The nine o’clock bell sounded in the corridor outside. Nancy stood up. “I have a student in a few minutes,” she said. “Will you excuse me?”
“Of course,” Friedbinder replied. “And please forgive me. This whole business has made me tense.”
She was in the doorway when she remembered to ask him for a copy of his published dissertation.
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I have only one copy of it, and it must be in one of the cartons of books I haven’t unpacked yet. In any case, it’s pretty dry stuff.”
As she walked upstairs to the learning lab, Nancy had a lot to think about. Why had he been so worried about the letter? The idea of her being involved was ridiculous—he had to know that. He was probably so worried about the effects of a scandal that he wasn’t thinking clearly.
As for the note’s author, Nancy knew of only one person who would want to make trouble for her and Victor, and that was Kim. But why had Kim—assuming she was the one—accused them of grade changing? She must know that someone at Brewster really was changing people’s grades for money.
Kim didn’t seem to have the computer know-how to be in on the scheme, but had she received an E-mail message from the grade-changer? Or heard rumors from students who had? And what about the fact that the note accused Victor? Was that pure spite or a shrewd guess? Victor was, after all, one of Nancy’s suspects. Did Kim know that he was involved? And if so, how?
Nancy shook her head. Too many questions and no answers. She unlocked the learning lab and checked her watch. There were still a few minutes before her student was to arrive. After dumping her things on a chair, she went to her desk to make a phone call. “Mr. Lane?” she said, when she was put through.
“Nancy! I was just going to call you,” the banker said. “A deposit of five hundred dollars was made to the account after four on Friday afternoon. My immediate staff had gone home, so I wasn’t told about it until this morning.”
Nancy whistled. “So if I. Wynn hasn’t already withdrawn his money, he should start withdrawing the cash today. Can you arrange for me to be notified here at school as soon as there’s any activity in the account?”
“I imagine I can,” Lane replied. “You’ll have to move quickly, though. I’ll buy you as much time as possible by placing a special hold and recheck command on the account number, as well as the slowdown we’ve already put in place.”
“Thanks,” said Nancy. “If I’m lucky he or she will go to the Ivy Avenue branch, which is the one closest to the school.”
There was a tap on the door. Nancy finished her call and went to answer it. Victor was standing there, looking glum.
“Hi, partner,” he said. “How do you like a life of crime?”
“What are you talking about?” Nancy asked. “And what are you doing here?”
“I switched appointments with Margie Adams,” he said. “And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will as soon as Dr. F. gets hold of you. I just came from a grilling in his office.”
“I thought I explained everything to him. That letter really shook him up. I can’t believe he called you to his office! You’d better come in,” she said to Victor, pulling him into the learning lab.
Victor sprawled in the chair next to the computer terminal as Nancy sat at the desk. He gave her a shrewd look. “So you do know about it,” he said. “I thought so.”
“You’re talking about the anonymous letter, right?” Nancy asked.
“Anonymous!” he said with a loud snort. “Kim did everything but staple her photo to the top and put her thumbprint in the lower corner!”
“I figured it had to be her,” Nancy said, nodding.
“Listen, I’ve known Kim since eighth grade, and I’ve never met anyone else who makes those funny k’s. Isn’t that proof?”
“That depends,” Nancy replied. “Not if lots of people know she writes that way.”
Victor stared at her, then laughed. “Hey,” he said, “you’d make a great detective!”
Nancy studied his face. Had that been an innocent remark? Or had Victor somehow penetrated her cover? Did he know her name was really Nancy Drew?
She decided not to respond directly to his comment. “Why should Kim—or anyone else, for that matter—accuse us of changing people’s grades for money?” she asked.
“Well,” he answered in an embarrassed voice, “I guess it’s my fault. One time, when Kim and I were going out together, we were talking about how broke we both were. I said I knew how to make a lot of money by offering to change people’s school transcripts.”
“Victor, you didn’t!” Nancy exclaimed.
His cheeks turned pink. “I was just goofing around,” he protested. “I could have said, ‘Let’s hold up a bank or something,’ instead. I didn’t mean it, but I guess Kim didn’t know that.”
“No, I guess not.” Nancy fell silent. Could she believe Victor? He was acting uncomfortable. Was it simply because he knew his comment might be misunderstood? Or was this a sort of double-whammy, in which he gave away something embarrassing but harmless in order to convince her that he was being completely open?
“I just told this to Mr. Friedbinder,” Victor added. “But I couldn’t tell if he believed me. I hope he did. I hear colleges pay a lot of attention to your headmaster’s letter of recommendation, and if he shoots me down, I’m dead.”
Nancy realized the conversation was starting to get a little too personal. She was supposed to be tutoring Victor, after all. “Why don’t we see about bringing up your marks in English,” she said brusquely, reaching for her stack of books, “and let Mr. Friedbinder worry about what he says in his letter? Okay, Stu?”
Victor grinned. “Sure thing, Teach!”
After twenty minutes of solid work, Nancy said, “Nice going. Keep this up and I don’t think you’ll have any more problems.”
Victor stretched his arms and yawned. “Thanks,” he replied. “But I can’t help thinking that a lot of what you’re doing could be done by a computer. Not the really creative part, of course, but all those drills.”
“You should talk to Mr. Friedbinder about that,” Nancy told him. “He wrote a doctoral dissertation on creative problem solving. It was even published. I wanted to read it, but his only copy is packed away.”
“Really?” asked Victor. “I bet I could find you another copy somewhere. Let’s see.”
He leaned over and switched on the terminal, then entered a series of commands, separated by pauses. “I’m logging onto an interactive database,” he explained. “One of the things it has is a directory of published dissertations in different university libraries. Do you remember the title and the name of the school?”
Nancy told him, and he typed in the information. After a short while he entered some more commands, then still others. Finally he sat back. “Nope,” he said. “No good. There is one dissertation that sounds kind of similar, but it’s by someone else at a different school. I guess you’ll have to wait until Friedbinder unpacks his copy of it.”
Suddenly the phone rang. Harrison Lane was on the other end. “Right now, at the Ivy Avenue branch. You’d better—”
“Thanks, so long,” said Nancy, not waiting for him to finish.
Grabbing her coat, she ran for the door.
“What’s the matter, Nancy?” Victor called after her.
“Uh—nothing, Victor. Tell anyone after you that I had an emergency. Had to go.” Without another word, Nancy tore down the hallway and out to her car in the parking lot.
Nancy reached the bank in a record-breaking five minutes. She parked right in front and jumped out of the car. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. There, coming out of the bank, was a petite teenage girl with long, almost black hair. She fit the description of I. Wynn exactly.
The girl raised her head, and her face went white when she made eye contact with Nancy. That gave Nancy a good look at her face.