. “That’s none of your business!”

  “She’s not honest,” Bess thought frantically. “She’s trying to hide something!” With trembling fingers, the girl reached under the counter and pushed the button that operated the camera on the ceiling.