The Caribbean Cruise Caper (8 page)

“What made you look there?” Lisa asked.

“I was sure something had been put in the food,” Boris replied. “I didn't think the trickster would risk leaving evidence in the galley. But I didn't think whoever it was would want to carry it very far either. So I looked near the galley, and there it was.”

“That was very bright,” Sylvie burbled.

“And very convenient,” Jason said sourly. “It's almost as if you knew where to look.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Boris demanded, clenching his fists, his biceps bulging.

“Oh, nothing,” Jason said. “So you spotted it in the wastebasket and you just reached in and picked it up. Didn't you ever hear of fingerprints?”

“Sure I have, wiseguy,” Boris retorted. He gave Jason a narrow-eyed stare. “Everybody has. Including whoever put that stuff in the dessert. I figured he must have taken precautions.”

“And in case he didn't,” Jason pursued, “you made sure that
your
fingerprints were all over the bottle. Not to mention Joe's and Frank's.”

Boris gave a low growl and started around the table toward Jason.

Joe quickly blocked his way. “Take it easy,” he said. “Don't let him get to you.”

“He'd better not let
me
get to
him,”
Boris threatened. “When I'm done with him, he'll look like a pretzel!”

Bettina rapped her spoon against the table. “Stop it right now, all of you,” she commanded. “I want no more taunts. Joe, Frank—you were starting to ask some very good questions. Please go on.”

“Well . . .” Frank said. “There's one obvious question.
Why
did Boris find that bottle?”

Boris let out another growl. Frank held up a hand and said, “No, wait. What I'm getting at is this. There are thousands of square miles of open sea around us. If I wanted to get rid of something, I'd toss it over the side. Poof—gone forever. Why throw it in a wastebasket, where somebody might—where somebody
did
—find it?”

Cesar spoke up. “Simple as A-B-C. Because you want it to be found.”

“And for a simple, twisted reason,” Sylvie said. Her voice trembled with emotion. “This person wants us to know he is playing tricks on us. He wants us to believe he will play more and worse tricks. He wants to shake us up so we will not do so well in the contest.”

For the last twenty minutes, Kenneth had been prowling the room, snapping candid shots of everyone. Now, to Joe's surprise, he spoke. “You're saying it's one of the other contestants?”

For a moment Sylvie looked confused. “I'm not accusing anyone,” she insisted. “I don't know who's in back of this. But whoever it is, I think he gets a kick out of seeing us puzzled and upset. And I think that is really nasty!”

“I thoroughly agree, Sylvie,” Bettina said. “Ordering those pizzas I can excuse as a juvenile prank. But jeopardizing people's health, even slightly, is another matter. You are all the guests of
Teenway.
If anything happens to you, the good name of
Teenway
is in danger. I won't have that. If these tricks do not stop at once, I shall have to think very seriously about canceling the contest and sending you all home early.”

A shocked silence followed this declaration. Bettina looked around the table at each of the teens. Then she walked out of the room.

After that no one was in the mood to socialize. One by one, the contest finalists mumbled good night and drifted away. The Hardys were left with Lisa, Kenneth, and Arnie.

Arnie picked up the big glass bowl. “That compote was primo,” he said regretfully. He started toward the door to the galley. “Why couldn't he have put that gunk in something like clam dip instead?”

Arnie left. “Let's go outside,” Lisa said. “Maybe there's a moon.”

The four went to the aft deck. The sky was lit with stars, but no moon. Joe recalled that he wanted to ask Kenneth about that afternoon. “You came back to the boat early, didn't you?” he said.

“Yes. I hadn't carried enough film into town,” Kenneth replied. “I came back for more. Why?”

“You know the phone in the foyer?” Joe continued. “Did you notice anybody using it?”

Kenneth thought. “No. But I was just here for as long as it took to run down to my cabin, grab more film, and split.”

Lisa lifted her recorder a little higher as she asked, “Well, Joe and Frank Hardy, do you have a lead as to the identity of the pizza maniac?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “No comment, as usual,” he said. “Don't you ever put that thing away?”

