“No!” George’s frustrated cry rang out from behind Nancy.
Nancy tried to dodge the net, but it was too late. She and George fell to the floor in a heap, tangled up in the heavy roped webbing.
Nancy looked up in time to see the figure by the rigging chest fly out the door. Then the second person, who’d thrown the net, raced across the rigging loft to the doorway and disappeared into the night. Nancy couldn’t see the person’s face, and a dark hooded windbreaker hid his hair. From the figure’s broad-shouldered build, she was pretty sure it was a guy.
“Quick! We’ve got to go after him!” she told George, pulling at the net. Within seconds they worked themselves free, and Nancy jumped to her feet.
“I’m right behind you, Nancy!” George said.
Outside, Nancy caught sight of a black shape racing past the Student Training Building, near the lighthouse. She and George took off in pursuit. They were only about twenty yards behind him, and they were gaining.
Suddenly the black shadow veered left and headed for an extremely long, low building across from the Student Training Building.
“He’s going in,” George said breathlessly, drawing even with Nancy. “What’s in there?”
“I don’t know, but we’re about to find out,” Nancy replied without slowing.
She and George were only about ten yards away as the person pulled open the door at one end of the building and disappeared inside. Moments later Nancy threw open the door, and she and George raced in after him. The door banged shut, echoing around them.
The two girls stopped, blinking into the darkness. Nancy didn’t hear the other person at all now. The only sounds came from her and George as they tried to catch their breath.
Nancy saw that the building stretched out for hundreds of feet in a long, narrow space. A faint glow from the lamps outside the building filtered in the small windows along the sides of the building. Tall racks stood on either side of her and George, each holding about a dozen large spools.
“That’s hemp,” George whispered, sniffing the air. She pointed to the dark tendrils that unwound from each spool. The threads wove together in a shadowy network of ropes that seemed to stretch endlessly down the long building, at about waist level.
“This must be the rope walk,” George added. “It’s how they used to make rope in the old days—they twisted the smaller sections of rope together all the way down the building. Some of the guys at the shipyard told me about it.”
Nancy couldn’t see the rope clearly—it all melted into a black mass farther down. But she knew that whoever they were chasing had to be around somewhere, and she wasn’t going to let him get away.
“Come on,” she whispered to George.
The ropes stretched down the middle of the building, with clear areas on both sides. Nancy started slowly down the right side, while George took the left, shining her flashlight in front of her. Nancy listened carefully for any sound, but there was none except their own soft footsteps.
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As they continued down the long room, Nancy saw that three smaller ropes fed through a machine that twisted them into a larger rope. She half expected to see their attacker crouched behind the machine, but there was just empty space.
“Hey!”
George’s shout made Nancy jump. Several feet in front of her, George’s flashlight illuminated a figure bolting from behind a huge coil of rope. Pulling his hood close around his face, he ducked beneath the twisted hemp and headed toward a window at the far end of the building.
Nancy and George immediately took off after him. But before they could reach him, he pushed up the window and slipped through to the outside. By the time Nancy got through the window herself, the person was nowhere in sight. He had disappeared in the maze of seaport buildings.
“We lost him!” she cried, letting out her breath in a disappointed rush. “I can’t believe he slipped through our fingers again.”
George’s head appeared in the window Nancy had just climbed through. “I couldn’t tell who it was, even with the flashlight,” she said, climbing out to join Nancy. “What happened back there, anyway? Who threw that fishing net at us?”
“The person we were just chasing, I think,” Nancy answered. She dragged the toe of her sneaker in the grass while she replayed the scene at the rigging loft in her mind.
“Remember I thought I heard something after you fell with the bench?” she said.
George snapped her fingers. “That’s right! So the guy who threw the net at us must have come in then and hid by the stairs, where we couldn’t see him.” She frowned at Nancy. “But how could he have known we’d be there—or why? I mean, if he wanted to stop that other person from wrecking the rigging chest, then why did he go after us?”
Nancy had been wondering the same thing. “It’s almost as if he didn’t want us to catch whoever came after the rigging chest,” she said slowly. “But I don’t have the slightest idea why. If he wanted the map half, he could have just looked for it himself. And he obviously knew where to look, or he wouldn’t have been in the rigging loft in the first place.” She frowned as another thought occurred to her. “Unless he followed us there from Mrs. Newcomb’s office.”
“I don’t know about you, Nancy, but my brain is on overload,” George said, leaning against the building. “We have too many questions and not enough answers. I say we call it a night.”
“I guess you’re right,” Nancy agreed, making a frustrated stab at the grass with her sneaker.
“Hey, what’s that?” George asked, shining her flashlight at Nancy’s foot.
Glancing down, Nancy saw that she had accidentally uncovered a folded sheet of paper with her sneaker. She bent down to pick it up. “It’s dry, even though it’s been raining this evening,” she told George. She unfolded the note as she spoke, a wave of excitement running through her. “I bet whoever we were chasing dropped this by mistake in his hurry to get away.”
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George leaned closer, shining her flashlight on the paper. “It’s a photocopy,” she said. “Looks like a list of books.”
“And check out which ones are circled,” Nancy said. She pointed to three entries that had been marked with red ink. “Two of these are books about the Henrietta Lee!”
