“How does that happen?” Fran asked.
“Tides, storms, shifting sands. And the busy mangrove tree. That’s the great land builder in these parts.”
He pointed to the junglelike growth edging the Key they were passing. “Mangrove roots grow fast and spread faster. They catch drifting plant life and debris. And so the shoreline keeps building up.”
About twenty minutes later, Nancy asked, “Are we nearing the place where the Black Falcon sank?”
Jack shrugged. “That Key we just passed is Storm Island. And out there near one of those Keys, according to Two Line Parker, lies the Black Falcon.” He pointed toward a vista of islets.
“But don’t ask me which one,” Jack added with a grin. “You’ll have to figure that out yourself.”
He wound in and out among the islands. But since Two Line had told them nothing specific about the surrounding Keys, it seemed hopeless to identify Black Key.
They watched for Juarez, and listened for the drone of his speedboat. But all they heard were the cries of cranes and the lonely wail of limpkins.
“It’s lonesome out here,” Fran said. “We must be miles from civilization.”
Dr. Anderson looked at his watch. “I think we’d better start back.”
Nancy felt frustrated as Jack headed his boat toward Miami. The hunt had certainly been disappointing.
“But,” she told herself, “I’ll come back. The fifteenth isn’t until Wednesday.”
Nancy told Dr. Anderson about the charred letter she had found in Florida City that morning.
“According to that, Porterly and his friends are meeting on the fifteenth at some place beginning with a B. It may be Black Key,” she declared.
“Sounds reasonable,” the professor agreed. “Perhaps we should come back tomorrow and continue our search. We may be able to pick up Juarez’s trail.”
Nancy was delighted that he had expressed her own desires. “But let’s get an early start,” she said. “In the morning.”
Dr. Anderson frowned. “You forget I have other students. I’m taking my class to a museum in the morning. We’ll have to wait until afternoon.”
“How about Fran and me going out in the morning with Jack?” Nancy proposed.
The professor shook his head. “Now that I know Juarez is around, the answer is No. Two men in your party is the absolute minimum.”
When they reached the dock of the Southern Skies Guest House, a familiar figure came to meet her.
“Terry Scott!” Nancy was dumfounded.
The young man grinned. “Like a dutiful daughter, you wired your dad. So when I talked to him on the phone, he told me where I might find you.”
Nancy introduced him to Fran and Jack. “And of course you and Dr. Anderson—” she added.
The older man gave Terry a long, cautious stare. Then, smiling, he held out his hand.
“I guess we may as well be partners,” he said. “I’ve been using the services of your young detective on my own.”
Terry laughed boyishly. “With the three of us working together, we can’t lose.”
“What have you been doing, Terry?” Nancy asked as they walked to the house. “We haven’t heard a word from you.”
“I’ll tell you at dinner,” he promised. “How about you and Fran and Dr. Anderson eating at my hotel?”
Half an hour later they gathered in the big dining room. Terry picked up the menu card and smiled.
“Ummm. Pompano steak, corn bread, and papaya!” He sighed appreciatively.
After a waiter had taken their orders, Nancy said, “Now tell your news.”
“First of all,” Terry began, “a good lead came from the Mexican police. They told me about an old woman—an aunt of Juarez—who lives a few miles from the site of our excavations. They have a signed statement from her.”
She admitted that Juarez had stolen the cipher tablet and Dr. Pitt had trailed him. She knew this, because Juarez had stopped at her place for food to take on a journey and had told her the story.
“Did she know where Juarez was going?” Nancy asked eagerly.
“No. She had no idea where either Pitt or Juarez might be found.”
Nancy smiled impishly. “Dr. Anderson and I can do better than that. We know where Juarez is.”
Terry looked at her in amazement. “In Florida?”
Nancy told about the pursuit of Juarez and their fruitless search for him in Jack’s motorboat.
“I’d like to go out myself and hunt for him,” Terry declared. “Do you suppose, Fran, that your cousin would take us all out tomorrow morning?”
