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telling the truth. Nancy was about to probe further when there was a tap on the door. Lieutenant Kitridge poked his head inside.
    â€œMs. Olsen? I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to come with me. A number of questions have come up about your part in the death of Maxine Treitler.”
    Erika stared wordlessly at the police officer. Then her eyes rolled upward, and almost in slow motion, she started to slump to the floor.

Chapter

Eight
    A S E RIKA’S KNEES crumpled, Nancy and George reached out to stop her from falling. Lieutenant Kitridge called over his shoulder to the hallway. “Sergeant Wilensky? Give me a hand, will you?”
    Erika’s eyes fluttered open after a moment. She stared dazedly at Nancy and George, who were still holding her up. The sergeant Nancy had seen that morning came in, and the three of them helped Erika into a chair. “Put your head down in your lap,” the sergeant advised. “It helps to get the blood back to your brain.”
    After a few minutes Erika was sitting up and the color had returned to her cheeks.
    â€œAre you okay, Ms. Olsen?” the lieutenant asked.
    Erika nodded and got to her feet to start for the door. As she was leaving the room, she turned to Nancy with an imploring look.
    With a frown Lieutenant Kitridge asked, “Are you starting to take sides, Nancy?”
    Nancy shook her head. “I’ll tell you what I told Erika. The best way to show she’s innocent, if she is, will be to find out who’s guilty.”
    â€œHer scarf was the murder weapon,” Kitridge said. “The fibers we found under the victim’s fingernails match. And I’m willing to bet those shoes she’s wearing will match up with that footprint we found in the hidden passage.”
    â€œShe admitted that she went to Maxine’s room this morning,” Nancy told him.
    The lieutenant stared at Nancy with narrowed eyes. “You’d better tell me about that,” he said.
    When she’d finished, Kitridge rubbed his chin. “So now she says the manuscript is missing from her room,” he said. “Do you buy that story?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Nancy said truthfully. “She certainly wanted the manuscript badly enough to steal it. Maybe she’s hidden it somewhere and intends to retrieve it later.”
    â€œIf the evidence against her keeps piling up this way,” the lieutenant said grimly, “ ‘later’ for her is going to be a whole lot later. Figure twenty years to life.”
    With that, Lieutenant Kitridge left.
    â€œOh, I left my notes down in the library,”Nancy said to George. The two girls made their way back downstairs. Nancy retrieved the notebook, then crossed over to the long windows to look outside.
    A dark-colored sedan was just pulling out of the driveway. Sergeant Wilensky was driving with Erika in the backseat beside Lieutenant Kitridge. “There they go,” Nancy said.
    George didn’t answer. When Nancy swung around George wasn’t there. At the far end of the library a narrow door set between two carved bookcases was standing partially open, though.
    Nancy started for the door, but before she reached it, the door swung wide open and George reappeared. She had a folded piece of blue paper in her hand and a grin on her face.
    â€œWhere were you?” Nancy asked. “What’s that?”
    â€œI decided to check out where that door goes,” George replied. “It leads into Dorothea Burden’s study. Now look what I found in her file cabinet—a blueprint of the heating system.”
    â€œGreat!” Nancy helped unfold the large sheet of paper, and together they studied the diagram.
    â€œHere’s the library,” George said, pointing. “And this must be the heating duct. It comes up directly from the main duct in the basement, right below us. And from here, it goes