The Clue in the Crossword Cipher Read online

  “I do not know what this is intended for,” he said.

  The piece was about eight inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick, with a tube inside the center of it.

  “This is about the size and shape of handles of some of our salad forks and spoons, but we always keep them solid,” Senor Velez said.

  “I found the wood under Luis Llosa’s bench, so I suppose it’s his,” Nancy told him.

  The shop owner frowned even more deeply. “No doubt, but this wood did not come from my purchases. It is arrayánes.”

  “What!” Nancy exclaimed.

  “That is right,” the craftsman told her. “I cannot understand. Luis must have brought it here. I intend to ask him when he returns.” Señor Velez put the piece into his pocket.

  Nancy’s mind was already filled with speculations about Llosa’s work. She said, “Maybe he intended to put something inside the handle.”

  “Perhaps,” Senor Velez conceded. “But what? I will certainly make him tell me.”

  On the way home Nancy told the other girls of her discovery. Instantly George said, “I’m sure he’s up to no good.”

  That evening Carla had arranged a delightful party for the North American girls to meet some of her Peruvian friends.

  “It was wonderful and I enjoyed getting to know your friends,” Nancy told Carla after the guests had left.

  “And what marvelous dancers!” Bess exclaimed. “Oh, I could live here forever!”

  “And have Dave down here fighting duels?” George grinned.

  Before leaving for Cuzco the next day, Nancy telephoned Señor Velez. She found him upset. “My assistant has not come back and has sent no word. I called his home to find out why, but nobody was there.”

  Nancy asked the shop owner if he had missed anything from his place of business. Senor Velez admitted that he had not thought of checking but would look immediately. “Hold the phone, please.”

  Within two minutes he was back. “Luis has taken many of my tools! Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful! Some of them are very old and I cannot replace them!”

  “I am sorry,” Nancy said. “You will report the theft to the police, of course?”

  “Indeed. Indeed. And thank you, Miss Drew, for alerting me.”

  Bess, George, and the Ponces were sorry to hear what had happened. They hoped that the police would pick up Luis Llosa quickly.

  “I hope so too,” said Nancy. “I am also interested in how Llosa got his arrayánes wood and what he was doing with it. Remember the police in Bariloche found a quantity of similar wood in Wagner’s home. I feel sure he has been supplying Llosa with it.”

  “Of course,” said George. “They’re part of the same gang. The question is, What are they doing with this wood?”

  Carla’s mother said she was mortified that their old family mystery was causing such a furor.

  Her husband smiled. “My dear,” he said, “aren’t you pleased that these evildoers are being apprehended?”

  “Oh, yes,” Senora Ponce replied. “But I wish the girls could have more fun and less worry.”

  Nancy put the plaque in her suitcase, then Carla’s father drove the girls to the airport. The plane to Cuzco was an old type which was not pressurized.

  After it had been in the air a short while, the pilot announced that in order to go over the Andes they would have to fly at a great height, where the air was thin. The stewardess came to each passenger. She unfastened an oxygen tube from under the window and indicated that it was to be held near the mouth to keep from feeling faint.

  The scenery below was very beautiful— mountain crags, forests, and streams blended into a breath-taking panorama. About two and a half hours later the pilot announced that the oxygen tubes were no longer needed. The plane was coming down into Cuzco.

  The girls from River Heights, seeing the city from the air, were amazed at its size. They had expected it to be much smaller.

  “Imagine living in the mountains twelve thousand feet above sea level!” said Bess.

  “Yes,” George replied. “And I read in a guidebook this is known as a mountaintop valley. The people who lived here centuries ago were called ‘valley people.’ ”

  When the plane landed, the four girls found a taxi and Carla suggested that the driver take them for a quick tour around the city before going to the hotel.

  Fortunately he spoke English and evidently was quite experienced in lecturing to tourists. He began by pointing out the huge stones in the old foundations of buildings. “They were built by the Incas. When the Spanish came, they tore down temples and palaces but left the foundations and put their own buildings on top of them.”

