Chapter 25 The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene
Dreams Come True
Nancy wriggled and twisted inside the tight ropes which held her to the mast.
“Can you move your left hand, George?” Nancy asked.
“I can’t move anything,” George answered.
“We’re drifting out of the cove!” Bess cried frantically. “We’ll be lost at sea!”
They were indeed passing through the inlet, and the ship began to pitch and toss in the crosscurrents. There was not another craft in sight to rescue the girls.
“We’ll drown!” shrieked Bess.
“Oh, do be quiet!” George commanded.
Something on the deck suddenly rolled toward them. Nancy saw that it was the chisel with which they had been working on the figurehead. If only she could reach it!
She yanked against the chafing ropes and worked her right foot loose. She had to wait for another roll of the ship to bring the chisel nearer. Finally it came within a few inches of her foot. She reached out, dragged the tool toward her, and held it with the toe of her shoe.
“How can you get it into your hand?” Bess asked, watching anxiously.
By this time Nancy, using all her good swimming muscles, had managed to free the lower part of her right arm. She wiggled and pulled, but she could not get close enough to the deck to reach the chisel.
“If we could only manage to slide our ropes down on the mast,” Nancy said.
“Let’s all try,” George urged. “We’re tied together, so if one slides down, we’ve all got to.”
Even Bess began to take an interest in the struggle. She squirmed and yanked, panting and puffing and complaining that the rope was blistering her bare arms.
“We’re loosening it!” Nancy cried. “Keep trying!”
Inch by inch the girls worked themselves down toward the deck, until at last Nancy grasped the chisel with her fingers. She began feverishly to work on the rope holding George’s left arm, grinding the hemp against the mast with the cutting edge of the chisel.
“Hurry, Nancy!” Bess pleaded. “We’re getting farther from shore every minute.”
“She’s getting it,” George said cheerfully. “When we get loose, Nancy, do you suppose the three of us could hoist the foresail?”
Bess and Nancy looked at the great heavy loops of canvas. “It’s our only chance to save ourselves,” Nancy said, getting George’s point. “And the wind’s shifted, thank goodness.”
Free at last, the three girls turned to the problem of raising the great sail to catch the wind. With their combined strength they finally hoisted it, made the halyard fast, and rushed to the wheel. The canvas flapped furiously, the ship careened, and then, to their great relief, righted itself as the wind filled the great white sheet.
“We’ve done it!” Bess cried. “We’re heading back toward the cove!”
“Can you girls manage without me?” Nancy asked.
“You aren’t going to leave us?” Bess quavered.
Nancy said she had been mulling over Fay’s remark about Captain Easterly. She was afraid it meant he was a prisoner on board.
“I want to look for him,” she said.
“Go ahead,” George told her. “We’ll manage. I’ll take the wheel. I can’t do any worse than beach this old clipper.”
Nancy hurried below and started calling. No answer. Grabbing a flashlight from the captain’s quarters, she raced from one spot to another. At last, dashing into the stuffy forecastle, she saw a man lying on a bunk, his back to her.
“Captain Easterly!” she cried, turning him over.
At first Nancy thought he was not alive. Discovering that he was, she half dragged, half carried him to the foot of the companionway. She yelled for Bess and together they got him to the top deck. George was astounded to see him.
With the help of their manipulations and the fresh air, the captain finally regained consciousness from a mean blow he had received at the hands of Fred Lane. The thief had tricked him aboard with the same kind of story which Fay had telephoned to the girls at the guest house.
“He got hold of me before I had a chance to telephone the shipping company,” the captain said ruefully. “But see here, what’s going on?” he asked suddenly, realizing they were under sail.
Nancy told him what had happened. The captain tried to get up and help the girls, but he was too weak. It seemed no time at all before they were back in the safe waters of the little cove. Captain Easterly told the girls when to take in the sail and how to drop the anchor.
“We’ll have to swim to shore,” Nancy announced. “There’s no boat.”
The captain told them to be careful, and said he would be all right alone. Bess decided to stay with him, however.
Nancy and George quickly donned bathing suits and started off. They were good swimmers and soon reached the beach.
Gasping and dripping, they rested a moment on the sand, then headed for the nearest house. Nancy asked the woman who answered her knock to telephone the police and ask someone to come there at once.
While waiting for the police, the girls told the flabbergasted woman a little of the story. She lent them towels and gave each girl a beach robe to put on.
“Thank heaven you’re safe,” she said. “To think of such goings on in this quiet little cove!”
