Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk

by Carolyn G. Keene

  “Or for that matter, it could be the name of the designer,” Bess went on.

  Nancy started to laugh. “Hold it! As detectives, we must not get carried away with guesses. Let’s try to find out the facts!”

  There was silence. Nancy sighed. “Perhaps the captain could give us an idea. Let’s go to see him after breakfast.”

  When the girls arrived at his quarters, they were told by a junior officer that Captain Detweiler would be busy until eleven-thirty.

  Nancy decided to call at the purser’s counter and show Rod her discoveries.

  Rod Havelock was astounded at the bits of evidence the young sleuth had found. He examined them carefully. Finally he said, “This piece of black material could have been torn from one of the masks. When the captain and I were fighting off those two men, I yanked one fellow’s mask down so far that I was sure he couldn’t see through the eyeholes. Probably that’s why he lost his balance and fell down the stairs.”

  Nancy asked him if he had any suggestions about the black paper with part of a sketch of a diamond bracelet and the word Longstreet on it.

  “Sorry, but on that I can’t help you,” Rod replied.

  Nancy noticed that several people were waiting to ask the assistant purser questions, so she decided to leave. When she returned to cabin one twenty-eight, she found her companions looking in their suitcases for Ping-Pong balls.

  George said, “We hoped you’d return in time to play doubles with us.”

  Nancy agreed and the four girls hurried to the sports deck. They twirled their paddles for a choice of partners. Bess and Nancy would play against George and Nelda.

  Nelda giggled. “I hope I’ll do all right,” she said. “I haven’t played in a couple of years and I’m rather out of practice.”

  “Don’t worry,” George said. “Come on, you start.”

  Nelda hit a low serve that caught Nancy by surprise. She missed it. Nancy laughed. “Nelda, I’d hate to play against you when you’re not out of practice!”

  George and Nelda won the first game, but Nancy and Bess made up for it in the next one. A crowd gathered to watch the match, and soon each team had its own cheering section.

  “Come on, Nancy, let’s have a good—oh, oh, it just skimmed the net!”

  “No way George could get that!” a sympathetic boy called, while someone else complimented the girl on her tricky shot.

  Nancy and Bess won again, and George and Nelda held a short war council. “Bess is a little weak on her backhand,” George whispered. “Take advantage of it!”

  Nelda did and the game went to her and George. Nancy glanced at her watch. They would just have enough time for one more before she would go to the captain’s quarters. The score was very close but finally George and Nelda won.

  “Congratulations!” Nancy called out, and the onlookers clapped. “Now I must leave you and keep my date. Nelda, would you like to come along?”

  “Indeed I would,” the girl from Johannesburg replied.

  The captain opened the door. “Good morning, girls,” he said. “Please sit down and tell me your latest news. I know you must have some or you wouldn’t have come to see me, right?”

  “Well, I did examine the area where you and Mr. Havelock had trouble last night,” Nancy said. “I found these clues.” She handed the evidence to the captain.

  “What is—well, this is amazing!” the man exclaimed. “Do you believe this piece of cloth is from one of the men’s masks?”

  “It might be,” Nancy said. “What do you think of the drawing? That line at the bottom spells Longstreet under a microscope.”

  Captain Detweiler whistled. “Longstreet is the name of a famous jewelry firm in England. I understand they have branches in many cities all over the world.” Both girls were astounded by this revelation. But even more so when the captain continued, “A few weeks ago there was a robbery at the English branch of Longstreet’s in London.”

  At once the young detective asked, “Captain Detweiler, do you think our mystery brass-bound trunk could be carrying some of those jewels?”

  “That’s entirely possible,” the captain replied. “It might be very hard to prove, however. All the stones in the pouches have been taken out of their settings.”

  “Isn’t that often done by thieves?” Nancy asked.

  The captain nodded. “Yes, and for precisely that reason. It makes the loot hard to identify.”

  “If only he had left some pieces intact!” Nelda said with a sigh.

