Everyone on the deck started yelling. Frank ran to the rail. Chuck was already twenty yards from the yacht and moving fast. He looked as if he was a strong swimmer. He would have no trouble making the beach.
Frank tore off his shirt and started to climb over the rail. Captain Mathieson appeared, drawn by the uproar, and grabbed his arm. “What’s all this?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”
“Going after Chuck,” Frank said, pointing to the dot in the water that was Chuck’s head.
“I can’t allow you to swim to shore from here,” the captain declared. “You’re my passenger. It’s too risky.”
“Then radio the cops,” Joe said urgently, wiping the juice off his face. “Tell them to pick up Chuck.”
The captain released Frank and spread his hands. “The nearest police station is two islands away,” he said. “By the time we could get an officer here, a skilled sailor like Chuck would have found a boat and been long gone. In any case, what is it you’re accusing him of?”
“He was the trickster,” Frank said.
“Frank!” Joe shouted. “The motorboat!”
The yacht’s motorboat was still tied up farther forward. Joe and Frank sprinted toward it and jumped down into the cockpit. While Joe went to the bow to handle the line, Frank took the wheel and reached for the starter button.
There wasn’t one. Instead of a button, he found an ignition lock like one in a car—and no key.
“Hey!” someone shouted from the deck of the yacht. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Frank looked up. A crew member was staring down angrily at him.
“We need the ignition key,” Frank said. “Quick, where is it?”
The crew member gave them a nasty grin. “If it isn’t there,” he said, “maybe Chuck has it in his pocket. He was the last to use the boat.”
“There has to be a spare somewhere,” Joe said.
Frank gave a frustrated sigh. “Sure,” he replied with a hint of bitterness. “But by the time one of the crew decides to cooperate and finds it for us, Chuck will be miles away.”
David and Bettina came hurrying forward.
“Joe, Frank,” Bettina called. “Please wait. Come back. We have to talk.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere,” Joe said, scowling. “We can’t.”
Frank and Joe clambered up the rope ladder to the deck of the yacht.
“Let’s go to my cabin,” Bettina said, glancing over her shoulder at the little crowd of curious contestants and crew members.
One corner of the owner’s cabin was furnished with a sofa and two club chairs. The Hardys took the sofa.
“You boys have done a remarkable job,” Bettina began. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Frank said. “But while we’re sitting here shooting the breeze, the guilty party is getting away.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Bettina said. “Is what David told me correct? One of the crew is actually employed by Walter Mares? And he is the one who has been sabotaging our cruise?”
“That’s right,” Joe said. “His name’s Chuck Arneson, and right about now he’s landing on the beach where we were this afternoon and getting ready for the next stage of his escape.”
“Let him go,” Bettina said.
“Let him go?” Frank repeated incredulously. “Just like that?”
Bettina gave a decisive nod. “Just like that. For one thing, I still have a lot of respect and fondness for Walter. I don’t want to drag him through the muck. For another, a public scandal of this sort would not do me or the shareholders of Teenway any good.”
“And suppose you guys caught up with Chuck? What then?” David added. “Okay, we all know he’s guilty. The way he ran shows that. But what about proof that would stand up in a courtroom? And what was it he did, anyway? Some tasteless pranks. The police would listen with polite faces and laugh at us behind their hands.”
“Making people sick by putting a drug in their food is more serious than a prank,” Joe pointed out. “It was bad enough for you to talk about canceling the contest and sending us home.”
“You’re quite right, Joe,” Bettina said. “That was a very nasty thing to do. But as you and Frank said at the time, the amount of emetic Chuck put in the fruit came to much less than even an ordinary dose per person. Nasty, yes, but not actually dangerous. I was so concerned out of a fear that his next move would hurt someone. Fortunately, your detective skills kept that from happening.”
“So call off the dogs and throw them a bone,” Frank muttered resentfully.
“Frank, listen,” David said. “I understand that the case feels incomplete to you. I share your sense of frustration. But there’s nothing more to be done here. You and Joe should be satisfied with the fine work you’ve done. You unmasked Chuck and brought his campaign of dirty tricks to an end. Now we can put all that behind us and get on with the contest and the cruise.”
“Fine,” Joe said. “But how about we go ashore and try to catch Chuck? Even if the law can’t touch him, we could at least get a confession from him. With that in our hands, we’d be sure that this Mares guy won’t try anything else.”
“I’m sorry,” Bettina said stiffly. It was obvious that she wasn’t accustomed to having people argue with her decisions. “We’re on a tight timetable. There’s nothing to be gained from pursuing this any further.”
“Okay, we get the message,” Frank said, getting to his feet. Joe stood also. “You’re the boss.”
Bettina stood up. “Thanks for being so understanding,” she said. “Unless you object, I’d like to ask Arnie to prepare something special this evening as a sort of celebration.”
“Sure, why not?” Frank said.
“As long as it isn’t an ipecac sundae,” Joe added, without cracking a smile.
As they left Bettina’s cabin, Frank muttered, “We’re not through yet.”
“I didn’t think so,” Joe replied.
The Hardys found Captain Mathieson in his office once again. Frank asked him for permission to search Chuck’s locker. The captain clearly did not like the idea, but he agreed.
The crew quarters were in the bow, on the same deck as the passenger cabins. A locked door separated the two areas. Chuck had bunked in a two-person cabin on the port side. As the newcomer, he had been assigned the upper bunk.
