The Caribbean Cruise Caper Page 4

  “And we’ll be a lot more careful from now on,” Frank said.

  “Good point, Frank,” Bettina said. “How are we going to secure the contest materials in the future?”

  “How about the captain’s safe?” Joe suggested. “I hear he’s in the habit of keeping millions in securities there. A few contest entries should be a cinch.”

  After a startled moment, the others laughed.

  “Sorry, you can’t use that safe,” Bettina said. “The combination was lost years ago. Any other ideas?”

  “I have a file box in my cabin that locks,” David offered. “You’d need a certain degree of skill to open it, and I doubt if anybody would have the nerve to make off with the whole file box.”

  Bettina gave a decisive nod. “All right, then,” she said. “David, take these entries and score them. We’re scheduled to reach Fort William early this afternoon. While we’re docked, have someone make a couple of sets of photocopies. Then keep the originals locked in that file box of yours.”

  “Will do,” David responded. “Should we announce the scores this morning, as scheduled?”

  “We should do everything as normally as possible,” Bettina told him. She stood up. “If someone hopes to disrupt our contest, we should make it obvious that it isn’t working. That may drive him or her to make a mistake.”

  The Hardys returned to David’s cabin with him. He showed them the file box, and Frank checked the lock. It seemed pretty sturdy.

  “I’m going up to the sundeck to do the scoring,” David announced. “It’s very private at this time of day. Don’t worry, I won’t let the entries blow away. And the minute I finish—it shouldn’t take long—I’ll bring them back down here until we post them later. They’ll be safe, I guarantee it.”

  The three left together. As Frank and Joe walked down the corridor to their cabin, Joe was startled to see the door to David’s cabin start to open.

  Evan walked out. “Oh, hi, Joe,” the boy said. “Is it time to eat yet? I’m starved.”

  “Er—just about,” Joe replied. His thoughts whirled. Evan had obviously been inside the room earlier, too. Where, in the shower? Had he overheard their conversation with his dad? And if so, should Joe warn him not to mention anything he’d heard to anyone else?

  Maybe not—that might put ideas in the kid’s head.

  “You want to wait for us?” Joe added. “We’re about to go up, too.”

  • • •

  A breakfast buffet was set up in the dining area. Boris, Jason, and Lisa were already eating. Sylvie was waiting for Cesar to finish filling his plate. Frank, Joe, and Evan lined up behind her.

  “We are all arguing about last night’s mystery puzzle,” Sylvie told Joe and Frank. “Will you end our suspense? Please?”

  “That’s David’s job,” Frank replied. “Don’t worry—he’ll be along pretty soon.”

  Sylvie poured a glass of orange juice and fixed a bowl of granola with fresh tropical fruit on top. Evan was more interested in the miniature pastries. He took three and reached for another, then glanced up at Joe and took a glass of milk instead.

  Joe and Frank each took a slice of fresh mango, scrambled eggs, and portions of an unusual looking sausage. They joined the others at the table.

  Jason looked over at them. “The guy was the robber’s inside man, right?” he said. “He and his boss got into an argument and the boss offed him.”

  “No comment,” Joe replied.

  “That’s totally dumb,” Cesar told Jason. He noticed Kenneth aiming his camera at him and paused to put on a big smile. Kenneth did not snap the shutter. After a moment Cesar dropped the smile and continued. “What about the ransom note? How do you explain that?”

  “What ransom note?” Boris demanded. “There was no kidnapping.”

  Cesar stuck one finger in the air. “Aha!” he said. “No kidnapping—but there was a ransom note.”

  From the entrance, Elizabeth remarked, “These airs of mystery are so tiresome and passé. Not to mention childish.”

  With a wide grin, Cesar held his thumbs to his ears and waggled his fingers at her. Elizabeth put her nose in the air and sniffed loudly. Kenneth’s flash went off.

  “Oh!” Elizabeth exploded. “You had better not print that picture in the magazine! If my daddy saw it, he’d sue you and Teenway for all you’re worth.”

