Mandie Collection, The: 4 (61 page)

They huddled just outside the door and watched to see what the man was doing. He seemed to be looking all around the room and examining the boxes. Then he picked up the small painting they had found and left there.

“Aha!” he muttered to himself as he examined the painting.

Mandie held her breath and waited to see what he would do with it. He suddenly put it back where he had found it and turned to leave the room. The three young people nearly stumbled over one another as they rushed down the passageway toward the hotel. Mandie kept turning her head to see if the man was coming their way, but evidently he had gone the other direction. He was not in sight.

As they left the tunnel they stopped to talk.

“We’ve got to find the police and tell them we saw this man. He must have escaped from jail,” Mandie told her friends. “And we need to tell them what we found in that room.”

“But they already know about that room. They locked us in, remember?” Jonathan reminded her.

“They probably don’t know about the rocks and the painting we found in the boxes,” Mandie insisted.

“If we tell them about all that, they’ll know we were the ones who smashed the boxes,” Celia warned her.

“But wouldn’t they appreciate the fact that we found the thief for them and also found where the paintings are evidently being smuggled out?” Mandie asked.

“You never know. This is not the United States and they may not think like we do back home,” Jonathan said. “Besides, those two policemen we saw seemed to know about that room, and they might just know what is going on.”

“Oh, everything has become twisted up!” Mandie exclaimed as she let Snowball down to walk, his leash securely attached. She was still carrying the hammer. “Anyway, we’ve got to find some nuts. Let’s discuss this while we look for some nuts.”

“Nuts?” Jonathan and Celia both asked as they looked at her in surprise.

“Nuts,” Mandie repeated. “Remember I told the man in the hotel that I wanted the hammer to crack some nuts. Well, I have to find some nuts and crack them with the hammer so I won’t be telling a lie because he’ll probably ask me if I was able to use the hammer.”

“Mandie, the way you get around things!” Celia exclaimed.

“Honestly, when I borrowed the hammer I immediately thought of cracking nuts with it, so I think I’d like some nuts, anyway. Let’s start looking for some place that sells nuts,” she told her friends.

They walked slowly along the avenue, looking into various shops for nuts. There didn’t seem to be anyone who sold them. Then finally Mandie spotted a sidewalk vendor ahead.

“I’d think he’d have some kind of nuts,” she told her friends as she hurried to see.

The man did sell nuts. She bought a bagful of walnuts. Jonathan watched and he remarked, “You’ll sure need the hammer to crack those walnuts.”

“I know. I’ve had walnuts before. They grew in our yard back home at Charley Gap where I lived with my father,” Mandie told him. “Let’s go sit on the bench over there in the little park and crack nuts while we talk.”

She led the way across the road to an empty bench beside a huge masonry water fountain. She tied Snowball’s leash to the leg of the bench as her friends sat down beside her.

“I see a good place to crack the nuts—right here,” she said, moving to sit on the foundation of the huge fountain. She spread out the red silk scarf on the grass to hold the cracked nuts.

“Are you going to eat those nuts?” Celia asked as she sat beside her.

“Sure. Nuts are brain food. They’ll help me think better,” Mandie said with a little laugh.

“I suppose that’s some old Indian saying,” Jonathan said, joining the girls on the foundation.

Mandie thought for a moment. She couldn’t really remember where she’d heard such a thing, but she had heard other people claim nuts were brain food.

“I suppose so,” she finally answered. “Now let’s put our thinking caps on. We’ve got important decisions to make and we’re going to have to hurry.” She began cracking the hard-shelled walnuts.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ALEX TALKS

After much discussion the three young people decided to return to the hotel just long enough to give back the hammer Mandie had borrowed and check for any more messages that might have come.

Mandie, carrying the red silk scarf full of cracked walnuts, approached the man at the desk. “We used your hammer to crack all these nuts. Would you care for any?” she asked him. She opened the scarf to show him.

“All of those nuts were cracked with the hammer?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir, and here’s your hammer,” Jonathan told him as he handed over the hammer, which he had been carrying. “Thank you, sir.”

“I am glad to know hammers can be used for cracking nuts,” the man said with a smile. “But I do not wish any of the nuts, thank you.”

