The Long-Lost Clue

PUSHING the chair back from the desk, Nancy dropped to her knees and looked into the opening.

She could move the little panel back and forth, but behind it was a solid piece of wood. No secret compartment? This was disappointing. She had been almost certain she had uncovered the hiding place of Captain Rogers’ fabulous gift.

As she slid the panel again, feeling carefully for a hidden spring, Bess and George burst into the room. Their faces were smudged. Bess sneezed.

“Oh, that terrible dusty chart room! ”

“Never mind the dust, ” George said, brushing a stray wisp of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “See what we found jammed behind a drawer, Nancy! ” George offered her a small chart, tightly rolled.

Nancy unrolled it gingerly. It was very brittle.

“Here, put it on the floor, ” George suggested. Nancy did so. Then, with three pairs of hands holding the edges of the chart, Nancy gazed at a strange map showing the islands of the East Indies. A penciled line meandered from Calcutta through the waters of the Orient, ending abruptly near Java.

Another part of the puzzle of the clipper jogged into place in Nancy’s mind. “The return trip of the Dream of Melissa! ” she exclaimed. “Captain Rogers charted his ship’s course until something happened to stop him. Bess, find Captain Easterly. We must show him this.”

When Bess left, Nancy told George of the secret compartment in the desk.

“Let me try, ” George suggested. “Perhaps I can open it.”

She was working at it when Bess returned with the skipper.

“What’s this I hear about a chart, Nancy? ” Captain Easterly demanded.

Nancy showed it to him. The captain had never seen it before, but he agreed with Nancy that it was probably part of the log of the Melissa’s fateful journey. Then Nancy showed him the drawer in the desk.

“I know that desk better than I know my own mind, ” he said. “You won’t find anything hidden in there.”

“But look, Captain, ” Nancy pleaded, picking up the drawer. “See how much deeper the desk is than this drawer. There must be something back of it.”

His eyebrows went up. “Well, ” he said, “I never knew that.” He put an arm into the opening and found the little movable panel. “Hah! Oriental contraption. Take you a week of Sundays to figure it out.”

“Let’s use a hammer and chisel instead, ” George put in. “Why bat our brains out over this thing when we could just chop into it? ”

Nancy objected. “The ship belongs to the Eastern Shore Shipping Company, ” she reminded them. “We have no right to destroy the desk. Let’s work on the movable panel a little longer.”

The captain smiled. “You just want to see if you can outwit the man who made the compartment, Nancy.”

He and Bess each took a turn, but with no better luck than George had had.

“It’ll take you all day, ” Bess told Nancy. “Meanwhile, George, we’d better pick up the wreckage we left in the chart room, before the ship’s master sees it.”

The two girls left. Captain Easterly dropped into his armchair, and Nancy continued to experiment with the puzzle behind the desk drawer. The moving panel, she thought, must be a key to the next panel. If one got it in exactly the right position, something else would move.

Patiently she tried. Her knees ached, and her neck was stiff, but she kept wiggling the little piece of wood back and forth.

Then suddenly she felt something give! Another panel had slid open. Captain Easterly watched with excitement.

Eagerly Nancy worked with this second key to the mysterious compartment. The skipper hung over her, urging her on. It took some time, but eventually a third panel moved, and Nancy was electrified to find her fingers slipping into an opening.

“I’ve got it! ” she cried out.

Captain Easterly went into the passageway and bellowed for the other girls. By the time they came running in, Nancy had put her hand on something that felt like paper.

Gingerly she drew it out, yellow and crumbling. They all crowded around her.

“There’s writing on it, ” Bess whispered, her eyes popping.

The faded ink showed a hasty but elegant hand, with long curlicues.

“It’s signed by Captain Perry Rogers! ” Nancy said in awe.

“What does it say? ” Captain Easterly fumbled for the glasses in his shirt pocket.

Nancy read slowly. “It’s addressed to Josiah Ogden, and it says:

“ ‘Honorable Sir: I have the misfortune to inform you we are beset by pirates. Their names are unknown to me. Should God will my decease, I pray thee, search my beloved lady of wood and therein find a precious ruby to be presented in person to her whom I hoped to make my wife, Mathilda Witherspoon, as a lasting protestation of my devotion. Your humble servant, Perry Rogers.’ ”

Bess gasped. “A letter from Captain Perry Rogers himself—after all these years! ” She felt the paper as if she could not believe it was real. “A ruby for his sweetheart! ”

“What did he mean by ‘my beloved lady of wood’? ” George wondered. She looked quickly around the cabin walls at the figurines. “These? ”

The captain followed her glance. “Those little carved figures came with the ship, ” he said. “I believe Rogers had them here in his day.”

“What are we waiting for? ” George demanded.

They were such lovely little figures that no one wanted to break them apart, and yet if they hoped to find the “precious ruby” Captain Rogers had referred to, it seemed they would have to.

Bess was carefully tapping Venus to see if she sounded hollow, when she stopped abruptly. “Nancy, ” she complained, “you haven’t said a word. And you aren’t searching. Say, do you suppose Flip Fay thought my ruby pendant was the famous treasure? ”

“No, I don’t, ” Nancy answered. “He’s a jewel thief. He’d know a fake ruby in a moment. I have a hunch Flip thought he could fool old Grizzle Face with it, though.”

“Why? ” George wanted to know.

“To keep him off the ship—so he couldn’t find the real treasure.”

Further conversation was halted by the far-away shout of “Ship ahoy! ”

“Who’s that? ” Bess asked uneasily.

“Not one of Flip’s friends, ” George decided. “They never announce their arrival.”

Nancy was in the lead as they made their way to the deck. A tall, middle-aged man was rowing to the side of the Bonny Scot. They tossed him a rope ladder and he pulled himself over the deck rail with much effort.

“I’m Josiah Ogden, ” he said after he ceased puffing. “And I suppose you’re Easterly.”

Josiah Ogden! The name of the man to whom Perry Rogers had addressed his note!

Recovering from her surprise, Nancy recalled that her father had said a Mr. Ogden would come from Maryland in a few days. He must be a direct descendant of the other Josiah Ogden.

“Which one of you girls is Nancy Drew? ” the man asked.

“I am.”

“Glad to know you, ” Ogden said, putting out his hand. “Smart father you’ve got. And”—he grinned—“I understand that you’re pretty smart yourself! ”

Nancy flushed and did not answer. She did not like his breezy manner.

Captain Easterly seemed too dumfounded to speak. He had not expected Mr. Ogden so soon. Too many things had happened too fast!

“Will you sit down? ” the captain finally found words. “Well, Mr. Ogden, what’s the company going to do? I hope they’ll let me buy the Bonny Scot.”

“Dream of Melissa, ” the man corrected him. “I’m afraid not, Captain Easterly. My instructions are to take charge here at once.”

“You mean—” Nancy gasped. “That the four of you are to leave this morning.”

“But, Mr. Ogden, this is the captain’s home! He’s lived on this ship for two years! You just can’t put Captain Easterly off like—like—”

“You’re trespassing on private property, ” Ogden said firmly. “I’m taking charge of the ship, and I’m asking all of you to leave—as soon as possible! ”