  The driver smiled. “The sun god punished them, though. When an earthquake came, the Spanish buildings fell over, but the foundations remained.”

  Next, he showed the girls a narrow Incan street. Both sides of it had high stone walls and the driver stopped so the visitors could walk down a short distance to see the famous twelve-sided stone which was part of it. Each girl counted the sides and marveled at the way the ancient stonecutters had trimmed this enormous rock to accommodate the ones fitted around it.

  The young tourists noticed that all the stones were so perfectly fitted that there was not one single opening or crack between them. Not even an earthquake could damage this amazing artisanship!

  Presently the driver stopped again where a modern church had been built on the old Incan foundation. “This was where the Temple to the Sun once stood,” he explained. “Beyond it, at that time, was a beautiful park with trees, flowers, and golden statues. At the far end was a palace.”

  “How I wish,” said Nancy, “that I could have seen them!”

  The man smiled. “If you had been an Inca maiden, you would have been wearing a long, one-piece dress made of alpaca wool. Your hair would have been in long braids tied with many colored ribbons of wool. You would have worn sandals and perhaps a sash, as well as a long shawl to cover your head and hang far down the back.”

  “It sounds very attractive,” she remarked.

  “Perhaps you would like to buy such a dress for a souvenir,” the guide suggested.

  All the girls wanted Incan dresses, so he took them to a shop where they purchased colorful shifts, two with zigzagging patterns in red and black, two with a llama design woven into the cloth.

  “I can’t wait to wear mine at a party back home,” Bess said, giggling.

  When the shopping was completed, the driver took the girls to their hotel and warned them to “take it easy.” “You would not want to get altitude sickness,” he said, smiling. “Walk slowly while you are here.”

  They thanked him for the advice, but as soon as the girls had had lunch, Nancy said she thought they should find the old Indian Maponhni. She learned from the desk clerk that the Indian was well known and he directed the girls to the elderly man’s home. It was on a side street and proved to be of rather modem construction.

  Carla smiled. “I half expected that Maponhni would be living in a stone hut with a thatched roof. But the Indians who live here today are quite modern. Many of them have transistor radios and are no longer isolated from the rest of the world.”

  Nancy knocked on the door and it was opened by a pleasant-looking man, definitely a descendant of the Incas. He was of medium height, somewhat portly, and had large hands with small wrists. His head was broad, and he had high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. The man’s eyes were somewhat almond-shaped, like an Oriental’s, and his expression kindly and humorous.

  “Senor Maponhni?” Nancy asked.

  The Indian grinned. “Munanki! Imaynan caskianqui.”

  Nancy’s eyes twinkled. “Hucclla,” she replied. “Yusul paiki.”

  Maponhni looked stunned. In English he said, “You speak Quechua? Please come in, all of you.”

  Nancy laughed and told him that they had heard about him from the guard at the arrayánes forest and that he had taught them the words. “He said you know more about Inca his
tory than anyone else.”

  “He flatters me,” the Indian said. “But I will be happy to answer your questions.”

  Nancy, who was carrying the plaque, now unwrapped it. Carla told of the ancient mystery.

  “We thought you might help us figure out the crossword cipher.”

  Maponhni started to examine the monkey side of the plaque. Suddenly everyone noticed that all the objects in the room were shaking.

  The Indian laid the plaque on a table. When it nearly fell off, Nancy grabbed the plaque. The old man had begun to chant in Quechua.

  “What’s happening?” Bess asked, looking around fearfully.

  Carla’s face was pale. “An earthquake!” she gasped.

  CHAPTER XII

  The Boy Spy

  As the earth tremors continued, Maponhni stopped his chanting and motioned for the others to follow him. Quickly he led the way into the kitchen and said this was an original Incan building with a modern roof.

  “We will be safe here, I think,” he told them. “The old walls are sturdy.”