“But what about that last one—‘The personal diary of Jack Benbow,’ ” George read from the list. “Who’s he?”
Nancy’s crinkled up her forehead, thinking. “I give up,” she finally said. “I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow, when I can look him up in the library. Let’s go back to your house so I can pick up my knapsack. And then I’d better get back to the house before my housemates think I dropped out of the program.”
• • •
“Hi, stranger,” Rochelle greeted Nancy as she walked in the front door twenty minutes later.
Rochelle, Evelyn, and Gayle were sitting in the living room in their nightgowns and bathrobes. They were all drinking tea and eating cookies from a plate on the coffee table. Nancy didn’t miss the curious looks that they gave her.
“This is really a day for disappearing acts,” Gayle said slowly. “First you never come back after our sailing trip, and then Claire takes off.”
“I can’t believe she’d still be at the library,” Evelyn added. “Even Claire can’t work that hard, not after a whole day out at sea.”
Nancy looked at her housemates in surprise. “Claire’s been gone all evening?” she asked.
“Ever since dinner,” Rochelle replied.
Nancy’s mind was racing. The figure she’d seen bending over the rigging chest had been petite—about Claire’s size, now that Nancy thought about it. Maybe her theory about Claire looking for the treasure from the Henrietta Lee was right!
Trying to act casual, Nancy headed for the stairs. “I really need a hot shower,” she told her housemates. “I’ll be back down in a minute.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. She did need a shower, but first she wanted to look through Claire’s things. As soon as she got to the room she shared with Claire, Nancy locked the door. Then she sat down on her bed and looked around.
Apart from the two beds they each had a small desk and a few drawers in which to store their belongings. Nancy kept her clothes in a dresser against the wall, and Claire used the four drawers that were built into the bottom of her bed. They shared the closet, so Nancy doubted she would hide anything in there. The only thing on the wall was a nautical chart of the area around Bridgehaven Seaport.
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Nancy went over to Claire’s bed, knelt down, and opened one of the drawers. She felt around the neat piles of shorts and jeans but didn’t find anything suspicious. The second drawer was also very neat, containing some sweaters and sweatshirts.
When Nancy opened the third drawer, however, she was surprised to see a messy jumble of T-shirts. She reached her hand down into them and started to feel around.
A moment later her hand clunked against something hard and metallic. She quickly pushed aside the shirts—then gasped.
“I don’t believe this,” she whispered, staring into the drawer.
There, among the jumble of different-colored shirts, was a brass ship’s clock!
Claire’s Story
Nancy’s mind was reeling. So it was Claire who had stolen the clock!
Still, something didn’t make sense to Nancy. Claire really seemed to love everything about Bridgehaven Seaport, yet some of the damage to the seaport had been brutal and senseless. Nancy had a hard time believing that Claire could be responsible for the shredded lining of the captain’s writing desk or the carved graffiti Mrs. Newcomb had described. On the other hand, she knew from other cases she’d solved that greed sometimes made people do terrible things. Perhaps Claire’s love for the seaport was all an act.
Picking up the heavy brass clock, Nancy took it over to her desk and looked at it closely. She felt certain that Claire had stolen it in order to search it for one of the map halves mentioned in the sea chanty about the Henrietta Lee, Sure enough, the screws that attached the front of the clock were loose, as if Claire had unfastened the front to check inside.
Nancy was intent on loosening the clock face when she heard the doorknob rattle. Claire! Before Nancy could put the clock back in Claire’s drawer, a key scraped in the lock and the door opened. Claire walked in, pulling off her rain slicker and shaking her damp black curls. “I can’t believe how wet everything—”
She stopped short when she saw what Nancy was holding. For a long moment the two girls just stared at each other.
“I know you’ve been looking for the map to the treasure from the Henrietta Lee,” Nancy finally said.
Claire’s blue eyes darted nervously around the room. “How dare you go sneaking through my stuff,” she snapped. “It’s private!”
“Stolen is more like it,” Nancy said dryly, holding up the ship’s clock. “You can drop the innocent act, Claire. I saw the sea chanty about the Henrietta Lee and the buried treasure. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the things mentioned in it are the same ones that have been vandalized here at the seaport.” She held up the clock. “I think you’re the culprit.”
Claire’s blue eyes flashed angrily as she took off her wet slicker and hung it on the closet doorknob. “You probably did the damage yourself, and now you’re trying to blame it on me!”
What is going on here? Nancy wondered. Why was Claire acting so righteous, when Nancy had proof that she was guilty?
She decided it was time to level with Claire. “Claire, I think you should know that I’m not really a student—I’m a private investigator. Mrs. Newcomb asked me to come here to find out who is responsible for the damage. You can call her if you don’t believe me.”
Claire’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hey, you can’t nail this on me. Maybe I did take the clock, but I didn’t wreck any of the other stuff.”
“How could that be?” Nancy asked, shooting her roommate a probing look. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”
Claire went over to her bed and flopped down on it. Grabbing her pillow, she punched it into a tight ball in her lap. “When I came here I didn’t know anything about the Henrietta Lee, much less about the treasure,” she said. “I was amazed when I first read about it for my maritime history project. I mean, the captain nearly died trying to save the crew and the ship. He was lost at sea for two days before they found him, sick with pneumonia, at the foot of the Arcadia River.”
