Free (#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher by Carolyn Keene

say to me? ‘Canqui Japac.’ ” His eyes still twinkling, he translated. “It means, ‘You are rich.’ ”
    Everyone laughed and George said, “I’m glad to hear that. Since that is true, I accept your invitation, Señor Ponce.”
    The other girls accepted too and it was decided that they would go the day after tomorrow.
    “It’s going to be thrilling,” Bess cried out.
    “I cannot wait,” said Carla. “I’ve never been to those places before.”
    The following morning Senor Ponce suggested that Carla show her friends more of the interesting sights in Lima. “I think you would love the Torre Tagle Palace. It is a rather elaborate Moorish style of architecture. The place is now used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so only part of it is open to visitors.”
    Carla drove the girls to the ancient palace, now hemmed in by business buildings. Before going inside, her guests gazed at the elaborately carved wooden front of Torre Tagle. While they were admiring its lattice-windowed balcony on the second floor, Carla happened to glance across the street. A man stood there, his hat pulled low.
    “He looks like Luis Llosa, that unpleasant assistant at Senor Velez’s handicraft shop,” she thought.
    Quietly she alerted the other girls. As they turned to look, the man strolled away.
    “I wonder what he was doing here,” Nancy thought uneasily as she followed the others into the palace.
    “How grand it must have been to live in such magnificence?” exclaimed Bess. They had paused in a central courtyard surrounded by a high balcony.
    “Oh, look!” George exclaimed, pointing to a far corner where an ancient coach stood.
    “My, how elegant!” said Nancy.
    Red tieback curtains adorned the windows, and at the front, some distance ahead of the closed compartment, was the coachman’s redplush seat.
    “I’ll bet this was a four-horse coach,” said George as she hurried over. “Boy, I would love to drive it!” She put her hand on the seat.
    “I’d rather be a passenger, thank you,” said Bess.
    She stepped forward in a stately manner. “I am Isabella, Queen of Spain. Hasten to the party, coachman, with my king and me.”
    Nancy laughed. “Wait a minute, Your Majesty. How about a photograph?”
    Bess handed over her camera and said loftily, “I ought not to have my picture taken with a lowly coachman.” Then, as she giggled and George snorted, Nancy snapped the shutter.
    Carla had been watching in amusement. “Come,” she said, leading the way up the stairs to the balcony. “I want to show you a special room.”
    They followed her along the balcony and through a room onto a shadowy porch. It was screened from view by the great wooden shutters they had admired from the street.
    Carla explained that in olden times the women of the aristocracy rarely appeared on the streets, but they liked to watch the people below. “From here they could see without being seen.”
    Nancy walked to the window and peered through the shutters. She summoned the others and pointed across the street. There stood Luis Llosa!
    “He has come back!” Carla whispered.
    “To spy on us, I’ll bet!” Bess added worriedly.
    The others agreed.
    Carla shivered. “I hate to think that he was following us, but he must have been.”
    Bess said a bit fearfully, “When we leave here, he’ll no doubt come after us!”
    “So what? We can’t stay here all day,” George declared. “I’m going to scare him off!”
    She opened one of the shutters and leaned out to look directly at Luis Llosa. He at once became ill at ease and quickly moved off.
    “Let’s go” Bess urged.
    “All right,” said Nancy. “But instead of going home, I’d like to stop at Señor Velez’s shop and check on Llosa.”
    Carla drove directly there. When they walked into the shop, the owner greeted them affably. They told him about their trip to the arrayánes forest and their failure to find a clue there.
    “That’s too bad,” the craftsman