“Sure.” Lisa grinned. “When I've got my story!”

Joe and Frank kept at Kenneth, but they soon decided he probably didn't know anything relevant. A little later the crew anchored the boat for the night in the lee of a small island. Frank and Joe watched, then went down to their cabin to turn in.

Some time later Joe suddenly woke up. He lay on his bunk in the darkness, listening intently. Something had disturbed him. What?

After a few moments he heard furtive scraping sounds. His mental map told him they were coming from the corridor just outside the door to their cabin. Could it be the burglar returning? Or paying a visit to one of the other cabins?

Stealthily Joe pushed back the covers and stood up. He tiptoed across the dark cabin, felt his way along the wall to the door, and opened it a crack. The light in the corridor, which was left on all the time, was off. A bad sign—someone must have unscrewed a bulb.

A faint, almost indetectable glimmer of light came down the companionway from the main deck. Joe walked silently along the corridor toward it. Suddenly a shape loomed up in front of him, cutting off the light. He sensed, more than saw, two hands reaching out to grab him.

The instant he realized that he was under attack, Joe tucked his chin into his chest and dropped into a crouch. Reaching up, he closed both hands around one of his attacker's wrists. Then he did a half spin on the ball of one foot. His opponent's extended arm was now trapped against the fulcrum of his right shoulder. He took a deep breath and prepared to use the power of his thigh muscles to execute a full shoulder throw. Even as he did, he wondered why the other guy was hanging limp instead of resisting.

“Joe, hold on, it's me!” a familiar voice said in his ear. At the same time a hand grabbed the waistband of his pajamas at the back. This was a standard counter to his move. If he went ahead with the throw, he would find himself being pulled along with his opponent.

“Frank? What are you doing here?” Joe asked softly. He released his brother's wrist and straightened up.

“I heard a suspicious noise and got up to check it out,” Frank replied, keeping his voice pitched low. “I saw a flickering light up on the main deck, near the head of the stairs. I went to see who it was, but by the time I got there the person had disappeared. What about you?”

“Same as you,” Joe said. “But in my case the suspicious noise was you. Did you turn out the hall light?”

“No, it was like that when I came out of our room,” Frank said. “I tried the switch. No go. The bulb must be unscrewed.”

“So we're not dealing with somebody who just decided to get a midnight snack,” Joe remarked.

“No way,” Frank told him. “Do you remember where we put the flashlight? I want a closer look at the area near the head of the stairs.”

The Hardys found their flashlight and climbed up to the main deck. They searched the foyer and the passage that led to the salon and dining area. They checked the washroom where Boris had found the ipecac bottle. They peered into the galley. Nothing seemed out of place anywhere.

They returned to the head of the companionway.

“Maybe it was just an insomniac after all,” Joe said, disgusted.

“An insomniac with a phobia about lightbulbs?” Frank replied. “I don't think so.”

“Well, whatever he or she was up to, no traces were left,” Joe said. “Let's take another look in the morning.”

“I guess you're right,” Frank said. He waved the flashlight around for one last look. His voice changed. “Joe—look!”

He had stopped the circle of light on the bulletin board. Crudely painted in black on the white cork surface was a skull and crossbones.

A superstitious thrill touched the back of Joe's neck and ran down his spine. After a moment he recovered his cool. He stepped forward and touched a fingertip to the bulletin board. It felt dry, but when he sniffed his finger there was a faint odor of paint solvent.

“It's pretty fresh,” he reported.

“It has to be,” Frank replied. “We would have noticed if it had been there when we went to bed.”

“A skull and crossbones,” Joe mused. “The symbol for poison. And this evening ipecac, stuff that's used in poisoning cases, turned up in the dessert.”

Joe paused and stared at the sinister drawing. It seemed to expand to fill his field of vision.

“You know what, Frank?” he continued. “Maybe whoever painted this is the same person who doctored the dessert. I bet this is meant as a threat. It's a warning. The message is, next time they'll use something more harmful than ipecac syrup. Something really poisonous.”

