(#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (15 page)

As Nancy came running back to the other girls, Ernesto joined the fight again. It was about even, with neither side winning.

Then, suddenly, Luis Llosa got up from the ground and called out, “I give up! Cut the fighting!”

The melee stopped and the smuggler faced the Ponces and their friends.

“I want all of you to stand back and listen. We mean no harm. All we want is to get out of here. My friends and I will take the copter and send someone back for you.”

“The nerve of him!” George burst out.

“He’s afraid we’ll overpower him,” Nancy thought, “and turn him over to the police.”

Quickly she stepped forward and addressed Luis Llosa’s companions. “Do you know that this man is a smuggler wanted by the police? That he’s a thief?”

“It is true,” Carla spoke up. “And he tried several times to injure my friend.” She put her hand on Nancy’s arm.

Luis Llosa’s eyes blazed. “Do not believe what she says!” he shouted to the other chutists.

But by now his so-called friends were backing away from him. One of them declared he knew nothing about any of this.

“Llosa told us if we would come along, he would show us where a great treasure was buried in this desert. He said he was a government official.”

“He is nothing of the sort!” George retorted. “He’s El Gato!”

Llosa gazed from one to another of his grimly silent companions, then looked back at the other group.

“I see I am cornered,” he said bitterly, realizing that there was no one to help him. “I will tell my story and then leave.”

Nancy suppressed a smile. “That’s what you think,” she murmured to herself.

She had noticed Ernesto going to the helicopter. When he had climbed inside, she was sure he was going to radio the federal police to come and pick up the intruders.

“I admit,” said Llosa, “to being El Gato, head of a smuggling ring.” He turned to Nancy with a sneer on his face. “Thanks to you, several of my men are in jail.”

She made no comment except to ask if Senor Jorge Velez was entirely innocent. Luis Llosa assured her he was.

Carla asked, “Why did you use the arrayánes wood and where did you get it?”

Llosa said that the small pieces of it had been taken regularly—but unobtrusively—from the forest by Wagner and shipped to him.

“Since it looked very different from the other wood used for the salad forks and spoons, Wallace could identify it easily in New York when he opened the shipments. Besides, it was a clever way to send the quinine.”

Llosa revealed that Wallace had asked a friend who had visited him at the jail to phone the message about the girls’ canceled flight. And it was Sanchez who had thrown the rock that hit Nancy.

“What about the plaque?” she asked. “How did you become interested in that?”

The captured man said he had overheard Senor Ponce and Senora Ponce talking about the plaque in a restaurant. They had said it might lead to something valuable if deciphered. The couple were a little concerned that they had let their daughter Carla take it with her, but she had wanted the plaque to remind her of home.

“When I learned that the girl had gone to River Heights, I wrote my friend Harry Wallace to get it. Everything seemed to be going all right after he scared her by sending “the cat” note. And he followed her a few times and eavesdropped.

“That is how he knew she took the plaque to Miss Drew’s house. When Wallace heard she was a girl detective, he had to think up some way to get the plaque so she could not find out its secret.”

Llosa admitted that Sanchez had been able to make a sketch of it at the Hotel Llao-Llao. “But he had some bad luck there. That stupid shop owner hung it on a wall and of course Miss Drew discovered it.”

“Who was the man who tried to kidnap Carla,” Nancy asked, “and why did he do it?”

“He was Wagner’s friend, Ramon Ruiz,” Llosa answered. “Sanchez sent him to pick a few pockets at the casino, but when the girl started asking questions about Sanchez, he thought it would be a good idea to take her along and find out what she was up to.

“He is the one who tampered with the plane door,” Luis added, and explained that Ruiz was a petty crook who worked as a part-time mechanic at the Bariloche airport. “Before Sanchez was arrested, he gave Ruiz orders to loosen the door’s hinges. The police can pick Ruiz up any night at the casino.

“I had even worse luck,” the smuggler went on in a whining tone. “I hired an Indian boy from a mountain village to follow Miss Drew in Cuzco, but he was frightened off by the earthquake. A man at Machu Picchu failed me too.”

Luis stopped speaking and there was silence for a few moments. Then the prisoner glared at Nancy and said, “To be outwitted by a girl—!”

Bess tossed her head. “It’s too bad you didn’t find out at the start how clever Nancy is. You would have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

A second later the whirring of a helicopter’s rotors could be heard, and in a few minutes the craft landed. Several federal police officers stepped out and Llosa and his companions were hustled aboard. His “friends” were still declaring their innocence, but the police said this would have to be proved.

