Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20

by Helen Wells

  “Yes, they could,” Cherry said. “Possibly he drugged you as well.”

  “Everything was vague to me after lunch,” Jacob admitted. “Hazy.” He remembered that they had left the car parked somewhere. “Next we rode in a helicopter. Mr. Hendrix knew the pilot. Then we landed on a mountainside in the snow. Next thing I remember, Shorty is gone and Mr. Hendrix and that man Otto and I are jogging alone in a horse-drawn sled. Oh, for maybe a mile uphill, there is a trail. Then Mr. Hendrix and Otto put on their skis. They put me, I felt so warm and drowsy, into a toboggan—I guess Otto brought it—and they pull me along, up the mountain. Up, up! I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, I am lying in a cot in a hut and looking at a small window half covered with snow. I did not know where I was.” Jacob looked ashamed. “I soon found out from Otto and his wife where I was. And why. Mr. Hendrix had arranged everything in advance.”

  “Were they unkind to you?” Cherry asked.

  “Not at first. At first—well, I was afraid they would not give me insulin, when I realized where I was. But Mr. Hendrix did say he would send a boy called Toni Peter up to Otto’s hut with insulin for me.”

  Jacob spoke in a livelier tone. “In fact, Miss Cherry, Mr. Hendrix planned to see Toni the very next day after the kidnapping, to tell Toni to go regularly to a pharmacy and buy insulin for me. I myself told Mr. Hendrix the instructions to follow for the insulin. Believe me, I pleaded for that insulin! Mr. Hendrix promised I would have it, and I did. Then he stopped it—the day you came.”

  Cherry wondered why Hendrix at first had wanted Jacob to live, and why, in the past week, he had decided Jacob must die—for lack of insulin. But this question was too cruel to ask Jacob.

  “And Hendrix—did you ever seen him again after he kidnapped you?”

  “Yes. Once he came back, the next day or so after he kidnapped me. And once more, several days later, I think maybe a Thursday,” Jacob said, “the time he cut his hand—”

  “Dr. Portman treated that cut!” Cherry said. “What happened?”

  “He was bleeding a lot when he got here. Mr. Hendrix said that on the trip up this mountain, he broke his ski and cut his hand on its metal strip. He yelled at Otto for not keeping any antiseptic or bandages. How he yelled that afternoon!”

  “Yes, I know about his violent temper.”

  “—yelled that now he would have to go back down the trail,” Jacob said, “then go by helicopter back to his car, and then drive in the night until he found someone to fix his hand. He was afraid he could not find a doctor before morning.”

  Cherry realized there was no hospital anywhere near Spirit Mountain, and evidently none where Hendrix had left his car. He would not risk going back to Lugano now that Lenk was missing—and had last been seen driving off with Shorty and Hendrix. Hendrix might have found an obscure country doctor somewhere along his way, more or less competent. She could understand why he had waited until morning to reach well-known Dr. Portman and his well-equipped small hospital.

  Cherry thought for a moment. “Didn’t you say, Jacob, that after the kidnapping you’d seen Hendrix twice? Another time besides the time he cut his hand?”

  “Yes, twice. The time he cut his hand, Mr. Hendrix was in a hurry to get from me a handwritten inventory for my factory. You see, a supervisor in Berne who knew my writing, especially my figures, from my old records had questioned Mr. Hendrix’s writing. Though unluckily, Mr. Hendrix got around that.”

  “And his other visit?” Cherry asked.

  “That was a day or so after he kidnapped me. He came back disguised as me!” Jacob made a face. “It gave me a turn. Already he had stolen my credentials, my watch, my tweed jacket and scarf. He came to the hut on Spirit Mountain to ask me a few questions, to perfect his impersonation of me.”

  Jacob snorted. “And he made me write a note to my pension in Lugano. Mr. Hendrix said he had gone back there and bribed the desk clerk not to tell anyone anything about me. Well, he made me write a note to tell them to give my luggage to the bearer, a man named—” Jacob stopped to think. “At first Mr. Hendrix said Marco, then he said Bruno.”

  The man probably was Marco from the Rosalia garage, Cherry thought. “You had to do as Hendrix wanted, I know,” Cherry said to Jacob. “But wasn’t there anyone at the Gold Ribbon factory in the Jura who’d realize that Hendrix wasn’t you? Who’d see through his impersonation?”

