Ship of Secrets (5 page)

T
he ship’s security guards haven’t found a single lead,” Mr. Hardy said. “And those cameras aren’t much help either. Most of the pictures are blurry. I’m proud of you boys for doing so much work.”

“But, Dad, we barely have anything to go on!” Frank said. He pushed the notebook across the table. All that was written on the page was
Ollie
and
Margaret
. Two names. That was it.

“You ruled out Ralph as a suspect. That was
a big help,” Mr. Hardy said. He took another sip from his coconut. They were sitting on the back deck of the ship, near a tropical-fruit stand. A man was selling pineapple slices and coconuts with straws stuck in their tops.

Just then a woman strode by, a tiny monkey on her shoulder. “Would you like a picture with
Mookey the monkey?” she asked. The little monkey stood up when she said his name.

Joe didn’t even bother answering. He put his arm out and let the monkey walk right up it. The woman took a few pictures with her Polaroid camera, then handed them to him. The monkey was sitting on his shoulder when Ollie and Margaret finally showed up. “You must be Frank and Joe Hardy,” Margaret said. She was tall and thin, with a white bun on top of her head.
She scrunched her nose at the monkey.

“And I’m Fenton Hardy,” Mr. Hardy said. “Thanks for meeting us here.” Ollie was a round man with tiny glasses. As they shook hands, Ollie and Margaret sat down.

“It’s the least we could do,” Margaret said. She seemed happier when the woman took the little monkey away. “We were so sorry to hear about Reg’s pocket watch. It’s been in his family for more than a century, you know.”

“We do,” Frank said. “That’s why we need your help. When you saw Sir Reginald before dinner, did you notice anything unusual?”

Ollie put his hand on his chin. “He was carrying that leather briefcase, that’s for sure. But he never opened it. I can’t say if the watch was still inside or not.”

Joe scribbled these answers down in the notebook. “What time do you think that was?”

“Just before five,” Margaret said. “Maybe a little earlier.”

“And where were you?” Mr. Hardy asked.

“Right outside the ballroom. We were all going in for dinner when Reginald and I got to talking,” Ollie said. “We were planning to play bridge this morning, but then the watch went missing.”

“Did you notice anything odd?” Joe asked. “Was anyone suspicious standing around?”

“No, not that I remember,” Ollie said. “It was very normal. Everything seemed fine.”

Margaret nodded. “Nothing I can recall.” Just then her cell phone rang and she turned away, talking loudly to someone about a fur coat.

“Are we done here?” Ollie didn’t wait for them to answer. Instead he stood, reaching out his hand for Mr. Hardy to shake.

Frank frowned. “Is that it? You don’t remember anything else?” he asked.

Margaret kept talking to the person on the other end of the phone, ignoring the Hardys. She was asking about the price of the coat when Ollie answered. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I appreciate all you boys have been doing for Reg, but we’re the last people you should be talking to. I own three islands in the Pacific Ocean. Why would I need an expensive pocket watch?”

Mr. Hardy stood. “We didn’t think you took the watch,” he said. “Just that you may have seen something.”

Ollie laughed. “You shouldn’t be questioning me. You should be questioning that girl from the game room. The one everyone’s talking about.”

Frank and Joe looked at each other, confused. “What girl?” Frank asked. This was the first time they’d heard about her.

“Some kids in the game room saw a girl last night with the watch,” Ollie said. “You didn’t hear?
A bunch of them have been talking about it. We were stuck in the elevator with them while they went on about it. I thought everyone knew.”

“What time was it when the kids saw her?” Frank asked.

Ollie shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just know that it was last night.”

Without saying another word he and his wife strode across the deck, leaving Mr. Hardy and the boys behind. “Finally! A break in the case!” Joe said. He was so excited, he was nearly yelling.

But Mr. Hardy was worried. “Someone in the game room was spotted with the watch,” he said. “But who? I’m going to check the cameras one last time. You boys see if you can find the kids that Ollie was talking about. There must be witnesses.”

Mr. Hardy went toward the pyramid pool, and Frank and Joe headed in the opposite direction, down to the game room. “This is the best news
we’ve had all day,” Joe said. “I only wish we’d heard it sooner.”

But Frank didn’t mind. He loved when a case suddenly changed and new information was discovered. Their dad always said “breaks” were the most fun part of the job. As they went down the stairs, Frank couldn’t run fast enough. “Hurry!” he said. “We need to find that girl with the watch!”

