En Garde (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 17) by Carolyn Keene

inside Salle Budapest, they’d throw him out before he had a chance to tamper with any equipment.”
    “You have a point,” George admitted.
    I paused, reluctant to bring up my next line of reasoning. “George . . . do you think Bela Kovacs himself could be responsible?”
    “No way!” George replied hotly. “He wouldn’t sabotage his own salle! It’s not just his business—it’s his life.”
    I hesitated. I knew George wasn’t exactly impartial. And I needed an impartial ear right now. But I also knew that George was just as determined to get to the bottom of this case as I was. She wouldn’t be able to ignore the facts of the case, no matter how closely she was involved with the suspects. “Maybe it isn’t the salle he’s trying to sabotage,” I suggested gently. “Maybe it’s just one person at the salle.”
    George sat up straight. “You mean DeLyn? Oh, no, Nancy, you’re way off base. DeLyn is his star student, everybody knows that. Bela made her the champion fencer she is today. If she looks bad, he looks bad. He can’t afford that.”
    “But DeLyn says he’s been so critical of her lately,” I pointed out. “He says rude things to her all the time, and she hasn’t been winning the way he expects her to. Look, George, all I know is that Damon waslying about his mask yesterday. Clearly he’s covering up for someone. And he’s very loyal to Bela Kovacs—more loyal than DeLyn is. If Damon suspected Bela was after his sister . . .”
    “I don’t buy it, Nancy,” George replied with a stubborn look. “Damon is devoted to Bela, but he’s even more devoted to DeLyn. If Damon knew someone was out to hurt his twin, he certainly wouldn’t sit back and let it happen.”
    I sighed. “Too true. That’s why this case is so mind-boggling.”
    Salle Olympique looked amazingly like Salle Budapest. It was located in the same kind of commercial lot, with a similar blacktop parking lot and nondescript weedy borders. It was the same type of one-story cinder-block building, with a tan brick front wall and a large front window. Paul Mourbiers had even painted the name of his salle in the same curlicue red and black letters. “It looks like an exact clone of Salle Budapest,” I said, astonished.
    George grinned wryly. “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s the other way around—Salle Budapest is an exact clone of Salle Olympique. Remember, Mourbiers opened his studio six years ago. Back then, Bela Kovacs was in a run-down space downtown. He borrowed tons of money to build a new facility to compete with Mourbiers, and he made it look exactlylike the rival salle. Sort of a dig at Mourbiers, I guess.”
    I shook my head as I parked the car. “I swear, from everything I hear about their rivalry, I don’t know which of them acts worse.”
    “Let’s hope no one recognizes us from before,” George said, climbing out of the car.
    “I’d thought of that, too—but we’ve got to take the chance. We’ll just lay low.”
    Paul Mourbiers himself was sitting at the front desk when we walked into the all-too-familiar-looking studio. “Do you have to be registered ahead if you want to take a class?” George asked. “We’ve never fenced before, but we’d like to try it out.”
    “We saw something on the TV news a couple of nights ago that made us curious,” I added.
    Mourbiers’s face lit up at the mention of the TV news report. “Yes, yes, walk-ins are always welcome,” he declared. “Just sign in here.” He pushed a clipboard toward us. “We are always happy to introduce new students to the honorable and ancient art of fencing.”
    “Yeah—honorable,” George said, barely hiding her sarcastic tone. The way she was studying Paul Mourbiers, I felt sure he’d guess we weren’t just innocent beginners. But Mourbiers seemed oblivious to her hostility—he was just glad to have some newstudents. And when I wrote down my address on his sign-in sheet, he beamed even more.
    “You are from River