  Jacob sighed. “No one in the Jura at my new post knows me. No one to ask—does not his hair look dyed, or like a wig? Is this man truly Jacob Lenk? Even in Berne, I have no close friends who would ask themselves—why doesn’t Jacob write to us? No one. When I was transferred to another region, I could easily disappear without anyone realizing, you see, and Hendrix knew this.”

  And Hendrix knew this. Cherry straightened the sheets and blankets, thinking.

  “Then someone else knew about you, and your—ah—solitary life,” Cherry said. “This someone must have told Hendrix, and be in cahoots with Hendrix. Would it be someone in Berne?”

  Jacob looked bewildered. “In Berne? No, surely not—I have no enemies in Berne.”

  “Well, who in the Jura knew about you?”

  “No one there knows me yet,” Jacob said.

  “Who knows of you? Who would know that you were coming to work there?” Cherry asked.

  “The plant manager knows I am—was—coming, of course. So must the head shipping clerk,” Jacob said, “because he and I will work together, closely and constantly. He will be my immediate superior. My boss. Well, now! The plant manager is a fine man. He is even more years with Gold Ribbon than I am. About the head shipping clerk I know nothing. Except his name—Vreener.”

  Cherry asked what his job in the Jura would be—and in what ways he would work with Vreener.

  Jacob explained. Throughout the Jura, near Lake Geneva, hundreds of skilled craftsmen work in their own homes, making watch parts by hand. The Gold Ribbon plant placed large orders with them. Jacob was to go on his motorcycle from one craftsman’s house to another, picking up these tiny, valuable parts. At the factory the head shipping clerk Vreener would accept them and sign for them.

  Another part of Jacob’s job would be to take packages of completed watchworks, which Vreener would give to him, to a post office for shipment, mostly to the United States. Then, in American factories, the watchworks would be put into cases and sold to retail shops.

  Both Vreener and Jacob were responsible for, and had to sign for, every watch or part that passed through their hands. The most careful inventories were kept.

  “Oh, I know well enough why Mr. Hendrix wanted my name and my credentials,” Jacob said. “He wanted to get into the Gold Ribbon factory, and get hold of—steal—these valuable watchworks.”

  “But if he had to sign for everything,” Cherry asked, “how could he steal unless Vreener permitted it? Or even cooperated with him? Because the head shipping clerk would soon notice discrepancies, wouldn’t he? The messenger couldn’t steal, not for long anyway, unless an inside man covers up for him,” Cherry reasoned. “So apparently Vreener and Hendrix worked together.”

  Jacob stared at her. “Yes, you’re right,” he said softly. “Do the police know?”

  “The police surely would know about Vreener by now,” Cherry said.

  The next day Cherry and Val were notified to come to Morten, to attend a brief preliminary questioning of Hendrix, alias Jack Lenk. They drove to Morten, that cold, gray afternoon. Cherry wondered whether they would see Toni.

  He was not in the room where Hendrix sullenly sat between two police officers. He faced an older officer, reading a report at a table. Val and Cherry were seated and told to confirm or contradict his story. He turned to glare at Cherry. He still looked defiant, but very nervous.

  The officer at the table began by saying:

  “Mr. Hendrix, your colleague Vreener was arrested yesterday. He was trying to leave the Gold Ribbon factory with some questionable records in the lining of hi
s overcoat. Vreener talked at length. He places most of the blame on you.” Hendrix half rose in his seat. “I recommend you break your silence and state your version of the facts.”

  Cherry heard Hendrix curse Vreener under his breath. Then he stood up and said, “All right. I know when I’m licked. I’ll talk—”

  He said they had met two years ago. Vreener was a slippery man who constantly changed jobs. Sometimes his thefts were never discovered, or discovered long after Vreener had resigned. Sometimes he pinned his thefts on other employees.

  Recently he was drawn into gambling. He lost heavily, won it back, lost again. He had to get more money, fast. Then he learned from the company’s home office that he was to have a new messenger, a stranger in the Jura. From acquaintances at the home office, he learned of Lenk’s solitary life. So Vreener devised a plan and got in touch with Hendrix.

  “Yeah, I admit I have a record of arrests,” Hendrix said. He described their scheme for him to assume Jacob Lenk’s identity and do Jacob Lenk’s job. “Motorcycle and all,” Hendrix said.

