Read The Secret of the Wooden Lady Online

Authors: Carolyn Keene

Tags: #Women Detectives, #Detective and Mystery Stories, #Girls & Women, #Mystery & Detective, #Boats and Boating, #Juvenile Fiction, #Adventure and Adventurers, #Girl Detectives, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Fiction, #Ghost Stories, #Mystery Fiction, #Mystery Stories, #Mystery and Detective Storeis, #Boston Harbor (Mass.), #Drew; Nancy (Fictitious Character), #Ghosts, #Clipper Ships, #Figureheads of Ships, #Mystery and Detective Stories

The Secret of the Wooden Lady (11 page)

BOOK: The Secret of the Wooden Lady
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Nancy was too excited to eat any more breakfast. She said the next thing to do was look for further clues to check the carving in the galley.
“We’ll investigate every piece of furniture on the ship,” she told Captain Easterly.
“Let’s begin here,” George suggested, turning a chair upside down.
They went over the ship’s furniture carefully but found no lettering. Then they took the cabins, one by one. George climbed into the upper bunks and looked at the woodwork, and Nancy turned her flashlight into old wardrobes and cupboards.
After an hour of strenuous work they had found nothing. Captain Easterly, weary and perspiring, called a halt.
As Bess dropped into a deck chair, her face streaked with dust, and her hair hanging in damp strings, she groaned, “I give up.”
Even George looked discouraged, but Nancy was eager to continue the search.
“The crew’s sleeping quarters are next,” she said. “They must have had a lot of time on their hands in the forecastle,” Nancy reflected. “Lying in their bunks thinking of nothing in particular, the men might have carved things on the timbers of the hull.”
George, her interest rekindled, started for the companionway. “Let’s have a look,” she said.
Bess closed her eyes and leaned back. “You can tell me about it,” she said.
They left her on deck and went below with the captain. The forecastle had a musty smell, but it was cool.
Nancy and George turned their flashlights on the seasoned old timbers. “Just look at the things cut into the wood!” George exclaimed.
There were initials and names, hearts and anchors, and the roughly carved outlines of a woman’s face.
“Here it is!” Nancy cried out.
“Dream of Melissa-all
spelled out.” She held her light on the spot and Captain Easterly stared.
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” he said eagerly. “So this old clipper really is the Dream
of Melissa!”
Nancy smiled at the skipper. “Now it won’t be hard to clear up the title.”
Captain Easterly looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out somebody other than Mr. Farnsworth owns the clipper, and won’t sell it to me.” The man heaved a great sigh. “I’d sure hate to lose her at this point. I’ve grown mighty fond of the Bonny
Scot.”
Nancy felt that she should get in touch with her father at once, and said she would go ashore to telephone him, as well as notify the police that Flip Fay had been aboard.
“Maybe Dad came across the name Dream of
Melissa
in his search,” she added.
Bess and George went with her. Mr. Drew was just leaving his River Heights office to go to court, but he waited to hear his daughter’s astounding report.
“Fine work, my dear,” he said. “Yes, I came upon a record of the Dream of Melissa but not her captain’s name. Hold on. I’ll see if I have any notes on her.” The lawyer left the telephone a few minutes. When he came back, he said, “The
Dream of Melissa
is listed as a lost clipper belonging to the Eastern Shore Shipping Company. I’ll get in touch with them at once and wire you what they say.”
When Nancy hung up, she repeated the conversation to Bess and George. After calling State Police headquarters to report on The Crow, the girls bought some fresh vegetables, fruit, and a steak. Returning to the clipper, they found Captain Easterly dozing in his chair on deck. He opened one eye.
“Anything new?” he asked. “Did you get your father, Nancy?”
Upon hearing that the ship originally had belonged to the Eastern Shore Shipping Company, the elderly man became glum. He was sure they soon would put him off the clipper.
“Dad will fix things up,” Nancy told him encouragingly. “Don’t worry.”
She watched eagerly for someone to deliver a telegram. About two o’clock the captain pointed over the port rail. A rowboat was approaching the clipper. At the oars was a boy in faded blue overalls. The three girls leaned on the rail, and as he came close, Nancy called:
“Ahoy there!”
“Miss Nancy Drew here?” the boy asked.
“I’m Nancy Drew.”
The youngster rested on the oars. “I’ve got a telegram and a package for you,” he said.