“Where did you read about the shipwreck?” Nancy asked.
Claire went over to her desk and picked up two slender books, which she showed to Nancy. Both were about the Henrietta Lee. “They mostly talk about the ship’s streamlined design and its importance as a commercial schooner. There’s only one little section on the shipwreck. The information came from the Henrietta Lee ’s captain—he was the only one who survived the wreck.”
Nancy eagerly skimmed the text Claire showed her. It mentioned that a trunk of gold coins was lost at sea when the crew perished. There was nothing about the coins having been buried, or about a treasure map.
“At first I just assumed that the gold coins were lost for good, or that someone had found them long ago,” Claire went on. “But then, when I came across the song with all those clues in it, I couldn’t resist checking it out. Believe it or not, I actually found one of the map halves in the very first place I looked, the ship’s clock.”
“That’s amazing!” Nancy exclaimed, shaking her head.
“I thought so, too, until...” A fearful glimmer came into Claire’s eyes. “Nancy, something really creepy is going on,” she whispered.
“What are you talking about?” Nancy asked, blinking in surprise.
Claire took a deep breath before answering. “Someone has been following me,” she began. “It started the night I took the ship’s clock. I was really scared about sneaking into that display, but I didn’t plan on stealing the clock. I was just going to open it up there to see if the map was inside. But I heard someone coming before I could look, so I took the clock and ran.
“I thought it was a guard, but the next day when I heard that the display had been trashed, I knew it had to be someone else,” Claire went on. “Then, when I went to the Westwinds to look for the captain’s desk, I heard someone up on the deck before I even had a chance to look. That’s why I took off like that. I was terrified.”
Nancy nodded thoughtfully. “Someone else was in the rigging loft tonight, too,” she put in. “They tripped up my friend and me so we couldn’t catch you.”
Claire’s eyes widened. “I practically had a heart attack back there!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know what was going on, but I was sure someone was coming after me.”
“It looked to me as if the person was trying to protect you, not harm you,” Nancy said. “He didn’t want us to catch you, that’s for sure. Do you have any idea who it could be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the same person who”—Claire hesitated, running a hand through her black curls—“the same person who stole the map half from me.”
“What!” Nancy exclaimed, leaning forward in her chair.
Claire nodded miserably. “I kept the map half in a notebook in my desk drawer,” she explained. “But when I got back from the library last night, it was gone!”
This case was getting more complicated every second, Nancy realized. “You didn’t tell anyone about your search?” she asked.
“No one,” Claire assured her. She shot Nancy a nervous glance. “And that’s the way I’d like to keep it. Nancy, you can’t tell Mrs. Newcomb what I did yet,” she begged. “There’s no way she’ll believe I didn’t wreck anything until we find the person who did. She’ll kick me out of the program!”
Nancy thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I won’t say anything—if you promise to back off looking for the treasure.”
“Oh, Nancy, I can’t,” Claire objected. “Finding the treasure is like the ultimate challenge of my maritime history project. I really want to show everyone that I can find it on my own—you know, to leave my own special mark on maritime history.”
She looked imploringly at Nancy. “As soon as I find the treasure, I’ll turn it over to the seaport, I swear.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Nancy insisted. “At least until we find the person who’s been causing all the damage around here. Claire, you have to promise not to tell anyone else the real reason I’m here.”
For a moment Nancy thought her roommate might refuse. Finally Claire sighed and said, “It’s a deal.”
Claire got up from her bed and went over to her desk, where she pulled a notebook from her top drawer. “After the map half was stolen, I tried to draw everything I could remember from it,” she said, handing the notebook to Nancy. “You’d better take it. If I keep it, I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist looking for the treasure.”
“Thanks,” Nancy told her. “Oh—one more thing,” she added, thinking of the photocopied list she and George had found outside the rope walk. “Does the name Jack Benbow mean anything to you?”
Claire nodded. “He was the first mate of the Henrietta Lee,” she replied, a gleam of interest in her eyes. “Do you think he had something to do with the treasure?”
“I don’t know. That’s something I’m going to have to find out,” Nancy said determinedly.
While Nancy opened the notebook, Claire took her bathrobe from the closet, then headed for the door. “After all I’ve been through today, I really need a shower,” she said. Then she paused and looked at Nancy.
“Thanks for being so understanding,” Claire said quietly. “Actually, it’s a big relief to get all this stuff off my chest.”
“No problem,” Nancy told her. “Let’s just hope we find the person who took that map half soon.”
After her roommate had left, Nancy examined Claire’s re-creation of the map half. The map indicated some water and part of a small island with half an X on it. Next to the map was the notation “Lat. 41.43 N.”
That had to be the latitude of where the treasure was buried, Nancy figured. But without the longitude, Nancy didn’t see how she could locate the little island. Chances were, the longitude was indicated on the other map half.
Looking up from the drawing, Nancy let out a sigh of relief. This mystery was far from being solved, but at least some of the pieces were starting to fall into place.
• • •
“See you guys in class!” Nancy called over her shoulder to her housemates the next morning.