  Hendrix, posing as Jacob, rode to the craftsmen’s homes in the Jura, and picked up handmade watch parts. He delivered these to the Gold Ribbon factory, always to Vreener. The head shipping clerk had his own private office adjoining the receiving and shipping rooms.

  Their racket was based on Jacob’s other job, delivering packages of completed watchworks to the post office for shipment to factories, mostly in the United States. Vreener had devised a neat forgery:

  The head shipping clerk would sign out fifty watchworks in a package for Hendrix to mail to a customer. But Vreener would put only thirty watchworks in the customer’s package. He would secretly give Hendrix an additional twenty, separately wrapped, to be smuggled out of Switzerland. The customers, United States companies, would be billed for fifty watchworks. Thus Vreener’s records were correct, but the packages going to the United States were shorted.

  Shipping, and Customs clearance, took quite a while. Still later, the Gold Ribbon factory would mail a duplicate bill to the buyers for payment due. Thus the American customers would not realize for a while that they had not received all the watchworks they were billed for.

  By this time Hendrix would have a chance to flee from Switzerland. With the “guilty” messenger gone, who would be implicated? Not Vreener, the head shipping clerk. With his records in good order, he would appear innocent. He would pretend to be one of the first to “investigate” the thefts in his plant.

  At first Hendrix had planned to release the kidnapped Jacob Lenk, just before he himself would flee the country. “I’d rather not get in so deep as murder,” Hendrix said. “Easy money, okay. But I ain’t no killer.

  “But then—Remember a Sunday newspaper article a few weeks back about a kidnapper who got caught fast? He got sent up for hard labor and a prison term. That case upset me. If they could catch him so quick, they could catch me.” Hendrix mopped his sweating face. “And I’m wanted—by the U. S. police and Interpol—for a couple of jobs I could get locked away for the rest of my life. See? So I thought things over for a while. That’s when I saw I couldn’t afford to let Jacob Lenk go free—ever.”

  The presiding police officer said flatly, “So to avoid any risk of getting caught—you were going to let Jacob Lenk die for lack of needed medicine. That’s attempted murder, Hendrix.”

  Hendrix shrugged. “Well, yeah, I told the pharmacist here in Morten not to let Toni have any more insulin because I wouldn’t pay for it. There was no other place where Toni could get insulin, except miles—kilometers—away. I told Otto, too, stop the insulin.” Hendrix seemed indifferent.

  Val said, “Toni told me you promised him that you yourself would bring insulin to Jacob.”

  “So okay, I had to tell Toni that. He’d gone soft about Jacob.”

  The presiding officer asked, “What was Toni’s job with you? And Blanche Sully’s? And Marco’s?”

  Hendrix grinned. “I was the kingpin. I was the one who moved around the most. Had to carry the stuff from the Jura to, uh—Well, Vreener couldn’t do it on account of his inside job; he couldn’t move around like me on Jacob’s motorcycle. So next I needed somebody who’d stay put. Somebody always at a midway point who’d take messages, pass along my orders, and hide the watchworks and pass them along at the right time. That was Blanche.”

  Hendrix dared not hand over the stolen watchworks directly to Toni. It would be indiscreet, if he and Toni were noticed together. And the frequency of the boy’s ski runs across the border were dependent on weather. The man in leather garments—Madame’s contact at the children’s ski yard—hid Toni’s mountain-climbing ropes, hooks, axe, and gear in his house just outside the village, for those days when Toni would travel to Spirit Mountain.

  It was safer if Blanche Sully kept the watchworks until Toni was ready to go. “I’d figured,” Hendrix said, “that I could go see Blanche at the chateau any time I felt like it. Who should I meet there, the first time I bring Blanche some loot, but this kid nurse! The one who helped fix my cut hand and knows I’m Hendrix—she even handled my gun. I didn’t know she lived at the same hotel.”

  He tried to scare Cherry off by having Madame search her room and mail for something damaging for blackmail. Blanche Sully planted a so-called stolen watch in Cherry’s room but the frame-up did not work. So Hendrix had to work through two local women and an old man, none overly honest, whom he hired to meet him secretly, pick up his packages of stolen watchworks, and carry them to Blanche—concealed in bouquets or gift packages. He also sent her Vreener’s green notebook with addresses of outlets. She passed these along to Toni, besides verbal messages that Hendrix had telephoned to her. Blanche Sully was an old hand at deception, and had done two or three earlier jobs for Hendrix.

