The Broken Anchor, Page 3

  “That’s the truth, Sheriff,” Nancy answered, her cheeks glowing pink at the implication of his question.

  “You were the last ones on board,” Sheriff Boyd growled.

  “Which is an excellent reason why we wouldn’t take it,” Mr. Drew stated. “Since you knew we were there, it would be foolish for us to steal the boat, wouldn’t it?”

  Sheriff Boyd stood glowering for a moment, then seemed to wilt.

  “Who else knew that it was out there, Sheriff?” Nancy asked.

  “I expect half the population of Palm Cove knew,” he admitted with a sigh. “We don’t have many secrets in a town that size.”

  “Could it be someone from the town?” Carson Drew asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Sheriff Boyd answered. “They wouldn’t be able to use it or sell it without someone finding out, and they’d know I’d be after them if I did find out.”

  “Perhaps the DeFoes returned for it,” Nancy suggested hopefully.

  “Not likely,” the sheriff answered. “I found out that they run a place called the Sweet Springs Resort, and I’ve been trying to reach someone there all night without any luck. I’m beginning to think there might be trouble out there and the boat here was just someone’s effort to escape.”

  Nancy swallowed hard, meeting her father’s gaze fearfully.

  “We’ve been worried about that, too, Sheriff,” Mr. Drew began, then told him the whole story of the prize and the fact that Bess and George hadn’t called them. The sheriff s expression grew stormy.

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” he demanded. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about these people.”

  “We didn’t,” Nancy answered. “The prize offer didn’t carry the owners’ names and I didn’t tell my father the name of the island, so he had no way of knowing it was the same place. You

  were gone before he told me.”

  “You could have left word at the office.” The sheriff looked very suspicious.

  Nancy looked at her father, wondering if he was going to mention the medallion. She felt that they should, but the sheriff s suspicious attitude made her sure that it would cause trouble not only for them, but for Mr. Yates, too.

  “We were anxious to get back to the hotel to call the girls,” Mr. Drew replied. “I thought they would be able to give us valuable information about the DeFoes and the resort. I planned to call you as soon as I talked to them.”

  “Sure you did.” Sheriff Boyd sneered.

  “I assure you, Sheriff, I had no intention of keeping information from you,” Carson Drew continued. “I’ve been trying to reach Anchor Island, too. We’re very worried about those two young ladies.”

  “I’m more concerned about what happened to the boat,” the sheriff snapped. “I want you to come to my office and make a statement about where you went after you left it yesterday.” “Really, Sheriff,” Carson Drew began, a touch of anger showing in his voice.

  “A full statement of your movements,” the

  sheriff growled. “And I want it before noon.” The sheriff left before they could offer any further argument. Nancy sighed. “What are we going to do, Dad?” she asked. “About the medallion, I mean.”

  Her father gave her a wry grin. “I guess we should have told him sooner,” he observed. “If we mention it now, he’s going to have us both arrested, and we can’t help George and Bess from a Florida jail.”

  “But we didn’t do anything wrong,” Nancy protested.

  “I don’t think Sheriff Boyd is in any mood to listen to logical explanations,” her father said.

  “But we’ll have to tell the sheriff we saw Mr. Yates,” Nancy began.

  “I’ll call him and ask him not to mention the medallion. He’s simply an old friend who joined us for dinner last night.”

  “Meantime, we ought to call Nassau and see if we can get a search started,” Nancy said. “If we can convince Sheriff Boyd that we had nothing to do with the disappearance of the boat, we should go to Anchor Island ourselves and find out what is going on.”

  “The sooner the better,” her father agreed.

  The phone interrupted him. She answered it immediately.

  “Miss Drew,” the operator said, “I have your call from Anchor Island.”

  “Oh, at last!” Nancy was overjoyed.

  “Go ahead, please.”

  “Sweet Springs Resort,” a male voice announced.

  “Hello,” Nancy said. “May I speak to George Fayne or Bess Marvin please?”

