Joe saw Lisa stumble against the rail, and he sprang into motion. Even before she began to topple over, he had narrowed the distance that separated them. With all the strength and grace he would have put into reaching out for a long pass, he grabbed her arm just above the elbow and tugged her to safety.
“You’re okay,” he assured her as she began to sob with mixed fright and relief. “Relax, you’re fine.”
Meanwhile, Frank moved quickly to Jason’s side and put a friendly but warning arm around his shoulders. At first Jason seemed too shocked to react to Lisa’s near fall, which he had caused. At Frank’s touch, he snapped to attention. He shrugged off the arm and took a step away.
“Leave me alone,” he barked.
“Hey, take it easy, fella,” Frank said, moving between Jason and Boris. “We’re all friends here.”
“Think so?” Jason demanded. He took a couple of deep breaths and straightened his shoulders. “We’ll see about that.”
Not meeting anyone’s eyes, he spun on one heel and stalked inside.
Lisa threw her arms around Joe’s neck. “Joe Hardy, you saved my life!” she exclaimed.
Joe felt his cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. “Hey, that’s okay,” he muttered. He disentangled himself from her grasp. “No big deal.”
“No big deal?” Lisa said. “I could have drowned or been eaten by sharks. You’re a hero . . . and I’m going to make sure that every kid who reads Teenway knows it.”
Looking past her, Joe saw that Frank was grinning. Joe’s cheeks burned even more. He made a private vow. If Frank teased him about this, he was going to short-sheet Frank’s bunk.
Sylvie seemed miffed by all the attention that was going to Lisa. “Are there really sharks here?” she asked with a dainty shiver.
“Sure, lots of them,” Cesar said cheerfully. “But you don’t have to worry about sharks as much as the jellyfish and electric eels and giant clams. Just let one of those clams get you inside its shell, and you’re history!”
Elizabeth gave him a cold look. “Were you left back in tenth grade?” she asked in a haughty tone. “Or is it just your humor that’s sophomoric?”
“Brrr!” Cesar said with a shiver. “I think I just hit an iceberg. Somebody get me a blanket, quick. Or better yet, a lifeboat.”
Everybody laughed—everybody but Elizabeth.
Sylvie stretched and said, “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll rest before dinner.”
“Good idea,” Lisa said. “Me, too.”
The two girls walked off. Boris asked, “Anybody for a game of chess? There’s a board in the salon.”
“Sure,” Kenneth said. “I’ll give it a shot.”
Cesar gave Elizabeth a cheeky grin. “How about a hot game of checkers? Or maybe you know how to play fish? That kinda fits with being on a boat.”
“I take back my remark about being sophomoric,” Elizabeth said. “You’re obviously stuck in fourth grade. Excuse me. I need to catch up on my reading.”
As the girl from Virginia stalked off, Cesar looked over at Frank and Joe and rolled his eyes. “I hate stuffed shirts,” he said. “Don’t you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He, too, went inside. The Hardys were left alone on deck.
“We should go have a talk with David,” Joe suggested. “I’d like to make sure everything is set for tonight’s crime.”
“I hope there’s only one,” Frank replied. “The way some of these guys are getting along, we may have a murder to deal with.”
• • •
Half an hour later Frank and Joe were on the sundeck near the bow with David, going over the details of that evening’s puzzle. The notes of a triple chime resounded through the boat.
“That must be the signal for dinner,” David said, getting to his feet. “You fellows go ahead. I’d better find my kid and make sure he washes his hands.”
The dark, glossy table in the forward section of the main salon glittered with china and silver for twelve. The flames of two candelabra wavered in the light breeze from the deck.
Everyone waited near the entrance for somebody to go in first.
Bettina came in and stood near the head of the table. She had changed again—this time into a light green dress decorated with sea horses and anchors. “Please sit anywhere you like,” she said. “We’re going to be quite informal.”
Cesar eyed the table. In a loud whisper he said, “If this is ‘quite informal,’ I sure hope she doesn’t decide to get formal. I left my white tie and tails back in Albuquerque.”
Sylvie went to a seat halfway along the far side of the table. Jason and Boris rushed over to grab the chairs on either side of her, then glared at each other.
Lisa came up to Joe. “May I sit next to you?” she asked sweetly. “I want to hear all about the mysteries you’ve solved.”
Frank gave Joe an amused look. Joe wrinkled his nose at him.
Elizabeth took the seat next to David and asked him his views on the future of the American theater. From his expression, David would probably have rather been discussing the NCAA Final Four.
The first course was a salad with asparagus stalks and orange slices. The look Evan gave it cracked Joe up.
Everyone ate the salad in a tense and uneasy silence. Joe decided the problem was mostly the formality of the dinner table, but the tensions between some of the contestants didn’t help the atmosphere.
The only one who seemed totally unaffected by the atmosphere was Evan. After eating his orange slices and sliding his asparagus under a convenient lettuce leaf, he looked around and said, “I know a riddle.”
“Evan . . .” David said in a warning tone.
“What’s your riddle?” Joe asked.
