The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk Read online

  “Good idea,” George said, and the others agreed, eager to hear Nancy’s story.

  They went to the coffee shop, ordered sodas, and sat down at a corner table. While they were sipping the refreshing drinks, Nancy told them she had seen Otto August and a friend conversing in the finger language and spelling her name again.

  Nelda frowned. “I don’t like this. Those are evil men. Nancy, do be careful.”

  “I will be. But I haven’t told you the whole story.” She went on with the message she had figured out.

  “Hypers!” George exclaimed, when Nancy had finished. “That’s a new way to eavesdrop. Only one hitch. A lot of other words could end with nd besides find, which could change the meaning of the sentence. It could read: ‘CREW CAN HELP WIND NECKLACE—OR BIND.’ ”

  “I know,” Nancy admitted. “It’s a possibility. But in any case, there is no other meaning about my name. That was clear, and it was used twice.”

  Bess spoke up. “Obviously they know you’re an amateur detective and they’re worried about what you might do.”

  “Maybe so,” Nancy said. “By the way, what did you do with the napkins I borrowed from the dining-room steward? I had left them by your chair, George.”

  “I know.” George grinned. “We did a little sleuthing on our own with them.”

  She explained that they had taken the table napkins and experimented to see where they floated to from various points of the ship.

  “Did you come up with any conclusions?” Nancy asked eagerly.

  “We certainly did,” Bess replied. “One of them came down from the promenade deck right to where little Bobby found the mask.”

  Nancy was pleased. She added, “After the captain and Rod’s attackers fell down the stairs, they walked along the promenade deck and threw the masks overboard.”

  George nodded. “But why didn’t they discard their robes the same way?”

  Nelda said with a giggle, “Maybe they weren’t wearing any clothes underneath!”

  When the girls reached their cabin, Nelda found that the door had been left unlocked.

  “Heinrich must have been here and forgotten to lock up,” she said, opening the door. A moment later she screamed.

  The other girls crowded in close behind her and exclaimed in dismay at the sight before them.

  The room was a shambles!

  Every drawer had been pulled out and ransacked, all the beds were torn apart, and every bit of luggage had been opened, the contents strewn all over the floor.

  Nancy’s trunk had been yanked out and unpacked. Her clothes were scattered around.

  “This is dreadful!” Nelda burst out. “I wonder if anything was taken?”

  There was silence for a few minutes, while each girl looked for her own possessions to see if anything of value had been stolen from her luggage.

  Finally Bess spoke. “Those intruders were not looking for jewelry,” she said, “at least not my kind of costume jewelry.”

  Nelda added, “And they weren’t searching for money, either. Some extra bills I had hidden in another purse are still here.”

  “Oh, I’m so upset!” Bess wailed. “All this frightens me, but it’s even worse for you, Nancy and Nelda.”

  “Let’s call Heinrich and see what his reaction is,” Nancy suggested. “Maybe he can tell us if he noticed anyone here.” She picked up the telephone. Moments later the steward arrived.

  From the expression on his face they were sure that he was not guilty of taking part in the burglary

  “Ach! Ach!” he said, slapping a hand to his forehead. He went on speaking Dutch and the American girls could understand nothing he was saying. They stared at him, puzzled.

  “Please tell us what you said in English,” Nancy begged him.

  Heinrich was greatly disturbed. “I locked this door—I know I did—when I finished working in the room. Someone obviously has a passkey and got in here! Oh, what am I going to do? I know I will be blamed for this. But I really do not know who was here!”

  The room was a shambles !

  Nancy said she was sorry the steward could not help them, but did not blame him for what had happened. She told him so. “Please don’t worry about this.”

  “Thank you,” Heinrich said, and turned around, still shaking his head in disbelief. He closed the door and walked out into the corridor.

  George asked the other girls if they felt that the steward was telling the truth. All of them were sure he was.

  “In any case,” Nancy said, “the intruders did not find what they hoped to.”