  “I had to pay her well for this job,” Hendrix said resentfully. “Marco, too, that wised-up ape.”

  “And Toni’s pay?” the police officer asked.

  “Oh, not much, he’s just a kid—thinks a racket is a big adventure. Never did a job like this before and don’t know prices. Besides, he was so hungry when I met him, he’d have skied alone to the North Pole for a good meal.” Hendrix laughed.

  Cherry felt Val beside her tighten up with anger. The police officer reviewed Toni’s trips across the border to swap ski poles with Marco.

  “Yeah, Marco made us the screw-top ski poles. He bought ordinary hollow poles and fixed the tops.” He hid spare poles in his garage, ready for Toni’s next trips. He also hid the smuggled watchworks until he could take them by car to Milan. There they were sold, always for cash, to jewelers who put them into cases. The jewelers sold them to street peddlers, who sold them illegally to tourists. Some of the jewelers, Hendrix claimed, did not realize that the watchworks were stolen.

  “They should have realized it,” the police officer remarked. “Every fine Swiss watch is sold with a written lifetime guarantee. It is regrettable that tourists are being cheated.”

  Hendrix was taken out and returned to the adjoining prison. Val whispered to Cherry that he did not think they would see Hendrix again, or Madame Sully or Marco—“but I wish we could see Toni.”

  “So do I,” Cherry murmured. “Let’s ask.”

  The police officer gave his permission.

  While they waited, Dr. Portman telephoned. A letter from Medic Alert had just reached his hospital, in reply to Cherry’s inquiry about Hendrix. Medic Alert reported that the bearer of his tag number, allergic to penicillin, and fitting his physical description, was Ed Mercer, an American citizen, home address Chicago, and a mail address: General Delivery, Berne. The police officer receiving this information thanked the doctor, and said:

  “We will check on Mercer with Interpol.”

  Toni was brought in. He looked bewildered, skinny, and young next to the rock-solid policeman escorting him. Toni Rubberlegs’ spark was gone.

  “I’m awfully glad to see you,” Toni mumbled. “I never thought you’d want to see me again
.”

  The presiding officer was listening with special interest, it seemed to Cherry. She said:

  “Of course we want to see you, Toni. Look what you did! Jacob was rescued because of you.”

  Val said, “You saved me, too—I mean, when you hit Hendrix on the head with that iron hook.”

  “It was a pleasure to hit him,” Toni said.

  “He could have shot you,” Cherry said.

  “Well, he didn’t, because I’m faster’n him.” Toni grinned, then shook his head. “I’ve been sitting here in jail asking myself, ‘Toni, how’d you get in here?’ At first I thought Hendrix wanted me to do just a little delivery job on skis. Well, I admit it, a little smuggling. But then it snowballed. Next it was kidnapping, next thing murder. When I told Madame Sully I wanted to quit, she swore she’d expose me to the police. I didn’t know what to do. Just kept quiet and drifted along doing the same thing.”

  “You really wanted to quit?” Val asked.

  “But I didn’t, did I? Ah, Val, I’m not much,” Toni said. “Living in your house showed me that. I never had a steady, decent family like yours. I grew up in orphans’ homes. Sometimes I felt like I was a stray pup nobody wanted.”

  The presiding officer spoke up. “That’s hard, Toni. But you’re a pretty good boy, considering how responsibly you behaved toward Jacob. I believe you could grow into a good man.”

  “I believe so, too,” Val said.

  “If you want to,” the police officer said. “If you’ll make the effort.”

  Toni swallowed. “Joe Wardi tried to tell me that. I finally understand what he meant. Like maybe I could be a real ski instructor someday, trained, certified, on the level. Like Val.”

  “Sure you could,” Val said.

  The police officer said, “We’ll give you some training during the months you’ll be with us, Toni. We’ll help you to find work when you’re ready.”

  Val held out his hand to Toni. “Don’t forget the Nicholases will be glad to see Toni Rubberlegs.”

  “I won’t fail you again, Val.” Toni moved away as his escorting officer motioned that his time was up. “Goodbye, Cherry. Take good care of Jacob, will you? He’s alone, too.”