  “Quick, somebody hold me,” Cesar cried. “I’m trembling so much I can’t stand up.”

  “You’re sitting down,” Boris pointed out.

  “You see? That’s how bad it is!” Cesar replied.

  Joe noticed that Lisa was holding her tape recorder just below the level of the table. She pointed the built-in mike at each speaker in turn.

  As Elizabeth came nearer the table, she spotted Lisa’s recorder. “Is that thing on?” she demanded. “I want that tape!”

  “You can order a copy from me when I get back to New York,” Lisa said coolly. “My rates are pretty reasonable.”

  “I don’t know anything worse than a dirty little snoop!” Elizabeth declared.

  “Ooo—major diss!” Cesar said, snickering.

  Lisa reddened. “I know something a lot worse than a snoop, and that’s a snob!”

  “Hey, come on, people,” Frank said. “Lighten up.”

  He might as well have saved his breath.

  “I refuse to be called names!” Elizabeth cried.

  “Who started calling names?” Lisa retorted. She shoved her chair back and sprang to her feet. “Who started it?”

  “Are we doing more riddles?” Evan asked eagerly. “ ’Cause I remembered some good ones.”

  Joe patted him on the arm. “Not now, Evan,” he said in an undertone. “Eat your breakfast.”

  Elizabeth put her hands on her hips and glared at Lisa. She opened her mouth to make another remark. Before she got a word out, she was interrupted by a distant, startled cry. Elizabeth looked over her shoulder toward the companionway, or stairway, to the cabin deck. At that moment there was a loud crash from below.

  6 Slipping and Sliding

  * * *

  Frank jumped up from the table and darted toward the stairs. Joe was close behind him. As they zoomed down the steps, Frank saw one of the crew running along the corridor. The door to David’s cabin was open wide. The crew member started inside.

  “Wha—” he yelled. His feet flew out from under him. He landed flat on his back with a crash that shook the deck.

  Frank stopped and held out his arm to warn Joe. They approached the doorway slowly and cautiously.

  David was sitting on the floor of the cabin, just inside the door. He had a blue-and-white marble in his hand. Frank saw dozens more marbles scattered across the polished planks.

  The crew member sat up. Frank recognized him. He had handled the mooring line during their departure the day before. “Woo!” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “What hit me?”

  “You slipped on a marble,” David told him. “Sorry about that, ah—what was your name again?”

  “Chuck . . . Chuck Arneson,” the guy replied. “We’d better pick these up before somebody cracks their skull. How’d they spill anyway?”

  “I can make a pretty good guess,” David said. He got to his feet and massaged his hip.

  From behind Frank and Joe, a tiny voice said, “Daddy? I have something to tell you.”

  David sighed. “Yes, Evan? What is it?”

  Evan slipped past Frank and Joe. “Well . . . I heard you and Frank and Joe talking about robbers,” he said. “And I was afraid a bad guy would come in our room. So I put my marbles on the floor to make him fall.”

  “It worked,” David said with grim humor.

  “I would have told you,” Evan continued. “But I didn’t know where you were. And then I went up to breakfast and I sort of forgot. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” David said. He reached over and tousled his son’s hair. “But next time, check with me before you set any traps for b
ad guys. Okay?”

  Evan grinned with relief. “You bet!”

  Frank and Joe helped pick up the marbles. Then they returned to the salon with David and Evan. David carried an envelope in his hand. The room fell silent as they went in.

  “I’ve looked over your solutions to last night’s crime,” David announced. “They are all worthy tries. I’m going to post them on the bulletin board next to the stairs for you to read. Then, in ten or fifteen minutes, we’ll come together again to talk about the results.”

  The five finalists barely waited for David to tack up the entries before they clustered around to read them. Meanwhile, Lisa cornered Joe. She wanted to know what the commotion had been about earlier. He told her about Evan’s marbles. She asked for a preview of the scores in the contest. Joe admitted he had no idea.

