Drew 17 - The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk (6 page)

Nancy was glad he asked no questions. The two men lugged the trunk up to the deck above, then the engineer returned to his post.

Nancy picked up one end of the trunk, and again she and Rod tiptoed along corridors until they came to cabin one twenty-eight.

Nancy unlocked the door and the two carried the brass-bound piece inside and set it down. The lights were on, and Bess was seated on the side of her bed.

“We got it!” Nancy said jubilantly.

Bess showed no enthusiasm and made no comment. Instead she cried out, “I’m dreadfully worried. Nelda has disappeared!”

“What!” Nancy exclaimed in disbelief. “Where? When? How?”

“I don’t know,” Bess replied miserably. “I had fallen asleep but heard a slight noise and woke up. I thought it was you. When I turned on the light and looked around, I discovered that Nelda was not here.”

“Where do you suppose she went?” Rod Havelock asked.

Nancy and Bess had no idea.

The assistant purser added practically, “Wherever she’s gone, I’m sure she’ll be back.” Then he said in a whisper, “I suggest that we move the mystery trunk into the cabin next door as soon as possible, and put yours under your bed, Nancy, before you have any more inquisitive visitors coming here to try to take it away from you.”

Nancy opened the girls’ wardrobe and pulled out the little drawer in back of it. The keys were gone!

Bess cried out, “Someone has been here and taken Nelda away and stolen the keys! And it’s all my fault for not staying awake!”

Nancy was alarmed. She said, “I don’t understand, though. If that’s the case, why didn’t the intruder take the mystery trunk with him?”

There was complete silence. Suddenly Nancy had an idea. She walked toward the door and tried the knob. The door was not locked, and neither was the one on the other side!

Quickly Nancy stepped into cabin one thirty. The light was on. As she looked around, Bess and Rod walked in. All of them stared at a heap on the bed covered with a blanket. Could it be Nelda?

Bess cried out, “M-maybe she’s d-dead! Oh, I can’t stand it!”

Nancy, too, was fearful that the people who had threatened Nelda had really carried out some horrible scheme. While Bess was sobbing and still blaming herself, Nancy walked over to the bed and pulled off the blanket. Nelda lay there She did not move!

“She’s asleep!” Rod said.

“Are you sure?” Bess sobbed.

Nelda was awakened by the vo ces. She looked around wildly. “Help! Helpl” she exclaimed.

Nancy touched the girl gently. “Nelda, wake up, please!” she said.

“No! No! I’m awake,” Nelda insisted. “But some awful man who knew about my trouble back home phoned me after you left the room. Bess was asleep and didn’t hear it. He said he would throw me overboard if I ever mentioned the Johannesburg incident to anyone!”

“Oh, how awful!” Bess wailed.

Nelda went on, “I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was to run. Then I remembered this vacant cabin and decided to come here. I took the keys out of the little drawer and opened all the doors. But I locked the corridor door of cabin one thirty and bolted it from the inside.”

There was no doubt that Nelda was wide awake. The others were shocked by her story.

Rod Havelock was very disturbed and said, “It’s a fact now that you have one or more enemies aboard, Nelda. So don’t ever go anywhere alone, or stay in the cabin by yourself. You might be in grave danger!”

The girl promised to do what he said, and Nancy assured her that she and her friends would certainly protect her. Then she told how she and Rod had brought her trunk from the hold and would put the mystery trunk into the wardrobe of cabin one thirty.

This was accomplished with the help of the two girls, then Rod locked the connecting door from one twenty-eight to one thirty and handed the girls the keys.

“Good night,” he said, “although it’s really morning.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Only three hours sleep for me. I’d better go.”

When he had left, the girls restored the keys to their hiding place in the wardrobe. Nancy’s trunk was shoved under the bed, where the other one had been, then Nelda heaved a sigh of relief. “I feel so much better now!”

Nancy smiled. “I’m glad. Let’s get some sleep. I’ll unpack in the morning, because I’m much too weary now.”

As Bess and Nelda settled under the covers, Nancy began to undress. Suddenly Bess said, “I just had a horrible thought. That man who telephoned might have broken in here and thought I was Nelda! He would have thrown me overboard by mistake!”

