by Helen Wells
“Well,” Cherry said, “if he scared you like that in broad daylight, just think how you’d feel tonight in the pitch dark of the purser’s office!”
Jan went on as though she hadn’t heard. “He frightens me and fascinates me at the same time. I guess it’s his looks. I’m supposed to be a descendant of Theodosia Burr—you know, the one whose ship mysteriously disappeared off the Carolinian coast in the early nineteenth century. Granddaddy told me that his grandmother strongly suspected that Theodosia ran away with a pirate.” Jan giggled. “Oh, you know what I mean, Cherry. Henry Landgraf has the same rough charm Uncle Benedict had. And from where he sits, now that Uncle’s dead, that ambergris is in public domain.”
“Perhaps. And like the old-time pirates, it’s every man for himself on the high seas,” Cherry said thoughtfully.
“That’s what I think,” Jan agreed. “Ashore he probably wouldn’t even commit a minor traffic violation. But we’re not ashore. We’re steaming toward the Spanish Main on the bright blue Caribbean Sea!”
CHAPTER XVII
A Tree for Timmy
CHERRY HERSELF SHIVERED AS SHE SLIPPED OUT INTO the corridor. The way imaginative Jan put it, you could almost hear the wild chant of a pirate crew below decks, and the flapping of a skull and crossbones at the top of the mast.
And Tim’s Henry did look like a pirate; one of the nice ones in Dr. Monroe’s book, it was true. But all pirates were ruthless, weren’t they?
There was no doubt in Cherry’s mind that tonight of all nights—Christmas Eve—the purser’s office would be broken into for the third time. Would Jan’s dream of becoming an artist end with the tropical dawn of tomorrow, Christmas?
“I’ve got to do something,” Cherry thought as she showered and changed into a fresh uniform. “Oh, if only everyone weren’t so involved in that ambergris!” Jan and Ziggy and Waidler—perhaps even herself and Kirk—not to mention the mysterious Henry Landgraf. How could the problem be solved without hurting someone?
“Jan’s a good sport,” Cherry decided as she hurried down the corridor for a peek at Timmy before dinner. “It was awfully hard for her to decide not to report the whole business to the captain. She deserves that ambergris!”
Timmy had momentarily discarded his stocking list in favor of another exciting topic.
“You know what, Cherry?” he greeted her. “We’re going to have a fire drill tomorrow morning. Christmas and everything.”
“How do you know?” Cherry asked doubtfully.
“Waidy tole me. In school we have a bell that rings and rings and rings. Then there’s a gong and we all march out. But on board ship it’s dif-frunt. You’ll see. They’ll put a little piece of paper under your plate at dinner tonight. I got one on my tray. See?” He handed the little card of printed instructions to Cherry.
Cherry glanced at it and nodded.
Timmy pointed importantly to the larger card on his cabin wall. “That tells you what seat you sit in on what lifeboat,” he announced, just as though Cherry couldn’t read. “Also, it tells you if the lifeboat is forward or aft or amidships.” Tim giggled. “Waidy says it’s lots of fun cause the passengers get all mixed up and go in the wrong places when the gong rings. But I won’t. I know just ‘zactly where my boat is. Also, when they swing my boat down I’m going to get into it. You’re not ’posed to ‘less there’s a real fire, but I’m going to. Cause Waidy says there are boxes of crackers and chocolate bars in every boat.”
“Did Waidy show you how to put on your life preserver?” Cherry asked.
“No,” Timmy said. “But he showed Mummy how and she showed me.”
“We had a lot of fun learning,” Mrs. Crane added, “didn’t we, Tim?”
Timmy nodded. “You’d better show Cherry how, Mummy. She can’t swim as good as you can. She might get ’most drownded like my Fuzzy. Fuzzy,” he told Cherry, “is hanging up his stocking too. Henry bought us both red ones with bells on ’em in the shop upstairs. When are we going to see the tree?”
“After dinner,” Cherry said. “When I’ve finished eating I’ll come back and stay with you until your mother’s through. Then we’ll all go up to the library together.”
“Henry too,” Tim said. “He’s going to carry me piggyback. I’m going to pe-tend he’s my llama. Do you know what a llama is, Cherry? He’s a camel, only in Peru they don’t have humps so they call ’em llamas. But they’re very fuzzy.”