The others were still eating breakfast, but Nancy had already finished. She had gotten up early so that she could stop by the shipyard before maritime literature class. Nancy knew her housemates would probably be suspicious of her early departure, but she had to tell George everything she’d found out from Claire.
The weather was still gray and damp. A light drizzle fell, and fog shrouded the whole street. She could see only about twenty feet in any direction. Even though Nancy was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt under her raincoat, she felt a little chilly.
She carefully made her way to the end of her road, then down Arcadia Street. After a few minutes the Bridgehaven Seaport sign appeared out of the fog, and Nancy turned into the entrance. She was glad that she knew her way around the seaport fairly well. Even without being able to see everything, she easily found the path that led to the shipyard.
When she reached the entrance of the large building, George was standing just a few yards away. She was nervously fingering the leather work belt strapped over her jeans, and there was a very distraught expression on her face.
“Nancy!” George hurried over as soon as she saw her. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was just about to call you at your house.”
Nancy swallowed the nervous bubble that rose up into her throat. “What’s wrong, George?” she asked.
“Vincent Silvio just had a total fit,” George explained. “He’s furious at Patricia Newcomb.”
A quick glance around the shipyard told Nancy that Silvio wasn’t there. “Where is he now?”
“I’m not sure,” George replied anxiously. “First he said something about how Mrs. Newcomb isn’t going to get in his way this time. And then he just took off.”
George took a deep breath, then added, “He was carrying a pretty sharp tool—a caulking iron—and waving it around like a weapon. Nancy, I think something terrible is about to happen!”
12. Stop Him—Before It’s Too Late!
“We’ve got to go after him, George!” Nancy said urgently. “When did he leave?”
“Just a second before you got here,” George replied. She unstrapped her work belt and tossed it over by the lockers. “We might still be able to catch him. Let’s go!”
Nancy and George hurried outside. In the thick fog it was hard to see much. Nancy focused all her energy on trying to distinguish the hazy shapes around them. “In this fog Silvio could probably do a lot of damage without anyone seeing him,” she whispered.
“At least the seaport isn’t open to the public until nine,” George put in. “That’s not for fifteen minutes, so there aren’t any tourists to confuse us.”
“Or witnesses, if he does something awful,” Nancy added, frowning.
As the girls stepped away from the shipyard, Nancy quickly filled in George on her confrontation with Claire the night before.
“You’re kidding!” George exclaimed in a low voice. “So she’s the one who—” She broke off and pointed. “Nancy, there!”
Nancy could make out the lighthouse to the left, its powerful beam of light cutting through the mist. She started as a sudden movement near the building caught her attention. A dark silhouette was moving hurriedly past the lighthouse, toward the docks.
The two girls took off in pursuit. As they drew closer, there was no mistaking Vincent Silvio’s muscular build. Nancy could just make out a slender instrument clenched in his right hand.
“Where’s he going?” George wondered aloud.
“I’m not sure, but wherever it is, we’re going to be right there to make sure he doesn’t do any damage,” Nancy said firmly.
She and George kept a slight distance back, following Silvio along the docks. Soon the antique sailing ships were visible on their left, their masts no more than blurry lines in the mist.
Vincent Silvio crossed the gravel path next to the docks, heading for a familiar wood-shingled structure. “Isn’t that the building where we saw Cap the other night—you know, the one with the display from that boat?” George whispered.
“The Arcadia Queen,” Nancy supplied. “The model we saw Silvio holding at his house was of the Arcadia Queen, too.”
George gave Nancy a confused glance. “So what’s the connection with the treasure from the Henrietta Lee?” she asked.
“Beats me,” Nancy replied. She picked up her pace as Silvio reached the building and went inside. “Maybe Mrs. Newcomb is in there—or one of the items that was salvaged from the Henrietta Lee.”
Suddenly George grabbed Nancy’s arm, pulling her to a stop next to a piling at the end of the dock. “Check it out,” she whispered. “It looks like Vincent Silvio isn’t the only one interested in that display.”
Nancy’s eyes widened as she saw Cap Gregory approach the building from the opposite direction. He didn’t appear to see Nancy and George. After looking left and right, Cap opened the door and went inside.
“It looks like my suspicion that they’re working together was right,” Nancy whispered urgently. “Come on!”
The two girls bolted across the gravel path, threw open the door to the shingled building, and ran inside. Nancy immediately saw that Cap Gregory and Vincent Silvio were at the far end of the display, huddled over something.
“Hold it!” George called out. “Don’t lay a finger on that!”
Nancy hurried over to the two men. She shivered when her gaze fell on the sharp, chisellike instrument Vincent Silvio held, but she couldn’t let him destroy the beautiful display. Up close she saw that he and Cap Gregory were next to the captain’s quarters of the Arcadia Queen, bent over the intricate wood paneling.
Cap Gregory and Vincent Silvio both straightened up in surprise. “George, shouldn’t you be back at the shipyard? What’s going on?” Silvio demanded, glaring at Nancy and George.
“We might ask you the same question,” Nancy said. She nodded at the metal instrument in Silvio’s hand. “Is that what you used to wreck the whaling display?”
