(#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (7 page)

The girls began to help themselves. Carla and George did not fill their plates, but Bess took three kinds of fish, chicken salad, vegetable salad, and half a melon.

The others teased her, but she ignored them. When Bess was served a large dish of cream soup, roast beef, potatoes and vegetable, as well as dessert—a rich cake topped with ice cream—she began to falter.

“Oh, I know I’m going to burst!” she said, after swallowing the last mouthful of dessert.

George looked at her cousin disapprovingly. “If you have a tummyache tonight, enjoy it by yourself!” Bess was silent.

After dinner the girls wandered into the lounge and sat down to talk.

Carla was quiet for a while, then she said, “I have been trying to think of some way I could help Nancy solve the mystery and I have just had what you call a brainstorm. Tell me if you think I am crazy to try it.”

Carla outlined a plan she had in mind. In one of the gift shops she would buy a large Spanish shawl and a fan.

“I have a dress with me that is like a Spanish dancer’s,” she whispered. “I could fix myself up to look like an entertainer and in that costume I could try to locate Manuel Sanchez.”

“How?” Bess and George asked.

“In the basement of this hotel,” Carla explained, “there is a very large casino where various games are played. It is not run by the hotel and is open to anyone who wants to come and play.”

“Yes?” Bess prompted as Carla paused.

“It is possible that Manuel Sanchez will come there. If I can play my part right, so he does not recognize me, I might be able to talk with him and learn something worth while.”

“And turn him over to the police, I hope,” George declared.

“Of course.”

Bess remarked that the scheme sounded very risky, but George was inclined to think that it might work. “We’d better keep an eye on you, though. Bess can take the first watch and I’ll take the second.”

Carla agreed to this protection and went off to purchase a shawl and a fan. The other two girls went up to their room.

When Carla arrived with her purchases, Bess said, “I hope Nancy’s asleep so you can tiptoe in and bring your bag across the hall to our room without her hearing you.”

Carla was able to accomplish this quietly.

“I think it would be best if I change my clothes in the first-floor powder room,” Carla told Bess and George. “Then no one will recognize me as the same girl who went in. I will put this Spanish dress in a shopping bag with these other things. Bess, when you come down to follow me, do not speak. Pretend you never saw me before.”

“All right. How much time do you want?”

Carla said ten minutes would do. Bess waited exactly ten minutes, then walked down the stairs. She stopped to look in various shopwindows along the corridor.

Presently Carla emerged from the powder room and Bess could not help gasping in amazement. “What a transformation!” she thought.

The Peruvian girl looked utterly bewitching. Her hair was piled high on her head and a tall Spanish comb at the back completed the coiffure. Over it all was a beautiful black lace shawl which hung in a point down the back, almost to the bottom of Carla’s gay Spanish dress. The other two ends of the shawl were shorter and lay gracefully on her shoulders.

Carla’s eyebrows had been heavily darkened. She had attached long, curling black lashes which gave her a flirtatious look. The “Spanish dancer” seemed about ten years older and very sophisticated.

“Oh, oh!” Bess thought. “I’d really better keep an eye on Carla or this Spanish beauty will be kidnapped by some dashing cavalier!”

Carla walked up the hall, a black beaded purse held nonchalantly in one hand. Reaching the door which led to the casino, she opened it and started down the stairway. Bess had turned and followed at what she considered an unobtrusive distance.

At the foot of the stairs, the girls showed free admission passes which Carla had obtained earlier from the desk, after revealing her plan to Señor Diaz.

The brightly lighted casino was filled with men and women, most of them at the gaming tables, others just milling around. Everyone stopped to look at Carla and she received many invitations to come and play the games.

To each one she replied, “Thank you, no. I am looking for Señor Manuel Sanchez. Have you seen him?”

Person after person said No. But finally a dark-haired man, who extended the same invitation and received the same reply, said:

“Olé!
Sanchez did not tell me he had a date with such a gorgeous girl.”

Bess was surprised that the man had replied in English. He went on, “My friend Sanchez could not come tonight—he hurt his arm this afternoon.”