  Nancy was silent for a few seconds. Suddenly she said, “Maybe we should check out that trunk again. Perhaps it holds some more secrets!”

  CHAPTER XII

  Little Bobby’s Clue

  “YES, by all means, search further in the mystery trunk,” Captain Detweiler told Nancy and Nelda. “Let me give you something that may help.” He went to a locker and took out a small tool kit. “Take this with you. It may come in handy,” he said.

  “Oh, thank you,” Nancy said.

  The two girls hurried off. On their way back to their cabin, they searched for Bess and George. The cousins were still playing Ping Pong, but were just about to finish.

  Nancy told them about Longstreet’s. “I think we should search the mysterious trunk further, and the captain agrees with me,” she said.

  “But Nancy, you had it all emptied out,” George said.

  “I know, but we never examined the sides,” Nancy reminded her. “However, I think we’d better wait until tonight, so we won’t be disturbed.”

  The girls decided to walk around for a little while before returning to their cabin. They went to one of the lower decks and marched along briskly. As they neared an inset that led to a lounge, a little boy suddenly jumped out at them. He wore a blask mask.

  “Boo!” he shouted at the girls.

  To play with him, they pretended to be scared. They ran back and forth around the deck, with the little fellow chasing them. He giggled under the mask and tried to keep it adjusted so he could see through the eyeholes. Finally Nancy decided that they had played with him long enough.

  As the girls stopped running, he said, “What’s the matter? Can’t you take it?”

  Nancy ignored the question. Instead she said, “Where did you get that mask?”

  She had noticed that a small piece of the black cloth had been ripped out and was sure this mask had been worn by one of the men who had attacked Captain Detweiler and Rod Havelock.

  “Oh, I found it,” the little boy replied.

  George walked up to him and looked stern. “Take off that mask!”

  “Why should I?” the little boy retorted. “I found it. It’s mine!”

  “I’ll tell you why,” George said firmly. “That mask belongs to a bad man. If he finds you with it, no telling what he may do to you.”

  The next second the little fellow pulled off the mask. He was cute-looking, and had red hair and freckles. His eyes sparkled mischievously.

  “What’s your name?” Bess asked him.

  “Bobby.”

  Nancy spoke. “Bobby, where did you find this?”

  “Over there on the deck,” he replied. “I guess the wind blew it in!”

  “I think you should give it to me,” Nancy said.

  “I—I don’t want to. I like it.”

  “Why don’t you let us take it to the captain?” Nancy urged. “You’d be a lot safer without it, Bobby!”

  The boy held the mask firmly in one fist, but George’s statement about the bad man had scared him a little. Should he give up his prize possession or not?

  Suddenly he had an idea. A big grin spread across his face and his eyes twinkled. “Will you give me a quarter for it?” he asked.

  Nancy tried hard to suppress a laugh. This little fellow was smart, all right! “That’s a lot of money for something the wind blew right into your hands, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Bobby stood his ground, however. “Take it or leave it!” he announced firmly.

  G
eorge was getting impatient. “All right,” she said and reached into her purse. “Here’s your quarter. Now give me that mask and scoot, Bobby!”

  The little boy handed her his find, took the money, and laughed. “Ha ha, I made you pay for it!” he called out as he ran off with a big grin.

  “Little brat,” George scolded. Then she turned to Nancy. “What shall we do after lunch?”

  Nelda and Bess suggested sports, including swimming.

  “I’d like to play a little game,” Nancy said. “It’s called FIND OUT HOW THIS MASK GOT HERE.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Bess inquired.

  “I’ll try to get some napkins, which weigh about the same. Then we can throw them toward the sea from different points on the ship.”

  George raised her eyebrows. “And perhaps one will blow right to this spot?”

  “That’s the idea,” Nancy agreed.

  First the four girls went to their cabin to see if the torn piece of black cloth fitted the hole in the mask. When Nancy tried it, they all exclaimed in glee! It was a clean tear and matched the empty space exactly.