After the helicopter was a mere speck in the sky, Nancy and her friends once more turned to thoughts of unearthing a treasure. Dr. Benevides, concluding that his theory of where to look had been wrong, smilingly said that this time Nancy was to have her way. They would dig in the area at the tip of the monkey’s tail. The men started the work, but when they had gone about as deep as they thought something might be buried, Señor Ponce handed Nancy a trowel.

“If there is anything here, you should have the honor of uncovering it, my dear,” he said.

Nancy tried not to appear overeager, but her heart was pounding with excitement. Dropping to her knees, she began to take out the hard dirt little by little.

In moments Nancy was sure that she had hit something other than stone. She began working a little faster but still very carefully.

Finally Nancy said, “There is something here”

The others crowded around as she picked up an archaeologist’s dusting brush and swept it over a four-inch-square section.

“Gold!” Bess cried.

Everyone offered to help Nancy, who now was smiling broadly. “I think the Ponces should have the honor of uncovering whatever was buried here by their ancestor Aguilar,” she said.

Carla and her father picked up tools. Senora Ponce watched.

Finally a solid-gold box about eighteen inches long, eight inches wide, and twelve inches high was unearthed. The lid was sealed tight and it took the searchers awhile, using a very fine chisel and hammer, to get the top loose.

“Nancy, this is really your find,” said Senor Ponce. “You open it.”

The young detective demurred. “It belongs to you,” she said.

Carla settled the matter. “Suppose the three of us raise the lid together.”

The others watched tensely as this was done.

“It is a treasure!” Señor Ponce exclaimed.

There were murmurs of excitement and awe when the onlookers saw the contents.

Bess blinked hard. “I’m so happy I could cry!”

Inside the box were several solid-gold objects of Inca design. The largest one was of a monkey with a spiraling tail.

“This is a priceless collection!” Dr. Benevides exclaimed excitedly.

One by one the objects were lifted out and examined. Nancy had noticed folded papers in the bottom of the box.

“May I take these out?” she asked Señor Ponce.

“Indeed you may.”

There were two “papers.” Carefully Nancy unfolded the first one. It was a large drawing. She held it up for everyone to see.

“Buildings,” Bess remarked. “Where are they?” Nancy was staring intently at the drawing. In a lower corner she detected faded writing.

After carefully scrutinizing it, she exclaimed excitedly, “This is a drawing of Machu Picchu —the way it must have looked before it was sacked!”

“How magnificent it looks on top of the mountain!” Senor Ponce burst out.

“And look!” George cried. “Here is a portrait of the Inca ruler at the time, son of the sun god!”

Dr. Benevides was beside himself with delight. “This is the most amazing and valuable find of the century!” he said.

Everyone began to talk at once. Did these priceless objects and drawings belong to the Ponces or to the Peruvian government?

Carla’s father said firmly, “No matter whom they belong to, I think they should be shared with the world. These drawings, in particular, should be kept in a fireproof museum.”

“I can assure you,” said Dr. Benevides, “that is exactly what the government will want.”

“Poor Aguilar!” said Bess. “He must have known he was dying and would never get home again. That would explain why he carved the plaque for his family.”

“I think you’re right,” Nancy replied. She gazed out over the desert, trying to imagine the long-ago events. “Maybe after he and the Indian had buried the treasure, they made camp here. Aguilar’s strength was gone, but he managed to carve the plaque before he died.”

Señor Ponce agreed. “And he put the message in code so that if robbers attacked the Indian, they could not learn about the treasure.”

“Probably,” Carla added. “Since the Indian did not speak Spanish, he could not explain anything to the family. He could only leave the plaque with them.”

“How pleased Aguilar would be,” Señora Ponce said softly, “to know that his message has been deciphered at last!”

When the excitement died down, Nancy began to feel rather pensive—a feeling she always had when a mystery was completely solved. She was hoping that another challenging case would come along soon. And it did, when Nancy had the opportunity to solve
The Spider Sapphire Mystery.

“One thing we are forgetting,” Carla spoke up, “is that if it had not been for Nancy Drew, this treasure probably never would have come to light.” She turned to her new friend and hugged her. “You are the most wonderful girl in the world. Nancy, you have actually solved a three. hundred-year-old mystery!”

As Nancy blushed at the praise, the men shook her hand, but Señora Ponce and the girls embraced her.

“I didn’t do it alone,” she said. “A lot of credit goes to my very special friends.”

Bess smiled, then began to examine the drawing of Machu Picchu. A minute later she put one finger on a certain spot. “Nancy,” she said, “this is where you almost lost your life.”

George looked disapprovingly at her cousin. “For Pete’s sake, Bess, why can’t you think of something cheerful?”

“Like what?”

“Like—like every time I see a monkey with a spiraling tail, I’ll think of Nancy and her mystery in Peru!”