The instant he realized that he was under attack, Joe tucked his chin into his chest and dropped into a crouch. Reaching up, he closed both hands around one of his attacker’s wrists. Then he did a half spin on the ball of one foot. His opponent’s extended arm was now trapped against the fulcrum of his right shoulder. He took a deep breath and prepared to use the power of his thigh muscles to execute a full shoulder throw. Even as he did, he wondered why the other guy was hanging limp instead of resisting.
“Joe, hold on, it’s me!” a familiar voice said in his ear. At the same time a hand grabbed the waistband of his pajamas at the back. This was a standard counter to his move. If he went ahead with the throw, he would find himself being pulled along with his opponent.
“Frank? What are you doing here?” Joe asked softly. He released his brother’s wrist and straightened up.
“I heard a suspicious noise and got up to check it out,” Frank replied, keeping his voice pitched low. “I saw a flickering light up on the main deck, near the head of the stairs. I went to see who it was, but by the time I got there the person had disappeared. What about you?”
“Same as you,” Joe said. “But in my case the suspicious noise was you. Did you turn out the hall light?”
“No, it was like that when I came out of our room,” Frank said. “I tried the switch. No go. The bulb must be unscrewed.”
“So we’re not dealing with somebody who just decided to get a midnight snack,” Joe remarked.
“No way,” Frank told him. “Do you remember where we put the flashlight? I want a closer look at the area near the head of the stairs.”
The Hardys found their flashlight and climbed up to the main deck. They searched the foyer and the passage that led to the salon and dining area. They checked the washroom where Boris had found the ipecac bottle. They peered into the galley. Nothing seemed out of place anywhere.
They returned to the head of the companionway.
“Maybe it was just an insomniac after all,” Joe said, disgusted.
“An insomniac with a phobia about lightbulbs?” Frank replied. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, whatever he or she was up to, no traces were left,” Joe said. “Let’s take another look in the morning.”
“I guess you’re right,” Frank said. He waved the flashlight around for one last look. His voice changed. “Joe—look!”
He had stopped the circle of light on the bulletin board. Crudely painted in black on the white cork surface was a skull and crossbones.
A superstitious thrill touched the back of Joe’s neck and ran down his spine. After a moment he recovered his cool. He stepped forward and touched a fingertip to the bulletin board. It felt dry, but when he sniffed his finger there was a faint odor of paint solvent.
“It’s pretty fresh,” he reported.
“It has to be,” Frank replied. “We would have noticed if it had been there when we went to bed.”
“A skull and crossbones,” Joe mused. “The symbol for poison. And this evening ipecac, stuff that’s used in poisoning cases, turned up in the dessert.”
Joe paused and stared at the sinister drawing. It seemed to expand to fill his field of vision.
“You know what, Frank?” he continued. “Maybe whoever painted this is the same person who doctored the dessert. I bet this is meant as a threat. It’s a warning. The message is, next time they’ll use something more harmful than ipecac syrup. Something really poisonous.”
“Could be,” Frank said. “I can think of another explanation, though. And it’s one I like even less than yours.”
“What’s that?” Joe asked.
Frank cleared his throat. “A couple of hundred years ago this area we’re cruising around was infested with bloodthirsty pirates. People like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who preyed on innocent sailors and travelers, plundering and killing them. And what was the flag the pirates used? The Skull and Crossbones!”
There was a tense silence. Joe turned his face away from the menacing symbol. As he did, something on the deck caught his eye. It was small and black. He bent down to pick it up. Then he held it out to show to Frank. It was a plastic spider.
“I remember back in grade school,” Joe said, “I spent a lot of time drawing a skull and crossbones on the cover of my looseleaf notebook. I must have been about the same age as Evan is now.”
“I probably did the same,” Frank admitted. “Lots of kids do. But there’s a difference between drawing something on your own notebook and painting it on somebody else’s wall. Can you really see a kid like Evan sneaking out of his cabin in the middle of the night to spray a pirate symbol on the bulletin board?”
“Well, no, I guess not,” Joe said. “And I can’t see how he would reach the lightbulbs to unscrew them, either. So maybe Evan dropped a spider here at some other time. Or maybe the prankster deliberately left the spider near the drawing to try to pin the blame on Evan. That would be a really dirty trick.”