Joe did a rapid search of the bunk. He looked under the thin mattress and felt along the edges. All he turned up was a cassette. Apparently Chuck liked reggae.
Meanwhile, Frank looked through the locker. He was careful not to disturb anything. This was still Chuck’s personal property, after all.
“Nothing,” he reported. “A couple of changes of clothes, a portable tape player, half a dozen cassettes, and a book called Global Positioning System for Sailors.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that,” Joe remarked. “So—no coded messages? No copies of the secret plans?”
“Nothing,” Frank repeated. “Zip.”
Joe and Frank returned to the afterdeck. Everyone crowded around them, asking how they had solved the case.
“The credit really belongs to Evan,” Frank declared. He explained how Evan had overheard Chuck’s phone call and how they then found out Chuck’s background from the captain.
“Who was Chuck talking to on the phone?” Cesar asked.
“Good question,” Joe replied. “Offhand, I’d guess some friend who was in on his plans. We’ll be able to pin it down better from the ship-to-shore telephone records.”
“Have you searched Chuck’s belongings?” asked Sylvie. “Maybe he left some clues behind.”
“We can’t comment on that,” Frank answered.
“Has anyone put out an alarm on Chuck?” Boris wondered. “Will he be arrested?”
“No decision has been reached on that,” Frank said, mentally crossing his fingers.
“How does it feel to break a case so fast?” Lisa asked.
“Great,” Joe replied. “But we had luck on our side. Luck, and a very alert kid named Evan.”
While Frank continued to answer questions about the mystery, Joe went to their cabin to wash his face. When he returned, he caught Frank’s eye and made a gesture with his head.
Frank joined him at the rail. “What’s up?” he asked.
“That call to the pizzeria was just before three-thirty, right?” Joe said in a low voice. “Look at this.”
Frank looked. Joe was holding the receipt for the ipecac syrup. Next to the date was a time: 3:26 P.M.
“There is no way Chuck could have bought the ipecac in town at three twenty-six and been back on board in time to order those pizzas at three-thirty,” Joe pointed out. “He must have been working with someone else . . . someone in the group who went ashore.”
“Someone in our group, in other words,” Frank said. He tried to think. Had he noticed any of the others speaking to Chuck? He had to admit that, until an hour ago, he had barely noticed Chuck at all. The members of the crew became a little like the furniture, always there but not really seen.
“I’ve got an idea,” Joe said.
“Let’s hear it,” Frank said.
“What if we set a trap?” Joe suggested. “Chuck’s accomplice, whoever it is, won’t be expecting that. We’ve all been talking as if Chuck was the one and only bad guy and the case is closed.”
“Hmm, yes,” Frank said. “Here’s what we can do . . .”
A few minutes later the Hardys moved closer to the group around the snack table.
“We’d better lock all that stuff in the captain’s safe,” Joe declared. “It’s important evidence.”
“That’s a total waste of time,” Frank retorted. “Chuck split. Who’s going to walk into our room and take that file? Besides, I want to spend some time on it tonight after dinner. There may be more to this case than we’ve realized.”
“Well—okay,” Joe said. He glanced around and seemed to notice the others for the first time. “What say we go up to the sundeck? We need to talk over a couple of things about the contest.”
Joe and Frank climbed up past the captain’s cabin to the top-level sundeck. Frank took up a position by the railing, in plain view of the people on the aft deck, and acted as if he were having a spirited conversation with Joe.
Joe, meanwhile, scrambled down to the pilot house, then down to the cabin deck. Once inside his and Frank’s cabin, he placed a file folder in plain sight on the table. Then he ducked into the closet, closed the door to a crack, and settled down to wait.
It was a long wait. The stuffy air in the tiny closet and the gloom in the unlit cabin gave Joe an urgent wish to lie down and take a nap. From time to time he checked the nightglow dial of his watch. The hands did not seem to move at anything like normal speed.
To keep himself alert, he silently recited the lyrics of his favorite golden oldie songs. It worked, but he had to struggle not to hum along. He had just started trying to remember the words to yet another song when he heard a click from the latch of the cabin door. He eased the closet door open a little farther and put his left eye to the crack. A shadowy form was creeping across the cabin. The intruder picked up the file from the table and riffled through it, then started to turn to leave.
At that moment Joe felt a speck of something land in his eye. He blinked furiously, but the pain made his eye water more. Quickly he moved his head to put his other eye to the crack, but he was a split second too late. All he heard was the cabin door shutting.
Joe wanted to kick the wall, but he couldn’t spare the time. He slammed the closet door open and dashed out of the cabin and into the corridor. To his left a shadow flitted across the wall going upstairs. Joe bounded over and ran up the steps as fast as the narrow space and sharp spiral twist allowed.
Joe had almost reached the top step when he sensed a movement to his left, from within the telephone niche. He started to turn. A long, dark object came swinging toward his head. He dodged right, taking the blow on his shoulder, but the impact pushed him off balance. He took a quick step to the rear, but his foot missed the next step down.
Joe felt himself start to topple backward. He grabbed for the handrail, but his fingers found only air. He pulled up his knees. If he could get his head tucked and convert the fall into a roll, he might be all right.
Too late. Joe’s alarmed shout was cut short when his head slammed against the edge of one of the steps.