(#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (11 page)

To prove this he stepped to the next table where part of a plate of salad had been left. The Indian picked up a lettuce leaf and held it out to the alpaca. The animal nibbled it quickly.

George took another piece and extended it to the alpaca. She chuckled. “I’m sorry, old boy, but we don’t happen to serve grass in this dining room.”

The remark made Bess giggle. Getting up her courage, she too offered a piece of lettuce to the animal. When the girls stopped feeding him, their reproof was an indignant
na-aah, na-aah!

At that moment a waiter came in with a tray of food. He set it down, went to the window, and clapped his hands. In Spanish he told the beast to go away. Lazily the alpaca walked off, its sheep-like head held disdainfully above its long neck.

“Oh girls! His family!” Carla exclaimed.

On the roadway just below the hotel stood a female and two baby alpacas.

“Aren’t they darling?” said Bess. “I must take some pictures of them later.”

Maponhni told the girls that alpaca fleece was valuable. “Generally it is white, but sometimes has gray or brown hair mixed in. The wool is soft enough to be used for clothing, and is very expensive.”

“Is that the finest wool there is?” George queried.

The Indian shook his head. “The wool from the vicuña is the finest in the world. The animal looks very much like the alpaca, but is a little smaller. Its fleece is soft and silky.

“In Incan times only royalty and aristocracy were allowed to use this wool. It is said that the Inca himself, ruler of the whole nation, had the finest kind of garments, most of them made from vicuña wool. But after the first wearing, they were destroyed.”

“What a dreadful waste!” George exclaimed.

“I agree,” said Maponhni. “Furthermore, those precious things were lost for all time. Had they been saved, we could have enjoyed looking at them.”

The Indian mentioned that a third animal in Peru whose fleece was used was the llama. “He’s larger than the other two.”

Maponhni said that the llama had been a beast of burden in Peru for many, many centuries. “Its wool is coarse and greasy, and is used mostly for heavy blankets, sacks, rope, and halters for the beasts. Of course, cloth for the very poor people has been woven from it since ancient times.”

“They probably used the hides to make sandals,” Carla suggested.

“I’ll bet,” George said with a grin, “that those old Incas wore the soft leather next to their skin so they wouldn’t itch from the prickly wool!”

The others laughed. By the time they had finished lunch, the rain had ceased and Bess urged the group to go outside so she could take some snapshots of the alpacas. After taking a couple of pictures, Bess handed the camera to Nancy.

“Please snap a picture of me seated on the alpaca,” she said. “And don’t let anybody slap him so he’ll run away!”

Nancy took the camera and Bess walked forward. She swung herself up onto the back of the animal. “Ready!” she called out.

Instantly the alpaca bent its knees and sat down in the roadway.

“Oh, you mean old thing!” Bess scolded. She slapped the animal gently. “Stand up!”

When the alpaca did not obey, Nancy laughingly snapped the picture, anyway.

Maponhni walked forward and with a chuckle said, “Miss Marvin, you must weigh more than a hundred pounds. That is the limit of a burden an alpaca will carry. He cannot be coaxed. You may as well get off.”

She grinned, but did not reveal her weight. She got off the animal and instantly changed the subject.

“I’m ready to go take pictures of the ruins.”

Nancy herself was eager not only to see the great archaeological wonder, but to hunt for a clue to the mystery of the crossword cipher. From the hotel, Maponhni led the way up a path to an admission stand where they paid a small fee. Then they began the climb.

To their left the mountainside rose steeply and was an amazing sight of endless series of three- to five-foot stone-faced terraces. They varied from fifteen to thirty feet in width.

Running up alongside the terraces were many stone stairways. From them branched alleyways between stone huts in various states of ruin. Maponhni explained that originally the dwellings stood from eight to ten feet in height and had thatched roofs.

“Archaeologists believe that the workers lived on one side of the city, the aristocracy on the other. They think this because one section was better built and had larger rooms than the other. At the very top stood a fine building that was like a convent. The Chosen Virgins of the Sun lived there. These maidens spent their entire time in religious work, like the nuns today, and did a lot of weaving.”

