The Secret of the Wooden Lady (7 page)

Read The Secret of the Wooden Lady Online

Authors: Carolyn Keene

Tags: #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Girls & Women, #Mystery & Detective, #Boats and Boating, #Juvenile Fiction, #Adventure and Adventurers, #Girl Detectives, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Fiction, #Ghost Stories, #Mystery Fiction, #Mystery Stories, #Mystery and Detective Storeis, #Boston Harbor (Mass.), #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Ghosts, #Clipper Ships, #Figureheads of Ships, #Mystery and Detective Stories

BOOK: The Secret of the Wooden Lady
13.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” demanded the woman, who had finally reached the top of the stairs and stood panting in the doorway. “You’d better mind your own business if you know what’s healthy for you!”
Nancy said nothing as she hurried down the stairs. She got Lieutenant Hennessy and told him where she was.
“A radio car will be there in three minutes, Miss Drew,” he said. “Be careful. You’re not among friends.”
The police arrived in record time, secured what information they could from the boardinghouse keeper, and transferred Captain Easterly to a hospital. He seemed to improve rapidly, now that he knew he was safe.
He told Nancy, Ned, and the police that while sitting quietly in a waterfront restaurant, sipping a cup of coffee, he had felt very ill. A stranger had offered to help him. They got into a taxi and that was the last thing the captain remembered until Nancy’s arrival.
He had been too dizzy to notice what the man looked like. The doctor told them that Easterly’s coffee must have been drugged when the captain was not looking. The police set a watch on the boardinghouse to catch the man who had pretended to be the captain’s nephew.
It was long past the time Nancy and Ned had agreed to meet the others at the hotel, so after bidding the captain good night, they hurried away. Bess, George, and the boys were already halfway through dinner.
“We couldn’t wait any longer,” Bess said. “What happened to you two?”
“Plenty.” Ned grinned, pulling out a chair for Nancy. “We found Captain Easterly and took him to a hospital.”
“What!” George looked amazed, but her eyes fairly popped when they told her where they had found him, and that he had been drugged. “I might have known we’d miss something exciting,” she sighed.
Dave turned to Nancy. “If somebody went to all that trouble to get the captain out of the way,” he said, “there must be something mighty valuable on the ship.”
She nodded. “I wish there were some way to get the clipper out of Boston,” she said thoughtfully. “If we could only move it!”
Burt, who was an excellent sailor, reminded her that it was no small trick to sail a clipper ship. “You need some pretty sharp hands aboard.”
George put down her fork. “There are six of us. Why couldn’t we sail the
Bonny Scot,
with directions from Captain Easterly? We’ve all practically grown up on sailboats.”
“A little pleasure boat is a picnic to sail,” Burt spoke up, “compared to a craft like this one. I’ll bet, George, you don’t even know the names of the masts on the
Bonny Scot.”
“Yes, I do. Fore, main, and mizzen. And besides, you have the foresail, the staysail, the jibs, the skysails, the—”
“Very salty.” Burt grinned. “I apologize.” Nancy said no more about moving the
Bonny Scot,
but she resolved to talk to Captain Easterly about it first thing in the morning. She awoke very early, slipped into her clothes, and left the room without rousing Bess and George. Nancy had a quick breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, and went to the hospital.
Captain Easterly was himself again—his blue eyes had regained their accustomed glint, and his voice as he greeted her was deep and hearty.
“Get me out of here, Nancy,” he begged. “Nothing wrong with me.”
Nancy smiled. “We’ll see what your doctor says.” She sat down and faced him earnestly. “Captain, do you think we could move your ship out of reach of these criminals?” She told him about the boys and their knowledge of sailing gained on the river and the lakes at home.
Captain Easterly looked skeptical. “Pretty big undertaking, Nancy,” he said. “But I see your point about getting the clipper out of Boston Harbor. If we could move her at once, before anyone had time to spread the word she was going ...”
Nancy could see the idea growing in his mind. “I’ll send the boys here to talk to you,” she offered. “You could give them directions about preparing for the trip. The girls and I could buy the supplies.”
The captain’s eyes twinkled. “You’re a good persuader. Nancy. If we pulled out about dusk, with no fuss and confusion, I’ll wager those sneaking rats would be mighty surprised.”
