Foreword: I feel really guilty for not updating for over a MONTH! Because this is Thanksgiving, I'd like to give my thanks to all the readers who read my stories and supported me. Thank you, everyone! So this chapter has an added bonus for those of you who might have forgotten who the characters were. I'll bet that some of you might even say "Huh? Who's Serge?" or "There is a guy named Rousseau in this story?" Anyway, here is the list of suspects and a rough outline of who they are. I hope this helps.

Once again, thank you for those who read my stories and reviewed them. I really appreciate those reviews. I don't mind if you praise my work or criticize it as long as it helps me further understand what I can do better the next time. Happy sleuthing! Please review.

List of suspects:

Diana Windham--Joe's "girlfriend" who disappeared ten years ago and suddenly reappeared in Paris. Is she really the "Diana" Joe is looking for? And is she really as innocent as she seems to be?

Marie-Jacque Dernier--A photographer who is extremely interested in the hotel because of its "scenery." Can she be looking for something else besides trees and landscapes to take pictures of? And why does she seem so secretive?

Renee Frazier--The first victim, but is she the last? When she is found murdered in her own room, Diana is blamed, but the detectives then find that nobody could have committed the crime! Can it be the work of a supernatural being or a criminal who is really, really smart?

Clement Charlock--A retired detective has a sad past. But why did he call Nancy "Joel" when the two first met? And why did he purchase such an old house to turn into a hotel? (The answers are found in this chapter, by the way!) What is his real plan?

Nicholas Devereux--Dr. Devereux who teaches in Ned's university is strange, to say the least. The French professor who has interest in mythology obviously had something to do with the robbery that happened at the beginning of the story. Can he be a robber? Or a killer?

Martin Rousseau--A fashion designer, he wants a way to make quick cash...which can get him in trouble. The man with a shady past, he is determined to do anything to get what he wants. Is murder one of those risks which he is willing to take in order to achieve his goals?

Serge Beauchamp--A friend of Iola's father, the owner of a famous pastry shop looks like a very kind man. But because he is the only suspect who is not trapped in the hotel, he also has more opportunities to terrorize the guests. Did he really go back to his shop? Or is he still near the hotel, waiting to kill the next victim?

Chapter Nine

Sans une espace

Without a Space

As if reflecting the feelings of the guests, the sky began turning grayer and grayer as time passed. By the time breakfast ended, it was beginning to rain.

Nancy looked at the others and sighed, thinking about how the party started out to be cheery, and everybody was laughing, but now, there was nothing but silence.

Ned looked around the table and at the faces of the suspects.

Diana Windham sat by Joe as she ate her breakfast. Her hands were trembling slightly. Ned knew that she was the last person to talk to the actress alive, and so far, she was the most suspicious.

Marie-Jacques Dernier, the photographer, was sitting next to Diana. She was stirring the cup of coffee as if thinking about something. She looked at the sky and sighed. Then, she went back to stirring her cup again.

Clement Charlock, the owner of the hotel, sat next to Marie, with his knife and fork busily digging into the bacon and egg. He had a bowl of oatmeal by the plates with bacon, but he didn't bother eating it. It was left at the place, ignored.

Nicholas Devereux, the French professor, didn't seem to show his emotions at all. Unlike the other suspects, he was calm at hearing that a person was murdered. However, this made him as suspicious as Diana, for he never even showed a slight sign of fear or shock in hearing that there was a murderer on loose in the hotel.

Finally, there was Martin Rousseau, the fashion designer. He said he was a fashion designer, but his body resembled that of a football player. He was muscular and as tall as Ned, but last night, he said that he was too tired to stay up. This made Ned suspicious of him, since he looked like the type that has indefinite amount of energy to spare. He seemed a little shaken, but he was not trembling as hard as Diana. In fact, none of the suspects, excluding Diana, seemed to be scared. Some seemed a little worried, but nobody was shaking.

"That's strange," Ned thought. "Why are these people so calm? I can understand about Mr. Charlock, who had seen enough of dead bodies to allow him to stay quiet, but the others, who I think have never seen a dead body before in their lives, are acting way too calm for those who aren't professionals."

Frank was thinking the entirely same thing. "I wonder if they have a few skeletons in their closets," he thought. "Maybe after breakfast, I can go ask each of these people."

Frank thought about the list of suspects which he had made in his mind, but he then found one person missing: Serge Beauchamp, who was Iola's "uncle."

"Wait…" Frank thought again. "Serge never stayed in this place, but he did come to the party. That still makes him a suspect, but since the telephone isn't working and neither do our cell phones, I can't ask him any question until after we somehow get out of this hotel."

