(#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (5 page)

On the way back to the hotel the girls saw the oxcart parked on the side of the roadway, but the driver was not in sight. Bess decided this was a good chance to take the animal’s picture. As she and the others approached the ox, they noticed a boy of about fourteen seated on the hill-side nearby. A man was talking to him, but as soon as he saw the girls, the stranger hurried away.

“Hmm! He acts as if he’s afraid of us!” George remarked.

Bess was about to snap a picture of the oxcart, when the boy arose from the embankment and said to Nancy, “You ride ox? You have picture taken on ox?”

As Nancy demurred, Bess said she thought this was a grand idea. “Please climb up. The picture will be a wonderful souvenir of our trip.”

“Oh, all right,” Nancy said.

With George’s help she gave a little jump and landed squarely on the back of the ox. Instantly the boy, who was holding a stick in one hand, gave the animal a hard slap with it. The beast started off abruptly, nearly throwing Nancy to the ground.

She realized, to her dismay, that the ox had been unhitched. She clung tightly to its neck, yelling, “Whoa! Whoa!” at the top of her lungs.

The other girls were aghast. They started running after the animal, which despite its size and clumsiness was making good speed.

Bess, though fearful, followed her cousin, who yelled, “We’ll run up this hill and cut them off!”

She and George ran sideways up the slope, then down again several yards in front of the pounding animal.

“Do just what I do!” George commanded.

The two girls waved their arms wildly, crossing and uncrossing them. They spread their feet far apart and swayed from side to side. The ox, frightened by the gestures, pulled up short.

Nancy climbed down in a hurry. “Thanks, girls. Boy, what a ride! Bareback ox-riding isn’t one of my favorite sports!”

“What do we do with this beast—leave him here?” George asked.

As if in answer to her question, the driver came running down the road. He spoke only a little English, but the girls gathered that he was blaming them for having unhitched the ox. They denied it vehemently, but wondered who had done so. Was it the boy? Or could it have been the man who had run off?

Nancy yelled, “Whoa! Whoa!”

“We had better go ask that boy,” Carla suggested.

They walked back to the cart, but the lad was gone. When the driver arrived leading the ox, they told him about the boy and asked if he knew who he was.

“Maybe he from caddie house,” the man said. “Name Tomás Rivero.”

George was angry. “I think we should go to that caddie house immediately and find out if the man we saw put Tomás up to that mean trick.”

The others agreed and set off to find out. When they reached the caddie house, the master confirmed that the boy worked there. “Tomás left early today. He lives in Bariloche, but I’m afraid we don’t have his address.”

Nancy told the caddie master what had happened. “When Tomás comes again, will you please ask him about the man?” The caddie master agreed to do so, and the girls returned to the hotel.

When Nancy entered her room, she noticed that the bottom drawer of her bureau was slightly open. Knowing that she had closed it tightly, the young sleuth immediately became suspicious.

She fairly leaped across the room and yanked the drawer open. Nancy gasped in dismay!

CHAPTER VI

The Con Man

“WHAT’S the matter?” George asked Nancy.

“The plaque! It’s gone!”

A look of utter dismay spread across Carla’s face. She said something in Spanish, then added in English, “What will we do? Now we can never solve the mystery! Oh, that monkey is what you say—a jinx.”

The next moment she flung herself on a bed and began to weep. Bess threw her arms around the girl and tried to comfort her.

“We’re all terribly sorry,” she said. “But I’d like to bet Nancy will find the plaque.”

“I’m certainly going to try,” Nancy replied. “The first thing I shall do is go down to the desk and report the theft to the manager.”

The clerk on duty took her into the manager’s office where a pleasant-looking man, Senor Diaz, was in charge at the moment. Quickly Nancy told her story.

“I am very sorry to hear this,” the man said. “The plaque sounds most unusual. It seems like a strange thing for anyone to steal. What would be the motive for such a theft?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy answered, “but the plaque has been in the Ponce family for hundreds of years and they will be greatly upset to learn it has been stolen.”

“Miss Ponce is with you, is she not?” the man asked. “Does she know about this?”

Nancy nodded. “She is upstairs crying over the loss.”

Señor Diaz tapped his desk with a pencil. “One thing is sure. Somebody with a key got into the room. This would indicate a chamber-maid or a porter. However, I assure you, Miss Drew, that I can vouch for the absolute honesty of all our employees.”

Nancy said she doubted that the plaque would be of interest to them, anyhow. More likely it had been stolen by an intruder with a skeleton key.

“Then it will be very hard to trace such a person,” Senor Diaz said. He walked out to the lobby with Nancy. “I shall investigate the matter immediately. Can you give me any clues at all as to who the thief might have been?”

The young sleuth told him that in her home town of River Heights a man had tried to steal the plaque. “He claimed to be an importer in New York City.” She also mentioned Luis Llosa, the craftsman’s assistant who had copied some of the markings on the plaque before he had been stopped.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy noticed a woman listening intently to the conversation. In a moment she approached the young detective and asked, “Is there a monkey on the plaque?”

Surprised, Nancy said, “Yes.”

“I’m Mrs. Smith,” the woman said. “I have just come from one of the gift shops in the hotel. On the wall is a plaque with a monkey on it.”

Nancy doubted that it could be Carla’s property, but she thanked Mrs. Smith and hurried toward the shop, with Senor Diaz following her.

As the two rushed in, Nancy stopped short. She could hardly believe her eyes. The plaque on the wall was indeed the valuable heirloom of the Ponce family!

She told this to Senor Diaz, and then asked the shop owner, Señora Violetta, how she had obtained the plaque.

“In a rather unusual way,” the woman replied. “Less than half an hour ago one of the hotel’s guests, Señor Manuel Sanchez, brought it in.”