Nancy threw Dr. Anderson a demure look. “I’m sure Jack will go, but the professor is conducting class tomorrow in a museum.”
Early the next morning Jack Walker moored his boat at the guest-house dock. Terry and Nancy were waiting, and Fran hurried to join them at the last minute, pencil and notebook in hand.
“The prof is making me write a report,” she said. “Otherwise, I can’t go with you.”
Jack started the motor and the boat sped off on its mission.
“What’s the subject?” Terry asked. “Maybe we can help you.”
“The Florida Keys—Their Character and Their History.”
Terry smiled. “All right. Let’s start with their character. The Keys are small coral islands stretching some two hundred miles beyond the mainland. At one time they were probably part of the land link to Yucatan.”
Fran looked at Terry thankfully. “Gracious, I didn’t know that!”
Nancy reminded the girl of Two Line’s stories about pirates and wreckers, and Fran wrote busily in her notebook.
At last the searchers reached the group of Keys they had visited the afternoon before and started cruising around. Finally Jack let the motor idle.
“Hopeless,” he said.
“It’s a maze, all right,” Terry agreed. “But let’s not give up.”
Nancy pointed toward a small craft near one of the islets. “Could that be Juarez?”
Jack headed his boat in that direction, and they soon overtook the other boat. It proved to be a small fishing cruiser, and Juarez was not aboard. Its only occupant was a sun-tanned fisherman, obviously intent on the day’s catch.
Nancy addressed him with a smile. “Good morning. We’re doing a little exploring. Would you please tell us how to find the Black Key?”
“Black Key? Never heard of it, miss.”
“Perhaps you know where the Black Falcon was sunk many years ago?” Nancy asked hopefully.
The man in the cruiser grinned. “It’s fishing I like, not history,” he said. “It’s enough if I know the Keys by their shape, so to speak, and how they’re arranged. It helps me remember where the catch is good.”
“Well, thank you, anyway.”
Jack Walker was about to pull away from the other boat, when Nancy remembered something—the slip of paper she had found in the shrubbery at home, with the notation “5 x 7 and one.”
“I have one more question, if you don’t mind,” she called to the fisherman. “You spoke of knowing how the Keys are arranged. Is there any place where they’re in groups of five and seven—and then one Key lying alone?”
The man frowned, and thought about this. “Five and seven. Well, I’ll be switched! That’s the way they are, though I never figured it out before.”
He pointed with his rod.
“There’s five of them over that way, spreading south and eastward. They’re in a kind of half-moon. And yonder there are seven more of those Keys, sort of chainlike. They run north.”
“And the single island?” Nancy asked.
“I’m not sure about that one,” the man answered. “There might be a single one in there somewhere. I don’t remember.”
Nancy told the fisherman he had been very helpful, and Jack turned his boat in the direction the man had pointed out. Soon they reached the five half-moon Keys and the chain of seven Keys.
“Now let’s look for that odd islan
d,” Terry said. He was becoming intrigued, too, by the possibility of solving the mystery of Black Key.
Jack cruised slowly around the inside of the half-moon. There, overshadowed by the larger Keys and at an equal distance between the two groups, was a tiny islet.
Nancy was so excited she could hardly speak. “This must be Black Key!” she whispered.
Viewed from the boat, the spot looked like a small jungle of mangroves. But as they approached, its extent proved to be greater than they had supposed. Searching its shadowy rim, they at last found an opening in the dense growth.
Jack guided his motorboat into the narrow inlet. Sheltered by the trees, they were completely out of sight of passing boatmen.
“A wonderful hideaway for pirates like Juarez!” Terry commented.
Nancy spotted a path that wound off among the trees and suggested that Jack stop. “Let’s get out here,” she said in a low voice, “and do some exploring.”
The group disembarked and cautiously moved inland. For a short distance the path wound and twisted among the mangroves. Then it suddenly ended at an open, sandy knoll.