Bess looked to her right, where the ground fell steeply to the river. “It would be easy to tumble down out of this city and drop all the way to the water,” she said with a shudder.

“Don’t look down,” George advised.

The girls followed their guide as he wound in and out of the narrow, ancient streets. Nancy tried to imagine what the place had looked like when it was a flourishing city.

She entered one building which was larger than any of the others she had seen. It had several connecting rooms and Nancy concluded that this might have been the home of a high official.

By the time she returned to the entrance, her companions were out of sight. Thinking they had gone down the steep flight of steps nearby, she went after them. When Nancy reached the foot, the others were not around, so she walked forward to the edge of the path and gazed down the precipitous drop at the jungle-like valley.

As she contemplated the gorgeous view with mountains in the distance, Nancy became aware of a thudding sound behind her. Turning, she was horrified to see a huge bundle of thatch rolling at fast speed in her direction. Should it hit her, she would be swept off the mountainside. Just before it reached her, Nancy gave a mighty leap and hurdled the bundle.

“Oh!” she cried out as the thatch tumbled over the edge and disappeared.

As she stood trembling, Nancy heard a man’s voice and looked off to one side to see who he was. An Indian workman was busy putting thatch on a roof of one of the stone huts which was being restored. He pointed up the steps.

“Señor!” he called out.

Nancy looked there but could see nothing. She wondered whether the bundle had been accidentally dislodged by someone, or thrown on purpose.

The workman kept on pointing excitedly and calling, “Señor!”

Nancy was convinced now that he had seen someone throw the bundle. Running up to him, she asked, “Who was it? What did he look like?”

The workman raised his hands in a helpless gesture to indicate he did not speak English.

“Español?”
Nancy asked, thinking she might manage a few simple phrases in Spanish.

Again the man shook his head. She assumed he spoke Quechua. She would find Maponhni and bring him back to question the workman. “Maybe he can get a clue to the señor this man’s talking about.”

Nancy had a long hunt before she was able to locate the others. Immediately Bess hugged her friend.

“Nancy! We’ve been looking for you because we wanted to go after that dreadful Luis Llosa!”

“What do you mean?”

“We saw him among the ruins!” said Carla.

Upon hearing of Nancy’s adventure, the others were sure that Llosa had tossed the bundle of thatch in her direction.

“If he’s here, we’ll find him!” George vowed. “Come on! Let’s separate and track him down!”

CHAPTER XV

Telltale File

Bess and George and Carla hurried off.

Before Nancy began her search she turned to Maponhni. “Will you go back and talk to that workman? I think he speaks Quechua. Find out what the señor he mentioned looked like.”

“I will do that. Then I will start a search too for this Luis Llosa,” the Indian promised.

By this time several groups of tourists had arrived to see the ruins. As each girl came upon a group, she asked if anyone had seen a man who answered the description of Llosa. None of them had.

On one of the stairways Bess encountered a young man. He stopped climbing, but instead of answering her question, he motioned for her to sit on the steps with him.

“Thank you. I will stand,” Bess replied.

In broken English the stranger told her he was a Peruvian. “You are beautiful girl from North America,” he said. “I like you. We make date maybe?”

In her own mind Bess decided that he was the last person in the world with whom she wanted to make a date. She did not answer but repeated her question. “Have you seen a man who is thin and dark and has shifty eyes?”

The young man began to laugh. “You forget about that one. Tonight we make date?”

Bess was furious. She turned away and began to climb the steps. The Peruvian laughed. “Oh, you afraid of me? You are American girl they say is choosy?”

“I certainly am,” Bess said with dignity, and hurried up the steps with the speed of a frightened alpaca. Her admirer did not try to follow. By the time Bess reached the top step, she was winded and had to sit down.

“George was right. I shouldn’t have eaten all that corn and Swiss cheese,” she berated herself. Then she thought wistfully, “Why couldn’t he have been one of the nice young Peruvian men —like the ones Carla introduced us to!”

