Footprints Under the Window (11 page)

“Only that the victims so far have come mostly from the Bayport area.”

Hours passed as the plane flew southward through a bright, clear sky. The boys talked about what to expect in Cayenne. At noon they broke out sandwiches and a thermos of lemonade.

Jack landed that evening at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and they spent the night at an airport motel. Shortly after sunrise they were airborne again.

“Next stop—French Guiana!” Chet mumbled as he dozed off. When he awoke later, he sat up, yawned, and squinted out the window. Instead of endless, gray sea, lush green terrain drifted slowly beneath them.

“Wow!” Chet's eyes flew open. “Jungles!”

When the plane headed briefly out to sea, the Hardys recognized a line of staggered islands below. “The Huellas!” Frank exclaimed. “That big one must be Baredo.”

Jack banked inland over dense jungle broken only by twisting brown rivers. There seemed to be no sign of life.

When the Cayenne airfield came into view, the Bayporters fastened their seat belts. There was a wait while a jet from the United States landed; then Jack touched down and brought his craft to a smooth stop.

Joe pushed open the cabin door and caught his breath. It was like stepping into an oven!

Chet grimaced. “I feel like a broiled hamburger already.”

The boys dropped onto the glaring, sunlit field. After Jack had handed down the baggage, they went quickly through customs.

Passengers from the jetliner thronged outside toward waiting buses and taxis. Around the small airport only wild, green jungle could be seen. The air seemed dead with heat.

A woman's shrill cry startled the boys. Frank wheeled around to see two ill-dressed, swarthy men break out of the crowd, each carrying a blue suitcase.

“Help! Help! Thief!”

“Joe! They've stolen that woman's luggage!”

Like lightning, the Hardys tore after the thieves. A police whistle shrieked. An officer fired two warning shots in the air, then joined the chase.

The thieves skirted the control tower and ran across the airfield. Frank and Joe soon outdistanced the pursuing policeman. But the thieves reached the end of a runway and in a moment disappeared into the jungle.

“Come on!” Joe plunged into the thick growth. The next instant he felt a crashing blow on the head, toppled over, and lay half stunned.

“Okay, monsieur?”

“Joe! Are you all right?”

The policeman's and Frank's voices pierced a ringing blackness. Groggy, Joe was helped to his feet. “The thieves—”

“They got away,” Frank told him grimly. The officer said he had tracked the men for a short distance, but lost them in a tangle of vines.

“How's your head?” Frank asked.

“I'll be all right after the ache stops. One of those lugs must have landed a suitcase on me.”

The Hardys and the officer emerged from the jungle. Jack, Chet, and two more policemen joined them and they all walked back to the terminal.

Chet wiped his moist face and groaned. “I tried to catch up with you but no go.”

Later, the boys and police officers spoke with the victims of the robbery, a middle-aged American couple named Griffin. Mr. Griffin could not add much to the thieves' description, except that he judged them to be natives.

Joe felt a crashing blow on the head

“Alice had expensive jewelry in her bag,” he said disconsolately. His wife wept quietly.

The police were apologetic, and assured the Griffins that anyone spotted trying to sell the stolen items in Cayenne would be arrested.

Jack explained his mission to the police, who promised full cooperation. He and the boys then hailed a taxi. On the way to the city they mulled over the incident.

“Five minutes here and we're right in the thick of the luggage thefts,” Jack said. “Did you know the Griffins were from Taylorville?”

“Near Bayport?” Joe asked.

“That's right.”

Frank said thoughtfully, “Why are people from our area the only targets? There must be a good reason!”

Jack's plan was to confer with local airline people and try to trace possible suspects. The boys would work independently. Soon the taxi turned into a dirt road on the outskirts of Cayenne and pulled up at a modest hotel.

Chet brightened. “Civilization at last!” he rejoiced.

The four checked into comfortable rooms overlooking palm-covered slopes. Chet immediately rushed into the shower and turned on the cold water full blast. The Hardys followed in turn.

After changing into fresh clothes, the boys walked down to the center of Cayenne. Jack had already headed back to the airport.

“Say, how about some chow?” Chet suggested.

“After we scout around,” Frank said.

The boys had decided first to seek some clue to Raymond Martin's whereabouts in Cayenne. The next day they would go to Baredo. Frank inquired about transportation and learned that a launch ferried passengers to and from the island.

The trio reached the centrally located Place des Palmistes, and strolled through the cool park, shaded by towering palm trees. Botanical gardens and a sports stadium were visible to the east.

The Hardys recalled that Cayenne, populated by a mixture of peoples, lay at the mouth of the Cayenne River, which curled inland through wild, heat-drenched wilderness.

Presently the boys came to the beach, along which stretched a row of summer homes. To the north they could barely make out the forbidding Huellas. Frank and Joe looked for the
Dorado,
but the freighter was not in port.

At a restaurant, shaded by a grove of bamboo trees, the visitors stopped for fruit drinks. On the way back to town they purchased straw hats from a vendor and asked directions to the hotel from which Martin had disappeared. They found it without difficulty.

“Dykeman's already checked this place,” Frank said. “But let's see what we can find out.”

The young sleuths entered the dim, stuffy lobby and went up to the desk. Casually Frank asked the clerk if Mr. Martin had returned. The thin-faced man looked sullen.

“I already tell everybody—he just disappear—
poof!
And not pay his bill either.”

Further questioning proved futile and the boys left. “Our best bet now is to keep looking for him in town,” said Joe.

