A Burned Letter

INSTEAD of being frightened by the fisherman’s warning, Nancy found her curiosity aroused about the island. She asked Two Line Parker why he had advised her to stay away from it.

“Stories they tell, ” he answered. “The place is haunted, some folks think. Take that ship, the Black Falcon, the night she sank. I’ve heard Indians talk about it. They say a fire rose up out of her even when she was under water. And after that it rained frogs.”

“Frogs? ” echoed Jack Walker, and Nancy wondered if the old man’s mind were not wandering.

“You don’t believe me, ” Two Line said. “Well, it ain’t just me that says so. It’s writ down, sure enough, in a book.”

“Who wrote it down? ” Nancy asked suspiciously.

Two Line nodded his head wisely. “Old sailor down here. Dead now. Lived on the Keys for years, just writin’ everything down. Stories the Indians told mostly. He knew their language like his own, and Spanish, too.”

The old man’s final sentence caught Nancy’s attention.

“Who was he? What was his name? ” she queried.

“Evans, they called him. Never knew his first name. He went everywheres listenin’ to stories and writin’ ’em down.”

“Had he been a sea captain? ” Nancy asked excitedly.

“I don’t rightly know. Never talked about himself. When I knowed him, he’d lived around here for years.”

“And he kept a diary? ”

“Maybe that’s what it was. He made drawin‘s, too. He’d fool hours away, adrawin’ and ascriblin’. But he’d never show that book of his to nobody.”

The old man babbled on about Indians, pirates, and shipwrecks, but Nancy kept thinking about Evans, and the “book” he kept. It could very well be the diary Mrs. Wangell had in her possession!

“What happened to the diary? ” she asked.

Two Line had no idea.

“Would you please show us, on a map, where the Black Falcon was sunk? ” Nancy requested.

Jack Walker had a map of Florida in his pocket. He unfolded it and handed the flattened sheet to the fisherman.

Two Line Parker squinted at the shoreline, and pushed a calloused forefinger over a scattering of small Keys.

“About here. There’s a Key nearby, I seem to remember, that’s called Storm Island.”

Nancy marked the spot on the map with her pencil, and decided to ask Dr. Anderson to accompany her there the following day.

But the professor had other plans for Saturday. He told Nancy that he had chartered a bus for a visit to a Seminole Indian reservation. Fran and Nancy, he insisted, were to join the other students on the trip.

Though she was reluctant to spend the time this way, especially since the next day was Sunday and Dr. Anderson had ordered a day of rest, Nancy found the trip a fascinating one.

Sunday evening, while eating supper with her friends in a tearoom, Nancy decided to make a start on her detective work. She took a notebook from her purse and found the address Wilfred Porterly had given to Sergeant Malloy at the River Heights airport.

Fran Oakes groaned. “Watch out, girls. Nancy has a plan. I can see it hatching.”

Nancy laughed. “How would you three like to go on a manhunt with me? ”

“With bloodhounds? ” Grace James grinned.

“No. Just with our own wits.”

“Whom are we going to hunt? ” Marilyn asked.

“A man named Wilfred Porterly and his wife Irene, ” Nancy replied. “Not respectable, I warn you.”

“Let’s go! ” said Fran. “It’s a better game than just sitting around at Mrs. Young’s.”

In high spirits, the girls left the tearoom and hailed a bus which carried them north on Biscayne Boulevard. A few minutes later they got off and after a short walk reached a neat, Spanish-style bungalow.

The four girls walked up the steps and Nancy rang the doorbell. They heard footsteps inside, and the door was opened by a woman with a mop in her hand. She looked surprised to see her four callers.

“Good evening. Are you Mrs. Wilfred Porterly? ” Nancy asked, eying the mop.

The woman smiled. “Mercy, no. I guess you’re looking for the former tenant.”

Nancy showed her disappointment. “Did the Porterlys move out recently? ”

“Two weeks ago yesterday.”

The woman set down her mop. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m busy cleaning. I have to clean day and night, they left the place so dirty. I guess they moved out in a hurry.”

She took a slip from her apron pocket. “I found this on a nail in the kitchen. I guess it’s their forwarding address.”

Nancy read the notation: “Porterly, c/o General Delivery, Florida City.”

“I suppose you don’t know the Porterlys personally? ” she asked.

The woman threw up her hands and made a face. Then she looked embarrassed. “I hope you’re not friends? ”

“Not exactly, ” said Nancy. “We came on business.”

She and the other girls said good night and walked back toward the boulevard.

“Florida City, ” said Grace. “That’s too far away for tonight.”

“Any other criminals we can hunt? In Miami that is, ” Fran teased.