The skipper said he would have to notify the Coast Guard, and get a tug to tow them out into the open water. When Nancy left him, he was calling for his clothes and a telephone.
Nancy returned at once to the hotel and found Ned, Burt, and Dave having breakfast with the girls. She told them that Captain Easterly was willing to sail the clipper to a secluded Cape Cod port. Dave said they would have to work like beavers to make the ship ready.
The three girls set out to purchase food and other supplies for the trip.
When they returned to the hotel, Mr. Drew was waiting for them. After greeting the group, he said to Nancy:
“Captain Easterly is going to be disappointed in my title search. I had no luck in New Bedford. Then I began to suspect that the original name of the clipper was not
Bonny Scot
—but whatever else it might have been, no one I’ve talked to seems to know. And no measurements matched those of the Bonny Scot.”
“You’re not giving up, Dad!” Nancy exclaimed.
“You know me better than that.” He smiled. “I’m flying down to New York, where, I’ve been told, there are a great many old records. But what have you been up to, Nancy?”
She told him what had happened to Captain Easterly, and about their plans to move the
Bonny Scot.
She promised to let her father know when they arrived at their destination. Mr. Drew said he would meet them in a few days, and hurried away to catch his plane.
Nancy telephoned Lieutenant Hennessy to ask if he had had any success in tracing Flip Fay, Grizzle Face Quint, or the man who had drugged Captain Easterly.
“No luck so far,” the officer reported. “They’ve steered clear of that boardinghouse.”
The girls packed, and sent their bags separately to the ship, because Nancy thought a lot of lug gage arriving at the clipper at the same time might arouse suspicion.
When they reached the dock, the girls found Captain Easterly completely recovered and the boys hard at work. The captain gave Nancy and George the job of sewing up a rip in the main skysail. Bess, who planned to do the cooking, set off to fix up the galley.
To Captain Easterly’s delight a heavy fog rolled in at five o’clock. When the tug came alongside, the
Bonny Scot
slipped quietly away from her berth under cover of the mist.
“Wonderful luck!” the captain said to Nancy, who was beside him at the wheel.
A short while later, when they were under full sail, the mist began to lift. Suddenly Nancy thought she saw smoke curling out of a hatch. Not wanting to alarm the captain, she hurried down the companionway, along the passage, and looked into the hold.
The
Bonny Scot
was on fire!
CHAPTER IX
Stowaways
NANCY dashed back to Captain Easterly and told him about the fire. Grimly he signaled for the fireboat, then dropped anchor.
Nancy raced off to give the alarm to the boys. They gathered fire extinguishers and hurried below.
Ned was first into the hold. “If we can keep the fire from spreading, we’ll be all right!” he shouted. “Dave, catch it over there near those oil drums!”
Nancy dashed back to the deck to see if a fireboat was coming. Hearing its whistle, she started back to the hold. Nancy got as far as the lowest step of the main companionway when she saw the dark figure of a man disappear around a corner.
“Ned!” Nancy screamed. He did not hear her in the excitement of fighting the fire.
Her heart pounding, she ran after the mysterious, retreating figure. The man ran up a companionway, Nancy not far behind him. When she reached the deck, he had disappeared. As she looked around, Nancy heard a splash.
He had jumped overboard!
She sped across the deck and leaned over the rail. A man was swimming away from the ship’s side with long, swift strokes. In the fog Nancy could not see him well enough to identify him.
Reluctantly she had to let the man escape to shore. Unhooking a fire extinguisher on the deck. house wall, she hurried to the hold. Red-eyed, with wet handkerchiefs tied over their noses, the three boys and George were playing streams of chemical on the smoldering timbers.
Suddenly they heard the churning of water, then shouting voices and heavy-booted footsteps. In a few moments Captain Easterly appeared, followed by a crew of rubber-coated firemen. With their added equipment, the stubborn blaze was soon extinguished.
“Never fought a fire aboard an old clipper before,” one of the men told Captain Easterly. “This will be something to tell my grandchildren.”
“Your helpers had things pretty well under control when we got here,” the fire captain told the ship’s master.
“They’re a good crew,” Easterly admitted.
He and the fireman searched the entire clipper for other signs of fire but found none.
“No serious damage,” the fire captain told Easterly. “It’ll be safe for you to proceed on your voyage. By the way, how’d the fire start?”
As Captain Easterly shrugged, Nancy spoke up and told about the man who had jumped overboard.