“My goodness,” Cherry said to Mrs. Crane. “Timmy has picked up so much information this trip he could afford to skip school for a year.”
“It’s that nice Mr. Landgraf,” Mrs. Crane said. “He’s the most fascinating man, Cherry. Like Timmy, I could sit here all day and listen to him talk.” She added in a whisper: “He’s going to teach me how to dive, so Tim won’t suspect that it was you who dived for his panda.”
Cherry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She got up and walked into the adjoining room, beckoning to Mrs. Crane to follow. Then she whispered, “Does Mr. Landgraf know I was in the pool last night?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Crane admitted. “He saw you. But he didn’t give our secret away. Tim still thinks I got his Fuzzy.”
Weak-kneed, Cherry sank down on the sofa. Mrs. Crane, of course, didn’t know that the swimming pool was out of bounds for the ship’s nurse. But seafaring Mr. Henry Landgraf undoubtedly did. Anytime he wanted to put Cherry out of the running all he had to do was report her disobedience to the captain.
How much had he heard of her conversation with Jan while Tim was sunbathing? Did he know now that Timmy had given the carbon copy of that letter to Cherry? Was he as certain as she and Jan were that the ambergris was in the milk-of-magnesia bottle? Picking the lock on the purser’s desk drawer would be child’s play to a man who had expertly twirled the dials on the safe their first day at sea. Those strong, deft fingers could probably unseal that brown paper package and remove the cloudy blue bottle without leaving any trace that the contents of the late Mr. Paulding’s medicine cabinet had been rifled.
If he’d had more time on Friday he undoubtedly would have replaced the valuables in the safe so that no one would ever have known it had been broken into.
Cherry quickly made up her mind. Jan was right. Somehow they must set a trap and catch him in the act tonight. As long as nothing had been stolen, the captain would not think it necessary to put an officer on night duty in the purser’s office. He would naturally think, as Ziggy did, that the breaking and entering had been done by a passenger with a skeleton key—and a warped sense of humor. Now that this passenger had had his fun with the purser, he would transfer his practical joking to another section of the ship.
At least, that’s the way Cherry hoped that the Old Man was thinking.
To put Ziggy on guard against a night marauder would be disastrous. They would have to tell him what was in the sealed package. Knowing the conscientious little purser’s reputation as a faithful employee of long-standing, Cherry felt sure that if he knew the package contained priceless ambre blanc, he would immediately report his own and Waidler’s negligence to the captain. His conscience was bothering him enough as it was. That was why he had written that letter to Mr. Camelot as soon as he discovered his oversight in failing to turn the trivial toilet articles in to the home office.
Cherry could hardly eat a mouthful of her dinner. Brownie chattered on and on, full of Christmas Eve excitement. A cable of birthday greetings from the Spencer Club, that was delivered during dessert, did not help to cheer Cherry up much. Brownie, bubbling with curiosity, had to hear all about the Spencer Club. Unashamedly she hinted for an invitation to dinner at the Greenwich Village apartment while the ship was in the Port of New York.
Cherry, as heartily as possible, issued the invitation and then broke away.
Kirk Monroe stopped her in the corridor outside the grill. “Why so glum?” he asked. “Is it because you didn’t get any birthday presents?” He slipped a tiny enameled pin into her hand. It was a lovely
little miniature of the Julita plowing through a bit of the bright blue Caribbean.
“Strictly government issue,” he admitted, grinning. “Christmas souvenirs for the passengers’ dinner party tomorrow. But I thought you ought to have one today.”
Cherry promptly pinned it on her uniform. “It’s darling,” she said, smiling.
“How goes the Mystery of the Missing Ambergris?” he demanded. “Did Jan cable the lawyer?”
Cherry nodded. As they walked down to B deck, she was tempted to follow the rules and regulations to the letter and dump the full responsibility of Jan’s problem on the ship’s surgeon’s broad shoulders.
But that wouldn’t be fair. The young physician’s brilliant future must not be clouded by a shipboard scandal.
In Timmy’s cabin, Kirk Monroe quickly scanned the bedside notes Cherry had taught Mrs. Crane how to keep. Then he gave the little boy a thorough examination. “Let’s see,” he said thoughtfully. “No fever for the last twenty-four hours. He’s been normal really longer than that because we can discount the 101 he ran last evening. So we’ll stop his sulfa with the eight o’clock dose.”