Silvio looked down at the caulking iron, then back at Nancy and George. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.” He glowered at Nancy and added, “You’re the troublemaker I saw up in the lighthouse the other day. I don’t know what you two are up to, but—”
“We’re not the ones who are up to something,” George put in, her hands on her hips. “We happen to know that you took a model of the Arcadia Queen from the seaport’s collection, Mr. Silvio.”
“And we saw you sneak in here the other night, Cap,” Nancy added. “Why would you snoop around if you’re not out to do some damage?”
Cap and Silvio exchanged a long glance. “I guess we’d better confess our terrible crime to these landlubbers, Vincent,” Cap finally said. He crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled as he gazed at Nancy and George.
“There’s nothing funny about this,” Nancy said, bristling. Apparently Cap and Silvio didn’t know how much trouble they could be in.
Vincent Silvio shot Nancy and George a leery glance. “Did Patricia Newcomb put you up to this?” he asked, shaking his head angrily. “She’s doing it again—she’s trying to steal my design!”
“Calm down, Vincent. I don’t think Pat is behind this,” Cap said, raising a hand. Turning to Nancy and George, he added, “Not that it’s any of your business, but if you must know, the reason we’re so interested in the Arcadia Queen is that I want Vincent to design a boat for me to live on, and I want it modeled after the Queen.”
George gazed dubiously at the two men. “That’s all? But then, why are you two sneaking around?” she asked.
“Patricia Newcomb has already stolen enough of my designs,” Silvio sputtered, angry red spots coloring his cheeks. “If she knew about this, she’d be sure to find a way to steal this project from me, too.”
From all Nancy had seen since arriving at Bridgehaven Seaport, the only one who thought Mrs. Newcomb was stealing designs from Vincent Silvio was Silvio himself. Nancy couldn’t be sure there wasn’t more to their story, though. The two men might also know about the treasure from the Henrietta Lee. The board had been pushed from the lighthouse at the beginning of the sea chanty about the Henrietta Lee, as if someone didn’t want anyone to hear all of the clues to finding the map halves. Silvio could have pushed the board. And Cap had been reluctant to lend her the book of sea chanties containing the song.
Nancy asked the two men a few more questions, but neither of them seemed to take the tale of the treasure very seriously. After making an apology, she and George left.
“Talk about embarrassing,” George said under her breath as they walked away from the building.
“Well, at least now we know why those two have been acting so secretive,” Nancy said. “It’s frustrating, though. We’ve been here for over three days already, and we still don’t know who’s been damaging the seaport’s displays!”
• • •
After her morning classes Nancy went to the main room of the library to see what she could find out about Jack Benbow, the first mate of the Henrietta Lee. After setting down her knapsack on one of the three study tables in the center of the room, she hurried to the card catalog that stood against one wall.
From her back pocket Nancy pulled out the photocopy she and George had found the night before outside the rope walk. Nancy pulled open the drawer with the B ’s.
“Benbow,” she murmured as she thumbed through the cards. “Here it is—Jack Benbow.” According to the listing, he had writ- ten some kind of diary.
She then checked the other listings that had been circled on the photocopied sheet. They were the two historical accounts of the Henrietta Lee that Claire had shown her—Nancy knew they wouldn’t be in the library. After writing down the library call number for the diary, she took it to the librarian and asked to take out the book.
A few minutes later Nancy was sitting at one of the long tables, looking at a photocopy of Jack Benbow’s diary.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Nancy murmured excitedly as she read through the first pages. It was the same diary she’d seen in Deke Ryan’s bag on board the Seafarer! Deke had had the original leather-bound copy, Nancy remembered. Could the seaport library have photocopied it in order to have more copies available? She hadn’t seen a library card for another copy. Nancy made a mental note to ask the librarian before she left.
Now that she had more time to examine the entries, she realized that it was a diary of the day-to-day activities on board the Henrietta Lee. She skimmed through to the final entries, which were made in November of 1843.
“ ‘In eighteen hundred and forty-three, my bonnie Mary was waiting for me...’ ” Nancy quoted the first line of the song about the Henrietta Lee’ s shipwreck. This diary was probably from the ship’s last, fateful voyage, she realized.
She flipped back, carefully reading over the entries from the beginning of that trip. The first mate’s account confirmed what Claire had told her about the captain of the Henrietta Lee, De- catur Preston, having been a great man who was loved by his men. The last entry was written during a storm, but there was no mention of the ship being in danger, or of a treasure.
Too bad that doesn’t help me figure out who stole the map half from Claire, Nancy thought to herself. With a sigh she got up and went back to the librarian’s counter. “Does the seaport have the original of Jack Benbow’s diary?” she asked as she handed over the photocopy.
“I don’t believe so, but let me check.” The librarian turned to a computer terminal on the counter. “No, I’m sorry, but this copy is the only one the seaport possesses,” she told Nancy.
Nancy’s mind was filled with questions as she thanked the librarian and left. Where could Deke have gotten the original diary from? And what was he doing with it? Could he be the person who had been following Claire?
Nancy paused on the path. She had a feeling there was some clue to the Henrietta Lee, or Jack Benbow, that she was missing. Maybe Mrs. Newcomb had found more information on the Henrietta Lee in her personal library. Nancy started briskly down the path that led to the director’s office.
