Reverse Approach

Bess eased through the darkened chapel, which now carried only a faint scent of candles. “Where are you? ” she asked, failing to conceal her nervousness.

“Over here.”

But in the bleak emptiness of the room, the man’s reply seemed to come from different directions.

“Where? I can’t see you, ” Bess cried.

He struck a match and lit one of the candles, casting an eerie glow on the far door and sending a shiver of fear through Bess. She started to turn away, but it was too late. A thick, woven scarf billowed over her head and was pulled back tight between her lips, preventing her from screaming. She stumbled forward, trying to wrest herself from her attackers, but it was no use. They shoved her through the open door, and in her blindness, she tripped over her friends and fell between them, eliciting loud moans. Instantly, her wrists and ankles were tied like theirs. Then, the door clicked shut and the men departed.

Until that moment, Nancy and George had remained hopeful that Bess would be the one to rescue them. Somehow, though, she too had been tricked. Now they wondered if anyone, even the Emerson boys, would ever find them!

Despite the duchessa's promise, it was almost eight before Ned, Dave, and Burt were permitted to leave police headquarters. At the Gritti Palace, they registered and went to their room quickly, then dialed their friends on the next floor. To the boys’ surprise, the girls weren’t there.

“Very strange, ” Ned said. “I wonder why Nancy didn’t leave a message for me.”

“Maybe they got tied up somewhere, ” Burt answered, unaware of the truth in his comment.

“But it’s so unlike her, ” the boy continued, feeling strangely uneasy. He spoke to the night clerk again. “Are you sure you have no idea where Miss Drew, Miss Fayne, and Miss Marvin went? ” Ned inquired, observing beads of perspiration along the man’s forehead.

“I’m quite sure, but—ah, come to think of it, they did mention going to the Lido.”

“That’s the beach.” Dave laughed. “I doubt they’d get much of a tan in the Venetian moonlight.”

“As a matter of fact—” The man bristled. “There is quite a bit of night life over there. Perhaps your friends found some charming escorts.”

The remark nettled Dave since he was positive the girls would not succumb to casual dates with strangers. If anything, they were probably on the trail of a dangerous criminal!

“Listen, ” Ned went on, “how do we get to the Lido? ”

“By the hotel boat. Or, ” he added quickly, “if you don’t care to wait for the next one, which is due here in an hour, I can arrange for a water taxi.”

The boys quickly looked at each other, agreeing to the latter suggestion immediately.

“Just go through that door, ” the clerk instructed, nodding past the newcomers. “And welcome again to the Gritti.”

“Thanks, ” Ned said. He stepped outside, but realized a moment later that he had left his wallet in the boys’ hotel room and excused himself. “Don’t leave without me, okay? ”

“Don’t worry! ” Dave and Burt called back as he darted into the lobby a second time.

Now asking for his room key once more, Ned flew to the elevator and took it one flight up to Room 124, but when he tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. Again and again he jiggled the lock without success, then gave up and returned to the lobby only to discover that the clerk had left the desk unattended.

Now what? the boy wondered as a voice from behind pulled him toward an adjoining office. There, he found a man in a hotel blazer talking animatedly on the telephone. He glanced at Ned, but made no effort to end his conversation.

“Ned! ” Dave shouted through the door off the landing-stage. “Taxi’s waiting! ”

“Okay, okay, ” his friend answered, dropping the key on the front desk. “I just hope you guys have enough lira for all of us tonight.”

He quickly explained what had transpired, causing Burt’s and Dave’s eyebrows to lift. “Maybe we’ll wind up sleeping on some baroque sofa in the lounge, ” Burt groaned as the trio climbed into the boat.

Ned let the comment pass, speaking to the driver instead. “Lido, ” the boy said briefly just to confirm their destination.

“Si. Capito, ” the man replied, sending the boat through the inky-black water toward the lagoon where a cruise ship lay anchored in a brilliant dazzle of lights.