Nancy dropped a line over the side, and the boy tied the box to it, with the telegram under the string, and watched her haul it up. Then he started to row away.
“Wait!” Nancy called, seeing no sender’s name on the package. “Who sent the box?”
“I dunno,” the boy answered with a shrug. He rowed quickly back toward shore.
The captain, who had now come to the rail, looked curiously at the parcel. “You must have an admirer, Nancy,” he teased.
Nancy smiled. “Dad must have ordered a surprise,” she said, turning the box over. “He’s always—Oh, my goodness!”
On the bottom of the box, crudely drawn in heavy black pencil, were a skull and crossbones!
“Be careful,” Captain Easterly said quickly. “This doesn’t look like a friendly gift.”
Suddenly they heard a faint sound of movement inside the pasteboard.
Bess drew back. “Nancy,” she whispered, “it’s something alive. Look at the little air holes in the end.”
Nancy borrowed the captain’s knife and gingerly cut the string. As she opened the box, Bess screamed.
A green lizard lifted its head and flicked its tiny tongue.
“Don’t touch that thing!” Captain Easterly shouted. “It means death!”
CHAPTER XV
Hidden Treasure
CAPTAIN Easterly seized the box, clapped the lid on, and threw it overboard. Breathing hard, he watched it toss about a few seconds, then start to sink. He turned to the astonished girls, a sheepish expression on his face.
“I suppose you’ll think I’m a superstitious old man when you learn why I did that. We men of the sea pick up some strange stories. There’s one in the Far East that if a certain kind of lizard crawls toward a man he’s doomed to die.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Bess quavered. “Nancy, we’d better leave right away!”
“Don’t be silly,” George scolded her cousin. “Why, that poor little lizard was as harmless as a mouse. Anyway, this isn’t the Far East.”
“Maybe the telegram will explain who sent it,” said Nancy, ripping open the envelope.
Nancy read aloud the message which proved to be from her father and had no connection with the package. Mr. Drew had had a long telephone conversation with Mr. Ogden of the Eastern Shore Shipping Company. Mr. Ogden had been amazed to learn their long-lost clipper, the
Dream of Melissa,
had turned up. He was coming from Maryland in a few days to find out about it. He would be very appreciative if Captain Easterly remained in charge and Nancy and her friends stayed with him.
“That settles it, Bess,” George spoke up when Nancy read the instructions. “We’re staying. You know what I’m going to do? Hunt up that boy who brought the lizard and make him tell me who gave him the job of delivering it.”
“I’ll bet it was either Flip Fay or old Grizzle Face,” Bess asserted.
Captain Easterly had walked off a distance. He stood looking southward. Nancy knew he felt sad about the turn of events. She guessed that he was afraid of legal difficulties in connection with buying the clipper, and that the company would put a price on it which he could not afford to pay.
“I’m sure Dad will come back on this case as soon as he can, and work things out,” Nancy told him.
To get the captain’s mind off his worry, George added, “Why don’t we get to work on your cabin, Captain, and repair some of that damage?”
“You girls are a tonic for an old fellow,” he said, smiling. “I’ll do the work myself, and you girls solve the mysteries.”
Nancy’s eyes danced with excitement. “I’m going to Provincetown. The Dream of Melissa sailed from there on her last known voyage, you recall.”
The captain looked at her quizzically. “Think you can find somebody who’s heard of her?”
“I’m going to try.”
Bess remained aboard. As Nancy and George set off in the rowboat, Bess called, “Be careful, won’t you?”
They promised. In town the girls separated. Nancy caught a bus for Provincetown.
As she rode along the beautiful coast in the bright summer afternoon, Nancy’s brain was in a whirl of deductions about the Dream of Melissa. Someone in Provincetown must have been waiting for Captain Rogers to return. A sweetheart, a wife? Perhaps he had children. Would any of their descendants remember the story?
When she stepped from the bus, Nancy gasped in delight at the quaint old town. No wonder so many artists came here to paint the weathered houses, the flower gardens, the little shops, the old fishing boats tied up at the wharves.
Nancy did not know where to begin asking questions. Perhaps if she wandered along the water’s edge she would meet someone who looked as though he might know a few answers.
The first person she came to was a white-haired man in a blue smock, seated on a canvas stool. He was sketching the outlines of a dilapidated shed. She watched him a moment.
“Do you paint, young lady?” he asked as he looked up, smiling.