The sound of rapid footsteps on the wooden dock behind her made Nancy pause. She turned her head in the direction of the steps, but in the thick fog it was impossible to see who it was.
Before Nancy could open her mouth to ask who was there, a bone-chilling scream rang out from somewhere behind her.
A Cry for Help
Goosebumps rose up on Nancy’s arms and legs. A split-second later the scream was followed by the splash of someone hitting the water.
“Help!” a familiar voice called out amid sputtering and coughing.
“George!” Nancy cried. Spinning on her heel, she raced back toward the dock. Within moments the dock pilings appeared out of the mist, and Nancy glimpsed the choppy, blue-gray water of the Arcadia River beyond. She didn’t see George but could hear her thrashing in the water to the left.
Nancy raced down the dock, all her senses on red alert. As she drew closer to the Westwinds she finally spotted her friend. George was swimming toward a ladder at the side of the dock. Her bulky rain slicker, jeans, and shirt were getting in her way, causing her to move with stiff, thrashing strokes.
“Are you all right?” Nancy called, hurrying over to the ladder and giving George a hand up.
“I’m okay.” George gave Nancy a sober look as she climbed onto the dock. “I decided to take a walk along the docks before going back to the house for lunch. Nancy, someone just ran out of nowhere and pushed me into the water!”
Those must have been the footsteps she’d heard, Nancy realized. “Did you see who it was?”
George shook her head, giving a frustrated tug at her slicker as she tried to free herself of the clingy, rubberized material. Once she had peeled it off, she started squeezing water from her jeans and shirt. “He hit me from behind. By the time I surfaced, the fog was so thick I couldn’t see him. I’m pretty sure it was a guy, though. At least, it sounded like a guy’s voice.”
“He said something?” Nancy asked.
George looked nervously around, then said in a low voice, “I think he pushed me as a warning for us to back off the case. I was splashing so much that I didn’t hear every word, but I’m pretty sure he said something about how I’d better leave the seaport—and take my friend Nancy Drew with me. He couldn’t have been far away, but with the fog and everything, I didn’t see him.”
Nancy pressed her lips together in a grim line. “You could have been seriously hurt, George. I feel awful.” She carefully scanned the dock area, but the fog was still too thick to see much.
“I don’t like this,” she went on grimly. “First someone cuts the rigging on the whaling ship so that I’d fall, and now this...”
Angry red blotches colored George’s cheeks. “Well, whoever it was can’t scare us away that easily!” she insisted.
“The question is, who was it?” Nancy asked. “I suppose it’s possible that Cap Gregory and Vincent Silvio are up to some- thing a lot more sinister than they let on this morning.”
“They seemed pretty sincere, Nan,” George said, sounding doubtful. “What about that guy on your program—Deke somebody?”
“Deke Ryan,” Nancy supplied. “He was going through my bag on the Seafarer yesterday. He also had a diary from the first mate of the Henrietta Lee. And he could have cut the rigging on the Benjamin W. Hinton. His group went up right before mine, and he even stood right where I did.”
“Not to mention that he brags about being in the seaport at night,” George added. “He could be the one we chased in the rope walk. And I bet he ruined that portable writing desk, too.” Running a hand through her dripping curls, George gave Nancy a meaningful look. “After this, I think you’d better put him at the top of your list of suspects.”
“I’m definitely going to check him out more thoroughly,” Nancy agreed. “But first I want to take a look at Mrs. Newcomb’s personal collection of maritime books. I keep thinking that there’s some clue I’m missing in the story of the Henrietta Lee. If I can just find out more information about that last trip, when the treasure was lost, maybe we can figure out who’s behind all the attacks.”
“Good luck,” George said, picking up her slicker. “I’d better head back to my house and change out of this stuff. It was embarrassing enough facing Silvio after chasing him into the Arcadia Queen display this morning. I don’t think he’ll be too thrilled if I show up back at the shipyard and start dripping water all over everything.”
“I’ll keep you posted, George,” Nancy said. “See you later.”
• • •
When Nancy reached the Administration Building, the secretary told her that Mrs. Newcomb was out at a meeting of the seaport’s board of directors. Nancy left a note asking the seaport director to contact her, then left.
Back outside Nancy checked her watch. She only had fifteen minutes before that afternoon’s woodworking workshop at the shipyard. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to eat lunch beforehand.
Nancy made her way down the misty paths toward the student entrance to the seaport. She passed the general store, rounded a corner, then paused.
The open square in front of her was filled with a dozen carved wooden statues, about six or seven feet tall. Nancy knew from her classes that they were called figureheads and that they used to be fastened to the very front of old sailing ships.
“These are amazing,” Nancy whispered aloud. She stepped up next to a carving of a woman in a long, flowing robe, standing on a moon. Although the paint decorating the figurehead was faded and chipped, Nancy could still see the determined, inspiring expression on the woman’s face. It was as if she embodied the spirit of the men who sailed her boat, spurring them on to new horizons.
Nancy couldn’t resist taking a moment to stare at the impressive figureheads. They were all quite different. Next to the woman was an Arabian soldier, attired in colorful clothing and holding up a curved saber. Then Nancy moved on to a pair of roly-poly twins and a man in an officer’s uniform. A small signpost set up next to each figurehead listed its age and the name of the ship it had been on.