  Lisa wanted his general reactions to the voyage so far. Joe talked about the boat, the sea, the weather, and the great group of contestants. He aimed his words at Lisa’s tape recorder. In his head, however, he was focused on the mystery of the intruder from the night before. Finally he muttered an excuse and went to look for Frank. He found him on the afterdeck.

  “Notice anything?” Frank murmured. “No anguished cries from anyone whose entry was altered.”

  “So either nothing was changed or our visitor last night came to touch up his own entry,” Joe replied.

  Frank nodded. “That’s what it looks like. Unless . . . I can’t stop thinking we were meant to notice that someone had fiddled with the entries. But why?”

  Joe had the feeling an answer to Frank’s question was lurking just out of sight. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “How about this? One of the contestants was sure he’d messed up. So he decided to push us into throwing out the results. That way his poor showing wouldn’t hurt him. Or her, of course.”

  “That fits,” Frank said slowly. “The funny part is, from what David said, everybody did about the same. So breaking into our cabin was wasted effort.”

  “But whoever did it couldn’t have known that.” Joe glanced inside. “Speaking of David, it looks like he’s ready to start.”

  Joe and Frank returned to the salon. David gave them a nod and a smile. Then he said, “The setup last night was meant to suggest that one of the crew, an engineer, interrupted a burglar who killed him to stop him from raising an alarm. That was a false trail. None of you fell for it.”

  “The knot was toward the front,” Boris said. “The victim must have been facing his attacker. How do you get a cord around somebody’s neck from the front unless he knows you?”

  “And the gun,” Sylvie said. “If I were the criminal and somebody discovered me, I would shoot him. I would not hope to find a piece of electrical cord to strangle him with.”

  Joe was tempted to point out that guns make more noise than strangling cords. He restrained himself. This was David’s show.

  “A quarrel among thieves,” Cesar remarked. “But what about the ransom note? I spotted it under the chair. It offered to return the bonds for a quarter of a million dollars. Why would thieves do that?”

  “Maybe the bonds are too hard to cash,” Jason suggested. “You know—like counterfeiters who sell their phony bills for a few cents on the dollar.”

  “Cesar is the only one who mentioned the ransom note,” David announced. “There’s another detail none of you picked up on—the victim’s hands.”

  “What about them?” Sylvie asked, puzzled.

  “Wait, wait!” Cesar shouted. He slapped the table. “Of course! The hands were clean, and the nails were manicured. That was no engineer. An engineer would have oily hands and cracked nails. I bet that was the owner of the yacht. He was planning to steal his own bonds, then rip off the insurance company for the ransom! He probably gave the crew the evening off, to get them out of the way. But one of them suspected something and stayed behind.”

  “Bravo, Cesar,” David said. “You got it.”

  “Yeah,” Cesar groaned. “I got it today—but not last night, when it would have done me some good.”

  “Then the killer was the real engineer, right?” Boris asked. “He changed clothes with the victim to confuse the authorities while he made his escape.”

  “He certainly confused me.” Sylvie laughed.

  A general discussion broke out. Joe and Frank joined in. So did Lisa and even Kenneth. The only one who kept out of it was Elizabeth. Her expression and body language said she found the whole business childish. Joe wondered why she had entered the contest if that was how she felt. Here was still another puzzle to be solved.

  • • •

  The second part of the detective contest took place toward the end of the morning. It was a test of observational skills. Everyone gathered around the TV to watch a tape.

  Like the contestants, Frank and Joe watched intently. On the screen, a man and two women met on a street corner. They chatted for a few moments. Two other men approached from opposite directions. One of them bumped into the woman on the left. He muttered an apology and walked away.

  A moment later the woman he had collided with groped in her purse and let out a shriek. The man who was talking with her ran after the one who had bumped her. At that, the tape ended.

  David stood up and passed out questionnaires to the contestants. “Okay,” he said. “No conversation until all of you have finished your responses.”

  Joe took a spare questionnaire from David and gave it a shot. It was not easy. The questions included the clothing and personal appearance of all five people in the scene, what each had said, and exactly what had happened.

  David collected the completed questionnaires and put them in a manila envelope. “Okay—any remarks?”

