Read 078 The Phantom Of Venice for Free Online Page B

in its own way. Nancy could never have imagined him in evening clothes, or starring in a sophisticated movie. But she could easily picture him slouching on the pitcher’s mound in a baseball uniform, straightening his cap and squinting at the batter just before winding up and firing a fast ball over the plate.
    “Miss Drew?”
    “Yes . . . and you must be Don Madison.”
    “Right.” He turned away from the boat landing after the briefest of handshakes. “Plant’s not far from here. Hope you don’t mind walking.”
    “Not at all. I’ll enjoy it.”
    Nancy was a bit put off by her escort’s curtness. She hadn’t expected a hometown welcoming committee, but she hadn’t expected the cold shoulder, either. His official smile of greeting and the sizing-up look he gave her had seemed affable enough, at least for the length of their handshake. But did he have to turn quite so brusque and uptight the very next moment? He even seemed to be avoiding eye contact.
    “I suppose my father told you why I’ve come to Murano?”
    “Not really. Just something about you looking over the factory, maybe asking the hands some questions about Pietro.”
    Don Madison’s tone sounded faintly disdainful, as if the thought of a girl her age snooping into a crime that baffled the police was too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Nancy realized that her father had probably told him as little as possible in order not to cramp her investigation.
    “What are you, some kind of reporter?”
    “No, some kind of detective, if you want to put it that way. I know it’s pretty unusual and I don’t look the part, but I have succeeded in other investigations.”
    Don flung her a sudden quizzical glance as they walked along. “Oh yeah, now it registers. So you’re that Nancy Drew? . . . Sorry.”
    “It doesn’t matter in the least,” Nancy said coldly.“I’ll try not to take up any more of your time than I have to.”
    “Well, our production schedule is sort of messed up at the moment, now that Pietro’s not around to keep things running smoothly.”
    Murano, too, it seemed, was an island of waterways, with a canal forming what appeared to be its main street. Don led the way through several alleys and turnoffs to a courtyard with a brick factory building at one end. A hawklike gargoyle and a sign over the doorway announced that this was the Falcone Glassworks, Vetreria del Falcone.
    Inside, a balding man in a vest and shirtsleeves peered out at them from a cubbyhole office. Don Madison introduced him as Signor Rubini, the plant manager. He bowed obsequiously to Nancy and gabbled away in an accent she could hardly understand.
    “Just a flunky,” Don muttered as they walked on. “It’s Pietro who really runs the plant—or did run it before he was kidnaped.”
    Glowing furnaces dazzled her eyes in the gritty, smoky production area. Fascinated, Nancy watched several husky, leather-aproned blowers at work as they dipped long hollow rods into the molten glass, then swung and twirled them to elongate the syrupy blobs. These were blown patiently into larger and larger translucent bubbles, with the workmen’s cheeks puffing out like Dizzy Gillespie’s, the jazztrumpeter. The result was then pinched, cut or rolled on marble tables to produce the desired end product—goblets, vases, bottles and figurines.
    Don showed her how decorations could be formed by means of drops or lumps added from the outside, or by colored or milky threads embedded in the original glass.
    “Do they often let visitors watch how these things are made?” Nancy inquired.
    “What you’ve just seen is no big deal, these are all well-known techniques of glassmaking. The real secrets have to do with things like furnace temperatures and glass formulas.”
    Don explained that the early seafaring Venetians had learned the art of glassmaking from the Syrians and other peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean. Their glassware became the finest in the Western world and