(#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (13 page)

They walked outside with Pansitimba, and Maponhni said something to him in Quechua. At once Pansitimba looked far off. Then he spoke to Maponhni, who translated:

“Our friend sees a condor seated on top of a tree. I cannot see it. Can you?” He pointed down toward the river.

All the girls confessed they could not see anything but dense growth. A few moments later Pansitimba proved to be right. A huge condor rose into the air and winged its way up the mountainside.

“That’s fantastic!” Bess burst out. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have sight like that!”

Maponhni translated and Pansitimba smiled. Then he turned once more to leave.

Nancy called out,
“Cutimunaikicama.”

Pansitimba turned around and gave her a big smile for saying good-by to him in his language, and repeated the phrase.

The girls were ready early the next morning to leave Machu Picchu. During the ride back to Lima, first by train to Cuzco, then by plane, they felt it best not to talk about the mystery in public. Each girl kept a sharp lookout for Luis Llosa but did not see him.

“Are you going to call the police as soon as we get to the Ponce home?” George asked Nancy.

She shook her head. “The first thing I want to do is go to Senor Jorge Velez’s shop with the file. We must find out definitely if it belongs to him and also whether he has heard from his assistant.”

As soon as the plane landed in Lima, the girls said good-by to Maponhni and paid him for his excellent services. He had traveled all the way with them to do some shopping in the city.

Carla hailed a taxi and gave the address of the craft shop. Señor Velez expressed delight at seeing the girls again, but his face clouded when they told him of their adventures and suspicions. He identified the file at once and said Luis Llosa had not reported for work, nor had he ever communicated with the shop.

“Señor Velez,” said Nancy, “you have already told us that nothing seemed to be missing except tools, but have you looked in your workbenches and desks to see if any other articles are missing?”

The shop owner admitted he had not. He headed first for the spot where Luis Llosa had worked. The girls followed him to the back room and watched as he pulled open first one drawer, then another of the table that stood against an inner wall.

A strange look came over Señor Velez’s face. “Every drawing of mine he was using is gone,” he reported. “Apparently Luis took them all.”

Nancy’s sharp eyes had detected an unusual back panel in one of the drawers. She asked the shop owner if he would mind if she investigated it.

“No indeed. Go ahead.”

Nancy pulled the drawer all the way out and set it on top of the workbench. It was quite evident that the space in this drawer was less than in that of similar ones. At the back a large section of wood had been nailed in as if to reinforce the drawer.

Suspicious, Nancy asked Senor Velez for the file which they had brought. When he handed it to her, she wedged the file alongside the extra piece of wood and pried it forward. A moment later the section, which was hollow, pulled free. Underneath lay several letters.

Nancy picked up one of the envelopes and saw that it was addressed to Luis Llosa, evidently at his home in Lima.

“Look!” she exclaimed, pointing to the sender’s name and address in the upper lefthand corner.

“Harry Wallace!” Carla cried out. “The importer who tried to take the plaque from your home, Nancy!”

As George told the story to the shop owner, Nancy pulled out one of the letters and unfolded it. The others crowded around her to read it, and expressed astonishment at the contents.

The salutation was “Dear El Gato” and the letter stated that the shipment had arrived okay and a check was enclosed. The note ended with praise for El Gato’s cleverness in handling the order.

Nancy turned to Senor Velez. “Did you know Luis Llosa’s nickname was El Gato?”

“I certainly did not,” the man replied.

“He’s on the police ‘wanted’ list,” Nancy said.

“I shall call headquarters at once,” declared Señor Velez.

While he went off to do this, Nancy examined every drawer in Luis Llosa’s workbench for additional secret compartments.

“Maybe we can find out what he was shipping.”

The other girls helped her pull out the drawers and set them on top of the workbench. Each was examined thoroughly. Nancy noticed that the bottom of one was thicker than that of the others.

“Maybe this means something,” she said.

Again using the file, she managed to pry up part of the wooden bottom and found that there was another beneath it. Between the two pieces of wood lay a matching salad fork and spoon.

“They are made of arrayánes wood!” Bess remarked.

“And I’ll bet the handles are hollow,” George added.

Nancy was already experimenting to see if she could unscrew one of the handles. She did so with little effort. Peering inside, the girls could see a quantity of fine white powder.

Just then two police officers arrived and Senor Velez led them into the workroom. He introduced the girls and explained their part in solving the mystery.

Nancy held up the spoon handle and showed it to the officers, “I believe El Gato is a smuggler,” she said.

One of the officers took the wooden implement and smelled the contents. “I am not sure what this is,” he said. “I will take it to the police laboratory for analysis.”

He had barely finished speaking when George happened to glance toward an open window. She saw a head rising up over the sill. Then she recognized the face of Luis Llosa!

Before George could cry out, his hand came up and he hurled a bomb with a lighted fuse into the workroom.

“On the floor, everybody!” George screamed.

Instantly the whole group dived and lay still. The bomb hit Llosa’s workbench and exploded. Bits of shattered wood, pots of varnish, and cans of paint flew in all directions. Everyone in the room was pelted with debris.

As soon as things quieted down, Nancy and the others cautiously got to their feet. Velez, excited, began to speak half in Spanish and half in English.

George pointed to the window and said, “Luis Llosa threw the bomb.”