  From outside came the cries of people and the sound of objects falling. The girls followed the man’s example of sitting cross-legged on the floor. No one spoke. All were too tense to do anything but wait. Then abruptly the shaking stopped.

  Everyone heaved a sigh of relief and Carla said, “I hope this will not be followed by another quake.”

  Maponhni said quietly, “Who knows? But I think it is over.”

  Everyone was eager to go to the street and see what had happened.

  “Be careful where you step,” the Indian warned.

  Just outside the front door a boy about fifteen years old was lying on the ground, swaying from side to side and mumbling.

  “You’re safe now,” Nancy said to him kindly.

  The boy’s eyes were closed and he paid no attention to her. He kept on muttering the same thing over and over.

  “What is he saying?” Bess asked the Indian.

  Maponhni looked puzzled. “He is saying, ‘Oh, Cat, I must stop. The sun god has sent this sign. You say the girl is a spy? ... No, no. Go away, Cat. I will do nothing more for you.’ ”

  “That’s a lot of gibberish,” George remarked. “What does he mean?”

  “I do not know,” Maponhni replied.

  He shook the boy, who finally opened his eyes. He looked around dazedly as the Indian helped him to his feet, then questioned him in Quechua.

  A sudden look of terror came into the youth’s eyes. He stared hard at the four girls, gave a little cry as if in pain, and ran off down the street as fast as he could.

  “Shall we chase him?” George asked.

  “Yes!” cried Nancy.

  Instantly Maponhni caught her arm. “No,” he said. “The boy has done no harm and you should not run in this rare atmosphere.”

  “But he may be connected with our mystery,” Carla stated. “He mentioned ‘cat’—”

  “We think this boy may be working for a man who calls himself El Gato,” Nancy explained. “He is wanted by your police. He intends to harm us. The boy may report to him where we are and what we’re doing!”

  “I am sorry I stopped you,” Maponhni said. “Now it is too late to find the boy.”

  Nancy asked the Indian if he had ever heard of a sinister character called El Gato.

  “No. And I did not recognize the boy who mumbled those strange words. I know every Indian in Cuzco,” he told the girls. “This boy is a stranger here.”

  “Then,” said Carla, “he might have been sent to Cuzco by El Gato.”

  Nancy agreed, but said that perhaps the earthquake had frightened him so much he would not do any more work for El Gato. She explained to Maponhni about Carla having received the anonymous note: Beware of the cat.

  “That is not good,” he said. “You girls take care.”

  The group went back to the house and once more the Indian looked at the plaque. He studied it for a long time, then finally confessed that he could make nothing out of either side.

  “I can tell you something, though, which may help you,” he said. “When I was a little boy I heard my great-grandmother tell a story which had been handed down in her family. It might concern your ancestor, Señorita Ponce.

  “The story was about a fine Spanish artist-adventurer who came first to Cuzco and then went to Machu Picchu. He was well received by the people there and enjoyed his work. But after a while they made him a prisoner. We did not hear why.

  “I do not know how long he was there,” Maponhni continued, “but it seems that he and an Indian companion escaped. They made their way here.

  “The Indian knew an Inca priest. He secretly befriended them. But when the priest tried to question the Spaniard about why he had been a prisoner, the artist refused to tell anything. Shortly afterward, he and the Indian disappeared. Nothing more was ever heard of them. Years later, when the Inca priest was dying, he confessed to helping the runaways.”

  “Did the story tell what the Spaniard’s name was?” Nancy asked. “Aguilar, perhaps?”

  Maponhni shook his head. “The name I heard was not Spanish, but Quechuan. I have even forgotten what that was, but probably a name the Indians gave him.”

  “Why,” Carla mused, “would the artist refuse to answer the Cuzco priest who befriended him?”

  All the girls surmised that it might be because the man had discovered a secret he was afraid to tell. Or was he trying to keep some special information to himself until he could contact his family in Lima?

  “Maybe,” Carla said thoughtfully, “this man was Aguilar.”

