The Secret of the Wooden Lady

by Carolyn G. Keene

  “Oh, that terrible dusty chart room!”

  “Never mind the dust,” George said, brushing a stray wisp of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “See what we found jammed behind a drawer, Nancy!” George offered her a small chart, tightly rolled.

  Nancy unrolled it gingerly. It was very brittle.

  “Here, put it on the floor,” George suggested. Nancy did so. Then, with three pairs of hands holding the edges of the chart, Nancy gazed at a strange map showing the islands of the East Indies. A penciled line meandered from Calcutta through the waters of the Orient, ending abruptly near Java.

  Another part of the puzzle of the clipper jogged into place in Nancy’s mind. “The return trip of the Dream of Melissa!” she exclaimed. “Captain Rogers charted his ship’s course until something happened to stop him. Bess, find Captain Easterly. We must show him this.”

  When Bess left, Nancy told George of the secret compartment in the desk.

  “Let me try,” George suggested. “Perhaps I can open it.”

  She was working at it when Bess returned with the skipper.

  “What’s this I hear about a chart, Nancy?” Captain Easterly demanded.

  Nancy showed it to him. The captain had never seen it before, but he agreed with Nancy that it was probably part of the log of the Melissa’s fateful journey. Then Nancy showed him the drawer in the desk.

  “I know that desk better than I know my own mind,” he said. “You won’t find anything hidden in there.”

  “But look, Captain,” Nancy pleaded, picking up the drawer. “See how much deeper the desk is than this drawer. There must be something back of it.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Well,” he said, “I never knew that.” He put an arm into the opening and found the little movable panel. “Hah! Oriental contraption. Take you a week of Sundays to figure it out.”

  “Let’s use a hammer and chisel instead,” George put in. “Why bat our brains out over this thing when we could just chop into it?”

  Nancy objected. “The ship belongs to the Eastern Shore Shipping Company,” she reminded them. “We have no right to destroy the desk. Let’s work on the movable panel a little longer.”

  The captain smiled. “You just want to see if you can outwit the man who made the compartment, Nancy.”

  He and Bess each took a turn, but with no better luck than George had had.

  “It’ll take you all day,” Bess told Nancy. “Meanwhile, George, we’d better pick up the wreckage we left in the chart room, before the ship’s master sees it.”

  The two girls left. Captain Easterly dropped into his armchair, and Nancy continued to experiment with the puzzle behind the desk drawer. The moving panel, she thought, must be a key to the next panel. If one got it in exactly the right position, something else would move.

  Patiently she tried. Her knees ached, and her neck was stiff, but she kept wiggling the little piece of wood back and forth.

  Then suddenly she felt something give! Another panel had slid open. Captain Easterly watched with excitement.

  Eagerly Nancy worked with this second key to the mysterious compartment. The skipper hung over her, urging her on. It took some time, but eventually a third panel moved, and Nancy was electrified to find her fingers slipping into an opening.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried out.

  Captain Easterly went into the passageway and bellowed for the other girls. By the time they came running in, Nancy had put her hand on something that felt like paper.

  Gingerly she drew it out, yellow and crumbling. They all crowded around her.

  “There’s writing on it,” Bess whispered, her eyes popping.

  The faded ink showed a hasty but elegant hand, with long curlicues.

  “It’s signed by Captain Perry Rogers!” Nancy said in awe.

  “What does it say?” Captain Easterly fumbled for the glasses in his shirt pocket.

  Nancy read slowly. “It’s addressed to Josiah Ogden, and it says:

  “ ‘Honorable Sir: I have the misfortune to inform you we are beset by pirates. Their names are unknown to me. Should God will my decease, I pray thee, search my beloved lady of wood and therein find a precious ruby to be presented in person to her whom I hoped to make my wife, Mathilda Witherspoon, as a lasting protestation of my devotion. Your humble servant, Perry Rogers.’ ”

  Bess gasped. “A letter from Captain Perry Rogers himself—after all these years!” She felt the paper as if she could not believe it was real. “A ruby for his sweetheart!”

  “What did he mean by ‘my beloved lady of wood’?” George wondered. She looked quickly around the cabin walls at the figurines. “These?”