“But why did he bring it here?” Nancy asked, perplexed.

“To sell it,” the shop owner answered. “Señor Sanchez said that he had brought the plaque to the hotel because he had had an order for this antique piece from a collector. The man was from the United States and was staying here. But when Señor Sanchez arrived, the buyer had already left.”

Nancy was intrigued by this series of falsehoods and encouraged the shop owner to go on.

The woman smiled and asked, “First, would you mind telling me, señorita, why you are so interested?”

“Because,” Nancy replied, “this plaque belongs to a friend of mine and was stolen.”

Señora Violetta gasped. “Oh dear, oh dear!” she exclaimed. “I have done something dreadful!”

“Please tell the whole story,” Senor Diaz urged.

A frightened look had come over the woman’s face, but she went on, “Señor Sanchez told me that he did not want to bother taking the plaque all the way home. He wondered if I would be interested in buying it.”

“And you did?” Nancy asked.

The shop owner shook her head. “At the time Senor Sanchez was here a customer walked in. She is an avid antique collector and recognized the plaque as a valuable curio.

“Hearing that he wanted to sell the plaque, she asked him how much he wanted for it. When he said a hundred and fifty dollars, she bought it and gave him cash. In turn she handed me ten dollars as my commission.”

Señor Diaz asked why the customer had not taken the plaque with her.

“She did not want to bother carrying the plaque up to her room just then,” Senora Violetta replied, “and asked me to keep it overnight.”

Nancy asked what Manuel Sanchez looked like. The woman described the man as having red hair and small features, and wearing a black-and-white checked sports jacket.

At once a thought came to Nancy. The man she had seen talking to the caddie had worn a black-and-white checked coat! His hat had been pulled down so far, she had not noticed the color of his hair. It was quite possible he had unhitched the ox, and bribed the boy to slap the beast with a stick if Nancy or one of the other girls should get on its back.

“A runaway or an accident would keep us from our rooms for some time,” Nancy thought. “This would give Sanchez a chance to go to my bedroom. He let himself in with a skeleton key, hunted for the plaque, and took it.”

Nancy figured that he probably had quickly made detailed drawings or even taken photographs of the plaque. Then, worried about an alarm over the theft, he felt it best to get rid of the stolen property.

“Pretty clever of him to have thought of the gift shop,” Nancy said to herself. “And what a surprise he’s in for when the management questions him.”

She said to Señor Diaz, “What is the number of Señor Sanchez’s room? You’re going to have him arrested at once, aren’t you?”

The man nodded vigorously. As he went to the desk to look in the guest register, Señora Violetta handed Nancy the plaque.

“I am sure your friend will be relieved to see this. And I certainly hope the police can get back my customer’s hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I hope so too,” said Nancy, and hurried off.

When she reached the desk, Señor Diaz had just finished checking the guest list. He turned to Nancy and said in a worried voice, “No Ma nuel Sanchez has been registered here.”

Nancy panicked. The thief had vanished and no doubt had all the necessary information to solve the mystery of the crossword cipher before she could do so!

The young sleuth climbed the stairway and was calm again by the time she opened the door to her bedroom. “Good news!” she cried out happily, and presented the plaque to the tear-stained Carla.

“Oh, Nancy, where did you find it?”

Nancy quickly related the story and told of her worry about Manuel Sanchez having all the information he wanted. “He must be an accomplice of Luis Llosa and Harry Wallace.”

George said with determination, “Let’s see to it that we beat that gang at their own game!”

Just before dinnertime two police officers arrived to question Carla and the other girls, as well as the shop owner. They had also notified the woman who had purchased the plaque from Sanchez, and reported that she was very angry about the whole affair. She was demanding that the hotel give her back the hundred and fifty dollars she had spent.

“Of course you are not concerned in that part of the case,” one of the officers told the girls. “We will let you know if we apprehend Sanchez. Can you tell us anything that might help solve this mystery?”

Nancy revealed her suspicions that there might be a liaison between Sanchez and Luis Llosa. She also mentioned that the two possibly had some connection with Harry Wallace of New York because of their interest in the plaque. The officers thanked her and left. No word came from the police that night or early the next morning, and Carla was discouraged.

Trying to be cheerful, Bess said, “That horrible Sanchez is probably thousands of miles from here by now. And good riddance. Then he won’t bother us again.” All the girls began to feel a sense of relief.

Nancy decided to take the plaque to the arrayánes forest and show the carvings to the guard there. She might get a clue from him!

At ten o’clock the four friends went aboard the launch. It had a cabin to accommodate about twenty people and an open aft deck. The pilot’s compartment, which opened directly from the cabin, was reached by a short ladder. The day was cloudy and cool, with beautiful clouds scudding through the sky.

The crowd on board was jolly and the girls soon became acquainted with a delightful couple from England. The husband was a camera bug like Bess, and the two snapped picture after picture of the many snow-capped mountains on either side of the lake.

After the launch had been cruising for about half an hour, it began to slow down. Finally the engines stopped. After a long wait the pilot left his seat and came to call back into the cabin. “Sin gasolina,” he announced.

“No gas!” several of the Americans exclaimed, and Carla added, “What will we do?”

A broad grin came over the pilot’s face. He rattled off something in Spanish. Carla turned to the girls and translated.

“He said, ‘Who would like to swim to shore for help?’ ”

CHAPTER VII

Another Challenge

AT the pilot’s facetious request, many of the passengers in the cabin of the launch began to laugh. Others were angry that they were stranded in the middle of Lake Nahuel Huapi.

“There is no excuse for this,” said one woman.

“We may have a long, long wait before help comes!” another burst out.