  She stopped speaking and looked out the porthole at the smooth green ocean. For several moments she stood lost in thought. The others glanced at her, sure she would get some idea as to who the would-be thieves were. Certainly they had not been just mischief-makers!

  Mischief! At once Nancy thought of little Bobby. This was just the kind of joke he might play on the girls! “But how would he get in here?” she reasoned, and immediately dismissed the thought that Bobby might be the culprit. “This job was more than a prank,” she decided.

  Suddenly the girl detective turned around. “I just had a horrible idea,” she cried out. “If the intruders were the two men who were here before, looking for their trunk, maybe they found it and made a shambles of this room only as a cover-up!”

  “Oh, Nancy, you’re right!” George said. “Perhaps the other trunk is gone!”

  Quickly Nelda got the keys for the adjoining cabin. The girls opened the door leading from one twenty-eight to one thirty and Nancy hurried in, followed by her friends.

  The room was undisturbed. Hastily Nancy walked toward the wardrobe. Would the mysterious brass-bound trunk with the initials N.D. on it still be there?

  CHAPTER XIV

  Stolen Documents

  WHEN Nancy peered inside the wardrobe, she exclaimed, “Boy, am I relieved. The mystery trunk is still here!”

  “That means,” Bess said, “that the intruders have no idea that we have access to this cabin.”

  Nelda said, “Let’s take the trunk out and look for more treasure right now.”

  “I’d like to,” Nancy said, “but first, perhaps we should notify the captain about the break-in.”

  Nelda nodded. “I’ll call my uncle right away,” she offered, and went back into their own cabin to use the phone.

  The captain was not in his quarters, but a junior officer who was there answered and said he would locate Captain Detweiler so he could take care of the matter at once.

  While waiting for him to arrive, the girls carried the mystery trunk from the wardrobe. Nancy unlocked and opened it. Using all her fingers she felt the inside of the lid carefully. Suddenly the young detective paused.

  “George, look at this spot,” she said, “or rather, feel it. Right over here!”

  George knelt on the floor and touched the area Nancy had indicated. “It’s a bit lumpy in several places,” she announced.

  “That’s what I thought. I’m inclined to think something is hidden under here!”

  Bess and Nelda touched the places and were convinced that Nancy was on the right track.

  “Before you take off the paper, though,” Bess suggested, “maybe you’d better wait until someone comes about the break-in of our cabin.”

  “You’re right. Let’s go back into one twenty-eight and wait for whoever is coming.”

  The three girls put the trunk back into the wardrobe, then went into their own room. While waiting, they discussed what had happened. George said, “You have two real suspects, Nancy. Otto August and the person he was talking to in the finger language.”

  Bess agreed with her cousin and said, “I’m sure that they’re at least in league with whoever broke in here. In fact, they might have been the ones!”

  “That’s right,” Nancy agreed. “They could have done it after they left the deck and while we were in the coffee shop!”

  “But why did they tear up our room?” Nelda asked. “They could see the
trunk wasn’t in it.”

  “Maybe they thought we had found the jewels and hidden them in our cabin,” Nancy reasoned.

  “And since they didn’t find what they came for, they might even try it again,” George said with a shudder.

  Nancy nodded. “I have a horrible feeling that these people will stop at nothing!” she declared.

  Guesses and theories about the subject were propounded by each girl during the next ten minutes. Then a knock sounded on the corridor door. Rod Havelock stood there.

  “More trouble down here?” he asked.

  “Take a look yourself,” Nancy replied.

  The assistant purser stepped inside and gasped. “Wow!” he said. “Your intruder did a thorough job of pulling everything apart!”

  They closed the door and locked it, then walked forward.

  Nancy said, “We haven’t found any evidence as to who was here, but we have our suspicions.”

  “Is anything missing?” Rod asked.

  “Not that we know of so far,” George replied.