Nancy tried to make light of the matter, but the words seemed to stick in her throat. She realized it could have happened!

CHAPTER VIII

Sign Language

AFTER breakfast Nancy, Bess, and Nelda hurried back to their cabin. It had just been tidied by Heinrich. He was about to leave, but stood staring at Nancy’s brass-bound trunk. Upon seeing the girls, he said, “Good morning, ladies,” and quickly left the cabin.

“Snooping again,” Bess remarked.

Nancy wondered if the steward realized it was a different trunk from the one that had been under her bed before. She mentioned this to the others.

“Oh, I’m sure he noticed,” Nelda said. “I just wonder if he’ll tell others.”

George said, “I have never trusted that man. I predict that one of these days we’re going to find out he has something to do with the mystery.”

“He could be an informer and nothing more,” Nancy said.

Within minutes there was a knock on the door. Nancy opened it. Lou, the locksmith, stood there. He smiled, said good morning, and added, “I brought something unique to show you.”

He stepped into the room and took a complicated-looking lock with no lid from his pocket. Then he produced a key with many notches in it. “I thought you young ladies might be interested in seeing this master key and lock. It’s something new. I picked it up in Rotterdam just before we left.”

To Nancy, the mechanism of the lock looked like the intricate workings of a very fine watch. She mentioned this to Lou.

“You’re right,” he said. “And they’re just about as hard to devise, maybe harder.”

Nelda said, “Please show us how the key works.”

Lou inserted it into the keyhole, then said, “Now watch carefully.”

The girls’ eyebrows raised in admiration as he turned the key and the various parts began to move—the pins, tumbler, springs, the driver spool, bolt spring, cam, and finally the roller bolt. He explained each part, opening and closing the lock several times.

“Fabulous!” Bess remarked. “It would take a great brain to figure this out.” She giggled. “Not one like mine.”

“This key is a master key,” the locksmith went on, “but not a simple one like some.” He said that probably only six locks were made like this one, but each slightly different. “This particular key, though, could open all of them,” he added.

Nelda asked, “Could anyone order this lock and key?”

“Oh yes,” Lou replied.

All the time he had been demonstrating the unusual lock in his hands, he was stealing glances at Nancy’s trunk under her bed. Nancy assumed he suspected it was different from the one for which he had made the key. She was afraid he might question her about it.

“If he does, how should I answer him?” she thought. Luckily, Lou said nothing.

Nancy wondered whether or not he had come to the girls’ cabin of his own volition. Or had Heinrich reported his suspicions to the locksmith and requested that he look for himself? Showing off a lock and key would be a perfect cover-up.

A few minutes later Lou left. At once the three girls began to discuss his visit. All wondered if he had brought the unique lock because he thought they would be interested. Or was this just an excuse to look at the brass-bound trunk in cabin one twenty-eight?

Bess checked her watch. “Visiting hours at the infirmary are beginning,” she said. “Let’s go down to see George. She’ll want to know what’s been happening while she’s been gone.”

“Good idea,” Nancy agreed.

The three girls stepped into the corridor, locked their cabin door, and hurried away. They found George looking healthy and feeling much better. She was eager to leave the hospital

“Tell me everything you’ve been doing,” she begged. “Knowing Nancy Drew, I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of excitement.”

In whispers, the other three girls took turns bringing George up-to-date on all that had taken place during the past twenty-four hours. Several times the patient’s eyes opened wide and once her lower jaw dropped when she heard about the dire threat to Nelda.

“To think I missed all this!” George groaned, as Nancy finished the story. “But I won’t be out of things much longer. The doctor says I may leave here just before dinner tonight!”

“Wonderful!” said Bess.

“I have a request,” George added.

“What’s that?” Nancy asked.

George replied, “Would you mind waiting until I can be with you before you open the mystery trunk and make a closer examination of the contents?”

The three girls agreed and then said good-by. They noticed an open magazine lying upside down on her bed and assumed that she had been reading it. They were sure the hours would pass quickly until dinnertime.