Frank's mind raced to the thought of the scene of the crime. The woman's body had no sweat whatsoever, which meant that she wasn't struggling when she was attacked by the killer. In fact, her body was facing sideways, indicating the fact that the victim actually saw her killer when she was strangled.

"But that makes things even more unnatural," Frank thought. "If she noticed the person approaching from her side with a rope, then why didn't she make any attempt to run away or struggle?"

He also noticed something else. The victim had no handprint on any part of her body. Because human skin is delicate, a bruise would form when something hard was pressed against the skin for a long period of time. However, the victim had no bruise or any trace of being attacked brutally.

"So she didn't even try to scream for help," Frank thought. "When a person is attacked, there is no way she can stay calm and let the killer murder her. She must have struggled. But the body and the room show no sign of a struggle. In fact, she seemed to be allowing the attacker to kill her."

Things were turning out stranger by the second. "And why did the killer have to make the room a completely sealed one? What was so important to show that the killer never left from the windows? And why make it so complicated?"

He thought harder. "Is it just a challenge to the detectives who were invited to this hotel, like Mr. Charlock, Nancy, and us?"

Frank then shook his head. "That can't be," he thought. "Nobody else besides Mr. Charlock, Renee, Nancy, and us knows the fact that Joe and I were staying in the hotel, so that can't be it. So does it mean the killer was trying to challenge Mr. Charlock? But why?"

"Frank?"

A voice brought Frank from his thoughts. It was Diana. "Are you alright?"

Frank nodded. "Yeah. I was just thinking. Anyway, I'd like to talk to each of you sometime to check on your alibis. Is it okay if you could go back to your rooms? I will go talk to each of you by tonight."

The suspects left the room as quietly as they had come in. It was like a graveyard: no soul was at rest. The body had been moved outside, where it had been covered with plastic bags to avoid anybody's touching it. However, the guests didn't seem to care about the murder at all… Why were they so calm?

Joe suddenly thought of something. "Hey, Frank!" he said to his brother after he made sure that all the suspects left the room. "I'd like to take a look at the door of the room. Maybe there's something that can give us a hint or two."

Frank nodded.

"I'll come, too," said Nancy. "Being a detective myself, I can't just let the killer get away. I must solve this case."

The three detectives went to the scene of the crime. Putting on the gloves to avoid leaving their fingerprints on anything in the room, they started their investigation. Joe took a look at the door, which had so for long concerned him.

The door was a usual wooden door, with the thickness of about two inches. It was one of the thicker ones that Joe had ever seen, and it seemed quite impossible to break it open. He was thankful that he didn't have to do that, since it would have taken so much work if he had to tear down the entire door in order to get into the room.

There was a small space underneath the door. Joe measured the space underneath the door. It was not even wide enough to push through the room key.

"Darn it!" Joe muttered. "If the key could fit through this tiny space, then the whole trick of making this room completely sealed is easy."

Frank nodded. "Yeah. If the space could fit a key through, the killer could have gone outside, locked the door, and then used some kind of string to pull the key into the room. However, that is not possible, since the key was in the drawer of the room, which was also completely closed, and the only other spare key was securely locked hours before the victim actually died."

Joe thought about that. "And even if I could fit the key through, it's impossible to shut the drawer after locking the door and somehow returning the key into the drawer.

Frank paused for a moment. At the same time, Nancy dropped her keys onto the floor.

"Oops," she muttered, picking it up. "Sorry. I was taking my key out to see if it actually fit. But since you two already made sure that it doesn't…" She then stopped. "Wait a minute…"

"What is it, Nancy?" asked Joe, turning around.

Nancy and crouched down. She stared at the bottom of the door. "That's weird…"

"What is?" asked Frank.

Nancy pointed to the door. "Look at the bottom of the door. When I picked up my keys, I noticed that there was a small scratch mark underneath it."

"Really?" Joe also crouched down and looked at it using his magnifying glass. "Yeah, that's true."

Frank touched the door. "This door is made of a softer wood than I thought," he commented. "And I think that someone used some kind of string underneath the door."

"But for what?" Nancy wondered. "Certainly it must have been someone within the last few days. I mean, the mark seems pretty new. Someone must have used something like a thread under the door."

"And that someone must be the killer!" said Joe. "I think the killer used the string to somehow move the key inside the door and…"

"No, Joe," interrupted Frank. "Sorry to halt your imagination, but we already made sure that it's not possible to push a key through that small space between the bottom of the door and the floor. Besides, the floor is made of wood; you can't push it down like a carpet."