“Perhaps, ” said Nancy. “If I can find his address.”

While the other girls waited, Nancy stopped at a drugstore telephone booth and looked for the names Juarez Tino and Conway King in the Miami directory. They were not listed. When she called Information, the operator said that neither person had a telephone.

“The missing persons, ” Nancy told her friends, “will have to stay missing until tomorrow. Let’s go back to Mrs. Young’s and get some sleep.”

Next day Dr. Anderson promised Nancy that he would accompany her and Fran on their trip to find Black Key. But he could not start, he said, until after lunch.

“Would it be all right if Fran and I spent the morning in Florida City? ” Nancy asked. “It’s only a few miles from here and we could rent a car.”

The professor gave permission, and shortly before ten she and Fran were speeding through the picturesque area south of Miami.

Parking their hired car along the palm-lined main street of Florida City, Nancy and Fran went in search of the post office. But no help was to be gained from that quarter.

“Sorry, ” said the clerk. “We can’t give you any information.”

“I might have guessed, ” Nancy told her friend. “We’ll just have to do our detective work the hard way.”

Someone, somewhere, Nancy hoped, would have seen or heard of the Porterlys. She asked a policeman, but he shook his head.

She tried a drugstore, a gas station, and a sandwich shop, but none of the personnel had heard of the Porterlys. After that, she visited a market and a candy-and-stationery store, again to no avail.

“I don’t see how you can be so persistent, ” Fran said. “I’d have given up ages ago.”

Nancy chuckled. “That’s the fun of being a detective. You look and look and keep on looking. And suddenly, when you least expect it, you find a clue.”

They next inquired at a small souvenir shop selling Florida shells and curios of various kinds. Nancy repeated her usual question.

“I’m trying to locate a man and his wife who, I understand, are staying in Florida City. Their last name is Porterly.”

As had happened so many times, the proprietor shook his head. But a young boy who was sweeping the shop spoke up politely.

“I think I can help you, miss. I delivered a package to a Mrs. Porterly just last week. She was staying at the Sunland Tourist Home.”

He gave directions for reaching the house. The two girls hurried to their car and drove away quickly.

“Now we’re getting somewhere, ” Nancy said triumphantly.

But her triumph was short-lived. They found the tourist home boarded up and deserted. Nailed over the Sunland sign was a neat card which read: Closed Temporarily. Will reopen December 15.

“What do we do now? Go back to Miami? ” Fran asked gloomily.

“Not yet, ” Nancy replied. “Let’s look around.”

She went to the porch and peered into the mailbox. It was empty. Then she and Fran walked toward the back yard.

In the middle of the driveway stood a wire incinerator. Evidently it had been in use recently, for it smelled faintly of smoke. Upon investigation Nancy found that a pile of letters had been burned. Some of the envelopes had not been entirely consumed by the flames.

“It won’t hurt to look, ” Nancy told Fran. “Here—hold my shoulder bag, please.”

She turned the incinerator on end and upset the contents in the driveway. Then she singled out the letters which had partially escaped the fire. Seating herself on the back steps, she began to examine them.

Most of the scraps proved valueless. But one envelope excited her interest. It read:

“Mr. W. Port—” The rest of the address was seared.

Nancy looked inside the crumbling folds of paper. Only a scrap of the letter had survived. But its contents startled her.

Drew girl and

the trail. Cover you

Will meet you at B

the fifteenth.

Nancy’s heart thumped wildly. Drew girl! Were the Porterlys and their friends plotting some new evil against her?

“The fifteenth is day after tomorrow! ” Nancy cried. “Oh, Fran, if only more of that letter hadn’t burned, we’d know where Porterly and someone else—probably Juarez Tino—are going to meet. And why! ”

Nancy put the scraps of paper in her purse, and the girls returned home.

“Nancy, it all sounds as if you were in dreadful danger, ” Fran said worriedly as they went to lunch.

“I admit I must be very careful. But if a lot of us stick together, no harm can come to me, ” the young detective assured her. Fran perked up. By two o’clock they were out on the bay in Jack’s boat with Dr. Anderson.

On the way to the spot where so many years before the Black Falcon had sunk, Jack pointed out various sights to the girls.

“Over there is what’s called a sea garden, ” he was saying. “It’s very pretty. Grasses, coral, ferns, starfish, and conch shells.”

The roar of a speedboat, passing a few yards at their left, almost drowned out his words. Nancy looked up curiously—and her back stiffened.

In that brief moment, as the boat rushed by she had glimpsed the dark, sinister face of someone she knew. Nancy caught Dr. Anderson’s arm.

“That man in the boat! ” she cried, pointing excitedly. “He’s Juarez Tinol”