  The captain followed her glance. “Those little carved figures came with the ship,” he said. “I believe Rogers had them here in his day.”

  “What are we waiting for?” George demanded.

  They were such lovely little figures that no one wanted to break them apart, and yet if they hoped to find the “precious ruby” Captain Rogers had referred to, it seemed they would have to.

  Bess was carefully tapping Venus to see if she sounded hollow, when she stopped abruptly. “Nancy,” she complained, “you haven’t said a word. And you aren’t searching. Say, do you suppose Flip Fay thought my ruby pendant was the famous treasure?”

  “No, I don’t,” Nancy answered. “He’s a jewel thief. He’d know a fake ruby in a moment. I have a hunch Flip thought he could fool old Grizzle Face with it, though.”

  “Why?” George wanted to know.

  “To keep him off the ship—so he couldn’t find the real treasure.”

  Further conversation was halted by the far-away shout of “Ship ahoy!”

  “Who’s that?” Bess asked uneasily.

  “Not one of Flip’s friends,” George decided. “They never announce their arrival.”

  Nancy was in the lead as they made their way to the deck. A tall, middle-aged man was rowing to the side of the Bonny Scot. They tossed him a rope ladder and he pulled himself over the deck rail with much effort.

  “I’m Josiah Ogden,” he said after he ceased puffing. “And I suppose you’re Easterly.”

  Josiah Ogden! The name of the man to whom Perry Rogers had addressed his note!

  Recovering from her surprise, Nancy recalled that her father had said a Mr. Ogden would come from Maryland in a few days. He must be a direct descendant of the other Josiah Ogden.

  “Which one of you girls is Nancy Drew?” the man asked.

  “I am.”

  “Glad to know you,” Ogden said, putting out his hand. “Smart father you’ve got. And”—he grinned—“I understand that you’re pretty smart yourself!”

  Nancy flushed and did not answer. She did not like his breezy manner.

  Captain Easterly seemed too dumfounded to speak. He had not expected Mr. Ogden so soon. Too many things had happened too fast!

  “Will you sit down?” the captain finally found words. “Well, Mr. Ogden, what’s the company going to do? I hope they’ll let me buy the Bonny Scot.”

  “Dream of Melissa,” the man corrected him. “I’m afraid not, Captain Easterly. My instructions are to take charge here at once.”

  “You mean—” Nancy gasped. “That the four of you are to leave this morning.”

  “But, Mr. Ogden, this is the captain’s horne! He’s lived on this ship for two years! You just can’t put Captain Easterly off like—like—”

  “You’re trespassing on private property,” Ogden said firmly. “I’m taking charge of the ship, and I’m asking all of you to leave—as soon as possible!”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The Sailor’s Tale

  THE ruddy, weather-beaten face of Captain Easterly grew pale. His usually bombastic mood was completely gone.

  “All right, Mr. Ogden,” he said. “We’ll leave the ship. Come on, girls. Let’s pack up.”

  “I’m sure Dad will work things out, Captain,” Nancy whispered as they started down the companion
way.

  “I just hate to leave,” George mourned.

  Bess did not share George’s gloom. “We’ll be a lot safer on land.” She sighed, then put a consoling hand on Nancy’s arm. “Don’t feel bad that you can’t solve the mystery. You made a fine try.”

  Nancy smiled. She was sure the case was not over and had not given up. The girls packed their suitcases. Finally Nancy clicked hers shut and sat down.

  “ ‘Search my beloved lady of wood!’ ” she said quietly, repeating the message Captain Rogers had written. “Doesn’t that ring a bell, girls?”

  The cousins exchanged glances and shook their heads.

  “The wooden lady,” Nancy went on, “probably was the figurehead of the Dream of Melissa, and the ruby’s in it!”

  “Hypers!” George shouted. “You’ve got it!”

  “Oh, Nancy, you’re wonderful!” Bess exclaimed. “But—but where is the wooden lady? I hope for your sake it’s still in existence.”

  “Even if the ship belongs to the Eastern Shore Shipping Company, the ruby doesn’t,” George declared.