Nancy repeated her story to two troopers who arrived in a few minutes. Wheels of justice were set in motion at once. Within an hour Flip Fay and Fred Lane were captured on the road to Boston. Fay had the ruby in his pocket and it was now in the possession of the police.
Meanwhile, Nancy had borrowed a boat, and returned to the clipper with George. They changed to street clothes, then with Bess and Captain Easterly, came back to town. At headquarters they learned the good news about the seizure of the thieves and the fabulous ruby, which had caused trouble for so many years.
“But it won’t cause any more trouble,” said Mr. Ogden—the real Mr. Ogden—of the Eastern Shore Shipping Company, when he arrived the next day and met the group at the police station. “My company believes the ruby rightfully belongs to the descendant of Mathilda Witherspoon—Mrs. Smythe of Provincetown. What do you think, Mr. Farnsworth?” he asked the man who had inherited the clipper.
“I agree with you.”
Nancy was delighted to hear this, knowing the woman needed money badly. “Oh, may I tell her?” she asked eagerly.
When Mr. Ogden nodded, Nancy flew to a telephone. The astounded Mrs. Smythe gasped. When she got her breath, the woman asked Nancy to thank everyone, then added:
“When I told my neighbor, Mrs. Parsons, about your coming the other day, she went to her attic and brought down a drawing of the Dream of Melissa. Maybe you’d like to have it.”
Nancy was thrilled. “Is the figurehead on it?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed. She looks like she did the day she first set sail.”
“Thank you very much,” Nancy said. “I’ll get it tomorrow when I bring the ruby.”
Red Quint, who was standing near by, said he too had a present for Nancy. “I want you to have the snuffbox. You earned it, Miss Drew, catching up with a couple of pirates like Fay and Lane. You taught me a good lesson.”
Nancy accepted the little carved box. Now she had two souvenirs of her adventure; the box, and the Neptune figurehead. She was relieved to learn that Red was to be released on probation. Captain Easterly offered to take him on the clipper as a handyman and cook.
“That is,” the captain added, “if I am going to have a chance to buy the clipper.”
Mr. Ogden said he and Mr. Farnsworth had come to a gentlemen’s agreement in the matter. The Dream of Melissa was to be deeded to Captain Easterly with a clear title! Mr. Farnsworth would receive a portion of the sale price.
“Then everything’s settled,” Bess sighed. “Now let’s have some fun.”
Nancy telephoned her father in River Heights and gave him the whole story. Carson Drew was overwhelmed to hear that so much had been accomplished in such a short time. Mr. Marvin’s ring, Mrs. Marvin’s jewels, and the coins were found in The Crow’s possession, and he had confessed to having overheard Nancy’s plans on the telephone during the robbery. Then he had gone to Boston to investigate the story of the Bonny Scot.
After Nancy had discovered Fay on deck, and Captain Easterly had been sure he would not return, the thief had made two visits to the clipper and hidden in the secret compartment below the wardrobe. From this vantage point he had listened to Nancy tell Mrs. Smythe’s story and had heard a Mr. Ogden was coming from Baltimore. Fay had induced Lane to impersonate Ogden and take over the ship.
Fay himself had remained in town to spy on the girls. When he learned they had found Melissa, the crook changed his plans and tricked them into coming back on board. The rest was easy—until the police had caught him and Lane.
“Whew!” Bess sighed as she tucked herself into bed that night at the guest house. “I hope never to have such a day as yesterday in my life again!”
“Don’t count on it,” George yawned. “As long as you’re a friend of Nancy Drew, you’ll run into exciting mysteries. I’m only hoping to get home for a change of clothes before one turns up!”
George got home all right, but in no time she became involved with Nancy in “The Clue of the Black Keys.”
It was just two weeks after the girls had delivered the precious ruby to Mrs. Smythe that Captain Easterly gave a party on board his clipper. How different it looked! A new mizzenmast had been installed. The ship had been painted a glistening gray. And set under the long prow was the figurehead, Melissa, restored and painted by Mr. Frisbie.
“Doesn’t she look proud?” Nancy asked. “And look at the name on the ship!”
Painted in neat black letters on each side of the bow and across the stern was Dream of Melissa.
“The old pirate ship is gone forever,” George said.
“And a good thing,” Captain Easterly remarked. “I’ve even nailed up that secret passageway where that pirate Fay did his eavesdropping, and used our secrets to gain his own ends. And, what’s more, this ship is going to be rechristened. And you know who’s goin’ to do the christening?”
Captain Easterly’s bright blue eyes twinkled as he turned to Carson Drew and his daughter.
“Nobody but Nancy Drew!”
THE END