Nancy was looking at a carved unicorn figurehead when a sudden thought occurred to her. Hadn’t the sea chanty from the Henrietta Lee mentioned a figurehead in one of its verses? She closed her eyes but couldn’t recall all the words to the song.
It was a long shot, but maybe that figurehead was right here! A rush of adrenaline spurred Nancy the rest of the way through the exhibit. Three figureheads from the end, she found what she was looking for.
The figurehead for the Henrietta Lee was also a woman. The wooden locks of her blond hair had been carved to look as if they were blowing out behind her. In one arm she held a telescope, while the other reached out in front of her, as if beckoning to the wind.
Nancy walked around the figurehead, trying to see any spot where a piece of map might be hidden. It looked as if the figure-head had been carved from a single piece of wood. The wood was worn and covered with minuscule cracks, but none of them looked big enough to hold even a small piece of paper or parchment.
Then Nancy’s gaze fell on the woman’s left arm. On second glance she saw a tiny seam at the shoulder. The arm and torso were actually made of separate pieces of wood, very carefully fitted together. If she could just loosen the joint and peek inside...
Nancy was relieved to see that the area around the town square was empty. The weather seemed to have kept the tourists away. Turning her attention back to the figurehead, she tried to delicately twist its wooden arm away from the shoulder. The arm didn’t budge.
Gripping the arm more tightly, she gave it a firm tug. With a loud squeak, the arm budged just a fraction—but at least it moved. Working as quickly and carefully as she could, Nancy kept twisting the arm until at last it came free of the rest of the figurehead.
She saw that the arm had been attached by a thick wooden peg that now stuck out of the figurehead’s torso. A hole had been carved out of the arm at the joint, so it could fit over the peg. Nancy hardly dared breathe as she looked into the cavity.
The wood was old and cracked, and splinters had come loose as a result of Nancy’s tugging. The yellowish brown square beneath the bits of wood had been so compressed by the pressure of the joint that at first Nancy thought it was just a discoloration in the wood. But when she reached in and flicked at the edge of the square with her nail, she realized that it was a piece of parchment!
Ever so carefully she pulled the parchment square from the wooden cavity and unfolded it.
“I don’t believe this,” she whispered, staring down at the crude drawing. It was covered with faded, old-fashioned markings.
She had found the other half of the treasure map!
The Missing Map Piece
Nancy stared in amazement at the map half. She was so caught up in the old drawing that she began to lose all sense of where she was or what time it was.
As she had suspected, this map half indicated the longitude of the spot where the treasure was buried, 71.82 W. Nancy was sure that if she matched this longitude with the latitude marked on the other map half, that would tell her the location of the islet.
Nancy turned her attention to the markings on the islet itself. A dotted trail started at the shoreline, from what looked like a huge rock. Markers for the treasure hunter to use as guidelines were indicated along the dotted line. Her pulse started to race when she spotted the other half of the X. This map showed most of the small, peanut-shaped island, with notations in old- fashioned script. “Twenty-five paces south, then left at tortoise rock,’ ” Nancy read aloud in an amazed whisper. “ ‘Curve right at split oak tree.’ ”
Even though Nancy knew she had to turn the map halves over to Mrs. Newcomb right away, she couldn’t help feeling intrigued. She didn’t approve of the way Claire had sneaked around and broken seaport rules, but she understood the lure of the search. In her mind Nancy could picture a gleaming pile of gold coins. She was even tempted to go look for the treasure herself!
A noise from the general store tore Nancy from her daydream. Suddenly alert, she whipped her head around in time to see an orange blur disappear around the side of the building.
“Hey!” Nancy called out. She started after the person, then changed her mind. She couldn’t just leave the figurehead from the Henrietta Lee in two pieces. Besides, in this fog she doubted that anyone who wasn’t right next to her could even see what she was holding.
After carefully refolding the parchment map half, Nancy tucked it inside the copy of Moby Dick she’d brought to her maritime literature class that morning. She twisted the wooden arm back onto the shoulder, then stood back to examine it. The figurehead looked exactly the way it had when she first saw it.
Nancy was so lost in thought that she hardly knew how she got back to her student house. She was relieved to find that her housemates had already left for that afternoon’s demonstration at the shipyard.
Her stomach was growling, but she was too excited to eat anything. Taking the stairs two at a time, she went directly to her room. After retrieving the map half Claire had re-created, Nancy fitted both halves together on her desk. Now she could see that the islet where the treasure was located was near the mouth of a river. Based on what Mrs. Newcomb had told her, Nancy felt the river had to be the Arcadia.
Getting up from her desk, Nancy hurried over to the nautical chart of the area around Bridgehaven and brought it back to her desk. Luckily the chart included the area just off the Connecticut coastline. Three small islands were clustered in the offshore area near the Arcadia. A grid of fine lines was superimposed over the map, indicating latitude and longitude.
Nancy’s heart pounded in her chest as she found the latitude and longitude indicated on the parchment map halves. “Forty-one degrees, forty-three minutes north, seventy-one degrees, eighty-two minutes west,” she murmured. She ran her fingers along each line, to the spot where they intersected.