“Could be,” Frank said. “I can think of another
explanation, though. And it's one I like even less than yours.”

“What's that?” Joe asked.

Frank cleared his throat. “A couple of hundred years ago this area we're cruising around was infested with bloodthirsty pirates. People like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who preyed on innocent sailors and travelers, plundering and killing them. And what was the flag the pirates used? The Skull and Crossbones!”

There was a tense silence. Joe turned his face away from the menacing symbol. As he did, something on the deck caught his eye. It was small and black. He bent down to pick it up. Then he held it out to show to Frank. It was a plastic spider.

“I remember back in grade school,” Joe said, “I spent a lot of time drawing a skull and crossbones on the cover of my looseleaf notebook. I must have been about the same age as Evan is now.”

“I probably did the same,” Frank admitted. “Lots of kids do. But there's a difference between drawing something on your own notebook and painting it on somebody else's wall. Can you really see a kid like Evan sneaking out of his cabin in the middle of the night to spray a pirate symbol on the bulletin board?”

“Well, no, I guess not,” Joe said. “And I can't see how he would reach the lightbulbs to unscrew them, either. So maybe Evan dropped a spider here at some other time. Or maybe the prankster deliberately left the spider near the drawing to try to pin
the blame on Evan. That would be a really dirty trick.”

“Or the prankster could have dropped it by accident,” Frank pointed out. “But let's say the same person who painted this put the ipecac in the fruit. Finding this spider here makes it look pretty likely that he stuck the spiders on the cake yesterday, too. And if that's so, it means that once we've solved one puzzle, we'll have solved them all.”

Joe held back a yawn. “The sooner the better,” he said. “I wouldn't mind having a little time to enjoy the cruise.”

• • •

Morning came quickly. Just after dawn the boat weighed anchor and started toward its next destination. When the Hardys passed the bulletin board on the way to breakfast, Joe saw that the skull and crossbones had vanished under a fresh coat of white paint. Captain Mathieson obviously ran a tight ship.

After breakfast everyone gathered in the salon. It was time for the second round of the teen-detective contest. David walked to the center of the room. He had a stack of booklets under one arm.

“This morning's trial is a little different,” he announced. “For one thing, we haven't attempted to stage it, not even on tape. For another, the focus is on the testimony of witnesses rather than physical evidence. In fact, what I've tried to do is give you something like a classic ‘fair play' detective story.”

“Oh no,” Sylvie groaned. “You mean with timetables?
Who did what when? I always skip over those chapters. They just confuse me.”

“I don't skip those chapters, I skip the whole book,” Jason bragged. “Action, excitement, that's what counts. Not all this intellectual hoo-ha.”

Joe saw David's smile flicker.

“I do not agree,” Boris said. “The clash of witnesses is exciting. The moment when you see how to prove that someone is lying—that is a thrill.”

“I hope you'll find this morning thrilling,” David said, cutting short the discussion. “Here is the situation. A famous museum has just held a reception for its most important contributors. Afterward the director discovers that a small but priceless sculpture is missing. She asks you to figure out who took it, without disturbing any innocent contributors or causing a scandal.”

Cesar laughed. “I get it. The title of this story is ‘Don't Dog the Fat Cats.' ”

David ignored Cesar's joke. He held up one of the booklets. “In here you'll find a floor plan of the exhibit and a series of statements by people who were at the reception. You have one hour to read the material, think it over, and decide who the thief is. Guessing won't do the job. You have to say how you identified the guilty party, citing evidence from the booklet. Any questions?”

“Can we use reference materials?” Boris asked.

“All the information you need is in the booklet,” David told him. “Anything else? All right. Good luck.”

The five finalists took their booklets and fanned out to different parts of the boat. Joe and Frank used this free period to make notes about all the incidents on the voyage so far.

They also found time to talk with Evan. They dropped casual mentions of pirates, poisons, and skulls into the conversation. Evan did not show even a flicker of fear or self-consciousness. Frank looked over at Joe and gave a slight shake of his head. Whoever had defaced the bulletin board, it was clearly not Evan.