(#60) The Greek Symbol Mystery (9 page)

“There wasn’t a thing wrong with this car before,” George said.

Had someone tampered with it?

12

The Banded Freighter

Nancy released the hood and peered under it while Helen and the others questioned those nearby. Was anyone seen near their car?

“Nancy, dear, come here a minute.” Mrs. Thompson called out.

The girl emerged from under the hood and closed it. Her friends were gathered in front of a small boy.

“Did you see someone?” Nancy asked, squatting on her feet.

“Óhi, óhi,”

“Are you sure?”

The boy weakened. “Big man. Very red face. Gray hair. Mean,” he said haltingly.

Isakos! Nancy thought. “Where did he go? she asked.

“Gave me money,” the boy went on. “Not tell anyone.”

“But you must tell me where he went,” Nancy persisted. “He did something very wrong.”

Gently, she laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder and stood up.

“Over there,” he muttered under his breath. He pointed to the dock, adding something else in Greek.

“He thinks the man went aboard the freighter with the big white stripe around its middle,” Helen translated.

“To that one?” Nancy asked. She indicated the ship berthed near the wall marked with the snake symbol.

“Nai.”

“No?” Mrs. Thompson sighed.

“On the contrary,” Nancy smiled.
“Nai
means yes!”

“Shall we get the police?” Bess asked. “Isakos is three times bigger than all of us put together.”

“They’ll only tell us to stay out of their business,” Nancy said. “Why don’t we split up and see what we can find out ourselves?”

“Good idea,” George said. “Who’s going with whom?”

“Perhaps you and Mrs. Thompson could try finding a mechanic to fix the car, while Helen and I investigate the freighter.”

“What about me?” Bess asked.

“You post yourself near the dock to watch for overinterested onlookers.”

Bess caught sight of a young policewoman approaching. “See you later,” she said to her group, hurrying toward the officer.

When Bess reached her, she was already talking with two young sailors, one of whom was Greek and the other a light-haired Scandinavian.

“Excuse me,” Bess said, interrupting the conversation.

The fair-complexioned man winked at Bess. “American?” he asked with a lilting accent.

She nodded.

“Swedish, like me?”

“No,” blond-haired Bess answered shyly, “at least, not that I know of.”

The policewoman, who was not much older than the sailors, stepped forward. “Do you need some help?” she asked.

“Y-yes, I do,” Bess said. Thankful the woman spoke English, she drew her away from the men. “I’m looking for three people, Constantine Nicholas, Dimitri Georgiou, and a Mr. Isakos.”

“Just a moment,” the policewoman replied. She spoke briefly to the sailors.

“Maybe I can help you,” the Swedish man said to Bess. “Constantine Nicholas is connected with the Nikos Shipping Company. I work for them myself once in a while.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“The other day. He wanted to send cargo on the White Band freighter.”

That’s the one the little boy mentioned! Bess thought. “Does he do that frequently?” she asked aloud.

“Yes and no. Several weeks ago he was around here a lot. Then he disappeared. Of course, I move from job to job. One day I’m in Haifa and the next I’m here. Now he’s back, too.”

As the young man spoke, his dark-haired companion sidled closer to Bess, causing her to ease toward the policewoman. Bess glanced disdainfully at the Greek sailor.

“Where does Mr. Nicholas live? Here or in Athens ?” the officer inquired.

“I’m not sure,” the Swedish crewman replied. He ran his forefinger along the crest of his nose. “And I doubt that anybody in Piraeus could tell you.”

His companion, meanwhile, leaned toward Bess. “What kind perfume you wear?” he asked in halting English.

“Tea rose,” the girl said curtly. “I don’t think you can buy it here.” She looked straight past him to address his friend again. “I’ve seen a picture of Mr. Nicholas, but I’m wondering if he has changed his appearance since it was taken.”

“Well, he has a beard and mustache now,” the Scandinavian replied.

“Oh, he does? I’m glad to know that.”

Thinking the policewoman might glean something else useful, Bess gave her the name of the girls’ hotel. “Please don’t mention it to these men, though,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry.” The young woman laughed. “That one loves to flirt—especially with pretty American girls.”