Hindus, Arabs, natives, and Europeans milled past the boys. Flies buzzed at fish stands and butchers' meat stalls. Near some gray stone public buildings Chet gasped as a huge bull-like beast with curved horns clopped by hauling a cart.

“A water buffalol” Frank exclaimed.

“If he's taking to land, I'll take to water!” Chet shuddered.

“There are piranha—flesh-devouring fish—in the river,” Joe informed him challengingly.

“Flesh-devouring!” Chet's eyes bulged.

“—Not to mention centipedes, poisonous snakes, scorpions, and crocodiles in the jungle,” Frank added somberly.

The Hardys grinned as they strolled on. The Bayporters paused beneath a handsome mahogany tree. A scar-faced vendor was hawking cheap garments at a nearby shop front. The vendor, spotting the boys, held up one piece after another.

“Pants—shirts—cheap?” he offered in broken English.

Joe shook his head. The peddler shrugged and next proffered a wrinkled white raincoat.

Suddenly Frank hastened over. “Joe! Chet! Come here!” Frank had flipped over the coat to reveal a bright plaid lining and a large jagged hole at the hem!

“Raymond Martin's raincoat!” Joe gasped.

“This hole matches the piece we found at the airport!”

Frank asked the puzzled vendor where he had obtained the coat. The man summoned a tall ear-ringed Guianan from the shop and spoke with him in rapid French.

“La fleuve,”
the peddler told the boys, pointing to the river. “Down two, three mile. You buy?”

“Oui.”
Frank brought out several francs and handed them over.

“But how will we get down the Cayenne River?” Joe whispered. “That's real jungle.”

“He take you—for price,” the vendor confided, motioning to the native.

Arrangements were made for the trip and the boys followed their guide toward the river. On the way Chet bought some tropical fruit.

Soon they came to a short wooden dock. Next to it was a dugout canoe with hornlike stern and bow curving upward. The native beckoned the boys to climb in. “To coat man—I take you.”

Chet was uneasy. “Do you think we can trust him?” he whispered to the Hardys.

“I think so,” Frank replied. “We haven't much choice if we want to find Martin.”

With Frank and the guide paddling, and Joe and Chet seated in the middle, the canoe glided out into the motionless, mud-colored water. A searing sun burned down as they slipped past lush green jungle banks. White clouds were mirrored in the still river surface.

Presently they passed a clearing of thatch-roofed Indian huts. Farther along, several native women were beating laundry with flat sticks at the waterside. After a while the only sound was the chatter of birds from the depths of the jungle. Something in the primeval stillness prompted the boys to speak in whispers.

“It's like another world!” Joe said, awed.

Past a bend a flock of beautiful flamingos scattered at the canoe's approach. Several crocodiles lay sleepily along the banks. Chet held his breath until they had left the ugly creatures behind.

Several miles farther, the native pointed to a channel off to the right. Frank nodded and they steered in. Enormous mangrove trees arched overhead, blocking out the sun. Gnarled vines hung in trailing loops. The travelers ducked as low-hanging branches tore at their shirts and faces.

“Here!” The guide steered toward a bank covered by thick roots. The boys sat breathlessly, their hearts pounding. Were they about to meet the missing Raymond Martin?

The canoe glided against the bank, where the Guianan pointed to a long, overhanging branch, then at the torn raincoat. Frank understood.

“He means he found the raincoat hanging from that branch!”

“A distress signal by Martin!” Chet guessed.

“The coat man—where is he?” Joe asked the guide.

The native hopped out, secured the craft, and motioned the boys to follow. They clambered after him up the bank into the jungle. Something in his expression made the boys uneasy. Was he leading them into a trap?

“Stick together,” Frank cautioned Joe and Chet.

Patches of blue sky broke through the dense foliage. The guide stopped at a small clearing and the boys peered ahead at the remnants of a campfire. A laceless black shoe lay nearby.

Joe picked it up and read the faded brand name, one familiar to the boys. The clearing seemed eerily deserted. The Guianan led them to a patch of thick shrub. “Here—coat man!”

With a sweep of his arm he threw back the dropping mass of leaves, disclosing a long white form. The Hardys and Chet gasped.

A human skeleton!

 

 

 

THE three boys peered, shocked at the skeleton. Frank stepped back as a centipede slithered out of the skull.

Chet backed away, shuddering. “L-let's get out of here!”

The Hardys, too, had instinctively recoiled, but now inspected the skeleton more closely.

“This can't be Raymond Martin.” Frank pointed out the parched discoloring and cracks in the bones. Several fragments were missing. “These are old—maybe a year or more. Look how the grass has grown around them!”

Joe also recalled their fleeting glimpse of Martin. He was a taller man than the skeleton would indicate. Frank turned to their puzzled guide and said, “Not coat man.”

The native looked disappointed and shrugged. Through gestures he indicated that he knew nothing more.

The boys searched for clues. Finding none, they returned to the dugout. Joe took the bow paddle this time and they headed back upriver.

Frank said he felt that the raincoat had been left there as a trick by the person or persons who had kidnapped Martin; also, that the shoe and campfire were part of the scheme.

“You think he's still alive?” Joe asked.

“Yes, though it's just a hunch. Spies may be holding him to find out what happened to their missing Micro-Eye film.”

“Or to keep him from telling Dykeman's men how the film got into his coat—if he even knows that,” Joe ventured.

Chet had a guess. “Maybe they sneaked into his house the way the intruder did at Dad's travel agency,” Chet suggested.