  “What?” The voice was not friendly.

  “I would like to speak to one of your guests,” Nancy began again. “Miss George Fayne or Miss Bess Marvin. They would have checked in yesterday.”

  “There’s no one here by those names.”

  “But they had reservations.”

  Her father touched her arm to get her attention. “In your name, honey,” he whispered.

  “The reservations were in the name of Nancy Drew,” Nancy went on.

  “You must have the wrong resort, ma’am,” the bland voice went on.

  “Is there someone else there I could speak with?” Nancy asked desperately. “Someone in the reservations department or something?” “There’s no one at all here for you to talk to,” the voice stated. “Fact is, the resort is closed. I’m the caretaker.”

  “But—” Nancy began, then stopped as the line went dead.

  6. Missing!

  “What is it, Nancy?” her father asked, taking the receiver from her cold and shaking fingers.

  “He ... he said that the resort is closed,” Nancy gasped. “He said there’s no one there but him!”

  “What?” Her father’s eyes met hers, but offered no answers. “Let me make some phone calls, after which I’m going to have another talk with Sheriff Boyd.”

  Nancy nodded, sinking into the nearest chair, her worry and frustration paralyzing. She needed action—she wanted to be on her way to Nassau or Anchor Island, not sitting in a hotel room.

  Her father’s first call went to Avery Yates,

  warning him that he would hear from the angry sheriff soon. After he told of their early morning visitor, his voice changed as he said, “Oh, really? That’s wonderful. Sounds intriguing. How soon? Terrific, just give us a call.”

  As soon as he replaced the receiver, he turned to Nancy. “Avery says he worked on the medallion most of the night. He’s convinced that it is definitely from the time of the Spanish galleons.”

  “Has he been able to make out what is engraved in the gold?” Nancy asked.

  “He’s still working on it, but he thinks he’ll finish it some time today.”

  “Wonderful.” Nancy sighed.

  “I’m going to call Nassau now,” her father said. “Someone at the airport there might know something about what happened to the girls.” It was almost an hour before her father finally slammed the receiver down in frustration. “If one more person tells me they’ll get back to me when they have some information, I’m going to make them eat the telephone,” he growled.

  Nancy sighed, then looked at her watch. “If we’re going to drive to Palm Cove before noon, we should leave pretty soon,” she warned him. Her father looked for a moment as though

  he’d like to refuse to make the drive. “I don’t suppose we’ll be able to leave till we talk to the man, so we might as well get it over with.”

  “Do you think he’ll let us go to Anchor Island?” Nancy asked.

  “He has absolutely no reason to keep us here,” her father stated. “He asked me to investigate the abandoned boat, which I did. I had nothing to do with its disappearance and I’m sure he’ll realize that.”

  “He was so angry this morning,” Nancy murmured.

  “Well, once he realizes that we may be able to learn something important by going to Anchor Island, I’m sure he’ll be happy to let us

  go.

  “I hope you’re right,” Nancy sniffed.

  The trip to Palm Co
ve was uneventful, and when they reached the sheriff’s office, they were treated politely as they made their brief statements about the boat and their activities afterwards. Only when Nancy mentioned the caretaker at the Sweet Springs Resort did the sheriff seem truly interested.

  “Did you ask to speak to the DeFoes?” he inquired.

  “I asked to speak to someone in authority,”

  Nancy replied. “But he said no one was there. The resort was closed.”

  “Did you believe him?” The sheriff s question startled her.

  “Well . . . I . . .” Nancy gulped. “I wanted to ask him more questions, but he hung up.” “That’s why we’d like to charter a seaplane and fly to the island this afternoon,” Mr. Drew said. “I’ve instituted a search of the Nassau airport area for the two girls, but I definitely feel we have to check the island ourselves.”

  Sheriff Boyd stared at them coldly, his gaze telling Nancy that he still felt they were keeping something from him—which made her feel guilty. “And the DeFoes?” he asked.