She was very puzzled about him. If he had set the fire on purpose, then he could not be one of the gang looking for a hidden treasure on board. Was he a new enemy?
But if the man had been hiding aboard the Bonny Scot when it set sail, in order to continue his search, it was possible he had been smoking and caused the fire accidentally.
“A stowaway, eh?” the fire captain said. “Well, he’s gone now. I guess there’s nothing more for us to do.”
As the firemen were leaving, one of them looked at Nancy and her friends with a twinkle in his eye. “Pretty young crew here, Captain Easterly. But the way they tackled that fire, I’m sure they’ll make good seamen.”
The men climbed over the side and the fireboat steamed off. The boys pulled up the anchor and set sail.
“Where’s Bess?” Nancy asked suddenly. “I haven’t seen her since we came aboard.”
“I haven’t either,” said George, beginning to worry about her cousin.
The last they remembered about Bess was that she was headed for the galley. The two girls hurried there.
Bess was not in sight, but her coat was lying over a low bench. On a hunch Nancy opened the large closet where provisions were kept. Bess lay in a faint on the floor!
Fresh air soon brought her back to consciousness. Groggily Bess explained she had been inside the closet, putting away canned goods, when the door had swung shut.
“I couldn’t open it,” she said. “It was locked. Then I fainted.” Suddenly Bess noticed there was a key in the door. “Why, someone shut me in there!” she cried out.
“It wasn’t locked now,” Nancy said. “That’s odd.”
She and George learned that Bess knew nothing about the fire. When it dawned on her that the ship might have been abandoned and she trapped in the fire, Bess nearly fainted again.
“Chin up,” George said. “It
didn’t
happen. Let’s get some food for the boys. I’ll bet they’re starved after all that work.”
“Dave’ll like the chocolate cake I brought,” said Bess, forgetting her scare. “Why, where is it?” She stared dumfounded at a built-in table in the galley. “The cake’s gone!”
“Sure you didn’t eat it?” George teased.
“Not even one piece!” Bess declared.
It developed that not only the cake, but a loaf of bread, a pound of butter, some cooked ham, and two quarts of milk were missing. Both girls looked inquiringly at Nancy, who was deep in thought. Suddenly she said:
“I think we have another stowaway on board!” Bess and George were astounded at Nancy’s statement. Finally George asked:
“How did you figure that one out, Nancy?”
“I think there was someone in the galley stealing food about the time the fire started in the hold. When he heard me call ‘Fire!’ he unlocked the closet door, Bess, so you wouldn’t be caught in a burning ship.”
“What about the man who went overboard?” Bess asked.
“I think when I caught him down below deck he had just come up from the hold,” Nancy continued. “He may have set the fire either on purpose or accidentally, and was escaping.”
George voiced the opinion that the other stowaway must still be on the ship.
“And I mean to find him!” Nancy said.
“Not without me,” a voice behind her advised. It was Captain Easterly. “While George and Bess get supper, you and I will make a thorough search, Nancy.”
They went about the hunt methodically, first in the cabins and crew’s quarters, then in the hold, and finally in the old sea chests and cupboards. There was no sign of a stowaway or of the food that had vanished.
“Our thief must have been the fellow who jumped overboard,” the captain concluded.
Nancy was not satisfied with this explanation. He certainly had no food with him when he dived in. Aloud she said:
“I wonder if the fellow who jumped overboard got to shore safely.”
“Likely he helped himself to a ride on the fireboat,” Captain Easterly suggested.
“Of course!”
Nancy berated herself for not having thought of this. The man might have been caught! Now it was too late, because the fireboat would have long since docked.
Captain Easterly suddenly chuckled. “That snooper thought he was going to find out where we’re heading. But we fooled him. Now we can sail and enjoy ourselves. No more worries.”
Nancy wished she could agree with him—espe—cially since they had outridden the fog bank, and the cool evening with its freshening breeze was ideal for the voyage.
“But we must be watchful,” Nancy determined. The boys took turns eating supper. While Ned was off watch, Nancy asked him to do a little further exploring with her.
The young detective had decided to take one more look in the hold where the fire had been. The person who caused the fire might have left a clue.

Other books

Secrets to Keep by Lynda Page
Spy Cat by Peg Kehret
She Will Build Him a City by Raj Kamal Jha
The Sun and Catriona by Rosemary Pollock
Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman
Silent Retreats by Philip F. Deaver