  “It isn’t ours either—it’s Mrs. Smythe’s,” Nancy reminded her friends. “Oh, it would be so nice if we could find it for her! She needs the money. Anyway, it’s clear what we must do.”

  “You mean look for that figurehead?” asked George.

  Nancy nodded.

  “But that will be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” objected Bess.

  “Maybe not,” said Nancy. “If the company doesn’t know where it is, old Grizzle Face may. He evidently knows a lot about this ship.”

  “Are you going to tell Captain Easterly?” asked George.

  “I’d rather do some looking first. I don’t want to disappoint him—he has enough troubles. And now, let’s hurry!”

  Before leaving the clipper, Nancy spoke to Mr. Ogden. “When you restore the ship, are you going to put the figurehead back on?”

  “The what?” he asked blankly. “Oh, yes. I suppose we’ll put on something.”

  “Not the original?”

  Mr. Ogden looked at Nancy searchingly. “It’s gone, unless maybe you know something about it.”

  “No, I don’t. I was just wondering if you did.”

  Two small boats went ashore. One carried the girls and their baggage. The other was loaded with Captain Easterly and his personal belongings. At the beach Mr. Ogden tied one boat to the other, then rowed back to the Bonny Scot.

  “Pretty note this is!” Captain Easterly stormed. “As soon as I get located, I’m going to tell that Eastern Shore Shipping Company a thing or two!” Then suddenly his mood changed and he chuckled. He tapped his pocket. “I’ve got Captain Perry Rogers’ note in here. Maybe that’ll make ’em come to terms.”

  “Let us know what you find out,” Nancy said. She gave him the address of a guesthouse in town where she and the girls planned to stay. The captain went storming off to find someone to transport his belongings.

  Nancy and her friends unpacked in a sunny bedroom of the guesthouse, and discussed the problem of finding the figurehead.

  “First, we must locate old Grizzle Face,” Nancy decided. “And I’ve just one clue to where he might be.”

  “What’s that?” Bess asked.

  “Remember when he took that snuffbox away from me, down on the beach? I noticed something on the lapel of his coat. It looked like an art exhibit button.”

  George hooted. “Hypers!” He’s no artist, Nancy.”

  “I don’t mean he’s an artist,” explained Nancy. “But he could be an artist’s model.”

  “With that beard he’d make a wonderful model,” Bess admitted. “I’d like to paint him myself.”

  “And if he models,” concluded Nancy, “I know where we’re likely to find him. In Provincetown.”

  Nancy and her friends decided to hire a car and go to Provincetown immediately. They left a note at the guesthouse for Captain Easterly, telling him where they were going.

  “It feels good to be driving,” said Nancy as they sped along the sandy coast. “I’ve missed it.”

  When they reached Provincetown, they had a hasty lunch. Then Nancy telephoned John Singleton, the artist who had directed her to Mathilda Smythe. She described the grizzle-bearded sailor and asked if he ever posed for local artists.

  “Indeed he does. I’ve painted him myself,” said Mr. Singleton. “One of my portraits—‘Old Man of the Sea’—won a prize. Want to locate him?”

  Nancy said she did, and Mr. Singleton named a studio fronting the harbor. It proved to be an old fishing shack converted into a classroom by a group of young art students. On a raised platform at the back of the room sat the grizzle-bearded Red Quint, his right hand shielding his eyes as if he were looking out over the sea. Nancy walked over to the instructor.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I want to speak to your model. When will the class be over?”

  The art teacher glanced at his watch. “It’s over now.”

  He called to Red Quint, and the bearded sailor came shambling over. He stopped short upon seeing the girls.

  “How’d you know I was here?” he asked.

  Nancy did not answer the question. “Come outside to our car,” she said. “We want to talk to you.”

  The three girls led him to the car, which Nancy had parked in front of the studio. Quint twisted his hands nervously.

  “I haven’t done nuthin’ wrong.”

  “Oh, no,” said George sarcastically. “You only kidnapped Captain Easterly, and ...”

  Quint’s utter astonishment seemed to prove his innocence.

  “But you knew about it?” Nancy asked.

  “Not a thing.”

  “But you were a stowaway.”