  “We would do everything we could to locate them, too,” Mr. Drew said. “I have no idea what is going on but I do feel that it is all connected through that phony prize that was sent to Nancy—the prize that Bess and George were claiming when they disappeared.”

  Sheriff Boyd nodded. “I’ll want to know what you find,” he warned. “Especially if you can learn anything about that boat.”

  “We’ll definitely keep you informed,” Mr. Drew promised.

  “You’ll be leaving today?”

  “That depends on how quickly I can make the arrangements,” Carson Drew replied. “And what I learn from my calls to Nassau.”

  “Let me know before you leave,” Sheriff Boyd ordered, then dismissed them.

  “Do you want to have lunch at the same place?” her father asked as they stepped out into the warm sunshine.

  Nancy shrugged. “It’s all right with me.” “I’ll make a couple of calls while you order,” her father said. “I’ll try what you had yesterday—it looked good.”

  Nancy laughed without humor. “I doubt that either one of us will taste it, but I suppose we have to eat.”

  Her father patted her shoulder fondly. “We’ll find them, honey,” he assured her.

  While she waited at the table, Nancy tried to find a logical pattern in everything that had happened. But she’d made little sense of it by the time her father sank into the other chair at the table.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “No calls yet from Nassau,” her father answered, “but I did talk to a man about renting a seaplane to take us to Anchor Island.” “When?” Nancy asked.

  “The earlier the better,” her father replied. “He says landing there after dark is possible, but he’d prefer to get us there in daylight.” “And if no one’s there?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” her father answered. “Right now let’s eat our lunch and get back to the hotel to pack. I still have to call Avery before we check out.”

  Nancy picked up her fork obediently, but tasted little of the food.

  Once back at the hotel, Nancy began packing for them both while her father once again placed a call to the authorities in Nassau. This time the discussion was a long one, and after he hung up, he was frowning.

  “Did they find them?” Nancy asked.

  “No, they don’t know where they are, but I spoke to one of the flight attendants who met the girls during their flight to Nassau.”

  “Did she know what happened to them?” Nancy asked.

  “Well, according to her, after the girls passed through customs, they were met by a man who was to take them to Anchor Island.”

  “What?” Nancy gasped. “But . . .”

  “She couldn’t give a very good description of the man, just said he was young and was wear-

  ing the kind of clothes that a man from a boat would wear: deck shoes, that sort of thing.” “But if the resort is closed, where could he have taken them?” Nancy asked.

  Her father could only shake his head. “That is the first question we’ll ask the caretaker on Anchor Island.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “As soon as you’re ready. I’ll call the seaplane port.”

  7. Anchor Island

  The phone rang just as Nancy was closing her suitcase. She hurried out, hoping that it might be further news about Bess and George, but her father shook his head to her inquiring glance.

  “That’s great, Avery,” he was saying. “We’ll be by to pick it up on our way to the seaplane.” He hung up the phone almost at once. “He has the medallion ready for us.”

  “Do we have time to pick it up?” Nancy asked, more concerned about getting to Anchor Island than anything else.

  “We’ll make time. The medallion might have some meaning later on,” her father counseled.

  Nancy nodded, aware that he was right, but too worried about her friends to find anything else important. She checked the hotel room quickly, then joined her father with her luggage.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  The drive to Avery Yates’s modest seaside home wasn’t a long one, and Nancy found the brief visit charming. Happily she agreed that they would spend an entire day with him on their return. His rooms were filled with antique jewelry.

  There were photographs of some of the more exotic and valuable collections he’d worked on, but even more interesting were the pieces he displayed himself.

  “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to do a complete job on this,” Mr. Yates said as he offered the neatly displayed medallion to Nancy.

  The box was of polished wood and the medallion glowed richly on a bed of black velvet. “It looks fantastic,” she gasped.

  “Well, as you can see, this side of the medallion appears to be an anchor’s hook. But the other side must have been damaged. I just couldn’t raise the second half of the anchor beyond that small jutting point there.”