  In a low voice Nancy told Rod about their assumption that Otto August and his friend or other gang members who might be on board had been the intruders.

  “That would be very hard to prove,” the young man said. “You say there is no evidence?”

  Nancy now told him what she had figured out from the finger language Otto August and his confederate were using. “But neither man is deaf,” she stated. “I think they are part of a ring of jewel thieves who use the finger alphabet as a cover-up to communicate with one another for their operations.”

  Rod Havelock whistled. “Nancy, you may not have any real evidence, but you’re collecting a number of damaging clues.”

  “I hope they’ll lead to something in the end,” Nancy said.

  “I think we found something concrete in the trunk,” George said, and revealed that Nancy and her friends had already started to examine the mysterious piece of luggage again.

  “The inside of the lid has a number of lumps in it,” Nancy added. “Would you like to help us uncover whatever is there?”

  The assistant purser smiled. “I’d like nothing better. Let’s go to work!”

  Bess spoke up and said she could not live in their room the way it looked. “Suppose George, Nelda, and I clean it up while you two go into cabin one thirty and see what you can find?”

  Before entering the adjoining room, Rod suggested that the whole matter be kept secret. Bess revealed that Heinrich already knew about the break-in, but had denied knowing about any intruders and what they were doing. He declared he had not seen anyone come in or leave one twenty-eight after he had tidied the cabin.

  Rod said, “He probably has a bit of a guilty feeling, so I doubt that he’d talk. As for the rest of us, shall we say nothing about it to anyone else?”

  The others agreed, thinking it a wise idea. Bess grinned, “Mum’s the word.”

  Nancy and Havelock entered the adjoining cabin, took out the brass-bound trunk, and once more Nancy opened it. She showed her companion the uneven places she had discovered on the inside of the lid.

  “It seems suspicious,” the assistant purser remarked. “I wonder if there are more jewels under this flowered paper.”

  Nancy said, “I’ll get a steaming towel and a little chisel from the tool kit the captain lent me. The towel worked before, so I hope it will this time, too.”

  “Let’s try it,” Rod said, and Nancy went to get her equipment.

  Very carefully the girl detective began to peel off the paper at one end. The work was slow, so Rod got another towel. Using this and a penknife, he began to loosen the paper on the other end of the lid. Between the two of them, they made quick headway.

  Long before they finished, however, Bess, George, and Nelda had straightened out cabin one twenty-eight. They came in to watch.

  “You’re making progress,” Nelda remarked.

  Finally the paper was removed in sections. Underneath lay a thin sheet of plywood.

  Nancy now chose an awl from the captain’s kit and was able to pull up the plywood. Papers and documents tumbled from the lid into the trunk!

  “What do you suppose these are?” Bess asked. “Something important?”

  Rod picked up one of the papers, spread it out, and looked at the words intently.

  “It’s in Dutch,” he said. “I can read only a little of that language. Part of it is handwritten and I can’t figure it out. Nelda, how about your trying to translate it?”

  The girl from Johannesburg picked up paper after paper and read the contents. Several times she frowned as she finished one and put it down.

  “What do they say?” Bess asked impatiently.

  Nelda did not reply at once. She kept going from one document to another. Some seemed to be letters; others looked like business contracts.

  There was complete silence in the cabin for some time. Finally Nelda turned around and faced the others.

  Her voice was tense as she said, “These are secret papers that tell of a newly discovered diamond mine in South Africa. I judge that they have been stolen from the government offices in Johannesburg. They should not be in the hands of outsiders, especially jewel thieves!”

  Everyone in the room was astonished. Each had the same question. Had these letters and documents been stolen by the same people who put the jewels in the mystery trunk, or did the girls now have another mystery to solve?

  CHAPTER XV

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  As Nelda paused, Nancy asked, “How do you know the papers are secret?”

  The girl pointed. “See the small stamp in the left-hand corner of each one? It says so.”