Mandie hastily rolled up the scarf with the walnuts inside and asked, “Do we have any more messages? Maybe from my grandmother?”

The man looked in the pigeonhole behind him and replied, “No, no messages for you.”

“Thank you,” Mandie replied as she turned to her two friends. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Celia said as Jonathan nodded and started toward the front door.

Once outside the hotel they began looking for a policeman. Mandie had finally talked them into going to the police about the room in the tunnel and the man who visited the bearded man on the old boat.

“Any other time we’d see a policeman,” Mandie complained as they walked and walked, up one side and down the other on the avenue.

“Maybe it’s just not meant that we should tell the police,” Celia suggested.

“I don’t believe they have any policemen in this district,” Jonathan said. “Mandie, couldn’t we do something else, something more productive?”

“Like just walking into the cabin of that old boat and talking to the man named Alex?” Mandie asked as she stopped to look at him. Snowball trailed along on his leash. Jonathan and Celia also stopped.

“Well, all right, we could do that,” Jonathan agreed.

“But Alex chases everyone off,” Celia reminded them. “And if he’s a criminal he could be dangerous.”

“I don’t think he looks dangerous. After all, he’s just a big softhearted man the way he cries all the time,” Mandie said.

“Well, if we’re going, we’d better hurry instead of wasting time standing here talking about it,” Jonathan reminded the girls as he started to walk on.

Mandie and Celia caught up with him, and this time they didn’t go through the tunnel but stayed on the public streets to the wharf and then on to the pier. They hurriedly climbed the rope ladders and stepped onto the deck of the old boat. The loud sobbing sound they had heard before was coming from the cabin.

“Well, are we going inside?” Jonathan quietly asked Mandie as they stood there listening.

“Let’s wait a few minutes and see if he hushes. I imagine he definitely would run us off if we surprised him while he’s crying,” Mandie said. She led the way to their hiding place behind the trash pile.

As the three stooped down to get out of sight, Snowball managed to get loose and run toward the cabin door. The three watched as he slipped through the partly open door. Then they hurried to the window to look inside.

Mandie could see the man lying on the bunk bed as he cried and stared at the ceiling. Snowball came into view as he smelled around the room and finally jumped upon the man’s bed. Hesitating for a
moment, the kitten twitched his ears and then crept up to the man’s face and snuggled down beside him. Mandie’s heart raced. The man might hurt Snowball!

“I have to go get him,” she told her friends.

But as Mandie turned to walk around to the door, she saw the man rub Snowball’s fur and then sit up to hold him in his arms.

“And here I thought I dreamed about you, but here you are,” Alex said to the cat as he held him up against his face. “You can’t be my baby’s kitten. He had one black speck on his face, right there.” He looked into Snowball’s eyes and rubbed his face. “My baby’s kitten must have drowned with her.”

The three young people gasped when they heard that. Mandie knew then why the man was so unhappy. Evidently he had lost a child who had drowned somehow.

“Well, are we going inside now?” Jonathan asked.

Mandie took a deep breath and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” She headed for the doorway. Jonathan followed and Celia tagged behind.

Pushing open the door, Mandie stepped inside the dirty cabin. The man’s furious expression when he saw her stopped her in her tracks.

“Get off my boat!” he yelled at the three. “I told you before. This is my home! Begone!” He stood up to confront them. At that moment Snowball jumped down from his grasp and went straight to Mandie. The man watched.

“This is my kitten,” Mandie said as she stooped and picked up Snowball.

The man’s expression softened. “He is so much like my baby’s kitten.”

“I’m terribly sorry your baby drowned,” Mandie said.

The man looked at her in surprise. “How did you know...” He paused.

“We heard you tell Snowball,” Mandie replied as she cuddled the kitten. “How did it happen, sir?”

The man frowned and looked as though he would attack them all. “That is not your business!” he snapped. Advancing toward them from across the room, he shook his fist and waved his hands. “Get off my ship and don’t come back. And do not allow your cat to come in here again. Do you understand?”

“But, mister, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute,” Mandie
insisted as she bravely stood her ground. “The short dark man who visits you—did you know the police arrested him and then he must have escaped because we saw him here earlier today.”