Nancy and her companions stood still and gazed around them. In a moment Nancy pointed through a tangle of bushes across the clearing.
“Look!” she whispered.
Almost concealed by the surrounding trees was a low gray hut. As they dashed across the open space toward it, the searchers heard a plane overhead. It was flying low.
“Hide!” Terry commanded. “We don’t want to be seen.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The Hidden Hut
EVERYONE ducked beneath the concealing shelter of mangroves, but Nancy was afraid her group already had been spotted.
“If Juarez was in that plane, there may be trouble for us,” she declared.
The seaplane circled the island several times, then droned off.
“Looks bad,” Terry said. “We’d better hurry and see what’s on the Key before the plane returns.”
Once more he and Nancy crept toward the hut, with Fran and Jack following. Fran was frightened and nervous.
“Is this what detective work is like?” she asked. “Why, you take your life in your hands!”
Terry said nothing, but he agreed. He had not forgotten the episode at the Wangells’!
The hut ahead was about the size of a two-room bungalow and built of heavy weather-worn timbers. “Driftwood from wrecked ships,” Nancy mused. There was one small window in the front and a low door.
Terry knocked. No answer. He put his hand on the latch and pushed. The door opened. The four walked inside.
They stood in a small room, unfurnished except for two canvas deck chairs. In one corner lay a pile of newspapers and magazines—most of them in Spanish—and a carton of canned goods.
“Somebody’s been here recently,” Fran Oakes whispered. She pointed to the window sill.
A half-eaten candy bar was being consumed by black ants. Beside it stood a bottle of soda, half empty.
Suddenly they heard, from somewhere in the hut, a shuffling sound. Terry motioned toward a heavy door with an old-fashioned, primitive bolt. It apparently led to an inner room, and someone was in there!
“You two girls stand back,” Terry whispered.
As he started to open the door, a hoarse voice cried out:
“Go away! I won’t tell you!”
Nevertheless, Terry swung the door open. Jack followed him inside. Then came Terry’s astonished voice:
“Dr. Pitt!”
Nancy and Fran dashed forward. Seated on a cot was a haggard, elderly man, his eyes sunken but with a determined, fiery light in them.
“Thank goodness you found me,” he said, deep emotion in his voice. “But I don’t know how you did it.”
Eagerly Terry introduced the old man to his friends. Joshua Pitt gave them a sad, wry smile.
“Welcome to my prison cell on Black Key!”
He pointed to a small hole in the roof, too small for escape, and the meager furnishings in the room—the cot and two packing boxes which served as table and chair. One of them held several cans of food.
Dr. Pitt explained that Juarez and two other men had held him captive, trying to make him tell them where the Frog Treasure was hidden.
“Were the other men named Porterly and Wangell?” Nancy asked.
“Yes. Porterly was here twice, Wangell only once. But I wouldn’t tell them a thing,” the elderly professor said proudly, “no matter what they did.”
Terry asked eagerly, “Dr Pitt, did you learn the ancient secret we were trying to find out?”
Dr. Pitt’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I know. But I won’t tell anyone—not even you,” he announced. “No one shall ever force the secret from me.”
“But why not?” Nancy asked, astonished.
“Because it would mean the destruction of mankind,” the archaeologist replied.
The two men helped the elderly professor to one of the deck chairs in the outer room.
“At least tell us,” Terry begged, “how you came to be captured.”
Joshua Pitt said that the night following the afternoon he and Terry had found the cipher tablet, he had translated the message on the Mystery Stone. He had learned that the secret was one of evil. The professor refused to say more about it.
Terry asked, “While you were making your translation, did you drop a paper with notes on it?” He described the symbols of the frog, sun, and prostrate man.
“Yes. Those symbols are the clue to the secret.” Joshua Pitt frowned. “Because of that I decided to keep the three black keys. But in removing them from their ring, I broke one of them.”
Nancy said that she had the half-key with her. Fingering the ribbon at her throat, she explained that Terry had entrusted it to her.
