Chapter 15 The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene
King of the Sea
“I’m diving in!” Nancy cried. “Whoever it is may still be alive!”
She kicked off her shoes and went overboard.
George shouted, “I’m coming too!”
The two girls quickly swam toward the floating figure. A motor launch churning past at some distance left waves in its wake which made the victim drift farther off.
“He’s getting away from you!” Bess cried, leaning over the rail.
With a dozen quick overhand strokes, Nancy came nearer the figure. There was something strange about it. Then, coming closer, she understood.
The object in the water was not alive—and never had been. It was made of wood!
Nancy caught hold of one arm of the wooden man and pulled it toward George. “Here’s your corpse!” she laughed.
“What is it?” George gasped, shaking the water from her eyes. “Nancy, it’s only a statue!”
“I think it’s a figurehead,” Nancy answered.
“What’s going on?” Bess shouted from her place at the rail. “Is he dead or alive?”
George called back, but Bess could not hear her. Captain Easterly must have joined Bess, although the girls in the water could not see him.
“I’ll bring the boat around and we’ll give him first aid,” the captain boomed. “Hang on!”
Again George tried to tell him there was no need for him to hurry. But in no time the captain came rowing around from the other side of the clipper. He laughed heartily when he learned the truth, and helped the girls lift the wooden statue over the edge of the boat. Then he helped them climb in.
When they hauled the wooden man on board, Bess was dumfounded. “He—he’s—he’s worse than a dead man!” She shuddered.
“I shouldn’t say he is,” Nancy remarked, standing the figure upright. “He’s rather good-looking.”
The fine-featured wooden man wore a crown and held a three-pronged fork in one hand.
“It must be Neptune,” Nancy said.
“None other,” Captain Easterly agreed. “King of the waves and master of the sea!” He shook his head sorrowfully at the battered figure. “Neptune sure doesn’t look like that now.”
The figure was cracked and weathered by sun and sea. The arm that held the trident looked as if it had been gnawed by rats. But still there was a grace about the blurred lines that Nancy liked.
“Captain Easterly, may I keep it as a souvenir?” she asked. “I mean, if we can’t find the owner?”
The skipper smiled. “I guess that would be fair enough.”
“Did it belong to a ship?” Bess asked. “He’s so small.”
The captain leaned back in a deck chair and lit his pipe. “It’s smaller than most, but it’s a figurehead all right,” he replied. “More than one ship has lost its figurehead, for one reason or another.”
“Did they ever change the figurehead on purpose?” George wanted to know.
Captain Easterly puffed on his pipe. “Sometimes they did. For instance, if a ship had a new captain, maybe he wouldn’t like the figurehead. So he’d change it for one he picked out himself. You girls ever hear of Old Ironsides?”
“Wasn’t that the battleship Constitution, famous during the War of 1812?” Nancy asked.
The captain nodded. “She had five different figureheads, so the story goes. The last one put on her prow was a figure of President Andrew Jackson. In those days plenty of folks didn’t like Jackson’s politics. It made them angry to see that fine ship carrying a statue of him.
“One foggy night, while the ship lay in Boston Harbor, somebody sneaked out in a rowboat and sawed off Mr. Jackson’s head. Caused quite a stir.”
The girls laughed. “Did they find out who did it?” George asked.
“The mystery wasn’t cleared up for years, but finally someone claimed he’d done it—after he knew he wouldn’t be punished for his deed!”
Nancy was thinking about another figurehead—the lovely woman carved on the snuffbox she had found.
“I wish I knew more about the mystery of that snuffbox,” she said. “It must be valuable if old Grizzle Face wanted it. I’ll keep on looking till I find the history of it. I have a hunch that figurehead was on this ship.”
“Can you still remember what it looked like?” Bess asked.
“I can now, but I’m afraid I’ll forget later,” Nancy admitted. “I’ll make a sketch of it first thing in the morning.”
“I’m glad you said ‘morning,’ ” George confessed. “That swim made me so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
The girls said good night to the captain and went down to their cabin. Nancy and George drowsed off while Bess was still dousing herself with sunburn lotion.
Captain Easterly stayed on deck and slept fitfully. He was determined that no intruder was coming aboard without his knowing it! Nothing happened, and morning dawned peacefully.
After breakfast, Captain Easterly handed Nancy a box of pencils, crayons, and drawing paper he had on board. She carried them to the top deck and set to work sketching the cameo from the snuffbox as best she could from memory.
Bess said she was going to do a water color of the cove, and George thought she would try a drawing of Captain Easterly smoking his old brown pipe. They were so busy with these projects that they did not hear an approaching rowboat.
“Ahoy, there!” called a man’s voice.
Mr. Drew!
“Dad!” Nancy jumped to her feet.
He came aboard, smiling. “Looks like an industrious and peaceful crew you’ve got here, Captain Easterly.”
The skipper shook hands with him. “At the moment, yes. But I have my troubles with ’em. Diving over the side for old figureheads, and struggling over snuffboxes with bad characters in dungarees.”
“What’s this?” Mr. Drew turned to his daughter, still with a broad smile. “More excitement aboard the Bonny Scot?”
“Mr. Drew, you should have been here during the storm!” Bess exclaimed. “It was simply horrible.”
“It was wonderful,” George and Nancy said together, laughing.
The girls told him about the voyage from Boston, the fire, the storm, and the two stowaways, one of whom had jumped overboard.
Mr. Drew frowned. “This time I’d be more inclined to agree with Bess,” he remarked. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“You haven’t heard half of it, Mr. Drew,” Bess said, encouraged by his remark. “The other stowaway was Red Quint. He was aboard all the time.”
“He was looking for something,” Nancy explained. “But we have no idea what. He dropped a little snuffbox with the cameo of a lady on it—like this.” She showed her father the half-finished sketch.
“Handsome woman,” Carson Drew commented. “Nose a little on the long side, maybe.”
“It isn’t really,” Nancy assured him. “Just enough to give her dignity. She’s a beautiful lady, with a sweet sort of face.”
“Why are you sketching her?” the lawyer asked.
“Because I think she was a figurehead,” Nancy replied. “I even suspect she was the figurehead on the Bonny Scot!”
The lawyer became more interested. “I see you’ve made some progress on the case.”
“That she has,” said the captain. “You can’t keep Nancy down on land or sea!”
Nancy blushed at the praise. “I still have a long way to go before solving the mystery,” she said.
Her father looked at her intently. Then he turned to the skipper of the Bonny Scot. “Captain Easterly,” he said, “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”