Bess giggled as she ran toward the white-banded freighter. Nancy, Helen, and a policeman were standing on deck. They were talking to a couple of crewmen. Their voices were heard above the girls’.

Sounds like trouble, Bess thought, speeding up the gangplank to the deck.

“Where do you think you’re going?” someone shouted at her.

Bess stopped short. “My friends are up there,” she said, turning around to face a short, chubby man in work clothes.

His stern eyes traveled to the deck, then back to Bess. He mumbled, nodding her to move on.

“I found out something important,” she whispered to George as soon as she was on board.

“Tell me later.”

At the moment, the policeman was involved in a heated discussion with one of the ship’s officers.

“They say we have no right to be here,” Helen explained to the girls. “But the policeman has told them he will arrest every one of them if they don’t obey him.”

“I just heard him mention Constantine’s name,” George said.

“He’s asking where my cousin is,” Helen replied.

To the girls’ surprise, the ship’s captain now addressed the group in English. “My name is Fotis. Are you friends of Constantine Nicholas?”

Before Nancy could answer, she noticed steely eyes peering at them from the corner of the deck-house. The man ducked back for a moment. Then, not realizing he was in Nancy’s line of vision, he stuck his head into view again.

“Isakos!” she exclaimed, and quickly darted after him.

13

Boat Chase

Breaking away from the group, Nancy raced toward the man. “Mr. Isakos!” she shouted.

“Where are you going?” the ship’s captain bellowed at Nancy. He ran after her with Bess, Helen, and the others following.

The girl detective halted at the end of the deck, where thick coils of rope lay between metal crates heaped in front of a lifeboat.

He’s gone! she thought as Fotis grabbed her by the shoulder.

“You have no business upsetting my ship like this!” he hissed.

Ignoring the comment, Nancy suddenly caught sight of Isakos’s shirt collar.

“There he is!” she exlaimed. “In the lifeboat!”

Before anyone could catch him, though, the burly man leaped out of it, crashing through piles of crates. He dashed to the other side of the deck and vaulted quickly over the railing. Bess and the policeman sped after him while Fotis gripped Nancy’s arm.

“Let me go!” she insisted, pulling away abruptly to join her friends. “Can we chase him?” Nancy asked when she saw Isakos fleeing onto a small cabin cruiser.

Shouting to the crew in Greek, the policeman raced toward the gangplank. Helen and the girl detectives followed him, running every step of the way to a patrol boat moored nearby.

“We’ll never catch him!” Helen cried as they watched Isakos disappear behind a jetty.

Nancy, too, became tense as their own boat chugged slowly into the harbor, picking up speed only after they passed an incoming barge. They skirted the jetty and found themselves in the open sea with only the shoreline in sight. Could Isakos’s small boat have outdistanced theirs so quickly?

Impossible, Nancy thought.

Then she saw it. The boat lay abandoned on the beach.

“There’s a trail of footprints,” Nancy observed as they pulled close to shore.

“Bess and I will stay with the boat if you and the officer wish to search for the man,” Helen offered.

“We’ll be back before you catch any fish!” Nancy called.

The footprints were still wet, making them easy to track. They led to an unmarked road which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

“Isakos must’ve been picked up by a passing car,” the policeman concluded.

“Or a waiting one,” Nancy said.

When they returned to the patrol boat, she saw the eager expressions on her friends’ faces and shook her head.

“No clues? Nothing?” Bess asked, obviously disappointed.

“Zero.”

As Nancy spoke, the officer took the cabin cruiser in tow and headed back to the harbor. Shortly, the white-banded freighter came into view. Fotis stood on deck, holding binoculars.

“He’s watching us,” Bess remarked. “Are we going to board the ship again?”

“I do have some questions for the crew,” Nancy replied.

“And I intend to see their cargo,” the policeman put in.

To everyone’s amazement, Fotis was less irritable, almost compliant, when the group spoke to him the second time. He instructed a crewman to lead them below deck to storerooms that held a variety of crates. Many had olive oil labels, others cotton, and pelts of fur hung in large refrigerators.

Nancy whispered to Helen and Bess. “What better place to hide stolen artifacts—”

“Than in bales of cotton,” Bess interrupted.

