Free Drew 17 - The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk by Carolyn Keene Page A

picked it up and straightened it out. Then she looked at it in amazement. It was part of a drawing of a diamond bracelet! “Wow!” she said to herself. “What a find!”
    The diamonds were a silver color against a black background, and the design was beautiful in its striking simplicity. In one corner of the paper was a very faint line.
    As the young sleuth stared at it, she wondered whether the line would give some real information if she looked at it under a magnifying glass. She put both the paper and the cloth into a pocket and ascended the stairs, going all the way to the top deck. She came across nothing else of importance.
    “I’d better get back to my cabin,” Nancy decided, “and look at this paper under my magnifying glass.”
    On the way she almost bumped into a cleaning man as she turned a corner. He said to her, “It is too early for you to be up.”
    “Oh, I like to get up early,” Nancy replied and hurried off.
    By the time she let herself into cabin one twenty-eight, the other girls were awake. They demanded to know where she had been and why. When she told them, and pulled the evidence from her pocket, they were amazed.
    Nancy went to get her magnifying glass and studied both the cloth and the piece of black paper. The cloth revealed no clues, but the line on the paper turned into letters. She could just read the indistinct letters of the word Longstreet.
    “Do you think that’s an address?” Bess suggested.
    “Could be the name of the manufacturer who makes this odd black paper,” Nelda put in.
    “Or the name of the person for whom the bracelet was created,” Nancy said.
    “Or for that matter, it could be the name of the designer,” Bess went on.
    Nancy started to laugh. “Hold it! As detectives, we must not get carried away with guesses. Let’s try to find out the facts!”
    There was silence. Nancy sighed. “Perhaps the captain could give us an idea. Let’s go to see him after breakfast.”
    When the girls arrived at his quarters, they were told by a junior officer that Captain Detweiler would be busy until eleven-thirty.
    Nancy decided to call at the purser’s counter and show Rod her discoveries.
    Rod Havelock was astounded at the bits of evidence the young sleuth had found. He examined them carefully. Finally he said, “This piece of black material could have been torn from one of the masks. When the captain and I were fighting off those two men, I yanked one fellow’s mask down so far that I was sure he couldn’t see through the eyeholes. Probably that’s why he lost his balance and fell down the stairs.”
    Nancy asked him if he had any suggestions about the black paper with part of a sketch of a diamond bracelet and the word Longstreet on it.
    “Sorry, but on that I can’t help you,” Rod replied.
    Nancy noticed that several people were waiting to ask the assistant purser questions, so she decided to leave. When she returned to cabin one twenty-eight, she found her companions looking in their suitcases for Ping-Pong balls.
    George said, “We hoped you’d return in time to play doubles with us.”
    Nancy agreed and the four girls hurried to the sports deck. They twirled their paddles for a choice of partners. Bess and Nancy would play against George and Nelda.
    Nelda giggled. “I hope I’ll do all right,” she said. “I haven’t played in a couple of years and I’m rather out of practice.”
    “Don’t worry,” George said. “Come on, you start.”
    Nelda hit a low serve that caught Nancy by surprise. She missed it. Nancy laughed. “Nelda, I’d hate to play against you when you’re not out of practice!”
    George and Nelda won the first game, but Nancy and Bess made up for it in the next one. A crowd gathered to watch the match, and soon each team had its own cheering section.
    “Come on, Nancy, let’s have a good—oh, oh, it just skimmed the net!”
    “No way George could get that!” a sympathetic boy called, while someone else complimented the girl on