“Bingo!” she exclaimed. Her fingertip was on Hawk’s Isle, the middle islet of the three near the mouth of the Arcadia. It was vaguely peanut-shaped, just like the one indicated by the parchment map.
Nancy shook her head in disbelief. Was it really possible that a treasure had been hidden so close to the seaport all these years?
She took a deep breath, thinking of what her next step should be. Obviously, she had to go to Mrs. Newcomb with the treasure map as soon as possible. But it bothered her that she still didn’t know who had been sabotaging the seaport and following Claire. Nancy realized that if she didn’t find the real culprit, Claire would probably take the blame.
So far it looked as though Cap Gregory and Vincent Silvio were in the clear. But there was one person Nancy still hadn’t had an opportunity to investigate: Deke Ryan.
Nancy glanced at her watch. Everyone in the student program would be over at the shipyard now, at the woodworking workshop.
“I think a visit to Deke’s house is in order,” she murmured, thinking out loud. If a search of his room didn’t turn up anything, then she would go straight to Mrs. Newcomb with the map.
From downstairs Nancy heard the front door open and close. Who could that be? she wondered uneasily, scrambling to hide the map halves in case the person came up to her room.
“Hello? Nancy, are you here?”
Nancy let out a relieved breath. “Upstairs, George,” she called back.
George’s ruddy face appeared in her doorway a moment later. As she entered the room, Nancy saw that she had changed into a dry pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
“When I didn’t see you over at the shipyard with the other students, I thought you might be onto some big lead,” George said. “Silvio told me to take the afternoon off when he heard about my getting knocked in the water. After this morning I guess he didn’t really want me around, anyway,” she added with a chuckle.
She let out a low whistle when she saw the parchment map half in Nancy’s hand. “Is that what I think it is?” George asked, hurrying over to Nancy’s desk.
Nancy nodded. Quickly she explained how she had found the map half and showed her friend Hawk’s Isle on the nautical chart.
“Wow!” George shook her head in amazement. “No wonder you didn’t go to the woodworking workshop. Finding a treasure beats sanding down a bunch of planks any day.”
“Actually, I wasn’t going to go after the treasure yet,” Nancy said. “We still have to find out who’s been sabotaging the seaport.”
George nodded. “I guess thinking about the treasure made me forget all about that,” she said with a grin. Then her expression grew more serious. “Did you have a chance to check out Deke yet?”
“I was just about to go over to his house,” Nancy told her.
Raising an eyebrow at Nancy, George said, “Well, you know what they say—two snoops are better than one.”
“Definitely,” Nancy agreed, laughing. Reopening Moby Dick, she placed the parchment map half, plus Claire’s drawing of the other half, between two pages. Then she closed the book and slipped it into her bottom desk drawer.
“It ought to be safe there until we get back,” she said. “There’s another thing I have to do before we go, too.”
“What’s that?” George asked.
“I have to grab a sandwich,” Nancy said. “I’m starved!”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later Nancy and George were approaching a green house with a gabled roof that was two houses up the street from Nancy’s student house. A stiff breeze had come up, lifting the fog from the area. Even though it was still very hazy out, she could see clearly up and down the street.
The front door was locked when Nancy tried it. “Mmm,” she said, glancing around. “I bet they have a spare key around here somewhere...”
Her gaze fell on a potted plant hanging from the eave right next to the door. Reaching up, she felt the dirt around the plant. Her fingers touched something metallic, and she pulled it out.
“Good going,” George said approvingly as Nancy held up a brass key. “Now let’s hurry and get inside before the neighbors call the cops.”
The inside of the house had the same lived-in look as Nancy’s student house. The furniture in the living room, just off the front hall, looked worn but comfortable. Sweaters, books, and sneakers were scattered everywhere.
There was a stairway to the right, and the girls took it up to the second floor. Four doorways lined the hall. A quick look revealed that they led to a bathroom and three bedrooms.
“I guess we won’t have much trouble figuring out which room is Deke’s,” George said dryly, flicking a thumb at the door closest to the stairs. A hand-printed sign on the door read The Deke Machine and Chin-meister—Enter at Your Own Risk!
Entering the room, Nancy and George took a quick look around. There were two desks in the room, one set against the wall next to the door, and the other beneath a window against the opposite wall.
“There’s probably something in these desks to tell us which one is Deke’s,” Nancy said.
“I’ll check out the closet,” George told her. “If I find the other map half, or anything that could be connected to the attacks, I’ll yell.”
While George opened the closet door, Nancy went over to the desk nearest the door. The desktop was littered with candy wrappers, some letters, and a messy pile of schoolbooks. Glancing at the letters, Nancy saw that they were addressed to Deke Ryan.
One of the letters was unfolded and written in a looping, feminine script.
“Dear Deke,” the letter began. “Your father and I miss you...”
Nancy skimmed over some news of Deke’s younger sister and brother, then read more carefully as the letter turned back to the subject of the seaport: “I am so proud to see you carrying on the fine sailing tradition of our family. If only your great-great-grandfather, Decatur Preston, could see you now! I know that...”
Nancy stopped reading. Her eyes were fixed on the name of Deke’s relative. The realization hit her like a bolt of lightning.
Deke’s great-great-grandfather had been the captain of the Henrietta Lee!