On the way to the upper deck Nelda asked, “What do you suggest we do in the meantime? Some more sleuthing?”

“How about having some fun?” Bess answered promptly. “I’m tired of being so serious. We can swim and play shuffleboard and do lots of other things outdoors. Besides, I want to get some more sun tan before we get back home.”

The girls decided to play shuffleboard first and went to the top deck. They found a court that was not being used and began to play.

Presently Bess said, “Oh, Nelda, you’re just too good!”

The girl from Johannesburg laughed and admitted that she often played this game at home.

“My father is a real challenger, and I learned many points from him,” Nelda explained.

Nancy had been glancing around at other players and passengers stretched out in deck chairs, enjoying the sun. Her eyes lighted on one man seated by himself in a corner. To her amazement he was using the sign language of deaf people.

“He must be practicing,” the girl thought to herself.

Interested at once, Nancy excused herself from the shuffleboard game and moved a little closer to the man. Could he be the same person who had been “talking” to the man on the dock at Rotterdam—the one who had been given the warning message:—EWARE NANCY DREW AND NE?

The girl detective was able to figure out parts of the words the man was practicing. The first one was CREW, the second CAN. The third word had four letters in it, the second one being E. The fourth word had two letters she did not know, but the last two were ND.

As Nancy watched the last word, she smiled with excitement. She had detected NEC—ACE. “It must mean necklace!” she thought. “And that could mean stolen jewelry!”

More eager than ever to find out something about this passenger, she moved a little closer. He had stopped practicing and now lay back in his deck chair, staring out over the ocean. It was calm and almost waveless.

Nancy walked up to the man. “Pardon me,” she said. “I saw you practicing the finger language. Are you deaf?” If he was, she knew he could probably read her lips and understand the question.

To her surprise, the man shook his head. “No, I’m not deaf. I can hear very well. I’m on my way to New York to meet my father, who is deaf. I thought I’d surprise him by learning the finger alphabet he has to use now.”

“That’s very nice,” Nancy said. She felt, however, that the man was not speaking the truth. Why was he lying?

He looked at her sharply. “Do you understand the finger language?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” Nancy replied. “I once learned to spell my own name, that’s all.”

The stranger rose suddenly, as if he did not want to converse any longer with Nancy. Excusing himself, he walked off quickly.

Nancy decided to follow him and see if she could find out who he was. She came back to the shuffleboard court and paused a second to speak to the girls.

“I’m on that man’s trail. I’m going to follow him and see if I can learn anything about him.”

She went on and had no trouble keeping the stranger in sight. He seemed to be in a hurry and did not look back.

The man headed straight toward cabin one twenty-eight! As he paused there, Heinrich came up to him. Nancy moved as close as she dared but turned into an adjoining corridor, hoping she could see and hear what went on between the two men.

To her disappointment, they spoke in very low voices. Nancy could not make out their conversation. She saw the stranger hand Heinrich a bill, and after a few more words he walked off in the opposite direction.

Nancy hurried forward and caught up with the steward, wondering why the stranger had handed him the money. Was he bribing Heinrich for some reason? If so, what? Did it have anything to do with cabin one twenty-eight?

CHAPTER IX

The Sealed Tray

WHEN Nancy reached Heinrich, she asked him who the man was. The steward looked a little frightened, but said his name was Mr. August.

“He was on the last trip of this ship. I was his steward.”

Nancy smiled. “How nice of him to come and talk to you!” As she said this, she watched Heinrich’s face closely.

The steward showed no sign of guilt. He merely replied, “I bought some special candy for Mr. August in Holland and he just came to pay me for it.”

Nancy wondered if Heinrich was telling the truth. Was the man really Mr. August, and what cabin was he occupying? She decided to look at the passenger list, which had been delivered to each room.

Glancing at the A’s in the folder, she spotted a Mr. Otto August.

“He must be the one!” she thought.

No cabin number was given, but the young detective decided to try to find it out anyway. She hurried to the purser’s office and asked Rod Havelock for August’s room number.

The assistant purser gave her a long look, then smiled. “I’m sorry, but it’s against the rules of the
Winschoten
to give out the cabin number of anyone aboard.”