  “This is kid stuff,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not saying I remembered all those stupid details. Who could? But the important part was simply babyish.”

  “Wa-a-ah!” Cesar said with a grin. Elizabeth sniffed loudly and looked in the other direction.

  “The important part being . . . ?” David asked, looking around the circle.

  “The guy stole her wallet when he shoved her,” Jason said. “That’s an old stunt. Some dude tried it on me once when I was getting off a bus. I gave him a swift elbow below the belt. Boy, did he look surprised.”

  “What do you think happened after the tape ended?” David asked.

  Boris shrugged. “The other guy—the woman’s friend—probably caught him. He was pretty fast off the mark.”

  “And then?” David continued.

  “The police put the pickpocket in jail,” Sylvie said.

  “Maybe it works that way in Canada,” Cesar said. “My bet is he got himself a terrific lawyer and walked.”

  “So, Sylvie, you think the perpetrator was arrested. What about the rest of you? Everybody agree?” David asked, giving another look around the circle. The contestants nodded.

  “Joe? Frank?” David added.

  “Well . . .” Frank said. He glanced over at Joe, who gave him a grin. “Tell them.”

  “Even if the pickpocket got caught,” Joe said, “I doubt if the cops could arrest him. No evidence.”

  “What about the wallet?” Elizabeth demanded. “Even if he threw it down on the sidewalk, it would still tell against him.”

  “He didn’t have the wallet,” Frank said. “Right after he took it, he passed it to his accomplice, who strolled off in the other direction. Right, David?”

  “I knew there was something about that other guy,” Cesar said. He slapped his palm against his forehead.

  “You tricked us!” Elizabeth declared crossly.

  David smiled. “Good,” he said. “I was hoping to. Just remember, the bad guys aren’t out to make it easy for crime solvers.”

  • • •

  Lunch was assorted sandwiches and chips, served on the afterdeck. No one would have wanted to stay inside and miss the view. The Colombe d’Or was approaching its next port of call. Ahead, a green island loomed up out of the blue sea. Frank thought it
s steep slopes and peak looked like a child’s drawing of a volcano.

  David confirmed this. “That’s Mount Orange,” he told the group. “It’s still active. The last major eruption was about fifty years ago. It buried one of the towns on the island under superheated gas and ash. Over ten thousand people died.”

  Sylvie shivered. “That’s terrible! What if it explodes while we are there?”

  “There’s usually some warning before a big eruption,” Frank assured her, “Sort of like clearing your throat before you sing.”

  “In any case,” David added, “we’ll dock at Fort William. The volcano has never touched it. The town that was destroyed was on the opposite side of the island. If we had more time, we could go over and explore the ruins.”

  “Spooky-y-y,” Cesar said in a hollow voice. He waved his open hands in Sylvie’s direction.

  “Ooo, don’t!” Sylvie exclaimed. Cesar grinned.

  “Let her alone,” Boris said gruffly.

  “Yeah, stop playing the clown,” Jason added.

  Cesar’s grin flickered. “At least I know when I act like a clown,” he retorted. “Unlike some people I could name who don’t know it and can’t help it.”

  Sylvie smiled at him. “It’s all right, Cesar,” she said. “I know you were just trying to be funny. I think you’re cute.”

  Cesar beamed. Frank glanced at Jason and Boris. Both were trying to look unconcerned.

  “How long will we be stuck on this island?” Elizabeth asked in a bored voice. “Is there anything to do on it?”

  “The old part of the city is very picturesque,” David replied. “I like to just wander. There are also some very elegant boutiques and shops around the square.”

  Elizabeth’s face brightened.

  The boat docked alongside a palm-lined boulevard. Nearby, Frank spotted the colorful umbrellas of an outdoor café. From the harbor, the old town rose in level after level of white-stone buildings with lacy iron balconies and red-tile roofs. The green slopes of Mount Orange supplied a lush backdrop.

  Frank and Joe stood at the rail admiring the view. “Do you think they have a college here?” Joe wondered out loud. “I could handle four years in a place like this.”