  “It’s quite possible,” said Nancy. “After all, there were many adventurers at that time, but my guess is that a European artist in these parts was unusual.”

  Maponhni nodded. “You say you think this plaque indicates something valuable like a treasure? What do you expect to find—Inca gold?”

  “Who knows?” George replied. “A really fabulous object may be buried somewhere. All we have to do is find the spot.”

  Maponhni advised them to spend a day or two at the ruins of Machu Picchu. “What destroyed the city is a great mystery. I guess you know that. Maybe your treasure is buried there.”

  The girls thanked the Indian for his help. Before they left, he asked if he might take them the next day to see the ruins at Sacsahuaman. “They are just outside of town and an amazing sight. Sacsahuaman was originally a fort.”

  The girls said they would like very much to go and would be ready at ten o’clock.

  The following morning Maponhni came to their hotel with his car and they started off. When they reached the ruins, the visitors stood in awe.

  “How magnincent!” Nancy exclaimed, gazing at the high zigzagging stonework that formed the front of the fortress.

  Maponhni said the wide three-tiered wall, made entirely of huge limestone boulders, was sixty feet high and eighteen hundred feet long.

  “Some of these rocks weigh two hundred tons and were brought here without the aid of any kind of machinery. Men tumbled them end over end, using strong, slender tree trunks for leverage.”

  “How did the workmen get one rock on top of the other?” Bess asked.

  Maponhni said that great mounds of dirt were piled up and the stones rolled up them and put into place. “Then the mound would be made higher so the next rock could be raised to position.”

  “It’s a fantastic piece of engineering,” Nancy remarked. “I’d like to climb up and look around.” The others decided to try it also.

  “Go ahead, but be carefull” the Indian warned. “I will wait here.”

  While they had been talking, a car had driven into the far side of the grassy area. It continued in a huge semicircle and stopped near the end of the fortress wall, about five hundred feet from the girls.

  At first they thought there was only the driver, but suddenly a man arose from the rear seat and disappeared behind the last jog of the wall. He was carrying something half under his jacke
t, as if he were trying to conceal it.

  “What was he holding?” Carla asked.

  “It looked like a big can,” Nancy replied.

  The girls hunted for tiny worn places in the rocks as footholds to pull themselves up toward the first level of the fortress. Nancy reached it ahead of the others and hurried along the walkway. Eager to get to the top, she climbed to the second tier and was soon out of sight of the others.

  “What a place for a siege!” Nancy thought, gazing around, then she walked forward.

  Near the end of the wall she started downward in a slanting direction. When she was about twenty feet from the ground she heard a noise above her. She looked up just in time to glimpse a man’s leg disappearing around the adjoining bend in the zigzag wall.

  Suddenly Nancy gasped in astonishment. On a large rock above her was the newly painted, crude face of a bright-red cat!

  CHAPTER XIII

  El Gato

  THE cat again!

  “Maybe that man who painted it was El Gato himself, leaving his insigne!” Nancy thought.

  She tried to peer around the corner of the zigzag wall, but could not do so without losing her balance. “I wish I could see him!” she fumed.

  Wondering if he might have returned to his car, Nancy turned to gaze below. The driver was still there, but the other man was not in sight.

  Nancy changed her position to look upward again. She saw an arm poke itself around the corner. The arm disappeared for a second, then reappeared. This time the hand was holding a bucket with red paint dripping over the sides.

  Nancy was puzzled. “Is the man going to add to his picture?” she thought.

  As she stood fascinated by the prospect, the hand suddenly swung upward. With great force the hidden figure threw the bucket of red paint directly toward her.

  Nancy knew that she had to move in a hurry, but there was no place she could run from her precarious position! She must jump!

  Hoping to land on the soft grass below, Nancy leaped off the side of the fortress. It was a long jump. She took it gracefully, but landed with bone-jarring impact and sat down, breathless, without moving. The can now lay in a red gooey mass not far from her.