  Nelda sat down on her bed. “I’d like to review this mystery a bit,” she said. “The two men who attacked my uncle and Rod Havelock wore masks. One of them dropped a piece of paper with part of a design for a diamond bracelet. The name Longstreet was on the paper. This connects them with the jewel robbery.”

  “You’re right so far,” George agreed.

  Nelda went on, “Rod Havelock, in fighting his attacker, tore the mask but didn’t see his face. He knows the men were wearing dark bathrobes and slippers. Did anyone ever check on that, by the way?”

  “Oh, yes,” Nancy replied. “The captain told me he asked every cabin steward about them. None reported seeing any garnet or dark-blue robes in the rooms assigned to them. So that clue ends in a blank.”

  Nelda said, “So our best hope is the mask.”

  “Definitely,” Nancy replied.

  As the girls walked toward the dining room, they stopped at the purser’s office. Rod Havelock was there and Nancy whispered her latest findings to him.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Then he laughed. “Every time I see you, Nancy, you have a new clue to offer.”

  She and the other girls agreed, then Rod said, “And now I have a surprise of my own. The two bathrobes and slippers were found in one of the bundles of laundry a little while ago!”

  “Great!” Nancy exclaimed. “Where?”

  “In the corridor opposite cabin two fifteen.”

  For a moment Nancy was hoping that he would say four twenty-five, which was Mr. Otto August’s room. Then she told herself that should he be guilty, of course he would not leave the telltale articles where they might be traced to him.

  Rod said, “The steward in the corridor where the bathrobes and slippers were found was quizzed about the things. He declared he knew nothing about them. Later, when he was collecting the bundles of linen, he realized that one looked rather fat and that the knot in it was pulled taut. So he checked and discovered the bathrobes and slippers he had been questioned about earlier.”

  “I’d like to look at them,” Nancy said. “Perhaps we’ll find a clue in the pockets.”

  “I did it already,” Rod said. “I went over everything with a fine-toothed comb, but turned up absolutely nothing.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Nancy said, disappointed. “Another clue that ended in a blank.”

  After lunch Bess said, “If we’re going to be up late tonight, how about a nice sun-tan snooze? Let’s lie in lounge chairs on the top deck!”

  “I’m all for it,” Nelda said. “I had too much dessert and I’m in no mood to do anything strenuous right now.”

  George liked the idea. “You know, I feel the same way.”

  Nancy was a little disappointed. She had intended to go to work immediately. The girl sleuth wanted to find out where the masks might have been discarded and whether the wind had blown one to the spot where Bobby had found it. But she decided to join the others for a while.

  They all put on swimsuits, sun-tan oil, and dark glasses. Then they went to the topmost deck, found lounge chairs, and stretched out.

  “Ohhh, that feels good,” Bess said and fell asleep within minutes.

  George and Nelda dozed off, too, but Nancy kept turning the mystery over and over in her mind. While much had been learned, there was still a lot to be done before the case could be solved.

  She stood up and began to walk around idly. Suddenly her attention was drawn to two men seated together in a secluded corner. They both had their backs to the girl, but she thought one of them looked like Otto August!

  Nancy went closer. Perhaps she could eavesdrop on them! But after a few minutes she realized the men not only were not speaking to each other, they were not moving. Obviously they were asleep.

  “No sense in staying here,” Nancy thought. “I’ll go downstairs and check the direction and velocity of the wind on the weather charts.”

  She realized that they had to be the same as those of the previous night for her experiment to work. The men must have thrown the masks from an upper deck down into the ocean so they could not be found as evidence, and they had not expected one of them to be caught by the wind and blown on a lower deck!

  The girl smiled to herself. “But they were wrong!” she thought. “And they don’t even know it.”

  Nancy compared the present wind conditions on the posted charts with those of the night before and the early morning hours. To her delight they were the same!

  “That’ll help us a lot in our test,” she decided, and went to the purser’s office. Rod Havelock was there.