Bess remained quiet, even after she had stopped gasping. She could vaguely hear two men talking somewhere near her. The men were coming closer. In a few moments what they were saying became very distinct. At first Bess paid no attention, thinking they were tourists talking about a group of girls.

But suddenly she was shocked when one man, who sounded like Luis Llosa, said, “You tell Nancy Drew she is a nuisance in Peru. She must go home at once!”

Bess’s heart began to pound. There was no question in her mind but that the voice belonged to Luis Llosa. What should she do? Should she let the man know she had heard him and demand an explanation?

“But he might harm me,” was her second thought, “and then I couldn’t warn Nancy.”

Nevertheless, Bess decided to be courageous. She got up and looked around for the two speakers, but could see no one. Bess ran up and down a few of the ancient alleyways but could not find Luis Llosa.

“I must alert Nancy!” she thought.

Trying to find her proved to be hopeless. Bess called Nancy’s name several times but received no answer.

Presently another thought came to Bess. Suppose Luis Llosa was on his way to the hotel to steal the precious plaque! Probably he knew that Nancy had retrieved it from the gift shop. Bess figured that the gang had not been able to decipher any more than the girls had.

“I’ll bet they don’t want Nancy to keep the plaque for fear she’ll solve its mystery before they can. I’d better hurry back and stop Llosa from getting it!”

Bess ran practically all the way to the hotel. She obtained the key to Nancy and Carla’s room, quickly ran up the stairs, and let herself in. Then she locked the door and immediately dashed to the bureau drawer where the plaque had been placed. It was still there!

“Thank goodness!” Bess exclaimed.

She sat down in a chair to catch her breath and wait. Minutes passed. No one came. Bess was beginning to think that her hunch had been wrong, when she heard footsteps in the hall. They stopped in front of the door.

Bess held her breath and listened. No key was inserted into the lock, but the doorknob turned. Then she heard a scraping sound.

“Someone is trying to jimmy the door open!” she thought. “Oh, what shall I do?” She was afraid to keep still but more afraid to cry out.

Tensely Bess watched the door. Presently a long, thin file came sliding through the crack. Within moments the implement protruded into the room about two inches.

Bess’s mouth was dry with fright. “In another moment that intruder will get in!” she thought wildly. “And no telephone here!”

A sudden idea came to her. She crossed the room softly, grabbed the file, and gave it a hard yank. The whole tool came through the crack!

Instantly she heard angry mutterings in the hall. Someone kicked the door, then ran down the hall. Bess was so amazed and relieved that she flopped onto the bed, still clutching the file.

In the meantime, the other girls and Maponhni had continued to hunt through the ruins and question people about the mysterious señor. Finally George encountered a broad-shouldered woman with a deep, husky voice.

In response to the girl’s query, she looked hard at her questioner. “I don’t know what girls are coming to these days. Always chasing a man. Is this one you’re after somebody who wants to get away from you?”

“Oh no,” George said quickly. “It’s nothing like that—”

The woman interrupted her. “That’s what all girls say, but I know better. You’re after him and you’re determined to find him.”

George smiled. “You’re right, but my interest in finding him is because he’s a thief!”

The woman’s eyes bulged. “A thief! Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

George felt like telling her she had had no opportunity, but repeated her original question. “Please tell me if you saw him.”

“Yes, I did,” the woman replied.

“The Lima police are looking for him,” George told her.

The woman pointed in the direction of the girls’ hotel. “The man was heading down there,” she said. “If you want to catch him, you’d better hurry.”

George thanked her, and as the young sleuth hastened away, the woman called, “I’m sorry I said what I did to you.” George waved at her and smiled.

Upon reaching the hotel, George got the key to her room and went upstairs. As she unlocked the door, Bess opened the one to Nancy’s room.

“Oh, George, I’m so glad to see you. Something dreadful happened.” She held up the file and poured out her story.

Her cousin was amazed. “You sure came through that time,” George said. “By the way, I hurried back here because a woman up at the ruins told me Luis Llosa was headed this way. Probably he was the person with the file.”

“I’m sure he was,” Bess replied. “And thank goodness he has left here.”

“What do you mean?” George asked.