Mrs. Crane, in a lovely taffeta frock, said gratefully, “Thank goodness. Then I don’t have to get him up at four tomorrow morning?”
The young doctor smiled at her. “If he’s normal in the morning, we’ll stop taking his temperature altogether. I see no reason why he shouldn’t play quietly around the pool Christmas afternoon.”
Timmy, who had asked Santa for an endless number of rubber toys, bounced up and down with glee. Mrs. Crane hurried away to dinner. Just before the doctor left he said to Cherry:
“You might give him one last inhalation now, for good measure. And see that he doesn’t get overstimulated tonight, if possible. It’ll just start him coughing again, you know. He should be in bed at nine.”
Cherry nodded and plugged in the vaporizer. Around eight-thirty Jan came into the room.
“I’m too nervous to eat,” she said. “But one consolation is that Mother never felt better. I guess my dutiful-daughter act is having the desired effect.” She sat down on the empty twin bed. “Have you thought of anything? My mind just goes around in circles.”
“So does mine,” Cherry admitted ruefully. “But we still have until Timmy’s bedtime.”
Tim poked his nose out from under his tent. “What have you got till my bedtime?”
“It’s a secret.” Cherry firmly tucked him back into the tent.
“Henry and I have a secret too,” came Timmy’s muffled voice.
“Oh, you have?” Jan sat up abruptly. “What kind of secret, Timmy?”
“It’s a Christmas secret,” Timmy told her. “Like all the presents under my bed. I’m going to stay awake all night and open every one of them, ’cept one, early in the morning, long before Mummy wakes up.”
Cherry unplugged the vaporizer and put away the sheet and umbrella. “You won’t need your tent anymore, Tim. Unless you want to make one yourself for fun.”
Then Mrs. Crane arrived with Henry Landgraf. Timmy held up his arms:
“Hello, Henry Llama. Giddy-ap, giddy-ap.”
With Timmy on his back, Mr. Landgraf led the way up to the library. Cherry thought she had never seen a more beautiful tree. It was silvered with icicles and lighted with nothing but huge, blue electric bulbs. But Tim was disappointed and said so in a voice so loud the captain must have heard it in his cabin:
“What kind of Christmas tree is that? There aren’t any red balls on it. Who ever heard of a blue Christmas tree?” He buried his face in Henry’s neck and sobbed.
Mrs. Crane fluttered her hands helplessly. “Oh, dear, what on earth shall we do? The poor lamb has been looking forward to this moment ever since he got sick.”
And then Waidler, who had been watching the little group from the sidelines, moved closer. “Perhaps it might be wise if you went down to your cabin for a minute, Miss Cherry,” he said. “I don’t like to be the one to ruin a surprise, but the little boy is so upset …”
Cherry stared at him. “A surprise? In my stateroom?”
Something like a grin flickered across Waidler’s weather-beaten features. “Your mother. She arranged it with me the afternoon before we sailed. The nicest little tree you ever saw. All red and gold balls and tinsel. A real old-fashioned tree. Not like that modernistic thing over there.”
Cherry was already racing out of the library. Did anyone ever have such a thoughtful mother? A tree for Cherry’s very own Christmas Eve! A red-and-gold tree. The kind Timmy liked!
Sure enough, when Cherry burst into her cabin, there it was, right smack in the middle of the floor. And around it were five odd-shaped packages: Cherry’s “stocking presents.”
Waidler was right behind her. “Thought we might set it up in the Crane suite just for tonight. An extra surprise for Timmy, when he comes back. Poor little fellow. Guess he’s never had a real, homelike, old- fashioned Christmas.”
Then Jan arrived, puffing indignantly. “Why on earth did you dash away like that, Cherry Ames? Oh! What a darling little tree.”
Cherry quickly explained. “We’re going to set it up in Timmy’s room for tonight. He was so disappointed in the big blue-and-silver tree.”
“I’ll help,” Jan offered. “Be careful, Waidy,” she added as the steward reached for the green-and-red stand. “You almost tipped it over. Here, let me carry it.”