  “Hi, Nancy. What’s on your mind?” the young man greeted her.

  “Do you think the Winschoten could donate a few table napkins for an experiment?” Nancy said. “I would like to know which spot that mask was thrown from.”

  Rod grinned. “As long as it’s connected with the mystery, I’m sure we can spare a few. Find Joe in the dining room and tell him I said to give you some.”

  “Thank you,” Nancy said and walked off.

  Joe was a short, dark-haired man who gave her a strange look when she made her request. “Do they have to be any particular color?” he asked.

  Nancy laughed. “No they don’t. And they don’t have to be new, either. Give me the oldest ones you have.”

  Joe grinned. “Good. You’ll get the ones with the holes in them.”

  When Nancy returned to the top deck with the napkins in her bag, she found her friends still asleep. She left the napkins beside George’s chair and, not wanting to disturb the girls, walked over to the spot where the two men had been resting in their deck chairs. They were still there, but now they seemed to be awake. Nancy edged closer. To her amazement, she found them speaking to each other in the finger language!

  “Otto August is not deaf,” she thought. “Perhaps the other man is. But Rod told me there isn’t a deaf person on board!”

  Nancy watched, fascinated. She wondered if she would be able to decipher any words. A moment later she stiffened. Otto August’s companion had just spelled out her name, drew!

  CHAPTER XIII

  Shambles!

  NANCY was thunderstruck. Why would the two men talk about her in sign language? And what were they saying?

  She watched them intently, wishing they would not go so fast. The girl detective tried hard to read what Otto August was communicating to his friend by filling in with blanks the letters she did not recognize.

  Again she caught the words NANCY DREW. Carefully she stepped a little closer, making sure she would still be out of the men’s sight. They had paused and put their hands down.

  “Oh, I hope they’ll go on,” Nancy thought.

  To her delight, they did resume their conversation. By concentrating very hard, Nancy figured out the next sentence, which read: CREW CAN -E-- --ND NEC--ACE.

  Nancy tried to substitute several letter
s for the blank spaces, and finally came up with: CREW CAN HELP FIND NECKLACE.

  Nancy caught her breath. Did they mean the crewmen on the Winschoten or some other crew? And were they talking about a stolen necklace?

  She watched the men continue in sign language, but they were gesturing at such speed that she could not follow. She emitted a frustrated sigh. “I wish I remembered more of those letters!” she thought. Then she recalled the scene at the dock in Rotterdam. “I suppose these people not only use the finger alphabet when they have to, as they did in the ship-to-pier episode, but as a general means of communication,” she thought. “It’s a clever way to talk to one another and be sure not to be overheard.”

  She became more suspicious than ever of Otto August. The man evidently was taking no chances of being overheard or having his conversation picked up by a hidden microphone.

  Nancy also thought, “These men must automatically switch to finger language when they talk about their criminal activities.”

  Suddenly her attention was drawn to the suspects again. They had begun to speak aloud to each other. This proved that August’s companion was not deaf. “I wonder who he is,” Nancy thought, “and if they’re sharing a cabin. No doubt he’s one of the jewel thieves.”

  The men were discussing whether they should go to the snack bar for a drink or wait until later in the afternoon. They grinned at each other, and a few seconds afterwards stood up, buttoned their shirts, and left.

  Nancy hurried off because she did not want them to notice her. She went back to where her friends had been lounging, but the girls had left the deck.

  “Maybe they felt they’d had enough sun and returned to the cabin to change,” Nancy reasoned. “I’d better go there myself and tell them what I’ve just learned.”

  She walked down to the lower deck and found Bess, George, and Nelda at the foot of the steps, about to ascend.

  “Where have you been?” Bess demanded. “We were worried about you!”

  “We looked for you in our cabin, but you weren’t there,” George added.

  “Listen,” Nancy told them, “I have great news for you. How would you like to go to the coffee shop? I’m terribly thirsty. While we’re having something to drink, I’ll tell you about it.”