  Rod Havelock whistled. “How in the world did they get into this trunk? Obviously they’re not being carried legitimately. But how does a jewel thief become involved with espionage?”

  No one answered the question, but Nancy said, “I think the papers should be put into the captain’s safe at once.”

  Everyone agreed. Rod looked at his watch. “I must go back on duty in a short time. Nancy, suppose you put the papers in a bag and we’ll carry them up to Captain Detweiler’s quarters.”

  Nancy smiled. “Good idea. And I’m glad of your protection. It’s possible that spies are watching us every time we leave our cabin. If I should go alone, one of the men might pounce on me and take the papers away.”

  The assistant purser nodded. He waited while she found a large beach bag into which she placed the letters and agreements. Then she zipped the bag shut.

  “If anyone is looking, I hope he thinks I’m going swimming,” Nancy said.

  Turning to the other girls, she asked them if they would put the trunk back in the wardrobe. “And lock all the doors and hide the keys,” she urged.

  “We’ll be glad to,” Nelda replied.

  As soon as Nancy and Rod were gone, George locked the door of cabin one twenty-eight on the inside. Then she went back to one thirty to help the other girls.

  Bess said, “What are we going to do with this soaking-wet flowered paper that Nancy and Rod took off the lid? We can’t put it back yet. It won’t stick.”

  “It certainly won’t,” Nelda agreed.

  “Let’s see if there is any room left under the bed,” George suggested. “That’s where we put it last time. When it’s all dry, we can come back and paste it into the trunk again.”

  “What if it shrinks?” Bess asked.

  The other girls had to admit that they had not thought of this.

  Nelda said, “I have a pressing iron with me.

  Do you think we dare attempt to iron the paper dry? Then it won’t shrink.”

  George and Bess were against attempting this. Bess added, “We don’t know how old it is, or what’s in it. The paper might burn.”

  The girls decided to hide the wet paper under the bed; then they locked everything and went back to cabin one twenty-eight.

  In the meantime, Nancy and Rod Havelock had been walking along the deck. In orde
r to fully protect her, the assistant purser took her arm and kept a sharp eye out for a possible attacker. Presently they saw little Bobby run out of the lounge near them.

  He stopped short, looked at the couple, then burst out, “Have-a-lock! Arm-lock! Have-a-lock! Arm-lock!”

  Rod Havelock let go of Nancy’s arm and dived for the little fellow, but Bobby was too quick and he ran off laughing.

  Nancy knew the youngster was only teasing, but she blushed a deep red. Rod’s face, too, had turned crimson. His composure was soon restored, however, and he said with a grin, “Miss Nancy Drew, may I put an armlock on you?”

  The two laughed and went on to Captain Detweiler’s quarters. Fortunately the officer was there. He admitted the couple at once. Then Nancy asked him to lock the door.

  He smiled. “More surprises?” he asked.

  She grinned back. “A big one and I think a very important one.”

  She unzipped the beach bag and let the papers tumble onto the captain’s desk.

  “I found these hidden in the lid of the mystery trunk,” she said. “Nelda translated some of the documents and said they no doubt had come from the government offices in Johannesburg. I couldn’t figure out why anyone stealing jewels should be involved in the espionage business at the same time.”

  “Perhaps he’s just a contact hired to smuggle the papers into another country,” the captain suggested. He picked up one document after another and quickly scanned them.

  Finally he said, “These are important, indeed. Nelda and I have a relative who works for the government. He told me that some time ago a number of very important secret papers had been stolen from the office files, and there has been no trace of them. I feel sure these are the ones and will contact Johannesburg at once.”

  He paused for several seconds, then said, “Nancy, you have done a wonderful job of sleuthing since you’ve been on board, and this, perhaps, is the most important find. I think the government in Johannesburg owes you a deep debt of gratitude.”

  Nancy was embarrassed. She merely said, “Oh, that’s high praise, but thank you. I think now I’d better leave. Please put the papers in your safe.”