“Or the prankster could have dropped it by accident,” Frank pointed out. “But let’s say the same person who painted this put the ipecac in the fruit. Finding this spider here makes it look pretty likely that he stuck the spiders on the cake yesterday, too. And if that’s so, it means that once we’ve solved one puzzle, we’ll have solved them all.”
Joe held back a yawn. “The sooner the better,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind having a little time to enjoy the cruise.”
• • •
Morning came quickly. Just after dawn the boat weighed anchor and started toward its next destination. When the Hardys passed the bulletin board on the way to breakfast, Joe saw that the skull and crossbones had vanished under a fresh coat of white paint. Captain Mathieson obviously ran a tight ship.
After breakfast everyone gathered in the salon. It was time for the second round of the teen-detective contest. David walked to the center of the room. He had a stack of booklets under one arm.
“This morning’s trial is a little different,” he announced. “For one thing, we haven’t attempted to stage it, not even on tape. For another, the focus is on the testimony of witnesses rather than physical evidence. In fact, what I’ve tried to do is give you something like a classic ‘fair play’ detective story.”
“Oh no,” Sylvie groaned. “You mean with timetables? Who did what when? I always skip over those chapters. They just confuse me.”
“I don’t skip those chapters, I skip the whole book,” Jason bragged. “Action, excitement, that’s what counts. Not all this intellectual hoo-ha.”
Joe saw David’s smile flicker.
“I do not agree,” Boris said. “The clash of witnesses is exciting. The moment when you see how to prove that someone is lying—that is a thrill.”
“I hope you’ll find this morning thrilling,” David said, cutting short the discussion. “Here is the situation. A famous museum has just held a reception for its most important contributors. Afterward the director discovers that a small but priceless sculpture is missing. She asks you to figure out who took it, without disturbing any innocent contributors or causing a scandal.”
Cesar laughed. “I get it. The title of this story is ‘Don’t Dog the Fat Cats.’ ”
David ignored Cesar’s joke. He held up one of the booklets. “In here you’ll find a floor plan of the exhibit and a series of statements by people who were at the reception. You have one hour to read the material, think it over, and decide who the thief is. Guessing won’t do the job. You have to say how you identified the guilty party, citing evidence from the booklet. Any questions?”
“Can we use reference materials?” Boris asked.
“All the information you need is in the booklet,” David told him. “Anything else? All right. Good luck.”
The five finalists took their booklets and fanned out to different parts of the boat. Joe and Frank used this free period to make notes about all the incidents on the voyage so far.
They also found time to talk with Evan. They dropped casual mentions of pirates, poisons, and skulls into the conversation. Evan did not show even a flicker of fear or self-consciousness. Frank looked over at Joe and gave a slight shake of his head. Whoever had defaced the bulletin board, it was clearly not Evan.
Soon the hour was up. While Kenneth took one photograph after another, the contestants handed David their entries. He promised to score them right away and asked them not to discuss their solutions until he had finished.
“Very well,” Sylvie said as David went off to his room. “But I have another mystery. Has anyone seen my scarf? I know I wore it last night, and now I do not know where it is. It is blue with green parrots. My favorite uncle brought it back from Paris for me, and I would hate to lose it.”
No one had seen it since the night before.
“Hey, Joe,” Evan said. “I bet we can find it. Will you look with me?”
“Sure, why not,” Joe replied. “Where should we start?”
“How about under the furniture?” Evan suggested. “Whenever I lose something, that’s where it always is.”
Joe played along. While the others grinned at them, he and Evan got down on hands and knees. They crawled around the salon, peering under the easy chairs and couches. Joe wondered if he’d get a sneezing fit from the dust, but the carpet was spotless. It had obviously been vacuumed very recently.
Evan looked under a pale green loveseat. Suddenly he crowed, “I see it. There it is!”
He lay down on his stomach, stretched his arm under the loveseat, and pulled out a blue scarf.
“Evan, you found my scarf for me,” Sylvie cried. “Oh, thank you!”
“Wait, there’s something else,” Evan said. He reached again. This time he produced a crumpled brown paper bag. He wrinkled his nose in comic disappointment and tossed the bag away. As he did, a slip of paper fell out.
Joe retrieved it and gave it a casual glance. Then he looked more closely. It was a cash register receipt from a pharmacy in Fort William for a bottle of syrup of ipecac.