Bess’s heart began to pound. Manuel Sanchez had probably injured himself when he had thrown the rock at Nancy!

The dark-haired stranger said to Carla, “If you wish, I will take you to Sanchez and his sister.”

Bess was suspicious of the man. On the other hand, he might not be involved in Sanchez’s crooked schemes. In any case, she hoped Carla would not accept. To her dismay, the Peruvian girl said she would be happy to go along.

“Where is Señor Sanchez?” Carla asked.

“You will soon find out,” the dark-haired man replied. “Come with me.”

He led Carla out a side door of the casino and headed through the hotel grounds for the shore. Bess was extremely worried. She followed along the path as closely as she dared, wishing George were with her.

The stranger led the way directly to the dock, where a motorboat rocked gently on the water. He took hold of Carla’s arm to help her into it, but at this point she refused to go. He held on.

“Get in that boat!” the dark-haired man said firmly. “You are no friend of Sanchez, but I am going to find out who you are!”

As Carla struggled to free herself, Bess screamed loudly and ran forward.

CHAPTER IX

Wooden Clue

As Bess continued to scream loudly, the man who was endeavoring to abduct Carla let go of her. He jumped into the waiting motorboat.

Bess noticed for the first time that there was a pilot, but it was too dark for her to see his features. The craft roared off.

“Oh, Carla!” she cried out, running forward to her friend. “Did he hurt you?”

“He pinched my arm pretty hard, but other than that I am all right,” Carla answered.

Her Spanish costume was askew and her hair disheveled. As the two girls turned to walk back to the hotel, they were amazed to see people running from various directions.

“Who screamed? Who got hurt?” a man asked.

Bess tried to explain in English and Carla in Spanish.

“Where did those men go? I will get them!” said a young man.

Bess pointed down the lake. The motorboat was already out of sight. “It’s hopeless,” she said.

By this time one of the hotel porters had pushed his way through the group and asked who the men were.

“We don’t know,” Bess replied. Then, on a hunch, she added, “Did you see a man around the hotel who had red hair and wore a black-and-white checked sports jacket?”

“Yes, I did. It was yesterday. He was on the second floor. I do not know him.” Suddenly the porter recognized Bess. “The man you speak of stood by the door across the hall from you.”

“What was he doing?” Carla asked.

“Nothing when I passed by.”

After a few more questions and answers, the girls learned that the stranger had been there about the time the plaque must have been stolen. The porter also said that later the same red-haired person had been met on the grounds of the hotel by a man who lived in Bariloche.

“Do you know this man’s name?” Bess asked excitedly.

“It is Frederic Wagner. He owns a motorboat and he might have taken the red-haired man.”

Bess and Carla looked questioningly at each other. Both had the same thought. Was the pilot of the kidnapper’s motorboat this same Frederic Wagner? And was he perhaps the one who had taken Sanchez away from the arrayánes forest?

The crowd dispersed, assured of the girls’ well-being. Bess and Carla returned to the hotel. They found Nancy awake and George talking to her. As Carla took off her Spanish costume, Bess told the story of what had happened.

Nancy sat straight up in bed. She reached for the telephone directory on the bedside table and began to riffle the pages. Presently she said, “Here it is. Frederic Wagner in Bariloche.”

George asked what she planned to do with the information. “Call Señor Diaz and suggest he get in touch with the police immediately. This is too good a lead not to follow up.”

Nancy spoke to Señor Diaz, who promised to pass along the information to the authorities at once.

“Miss Drew, you are a fast-working detective,” he praised her.

Nancy laughed. “I have some excellent assistants. And this time all the credit goes to two of them, Misses Bess Marvin and Carla Ponce.”

“Well, congratulate them for me,” Señor Diaz said. “And now I’ll telephone the police.”

The girls hoped that they would get some word later that evening, but none came.

Nancy sighed. “I have a strong hunch that Sanchez is hiding out with Wagner, but after what happened, they probably didn’t go back to his home. The police will have to wait until they show up there.”

At seven the next morning Nancy’s telephone rang and she jumped to answer it. The Bariloche police were calling.

“Is this Miss Drew?”

“Yes.”