“Right.” Helen grinned. “What companies import these?” Nancy asked the crewman.

He did not understand English, however, so Helen translated the question. “He doesn’t know,” she said.

“Has he seen your cousin? And what does he know about Constantine’s shipment of cargo?”

Again Helen spoke to the man. “He says he has never heard of my cousin.”

“I doubt that very strongly,” Bess said. “The sailor on the dock told me Constantine shipped something on this freighter
recently.”

“Then either this man is lying or the person you spoke to was wrong,” Nancy replied.

Now the policeman gave orders for two of the crates to be opened. The crewman balked, muttering in Greek. He threw up his arms as if to tell everyone he had just finished packing the boxes.

“I don’t care,” the policeman said brusquely, slipping from English back into Greek.

Watching every movement the man made, Nancy concentrated on the crates that contained bales of cotton. Was anything else inside? The crewman seemed to struggle unnecessarily with the staples that secured it. Nancy wondered if he was trying to stall.

Finally, though, the top loosened and the policeman wrenched it off. He opened the bale, then quickly dug into the contents, pulling out a cloud of fiber. It dropped gently to the floor.

Nancy sighed in disappointment. “I was almost positive—” she started to say, poking her hand into the cotton. “Is there anything else in the crate?” she asked the policeman.

“No.”

“May we check the other crates?”

“He says they are all alike,” the officer replied.

As the group returned to the main deck, they found Fotis waiting for them. “Satisfied?” he said with a smirk.

“Not really,” Nancy said.

“I told you there was nothing of interest on my boat. ”

“That’s not true,” she declared abruptly. “We discovered Mr. Isakos.”

“I never heard of the man,” Fotis replied in a smooth tone. “But then, many people come on board when the ship is docked. We cannot check everyone.”

He promised to keep in touch with the police and to hold Isakos should he appear on the freighter again.

“I’m sure he will,” Bess said cynically.

“I think we would all learn more from the oracle at Delphi!” Helen added. “But don’t look so sad. You are making good progress, girls.”

“You’re sweet to say that,” Nancy replied as they left the ship. “Actually, I have a hunch that that freighter is deeply involved in a smuggling scheme. The problem is how to prove it.”

14

The Vanished Lawyer

As Nancy, Helen, and Bess said good-bye to the policeman at the dock, they noticed Mrs. Thompson and George talking with a man in blue overalls. Next to him was a tow truck.

“Can’t the car be fixed here?” Nancy asked anxiously when she reached the others.

“It already has been,” Mrs. Thompson smiled. “We were just discussing the fact that someone deliberately tampered with the engine.”

Nancy fixed her eyes on the mechanic. “Did you find any clues to the person’s identity?” she asked.

“Clues?”

“Yes, a piece of torn clothing or a button, for instance,” Nancy replied. The man shook his head and Nancy opened her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

“Already paid,” he said.

“Put your money away, dear,” Mrs. Thompson added.

“But I don’t expect you—” Nancy began.

The woman shut her eyes, not wishing to hear further on the subject. When the mechanic drove off in his truck, she suggested that everyone have lunch.

“Mikrolímano,” Nancy suggested. “It’s one of the harbors in Piraeus.”

“Are we going to fish for our meal?” Bess asked, grinning.

“Not unless you want lobster!”

The drive to Mikrolímano was short. When a string of restaurants next to the harbor came into view, Nancy pulled to a halt.

“That’s the one I told you about,” Helen said, pointing to a colorful store window displaying freshly caught fish.

Across the street and down a flight of stairs was a table-lined dock that overlooked the shimmering water with boats moored nearby. A number of customers were finishing their lunch when the visitors sat down. To their surprise, instead of menus, the waiter brought a message.

“It is for Miss Drew,” he said.

Nancy opened it quickly, wondering how anybody knew she was there. “It’s in Greek, Helen,” she said, handing it over.

“The note says, ‘I understand you are trying to find Mr. Vatis. I used to work in his office. Maybe I can help you,’ ” Helen translated.

“Amazing!” Bess remarked.

“That he worked for Vatis?” George asked.