Evan took a deep breath. “Why did the boy throw his alarm clock out the window?”
Joe put on a very thoughtful expression. “Um, let’s see . . . Because it went off too early and he didn’t want to wake up yet?” he suggested.
Before Evan could respond to this, Elizabeth said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Because he wanted to make time fly, of course.”
“That’s right,” Evan said, crestfallen. “Wait, wait—I’ve got another one. How many balls of string would it take to reach to the moon?”
Not allowing enough time for anyone to speak, he said, “Give up? One, if it’s big enough.”
That got a chorus of groans from around the table. Encouraged by the response, Evan continued. “Here’s a good one. Where did Napoleon keep his armies?”
“In France?” Jason said.
“No, no,” Boris cut in. “In Russia. You know what happened to Napoleon. Once his armies went to Russia, they never returned.”
“You’re both wrong.” Evan chortled. “You know where Napoleon kept his armies? In his sleevies!”
• • •
After dinner Frank and David went to put the final touches on the first mystery. Joe stayed with the contestants in the salon. No one talked. Sylvie sat on the couch with a magazine open on her lap, never turning a single page. Boris paced around the room, pausing now and then to stare out at the darkness. The others simply sat, gazing vacantly into space. Joe decided they must be psyching themselves for the contest.
David and Frank returned. David was holding a baseball cap upside down.
“I’ve put five numbered slips of paper in here,” he announced. “You’ll each take one to determine the order of play.”
He went around the room. Jason drew number one, followed by Cesar, Sylvie, Boris, and Elizabeth.
“Joe will take each of you in turn to the scene of the crime,” David continued. “You’ll have five minutes to look around. Don’t touch anything. Afterward you’ll fill out a report explaining your interpretation of the crime, the culprit or culprits, and the evidence. Your score will be based on how close you come to the official version . . . in other words, mine.”
That drew a slight, nervous laugh from everyone.
“Okay, let’s go,” David concluded. “And may the best detective win!”
Joe led Jason out of the salon and up a flight of stairs to a door marked Private.
“This is the captain’s cabin,” he explained. “As background, you should know that the yacht’s owner asked the captain to keep a file of securities in his safe. Their value is over a million dollars.”
“I can guess what comes next,” Jason said.
Joe didn’t reply. He pushed the door open and stood aside. He glanced at his watch. Then he followed Jason into the cabin.
The first thing he noticed was a body sprawled on the floor in front of the open safe. It was dressed in oil-stained khakis and work boots. A length of electric cord was knotted around the neck.
“That’s a dummy, right?” Jason asked. His voice quavered.
“Right,” Joe said. “And that is the only question I’m allowed to answer. Your five minutes started fifteen seconds ago.”
Jason set to work. He studied the dummy from head to foot, then peered into the safe. The papers spilled on the rug occupied him for a minute or more. Then he moved around the cabin. He looked closely at the files on the desk and the overturned glass on the end table. A wrench half-tucked into a chair cushion didn’t seem to interest him. He spent what was left of his five minutes getting down on his hands and knees to sniff the barrel of a snub-nosed .38 revolver peeping out from under the dummy’s leg.
“Time,” Joe announced. He escorted Jason back to the salon and returned with Cesar. Unlike Jason, Cesar kept up a running stream of comments as he examined the crime scene. Some of them were to the point. Others were so wacky that Joe had to work not to laugh.
Each of the other contestants also had a different style. Sylvie acted like an airhead, but she noticed as many important details as anyone else. Boris spent the first half of his time posed just inside the doorway. Only his eyes moved. Then he went around the cabin counterclockwise, pausing to check each clue in turn. As for Elizabeth, she stood as if she were there for a social engagement with the captain. Joe half expected her to send him off for tea and pastries.
After all the contestants had had their turns, they were given half an hour to complete their crime reports. Frank and Joe collected the five papers and took them to their cabin. Frank stuck the folder inside his suitcase for safekeeping. Then they returned to the salon. They expected that the others would want to party on their first night at sea, but the only one still there was Lisa.
“Everybody pooped out,” Lisa told them. “It has been a pretty long day. But how could anyone give up the chance to watch the moon rise over the water?”
“When does it rise tonight?” Joe asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lisa admitted. “But it has to come up sooner or later. Why don’t we just go out on deck and wait for it?”
Pointedly, Frank picked up a magazine and sat down on one of the two leather sofas.
“You promised to tell me about some of your cases,” Lisa added. “For my Teenway story.”
Joe didn’t recall making such a promise, but it was a reasonable request. He went out on the afterdeck with Lisa and told her about the time he and Frank had gone undercover as actors in a Broadway musical. It took a while. When he finished, he looked around. The moon still wasn’t up. Or had it already set?
“I’d better turn in,” he said, getting to his feet. “Big day tomorrow.”
He said good night to Lisa and collected Frank from the salon. As they went down to their cabin, Joe noticed a line of light across the floor coming from the door to their cabin.
“Frank!” Joe whispered urgently. He grabbed his brother’s arm. “We didn’t leave the door open or the light on. Somebody has been in our cabin!”