Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #154: The Legend of the Emerald Lady (2000)

 

Jack and Emma Isaac are friends of Carson who bought the Sugar Moon Plantation in the Caribbean and fixed it up. Nancy heads down with Bess and Ned to be their first visitors. Not long after getting there, a man dressed as a pirate pops up. The parrot on his shoulder warns them of the full moon in two nights before the man laughs and they wander away. Jack explains that it's Old Ironbones, a fisherman who had an accident and kind of lost his mind. He now wanders around the island, teaching his parrots new phrases and feeding stray animals. While Jack doesn't like him, Emma keeps defending him.

They also learn that the couple bought the plantation from the former owner's estate and met with Duncan, the owner of a local antique shop. Duncan estimated the value of some of the things they wanted to sell and seemed especially interested in silverware with the old owners initials. Emma locked them away. They head into town to rent snorkeling equipment and meet Pierre, a French neighbor who instantly falls for Bess. After a short walk, they come back and hear Emma screaming.

It turns out that someone spilled a cup of lemonade across her dresser, which attracted thousands of red ants. While they help her clean up, Nancy finds a feather by the dresser. She then sees a woman with feather earrings running away from the scene. The woman is Rafaella, their cook. She seems super distracted when Nancy tries to talk to her but makes it clear that she would do nothing to hurt the couple. Nancy also notices that her earrings aren't missing any feathers and learns that she bought them from a popular shop downtown.

While Bess wants to just relax after dinner, Nancy and Ned want to take a romantic walk. Emma says that she's heading upstairs, but they later see her on the beach with Old Ironbones. Nancy sees her hand him an envelope and him take her arm. When she sees her later, Emma has this smug look on her face that quickly disappears. She then denies that she went anywhere and claims that Nancy must have gotten her confused with someone else in the dark.

Nancy decides to sneak up to the attic and take a look at the antiques. She hears a weird noise and then sees the shadow of a person. Before she can do anything, someone hits her from behind. No worries though. It's Nancy, so she's fine except upset that she missed the intruder. She tells Jack and Emma the next day, and they explore the attic. Nancy manages to find a letter a woman wrote to her true love in prison with clues as to where she hid her necklace. Whoever broke in likely took the rest of the letter.

Pierre comes by to pick them up for a day of snorkeling. While they're in the water, Nancy and Ned go further out. They hear a scream and find Bess surrounded by barracudas with Pierre nowhere around. Noticing that they're attracted to her jewelry, Nancy has Ned drop some coins in the ocean, which distracts the fish long enough for them to get away. Pierre returns, claiming that he went to a different area and got caught in the current. He seems to feel really bad for what happened to Bess.

When they get back, they learn that Jack dug around for the necklace. He then tells them that Duncan, the antique shop owner, invited them to a huge party at his mansion. They have the option of salad or fried plantains. Nancy is the only one who chooses plantains, and Emma saves her when she sees poisonous nuts on the top. While talking to the chef, she learns that the waitress left her order sitting out where anyone could find it and then hears Duncan shouting about the jewel.

Sneaky Nancy snoops around and gets caught by Duncan. He seems super suspicious of her and tells her to mind her own business. Duncan also says that he was just talking about a missing pirate map that would be the jewel of his collection. He asks her to dance and seems super dark, which is why she's happy when Ned cuts in to dance with her. Later that night, Nancy finds a page from the letter tucked inside Ned's coat pocket.

As it turns out, the missing necklace had a beautiful emerald in it that is worth a fortune. It seems as though everyone hopes to find it. Jack mentions that he saw Duncan sneaking around Ned's jacket. The page that she found was a replica of the real thing and has a skull and crossbones on it, with a warning to Nancy in the middle.

She then snoops around some of the buildings on the property and hears a weird noise. The noise is Rafaella. Someone kidnapped her and tied her to a post in the building. They sprinkled sugar all over her legs and covered her with red ants. Nancy saves her and learns that Rafaella saw someone sneaking around. When she went to tell Jack, the person grabbed her. Near the spot where the guy grabbed her, Nancy finds a matchbook from a French restaurant.

Nancy talks to Emma and learns that she's been giving Old Ironbones money to care for animals without telling Jack. He's allergic to most animals and hates them, too. They find the chest of drawers originally owned by Miranda, the writer of the letter. Nancy finds a wishing well bank inside, which was one of the clues to the necklace. Since she suspects Pierre, she asks Bess and Ned for help. Bess refuses because he's too handsome to do anything wrong.

While on his boat, Pierre messes with the engine and sends it out to sea. Nancy gets it under control and comes back to shore to find that Ned knocked Pierre out. They pull him back to the house and learn that the chest just went to Duncan's auction. Nancy gets there just in time to see it go up for auction and has to bid on it, but Pierre shows up and bids, too. She gets a message to Jack who calls the sheriff.

The sheriff stops the auction and grabs Pierre. Nancy goes through the drawers again and finds a hidden latch that reveals a secret spot with the necklace. Duncan is in shock that all the stories were true. Miranda loved a man named Giles who gave her the necklace before he was sent to prison. She got sick and wrote to him to help him find it after she died. Giles escaped from prison but was killed on his way back to her.

It turns out that Pierre was an ancestor of the woman and only came to the island to search for the necklace. He admits to breaking into the house and committing other crimes as well as pretending that Ned knocked him out on the beach so he could hear everything they knew. The sheriff then takes him away as Bess says that she hopes they lock him up. The crew then gets to relax on the beach until it's time to head home.

*In case you wonder why George missed the trip, she had a marathon that week that she refused to miss.

*Ned carries Bess's lipstick in her pocket when she doesn't have pockets. Is he not the perfect guy?

*So once again, Bess becomes obsessed with the bad guy and refuses to believe that he could do anything wrong since he's so cute. Sigh.

*When Bess refuses to help them, Nancy cheerfully tells her to call the cops if they don't make it back. Bess just waves because she's so sure that Pierre is innocent.

*Is anyone else curious why they arrested Pierre? I'm guessing the whole breaking and entering thing, even though he didn't steal anything. When you consider that he was the last descendant of the necklace's owner though, would he do any time? I'm assuming that even he does, he'll get the necklace when he gets out!