  “Do you suppose the artist left the piece unfinished?” Nancy asked.

  Mr. Yates considered the idea. “I guess it’s possible, but there seems to be some kind of design in that area, so he must have finished something at least.”

  Nancy touched the glowing metal with her nail, tracing the clearly worked part of the anchor. “A broken anchor,” she murmured. “Maybe that’s what the artist had in mind!”

  “That’s as good a guess as any,” Mr. Yates answered. “I’ll try to find out more about it while you’re gone. There are some writings on treasures that were lost in this area of the world. It could be that this is unusual enough to have been mentioned by some old cargo lister.” “That’s a subject I’d like to look into,” Nancy told him. “Perhaps when we’ve found Bess and George ..

  “You’re welcome to come anytime, Miss Nancy,” he assured her. “I’ve a small library you could look through.”

  “We’ll call you as soon as we get back,” Carson Drew assured him. “And we are grateful for the lovely job you did on this piece.”

  “I only hope it helps you find your young friends,” the old jeweler told them.

  The seaplanes were moored to a rough dock, and Nancy had an uneasy feeling as she followed her father to the plane he’d chartered.

  The pilot was an unfriendly-appearing man who put their luggage aboard without a smile.

  “I don’t like starting out this late in the day,” he said coldly.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Drew replied. “We’ve been delayed several times. I was told, however, that a night landing is possible at Anchor Island.”

  “If we leave now, we’ll get there before dark,” was the man’s only answer.

  Carson winked at Nancy, then helped her aboard. To their surprise, they found two men ** already seated in the cabin.

  “I didn’t realize there were other passengers,” Carson said. “I hope we haven’t delayed your trip.”

  The men smiled politely. “We’re going to Swallow Cay,” the
elder of the two said. “Old Jim said we might ride along, as it’s just a short hop from Anchor Island. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Drew said, then introduced himself and Nancy. The two men introduced themselves as Mr. Perkins and Mr. Graves.

  Once they were airborne, Nancy smiled at Mr. Perkins, who was the one across the aisle from her. “Do you know Anchor Island?” she asked.

  “I’ve fished the area,” he answered. “Haven’t been ashore, though.”

  “Do you know the DeFoes?” Mr. Drew asked.

  “Jeff and Lena, sure,” Mr. Graves answered. “Been fishing on the Polka Dot with them several times. Are you going to see them?”

  “We have friends we think are staying at the Sweet Springs Resort,” Mr. Drew answered carefully, his tone telling Nancy that he didn’t want to discuss all that had happened with these two strangers.

  “Gee, I’d think the place would be closed this time of year,” Mr. Perkins said. “Season is pretty well over except for diehard fishermen like us.”

  “Is the Polka Dot the DeFoes’ boat?” Nancy asked, intrigued by the name.

  “Yes, and it’s a nice little cruiser,” Mr. Perkins answered. “Two cabins, a good-sized room on the main deck, galley, two modern fishing chairs for working the big game fish—anything you could want. And Lena is a darn good shipboard cook, too.” Mr. Perkins grinned. “Better than Ben, anyway.”

  “You’ll be cooking for yourself if you keep that up,” Mr. Graves told him.

  The two continued to taunt each other and to tell fish stories for the duration of the flight. Nancy listened at first, but then her thoughts went to Bess and George.

  She was so deep in her concentration on the mystery of their disappearance that at first she didn’t notice the change in the flight. It was Mr. Perkins who brought her attention back to the present.

  “There’s the island,” he said. “You can see the cove where we’ll land. It’s a great anchorage, probably where they got the name of the island. When the worst hurricanes come, that cove is full of fishing boats.”

  Nancy leaned forward to peer out the dirty, scarred window as the plane circled over the long, narrow island and dropped lower to enter the cove, which was protected by a long, curving arm of land shaped somewhat like a hook. The beach, which she recognized from the brochure, was deserted, and her heart dropped as she looked up at the abandoned-looking resort, which was built on the spiny highland of the island.