  “When I knew you was goin’ to leave Boston, I had to stay aboard,” the sailor said doggedly, “so’s I could keep my eye on the ship.”

  He also admitted he had shut Nancy in the wardrobe, and taken some food, and locked Bess in the galley closet, and hacked at the captain’s quarters and the hold. But he had not been responsible for the fire nor the severe damage to Easterly’s cabin.

  “Then the other stowaway was,” Nancy said. “Who was he?”

  Quint hung his head and did not answer.

  Nancy prodded him. “It was Fay or Lane.”

  Grizzle Face winced. “It was Fay. Never heard of Lane.”

  “You telephoned Fay in Boston,” Nancy said, “and told him where the Bonny Scot was.”

  The sailor admitted it. He leaned against the car door. The man seemed suddenly old, tired, and beaten.

  “What were you looking for on the Bonny Scot?” Nancy asked him.

  “A ruby. There was supposed to be a priceless ruby hidden on board.”

  The girls pretended to show surprise. “Did your friend Flip Fay know about the ruby?” Nancy asked.

  Red Quint growled, “That double-crosser! Came snoopin’ around, tryin’ to buy me off. A fine friend he turned out to be, after I told him the secret of the old ship!”

  “What did he do?” Nancy asked.

  “Cheated me—that’s what,” the old man cried out. “I heard the Bonny Scot was tied up in Boston, so I went there to see if she was the ship I knew about. I used to sneak aboard to search for the ruby. About ten days ago Fay started hangin’ around the waterfront, and he got me talkin’.”

  Quint went on to say that he had foolishly told Fay about the secret ladder on the old clipper and the hidden ruby. “That double-crosser tried to palm off a red stone on me last night. Told me it was the real ruby, and he’d found it. But when I got it in a good light, I knew it was a fake.”

  “That’s why Flip Fay took my pendant!” Bess spoke up. “Just like you said, Nancy! Do you still have it?” she asked Red Quint.

  As the man searched his pockets and handed over the stone from Bess’s pendant, Nancy asked him, “How did you find out about the ruby and the hidden ladder?”

  “Somebody told me—somebody who knew. Year
s ago, I signed up on a freighter in the South Pacific. We laid up for repairs, one time, at some island. Near Java, ’twas. There was an old man I met there. He’d served on a pirate ship as a young fellow. He told me quite a story.”

  “What?” Nancy asked.

  “In Bombay one of the pirate crew found out a precious ruby had been bought and taken on board a clipper called the Dream of Melissa.

  “The pirates followed the ship, boarded her, and killed the captain and crew. Then they changed the clipper’s name to Bonny Scot. The pirates combed every inch of her, lookin’ for that ruby. But they never found it.”

  “What happened to the old Melissa?” asked George.

  Red Quint shrugged. “The pirate crew mutinied. Some was killed, and the fellow I met was badly cut up. He holed in at that island for the rest of his life.”

  “It didn’t pay him to be a pirate,” Bess remarked.

  Red Quint shook his head. “He was poor as a sand crab when I knew him. He said he never did get any of that pirate loot they talked about. All he found was a snuffbox. Before I left, he sold it to me.”

  Nancy asked thoughtfully, “Have you ever heard of a figurehead like the lady carved on that snuffbox?”

  “Sure have,” answered Red Quint. “Friend o’ mine told me.”

  Quint’s remark made Nancy’s pulse pound. Her hunch had been right! Quint did know something about the figurehead.

  “Where is the figurehead, Mr. Quint?”

  “I’m not telling!”

  “I had hoped you’d cooperate with us,” Nancy said kindly. “You’ll need friends. Captain Easterly is going to press a charge of kidnapping. You’ll have a hard time explaining how he happened to be at your boardinghouse.”

  Quint gulped. He scratched his head as he thought this over. Deciding he would like to have Nancy on his side in the event of an FBI investigation, he said, “All right, Miss Drew. I can’t give you very good directions about where the figurehead is. I’ll have to show you.”

  Nancy felt that he wanted to go along to find out why they were so eager to locate Melissa. There was nothing to do but take him. They all got into the car, and the sailor directed Nancy.