Waidler grumbled, “Been toting Christmas trees for forty years and never tipped one over yet.”
While Cherry watched amusedly they argued and finally arrived at a compromise. Waidy would carry the tree, but he would have to walk slowly so that Jan could keep a sharp eye on the ornaments.
So it was some time before the tree was finally placed to the satisfaction of all beside Timmy’s bed.
Cherry noticed worriedly out of the corner of one eye that it was ten minutes past Timmy’s bedtime when they returned to the library. The charming paneled room was filled with the after-dinner crowd now. Card tables had been set up in cozy corners; stewards were serving after-dinner coffee on low tables in front of the pale-yellow and green sofas.
But there was no sign of Timmy and his mother. Or of Timmy’s “llama.”
“They’ve gone on to the living room,” Cherry guessed. “To hang up Timmy’s stocking.”
Jan led the way now, her full ballerina skirt billowing behind her. “Oh, Cherry,” she breathed, “we weren’t going to lose sight of Henry Landgraf for one minute. Remember?”
Cherry remembered all too well. She also remembered that punctual Ziggy retired on the dot of nine. And it was now nine-fifteen!
The living room was so crowded Cherry felt sure that all two hundred and twenty-five of the passengers had congregated there at once. They were grouped around the piano, singing carols. They milled in front of the fireplace, exchanging small gifts and strewing the hearth with colorful paper and tinsel ribbon. They blocked both the entrances, laughing and shouting greetings.
At last Cherry caught a glimpse of two little red stockings hanging from the mantel. Their tiny silver bells winked at her in the reflection of the light from the electric logs. Timmy had already hung up his stocking and Fuzzy’s.
She had to raise her voice to make Jan hear her above the din and confusion. “They’ve gone back to the suite. Come on. Hurry!”
Breathlessly they pushed their way out into the corridor. Down the stairs they ran, side by side, Cherry momentarily forgetting that she was in uniform. Then they could hear Tim’s laughter and crows of delight from the open door of his bedroom.
With a sigh of relief, Cherry saw that Henry Landgraf was still among those present. Mrs. Crane was in the other room chatting with guests she had invited down for after-dinner coffee. But Mr. Landgraf was sitting on Timmy’s bed with Timmy on his lap. His bright blue eyes swept over the flushed faces of the girls in the doorway. He said to Cherry coolly:
“It was nice of you to donate a little red tree to such a goo
d cause. We were reading the tag just now. A surprise from your mother?”
And then another cool voice, this time from the corridor behind Cherry, said:
“Nurse, please go to the refrigerator for penicillin.”
Dazedly, Cherry whirled around. Dr. Monroe was just coming out of the dispensary. He said with worried abstraction:
“A petty officer cut himself rather badly yesterday and did not report the injury. I’ve already dressed the wound, but I’d like to give him a penicillin injection at once. The patient is in my office.”
He disappeared into the door beyond the dispensary.
Cherry started off again for A deck. Jan followed her to the foot of the stairs:
“I’ll keep an eye on our pirate until you get back. He won’t get out of my sight for one minute.”
Cherry unlocked the door to the purser’s office and reached in to turn on the overhead lights. Some sixth sense made her go straight to the deep bottom drawer of the desk. She tugged it gently and it slid out as easily as though she had said, “Open, Sesame.”
The lock had already been picked—or, a master key had been used to open it.
There were no telltale scratches on the wood or metal of the drawer. Cherry took one swift glance at the neat file of labeled envelopes and sealed packages. One of them stood out like a sore thumb. The label read:
“Paulding, Benedict, deceased. Cabin 141.”
And the date was the Tuesday when the Julita had last stopped at the port of Willemstad.
Stunned and relieved, Cherry slammed the drawer shut. Then she heard the click of the automatic lock. Was the answer simply that Ziggy had neglected to shut it tightly enough when he closed up his desk at nine? All she could do was hope.
Snatching up the small bottle of penicillin, she turned off the lights and locked the door behind her. As she hurried down to the doctor’s office, she couldn’t help thinking of Henry Landgraf’s strong, deft fingers, his cocksure, swaggering gait, his cold, blue eyes. Had he had time while she and Jan were arranging Timmy’s tree to unseal that package, remove the milk-of-magnesia bottle, and reseal it?