The two officers dashed from the room and the others heard the shop door slam.

“Did anyone get hurt?” Nancy asked.

Fortunately, the homemade bomb had not been a powerful one and its victims in the workroom had suffered only minor cuts and bruises.

Bess, however, was on the verge of hysterics. “Nancy, that bomb was aimed right in your direction! If you hadn’t ducked, it would have hit you. Oh, Nancy, you might have been killed!”

Nancy was pretty sober herself. She doubted that the bomb could have killed her, but Luis Llosa certainly intended that it do a good bit of damage. She decided that he had hoped to destroy all the evidence against him.

“Llosa must have followed us from the airport and had the bomb with him.”

“Oh, I hope the police catch him!” Carla said nervously. “None of us is safe while he is at large.”

She told Senor Velez the whole story of the cat warning she had received and the red cat face painted on the rock at Sacsahuaman.

“It is a dreadful business,” the craftsman said. He picked up the spoon handle which the officer had laid down. “I wonder what this white powder is.”

He sprinkled a small quantity into the palm of his hand, raised it to his mouth, and stuck out his tongue to test it.

“Oh, please don’t do that!” Nancy advised hurriedly. “This powder may be poison!”

CHAPTER XVIII

Phony Chemist

SEÑOR VELEZ took Nancy’s advice. He laid the wooden handle with the suspicious powder back on the workbench. Nancy walked over and now unscrewed the handle of the fork. It, too, contained the powder.

“I wonder how much of this stuff Luis Llosa shipped,” she said. “As soon as the police return, I think we should ask them to get in touch with the New York police and the customs officials there.”

“You mean,” said George, “that they should investigate Wallace’s importing activities?” Nancy nodded.

Just then one of the police officers returned. He said they had not caught Luis Llosa.

“Perhaps he is at this address,” said Nancy, and showed the policeman the letters.

“The address on the envelopes is not the one he gave me when he came to work here,” observed Senor Velez. “He must have moved.”

“Probably Llosa doesn’t stay anywhere very long,” Nancy commented. “He doesn’t want the police to catch up with him.”

“We will get him, though, señorita,” said one of the officers. He took the letters from Nancy.

The other policeman screwed the handles back onto the spoon and fork, then put them in a pocket of his jacket.

“I will have these tested and report to Señor Velez and you what is inside.”

Soon after the officers had left, the girls took a taxi to the Ponce home. Carla’s parents were astounded at the story of what had happened at the shop and in the mountains.

“I am very much worried about you girls,” Señora Ponce said. “Perhaps a secret trip—”

Instantly Nancy told of her desire to visit the Nascan lines.

Carla’s father said he thought this was a very good idea. “It would be far safer for you girls to ‘disappear’ for a while than to stay here. I will arrange a camping trip to the desert.”

“That would be marvelous,” said Nancy.

Señor Ponce said that his company owned a large helicopter. He was sure he could make arrangements to borrow it for the trip.

“It is better to go that way than in a plane because a helicopter can be set down wherever you wish in the desert.”

The girls were thrilled by the prospect of visiting the extraordinary place. Nancy was confident that they were getting closer to the solution of the age-old mystery of the plaque.

Señora Ponce told her visitors that several letters had come for them from the United States.

Nancy had received three—one from her father, another from Hannah, and one from Ned Nickerson. In it the young man asked how she was getting along with her bobtailed monkey.

Nancy laughed at the quip, then suddenly snapped her fingers. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that before? The spiraling lines on the other side of the plaque were meant to be the monkey’s tail!”

She immediately began to study the spiral lines again. It dawned on her that the tip of the tail was at the center of the plaque and right in the middle of the crossword cipher.

“I’m sure that means it’s the most important part of the mystery,” she decided. “That’s where we should make our camp in the Nascan desert and start our dig. But first we must find the right monkey.”

Conversation during a late dinner was confined entirely to the coming trip. Señor Ponce said he had been able to make arrangements with the government and his own company for a real safari.

“Señora Ponce and I are going along with you girls. We have never seen the Nascan lines and I think it is high time that we do so. Our pilot will be Ernesto Monge and his copilot, Canejo.”

Carla’s mother smiled. “I offered to take my cook and the food,” she said, “but the company has arranged everything. There will be a steward, named Rico, who will act as camp cook also.”

“Oh, this sounds so exciting!” Bess remarked.

George could not resist teasing her cousin. “You mean the trip, or the young men?”

Bess wrinkled her nose at George and disdained to answer. The others laughed.

Then Señor Ponce said, “It will be hot in the desert so we will take poles and awning tops. There will be several sets so we can sleep under some of them and move others around to places where we might want to dig for treasure.”

Nancy told of her theory about the tip of the monkey’s tail being the most likely spot. All agreed that it was an excellent deduction.

“We’ll take along plenty of digging tools, so everyone can make a search,” Senor Ponce said.

A short time after dinner was over, the police telephoned a report on the case. Señor Ponce spoke to them and after a long conversation came to tell the others what had transpired.

“The powder in the handles of the wooden fork and spoon was quinine. Quantities of this drug were smuggled into the United States for a most peculiar reason. It seems there is a dishonest chemist up there who owns a small laboratory and factory. He was producing a certain wonder-drug pill for a pharmaceutical company and being handsomely paid.