“Not very well,” Nancy confessed.
From that small beginning they entered into a conversation. The painter, John Singleton, told Nancy that he had been coming to Provincetown every summer for many, many years.
“Then you must know something of the town’s history,” Nancy said. “Did you ever hear of a clipper ship called the
Dream of Melissa ?
Or of Captain Perry Rogers?”
The artist frowned, as if he were trying to remember something. “Seems to me old Mrs. Mathilda Smythe has a story about a Captain Rogers—or was it Roberts? Beats me. Why don’t you go talk to Mrs. Smythe, anyway?”
“I will,” Nancy said earnestly, and asked where she could find her.
The artist gave the address of the elderly widow and told Nancy to mention his name. Nancy found the gray-shingled cottage and knocked on the door. In a moment a fragile old lady of eighty opened it. Nancy introduced herself, and explained why she had come.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Smythe said cordially. “Please come in.”
Nancy followed her into the spotless parlor, and told her briefly about the
Dream of Melissa
and Captain Rogers.
“Captain Perry Rogers!” Mrs. Smythe exclaimed. “My mother nearly married him.”
“Really?” Nancy was excited. “Please tell me the story, Mrs. Smythe.”
The old woman sat forward in her rocking chair and cradled her hands in her lap.
“Captain Rogers fell in love with my mother, Mathilda Witherspoon,” Mrs. Smythe said slowly. “She was only sixteen. Captain Rogers was a good bit older, and her family opposed the marriage. But Mother and the captain were very much in love. They planned to marry secretly as soon as he returned from the voyage to India.”
“But he never came back?” Nancy asked. Mrs. Smythe shook her head sadly. “My mother never heard from him again. She waited and waited, hoping some news would come. At last she married Father. And a fine man he was too, mind you.”
“Did anyone ever learn anything about the ship?” Nancy asked. “Was the
Melissa
wrecked?”
“No one knows, Miss Drew. from that day to this, nobody has ever found a trace of the ship or her cargo.”
The old lady rocked gently, looking into space. She pursed her lips and gave a little smile. Nancy felt she was about to be let in on a secret.
“Captain Rogers made Mother a promise.”
“What sort of promise?” Nancy prompted.
“He said he would bring her back a priceless gift. She didn’t know what it was. But Captain Rogers was a rich man. He made many profitable voyages to the Orient.”
Nancy asked eagerly, “Didn’t your mother ever guess what the gift might have been?”
“No, I’m afraid not. At any rate, in the stories I heard, the treasure was always something mysterious.” She smiled wistfully. “Perhaps if the
Melissa
had returned, and Captain Rogers had married Mother, there would be money today to pay the taxes on this house. It’s the old Witherspoon homestead, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose it.”
Nancy longed to tell Mrs. Smythe of the
Bonny Scot
—that it was almost certainly the long-lost
Dream of Melissa.
But she did not want to raise the woman’s hopes of finding Captain Rogers’ fabulous gift.
She did tell her, however, about the snuffbox with the initials P. R., and how it had led her to the story of Captain Rogers and his ship.
“If I ever find that snuffbox again,” Nancy promised Mrs. Smythe, “I’ll bring it here to show you.”
She said good-by and hurried to catch a bus back to meet George. She could scarcely wait to tell her and the others aboard the clipper that there really had been a treasure on the
Dream of Melissa.
“And no doubt it’s still there!” Nancy finished telling George as the two girls rowed back to the ship.
“And if we don’t look out, the thieves will find it before we do,” George said seriously. “Listen to this.”
She said that through the owner of the grocery-hardware store, she had located the boy who had delivered the lizard. At first he had not been willing to answer George’s questions. But after being told that Captain Easterly thought there was a poisonous lizard in the box, the boy had talked freely, assuring George he had not known what was in the box.
“Big, tall guy I’d seen in the drugstore when I was gettin’ a soda, come up to me on the beach,” the boy said. “Told me he wanted to play a joke on a girl on the Bonny Scot. Paid me well for taking the box.”
George said he had not learned the name of the man who had been hanging around town, so she had accompanied the boy on a tour of the streets to find him. Having no luck, they went to the drugstore. George had learned from the description that the suspect had had a prescription filled under the name of Lane.
“Lane!” Nancy exclaimed. “The man who kidnapped Captain Easterly!”
BOOK: The Secret of the Wooden Lady
5.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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