Joe grumbled something unintelligible. The only thing the others could manage to hear were: "Stupid floor…"

Clement Charlock was outside, feeling the cool breeze gently touch his hair. The rain had stopped, and the man was going outside to get some fresh air. The old detective was almost sixty now, and he knew that not much time was left until he found what he was looking for.

"Joel…" he muttered just like when he saw Nancy for the first time. Taking out a locket from inside his pocket, the man sighed.

"Why have you left without me?" he murmured in sadness. He opened the locket. Inside there was a picture of a woman in her early twenties. Her hair was the color of gold with a tint of red in it, which made it look as though its color was orange. The blue eyes which sparkled like ocean at sunrise smiled happily at the camera. Her complexion was light but filled with the color of wills to go on an adventure. The face of the woman looked exactly like Nancy Drew.

Just as the man was putting the locket away, he heard a familiar voice from behind him. "Mr. Charlock?"

It was Nancy. She was standing behind the man, looking worriedly at his face. "I came to say hi, but saw you looking at something. What's wrong? You look pale."

Mr. Charlock looked at Nancy. "I…" he finally said as he turned around. "I'm fine. It's just… I remembered my past, that's all."

Nancy looked at the man. "Is that a locket?" she asked, looking at a chain that was sticking out of the man's pocket.

The detective laughed embarrassedly and took out the locket. "Yes, it is. And in it is the picture of the person whom I loved the most in my life."

"Who is it? Does 'Joel' have anything to do with it?" Nancy asked. "The first time I met you, you called me Joel, and the look on your face gave away everything."

Mr. Charlock chuckled. "I guess it's true when people say that I can't keep a straight face. Yes, the person whom I loved the most is Joel. Her name is Joel Mantelle. She was a young girl who I met when I was just a young lad in my twenties."

Taking out the locket, he showed the picture to Nancy. The girl was surprised at seeing a person who very closely resembled Nancy. She felt like she was staring at her double.

"Surprised?" Mr. Charlock asked, still chuckling. "She is very charming indeed. You see, she was an artist. She painted, sketched, sculpted, wrote, and composed. In other words, she excelled at all fields of art, from painting to composing music. Her works had never been known very well to the public, but I knew immediately that she was a jewel sparkling inside a dirty-looking rock. Even though she was talented, nobody realized that. And do you know why?"

Nancy thought for a moment. "I guess it must have been because of the gender. Because she was a woman, nobody even cared to take a look at what she did. Because she was a woman, nobody even thought that she was a genius. After all, all the 'geniuses' made famous during that period were men."

The elderly detective nodded. "You are right, my dear. But even though Joel was looked down and ignored by all the critics at that time, she was nevertheless satisfied with herself. She said that as long as she had me, her life was happy. And so was I. She was a spunky young woman and was never afraid of clearly telling her opinions about everything."

Nancy looked at the man's face. The sadness slowly began covering his countenance, and it seemed like he was remembering something awful.

"But then she left me. One day in the winter of 1968, she suddenly became sick. She died the very next month. But before she died, she looked at me and told me that she had a good news."

"What was it?" asked Nancy.

"She said that she finally finished her most important piece of art. But she never told me where. She said, 'I want you and you only to find it. It's in my house. I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised when you find it. The keyword is my name.'"

The man stopped and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, Nancy saw that there were tears in them. "Those were her last words. I wanted to buy her house, but I had no money at that time, so I could not buy it. Besides, someone else had already decided to buy this house. I worked as a detective to find an opportunity to purchase her home. Decades later, when the new owner of the house moved away, I knew that it was my chance. I bought the estate and turned it into a hotel."

"A hotel?" asked Nancy. "So you mean that…"

Mr. Charlock nodded again. "This hotel was Joel's home. And I'm still looking for it. I'm planning to look for my love's final work of art until I die."

The rain began to fall again.

"It's beginning to rain again," Nancy said. "Let's go inside. I'm sure that the piece of art can be found if Frank, Joe, and I work with you."

"Thank you, young lady," said the detective. "Three young detectives working together are always better than an old retired detective working alone."

The two then entered the hotel, closing the door after them.

Postscript: I hope you thoroughly enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. The next chapter will be even more thrilling than this one, with tons of actions to enjoy. Remember, this story is mainly focused on romance, so expect a lot of twists in the relationship between Nancy and Ned, along with (and perhaps most importantly) Joe and Diana. Please review!