“How did Juarez steal the cipher tablet?” Terry asked.
“After I made the translation,” Dr. Pitt said, “I hid the stone tablet under a blanket. Juarez must have been watching me. As I dozed off, I heard a noise. It was Juarez making hi escape. I knew at once what had happened and 1 started after him.”
“Why didn’t you yell?” Terry asked.
Dr. Pitt admitted that was where he had made his mistake. Thinking he could handle the situation alone, he had not awakened the others.
“But Juarez turned the tables,” he said wryly. “I followed him to some old woman’s house—she was a relative of Juarez. He and a Mexican pal ambushed me, packed me into a plane, and brought me here.”
“And the cipher tablet, too?” Terry wanted to know.
“Yes. It is buried on Black Key,” came the startling announcement.
“Do you know the spot?” Nancy inquired excitedly.
“I have no idea,” Dr. Pitt replied.
Nancy asked when he expected Juarez back.
“Tomorrow.”
The fifteenth! But he might come sooner, Nancy decided. If the man in the plane were a spy, Juarez would come as soon as he got the word!
Dr. Pitt’s eyes smoldered. “Juarez said tomorrow would be my last chance. He was bringing friends here to make me tell my secret by torturing me some devilish way.”
Fran Oakes shivered, and Terry, frowning, looked at his watch. He turned to Jack Walker.
“See here, Jack. We can’t leave the cipher tablet on the island. How about you and Fran taking the boat and getting the police? Bring them here as soon as you can. In the meantime, Nancy and I will hunt for the tablet.”
Jack nodded. He and Fran hurried from the hut.
Joshua Pitt turned to Terry. “Now that I’ve told my story, how about yours? I’m curious to learn how you knew I was here.”
“The credit belongs to Nancy.” Terry smiled. “She did a smart bit of detective work.”
At Dr. Pitt’s insistence, Nancy told the story herself. At the end she asked, “Why did Juarez bring you to Black Key?”
“He knows this area well. Used to come here years ago, looking for pirate gold. I fancy Juarez is a bit o
f a pirate himself.”
“But why Black Key?”
“A friend of his owned an old diary. That must be the one you were translating, Terry. Don’t you remember about the Black Falcon? There was something in the story about frogs, and Juarez got the idea it might mean the Frog Treasure and it was hidden here. But they won’t find it on Black Key because it’s buried elsewhere.”
Terry looked puzzled. “Wait a minute,” he said slowly. “The Wangell diary made no mention of the Black Falcon nor any frogs in connection with it.”
“Juarez showed me the pages. He must have torn them out of the diary before you saw it.”
“That’s the answer!” Terry exclaimed. “When Mrs. Wangell showed me the diary, several pages were missing.”
Pitt went on with his story. “Juarez has the two good obsidian keys, and the broken half. Heaven help the world if he ever finds the other half, and becomes master of the secret!”
Nancy longed to know the nature of the secret, but the stern look on the scientist’s face warned her not to ask. Instead, she decided to go outside and look around for clues to the buried cipher stone.
As she reached the doorway, Nancy heard a step outside. Before she had time to slam the door, a woman rushed in. Her strong arms encircled Nancy’s neck in a strangle hold and forced her back into the hut.
“Now I’ve caught you!” she yelled at Nancy. “We saw you and your boy friend from the plane.”
Terry reached for her arm, but he was too late. Three men sprang at him. While two pinioned his arms to his sides and bound them with rope, the third stood by dumfounded, as if he had seen a ghost.
“Will! Juarez!” he cried. “It’s Professor Scott!”
“Yeah,” Porterly said in disgust. “You thought you’d fixed him for good, didn’t you? Get to work!”
Nancy was bound hand and foot, then Earl Wangell tied up Joshua Pitt.
Strong arms encircled Nancy’s neck in a strangle hold
The woman pushed Nancy roughly against the wall. “I’m Mrs. Juarez Tino,” she snarled. “Does that mean anything to you?”