W
hen they got to the game room, it was packed with kids. There was a group standing by the pinball machines watching a girl break the high score. Two boys were playing a race car game. Joe looked to the corner of the room, where a set of brown-haired twins shot basketballs for Dino Ball. Even now Joe was still thinking of the Soaker Shooter and the forty tickets they needed to get it.

“Where should we start?” Joe asked, looking around. Two boys ran past, chasing each other.

“You go that way,” Frank said, pointing toward the ringtoss. “And I’ll go this way.” Then he took off.

Frank moved through the crowd, stopping at a girl with a hammer. She was watching a bunch of holes, waiting for little plastic gophers to pop up so she could hit them back down. “Can I ask you a few questions?” Frank said.

The girl bit her lip, then hit a gopher on the head. “Sure.”

“I heard a rumor that there was a girl here last night. A few kids saw her with a pocket watch.”

The girl smashed one of the gophers down, and the machine spit out a whole line of tickets. “I didn’t see her,” she said.

“Do you know anyone who did?”

Before Frank could say another word, he heard Joe calling him from somewhere across the room. “Frank! I found them! Frank!”

Frank darted through the crowd. Joe stood with two girls and a boy. They were leaning against a dancing game. Another boy was stepping on
different-colored pads and moving his arms in the air. “Dance to the music,” an electronic voice said over and over again.

“I saw her last night, around five,” one of the girls said. “She stood out because she had a red scarf around her head.”

“And sunglasses!” the boy, who had freckles, added. “Don’t forget the sunglasses.”

Joe scribbled everything down in his notebook. “What color hair did she have?”

“Brown,” the boy with freckles said.

“No, she didn’t,” the second girl argued. “She had blond hair. And she wore a long tan coat.”

“I thought the coat was gray,” the boy said.

Joe wrote down
Hair: brown or blond
, then
Coat: tan or gray
. This was sometimes a problem with witnesses. They disagreed about what they had seen. “Everyone thinks she had a red scarf, though?” Joe asked.

“Yes!” the three kids shouted at once.

“And was she carrying the pocket watch when you saw her at five?” Frank asked.

The second girl, who wore glasses, nodded. “When she came in, I saw the watch in her hand. I thought it was odd, but then I went back to playing pinball. I was in the middle of a game and close to beating my high score.”

“Did she have it when she left?” Joe asked.

“Nope. She left only a few minutes later, and it was gone.”

Frank looked at his brother. “She might’ve hidden it here,” he said.

“Or given it to someone,” Joe added. He looked at the kids. “Did you see her talking to anyone?”

“Nope,” the freckled boy said. “But I was busy playing Hungry Alligators.” He pointed to a game by the door. On the screen, alligators were chasing a swimmer down a river.

“We couldn’t really tell what she looked like,” the girl with glasses added.

“How old?” Frank asked.

“Not sure.”

Frank was about to ask the girl for another description of the girl’s scarf, but then his father walked through the door. He was holding a sheet of paper in his hand.
“I’ve been looking for you two!” he called out.

When he got closer, Frank and Joe saw what it was. It was a picture of the girl the kids had described. “I spent the last hour going through the video footage from the game room,” he said. He pointed to a camera in the corner. “That camera caught our suspect coming in the door with the watch, and leaving without it. Security helped me print these out.”

Joe looked at the picture. It was blurry, but you could see the pocket watch in her hand as she walked in. Then, in the next photo, her hands were empty. “Is this the girl you saw?” Joe asked the kids they’d been talking to.

“That’s her! Definitely,” the boy said.

“And she didn’t talk to anyone while she was here?” Frank asked again.

“I really don’t think she did,” the girl without the glasses added. “I looked at her a few times. She was always alone.”

“It seemed like she was looking for something,” the boy said. “She went around to a couple of the games, but she didn’t play any.”

Mr. Hardy put his hand on his sons’ shoulders. “It’s possible she came here to find a safe spot to put the watch until the ship pulls into the harbor. If she stole it, it might’ve been too risky to carry it around or keep it in her room.”

“It’s Saturday night, and the game room is closing in fifteen minutes,” Frank said. “The ship pulls into Miami at eight a.m. on Monday morning.”

“Which means . . . ,” Joe said. “She’ll be back at some point tomorrow to get it.”

Frank and Joe looked around the game room, which was emptying out. A man in a cruise T-shirt was sweeping popcorn off the floor. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Frank asked. He pointed to the photo booth in the corner. There
was a curtain covering the inside. Taped to the front of it was a sign that said
OUT OF ORDER.

“Stakeout?” Joe asked.