The big man was plainly shocked. Then he spoke vehemently, “No, that cannot be. In jail? No, no!”

“The newspaper,” Mandie said, turning to her friends. “Do y’all have it?”

Jonathan shook his head. “We must have laid it down somewhere.”

“I’m pretty sure we left it on the park bench when we cracked the nuts,” Celia spoke up.

“Oh, well,” Mandie said, turning back to the man. “His picture was on the front page of the newspaper today.”

The man frowned again thoughtfully. Then he suddenly shouted at Mandie, “You lie! He cannot be in jail! Get off my boat! Begone!” He advanced toward them again.

Frightened, Mandie and her friends rushed to the rope ladder. The man followed them all the way, waving his hands in the air. He stood there watching as they reached the pier and ran toward the street. Then as Mandie looked back, she saw him go back to his cabin.

Mandie and her friends finally paused in front of a shop to get their breath as they glanced around.

“Mandie, I don’t think we ought to go on that man’s boat anymore,” Celia said as she straightened her long skirts.

“We’ll just find a policeman and tell him everything,” Mandie said. She looked up and down the street. “Come on. There must be one somewhere.”

They walked faster as Mandie determinedly searched for a policeman. People strolled everywhere, and several carriages passed them, but no law officer could be seen.

“Let’s go through the tunnel. Remember there were two policemen in there when we were in that room,” Mandie said to her friends as she picked up Snowball and turned down the alleyway toward the entrance to the tunnel. She rushed ahead.

“No stopping at that room again!” Jonathan called to her as he and Celia followed.

Mandie ignored his remark as she entered the tunnel. Not a soul was in sight, and as she came to the doorway of the room leading
into the smaller room full of boxes, she paused. No one had bothered anything. She wanted to just run inside, glance around, and come back out into the tunnel.

But she continued down the passageway. As she left the tunnel, she glanced back to be sure her friends were following. She wasn’t watching where she was going and ran smack into someone. Snowball protested at the end of his leash.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mandie began as she looked up. One of the two policemen they had seen earlier stood before her. He smiled at her. “We were just looking for—” She stopped short, then went racing across the wide avenue.

Walking up the other side of the street was her old Cherokee friend, Uncle Ned. He had arrived at last.

“Uncle Ned! Uncle Ned!” she called to him.

He stopped and turned to look back. With a big smile on his face he waited for her to get to his side of the avenue. Celia and Jonathan had also seen him and were hurrying to catch up.

“Uncle Ned, I’m so glad to see you!” she cried as she ran up to the tall Indian and grasped his hand. “We’ve got all kinds of mysteries that we need you to help us solve.”

“Papoose always in mystery,” Uncle Ned said, smiling down at her as he squeezed her small hand. “What is mystery this time?”

They were near the park where they had cracked the nuts. Mandie saw that the bench was still empty and she pointed to it. “Let’s go sit over there where we can talk a minute.”

Jonathan and Celia finally reached them and exchanged greetings with Uncle Ned. Then they all walked back across the street to sit on the park bench.

“You see, it’s like this,” Mandie began as she started a jumbled account of what had been happening.

Celia spied the newspaper on the ground near the bench and picked it up and gave it to Mandie.

“Uncle Ned, see this man’s picture? We’ve been seeing him all over town,” Mandie said, holding the newspaper out to Uncle Ned. “We saw him in the hotel with the painting and all those other places I told you about; and according to this paper, they arrested him, but we saw him after that down at the old boat.”

“Take breath, Papoose. I listen slow,” the old Indian told her as he patted her hand. “We find what’s wrong. We go see.” He stood up.

Mandie rose and looked up into his wrinkled face. “When did you get here, Uncle Ned? Where is your baggage?” She carried the newspaper with her this time.

“Bag already at hotel, room next to Jonathan. Just now,” Uncle Ned replied. “Horse in stable.”

“Horse? You brought your horse?” Jonathan asked excitedly.

“Yes, pay money to ride horse from Germany,” Uncle Ned explained.

“Oh, you rented the horse,” Celia spoke up.