“I guess he understands, ” Dave commented, descending to the cabin below.

Ned and Burt, however, chose to remain outside. They were fascinated by the foamy trail of whitecaps that curled in the wake of their boat as it streaked along a channel of log markers flanking the course to the Lido. As it came into view, Burt pulled out a map of the beach resort, noting the main hotels offering musical entertainment. One of them was the Excelsior where they seemed to be heading.

“It sure is dark around here, ” Dave said, sticking his head out of the cabin to feel the cool settling of air as the boat slackened its speed.

“I’ll say, ” Burt remarked.

“And you and I had better duck before we get our heads knocked off by that bridge coming up, ” Ned told him.

The driver had already motioned them down. Keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead, he cut the engine and allowed the boat to glide slowly between the brick walls until it cleared the low, stony arch.

At the same time, Ned noticed the dark figure of a man on the other side of the bridge. He had lowered himself with a rope and was dangling to the right of the arch, holding himself with one hand while the other swung out, sending a small shapeless object in their direction.

“Watch out! ” Ned cried to the boatman who instantly shifted the gear into reverse and stopped. The mysterious object fell a few yards short of its target and sank into the water.

“What was that? ” Burt asked, mystified.

“Well, I don’t think he would’ve climbed down a rope just to throw a stone at us, ” Ned said soberly.

“You’re right. It was probably a bomb of some sort, ” Dave grumbled.

“Good thing it didn’t hit the boat and go off. We’d be a plate of spaghetti by now, ” Burt said.

The driver, meanwhile, had continued backing away from the bridge, and Ned stepped quickly toward him. “We must keep going, ” he said. “Prego. Please. We have to go to the Hotel Excelsior! ”

But the boatman shouted back in Italian, refusing to shift forward again.

“He’s scared, ” Burt said. “He knows it was an attack, not just some kid’s prank.”

“At the rate we’re going, ” Dave said, worried, “we might not get another taxi for hours. I think this calls for drastic measures.”

“Like what? ” the other boy replied, watching his friend’s eyes travel to the murky, black water.

“I’ll show him it’s safe, ” Dave said, stripping down to his shorts. “Follow me! ” he yelled to the helmsman.

“Dave? Are you crazy? ” Ned called out but his words faded under the shouts of the driver, as the boy dived in.

“Now he’s really in a tailspin, ” Burt whispered, watching the man angrily shift the boat forward.

“Have to admit it worked, though, ” Ned said.

Dave had succeeded in swimming several yards beyond them before the boat caught up to him, and he was reluctant to come aboard again. Apart from a possibly heated confrontation with the driver, he feared that the man might turn back. But the boys insisted that Dave had had enough exercise and pulled him out of the water.

The driver merely glared at him as Dave spoke, shivering, “It’s freezing down there.”

“Here. Dry yourself off, good buddy, ” Burt said and handed him a towel from the cabin.

“For this, you deserve a big dish of pasta on me! ” Ned chuckled. “Too bad I don’t have my wallet.”

The remark drew a good-natured frown from his companion, who put his suit on quickly. “T can always take a raincheck, ” he said as the boat swung under a second bridge and finally pulled up to the hotel float.

He paid the driver, who offered a grim steely grunt in return, and then followed his friends into the hotel and down a long carpeted hallway. From the second floor, they heard a drumbeat and leaped up the stairway two steps at a time, hurrying past guests in glittering evening attire. The boys paused, however, when they reached the noisy room above.

“There she is! That’s Nancy! ” Dave gasped, directing Ned’s attention to an attractive, titian-haired girl in a green silk dress. She moved off the dance floor with her date behind her and sat down at an empty table for six.

Soon a shock of wavy blond hair resembling Bess’s also bobbed into view.

“See? ” Burt said. “They did find dates and came here to dance.”

“Hmph. It would serve them right if we left Italy without even telling them, ” Dave said, pursing his lips.

“I have a better idea, ” Burt replied, an air of mischief in his voice.