“We have two men in custody. One is Frederic Wagner. The other refuses to give his name, but we think it is Manuel Sanchez.”

The speaker requested that the girls come to Bariloche headquarters as soon as possible and bring the owner of the shop where the plaque transaction took place.

“I’ll inquire where she lives and we’ll all come together,” Nancy promised.

The clerk at the desk said that the shop was not open on Sunday, but he offered to call the woman at home and let Nancy talk with her. The gift-shop owner was delighted to hear that the police had a suspect in custody and readily agreed to go with the girls.

“I have a car. Suppose I pick you up at eight-thirty.”

“Thank you very much,” said Nancy. “We’ll be ready.”

The four girls dressed quickly and went downstairs to have breakfast. By eight-thirty they were at the driveway entrance to the hotel. Señora Violetta drove up and the girls hopped in. She was aghast upon hearing what had happened to Carla the night before.

“You were very brave to undertake such detective work,” she said.

“I must admit I was very scared,” Carla replied.

When the group reached police headquarters, the two prisoners were brought in to Chief Castro’s office.

Senora Violetta pointed to Sanchez and cried, “He is the man! He is the one who sold the stolen plaque!”

The police chief turned to the shop owner and the girls. Pointing to the other prisoner, he asked, “Do you recognize this man?”

All of them said they did not.

“He is Frederic Wagner,” the chief said. “Unless you wish to file a complaint against this man, we cannot hold him.”

At that moment a policeman walked into the room and spoke to his superior. After a few moments’ conversation, Chief Castro said:

“A quantity of arrayánes wood has been found in your home, Señor Wagner. You know it is scarce and against the law to remove any from that special forest.”

Wagner murmured, “I didn’t get the wood from there. I got it—somewhere else.”

“Suppose you tell us where.” But Wagner refused to do this.

“We will hold you until you talk,” the chief said. He turned to Señora Violetta and the girls. “We will take full statements from all of you.”

Nancy gave details of the runaway ox and her suspicion that Sanchez was the instigator of the near accident.

Carla told about the plaque being stolen from her bedroom, and of the attempted abduction. “I think Wagner was the pilot of the boat and the kidnapper is a friend of his and Manuel Sanchez.”

Chief Castro smiled. “You girls have had a rough time during your stay in the Argentine. Do visit our country some time to have fun!”

“I’d like to,” Nancy answered, and the other girls nodded.

Señor Violetta took the girls to a church service, then back to the hotel. As they walked into the lobby, Senor Diaz hurried to them with a woman whom he introduced as Mrs. Percy—the one who had paid the hundred and fifty dollars for the plaque. She was overjoyed to hear the good news.

“I suggest,” said Nancy, “that you go to headquarters at Bariloche and put in a claim for your money.”

“I will certainly do that and thank you very much,” Mrs. Percy said. She smiled. “You know I fell in love with that funny monkey. I am sorry to lose him.”

Nancy and her friends went upstairs to pack. While Carla was folding clothes into her suitcase, she brought up the subject of the arrayánes wood which had been found in Wagner’s home. “What do you think he uses it for?”

“I wish I knew,” Nancy replied. “Maybe the police here will be able to find out. I’m glad, anyway, that we still have the plaque.”

“And that all of us are in one piece!” George added.

Carla sighed. “This whole thing is so complicated. When I asked you, Nancy, to work on my monkey mystery, I had no idea it would turn out to have so many angles to it.”

Nancy laughed. “I didn’t, either. But the more complicated the mystery is, the more fun it is to solve.”

Soon after lunch, Señor Ponce came for his daughter and her friends. Together, they drove to the Bariloche airport where the rest of his group was waiting. The men were busy talking business and discussing the golf matches.

When Carla learned that her father had won the big trophy, she hugged him. “Father, that is wonderful! Congratulations!”

The other girls congratulated him too. After some urging, he opened one of his bags and showed them a silver cup. His company awarded it each year to the best golfer at the Llao-Llao event.

Everyone boarded the plane and their bags were put behind the luggage harness just aft of the pilots’ open compartment. As soon as clearance came from the tower, the pilot took off.