Drea and Anne soon had Turia free. “What happened?” Anne asked.
“I´m not sure,” Turia replied “I saw that somebody was using the cave, and I came ashore to be friendly. I felt a pinch on my neck, and woke up as you found me.”
“Did you know who they were?” Drea asked.
“No. They were quite tall, one with blonde hair, the other with brown.”
“We´d better get out of her. This cave´s a bit on the cool side, and I think you´d like to get something over that suitless bathing strap.”
Anne smiled rather than laughed at Drea´s joke. She´d heard it before. The three women made their way back to the raft. “There´s only room for two,” Drea noted.
“So we take a page from Hieata´s book,” Anne said as she undid her shorts and stepped out of them. “I´ll swim over.”
“Okay by me.” Drea took the shorts and set them down in the raft. Anne ran out into surf. Drea and Turia launched the raft and paddled out to the boats. Once there, they told Hieata and Taureau of their encounter.
“Apparently, there´s something down there,” Anne said. “Something our friends don´t want us to see.”
“Well, I guess we will have to it, whether they want us to or not,” Drea said.
“Okay, ladies, let´s gear up and see what´s down there. We´ll need a little muscle topside, so Taureau will have to stay up here.”
Turia was adamant about seeing what had resulted her in being tied up, so she geared up as well. Anne decided to take charge, so she gave the signal for the quartet to go under water.
Once below, the foursome scanned the bottom, but found nothing more unusual than a small cabin cruiser. The search was limited by both the depth of the cove, about fifty feet, and by the fact they would need to rise slowly to avoid the bends. They searched the bottom for bags of boxes that might contain gems, but to now avail, Anne was struck by an inspiration, and started toward the cabin cruiser, but Hieata tapped her on the shoulder and indicated the pressure gauge. They would have to return to the surface.
Once back on the surface, the divers dried themselves off. “Anne, why were you interested in that wreck?” Hieata asked.
“It occurred to me that it would be a good place to stash stolen jewelry,” Anne replied. “Just another wreck.”
“You´ve got something there,” Drea put in. “Odd for it to sink there. No rocks or coral outcroppings to run into. Sunk in a storm perhaps?”
“We can´t go back down, we don´t have any spare tanks or an air pump,” Hieata said.
Vitea went ahead on her own, while her rescuers settled down for a picnic lunch. “Will be able to find a record of a boat that was lost or sunk?” Drea asked.
“Somebody would have to report it.” Hieata replied. “If it was indeed sunk in a storm…” Her voice trailed off, perhaps recalling her parents´ demise. Drea and Anne both knew the unstated point: anybody aboard during a storm could have been swept overboard.
On the way back to port, Hieata radioed the harbormaster and asked if there had been any reports of boats lost in the area where the wreck had been found. By the time they reached the harbormaster´s office, the search had been completed but, regrettably, had turned up nothing.
“Are you two up for a walk?” Hieata asked as she drove back to the house.
“We can handle one.” Drea replied. “What do you have in mind?
“You´ll see.”
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Françoise Debernard chatted nervously with her visitor who, technically speaking, was not supposed to be on the island of Tahiti at all. “The investigator from the insurance company will be arriving tomorrow,” she said. “Her name is Clouseau, Evangeline Clouseau. She´s their best investigator. Her uncle was a legendary inspector in the Sûreté.”
“We can arrange to have her, shall we say diverted,” the visitor said.
“Certainly not to the bottom of the ocean.”
“I told you from the beginning. I´m not into murder. Like with that one girl this morning. The one we left tied up in the cave.”
“Could she identify you?”
“I doubt it. Ilsa knows how to render somebody unconscious barehanded and we blindfolded her before we did anything else. Since we anticipated the possibility of discovery, were always ready for a quick exit. We´ve already pitched our tent.”
With that, Glenda Chaffe stood up. She was a tall woman, just over six feet, with long brown hair and unusually large, green eyes. Her companion, Ilsa Nordquist, had been sitting of to the side also stood up. An inch taller than Glenda, she had blonde hair and blue eyes in the classic Scandinavian manner.
Françoise told them the time Mademoiselle Clouseau was due at the airport. “Don´t worry,” Glenda said. “We´ll take care of all situations.”
---------------------------------
The trio stopped long enough to change clothes. In Drea and Anne´s case, to don Hawaiian shirts over their bikinis and trade their flip-lops for sturdy hiking boots. Hieata wore a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers.
Hieata led her two guests down a path toward a stream. From there, they worked their way inland along the stream´s bank. In due course, they came across a waterfall, a cascade really. A figure, clad in a bikini and photographer´s vest waved to them. Erika was preparing, with Vitea´s help, to set up her tripod and camera. “Hello,” she said in a friendly voice. “I´m here to take a few shots of the falls.”
“Wouldn´t you rather be closer?” Anne asked.
“I want to get the falls in their full height, with Vitea, or perhaps one of you in front to add some perspective.”
“I just wanted to show Drea and Anne a favorite swimming place.” Hieata said.
The trio patiently waited for Erika to get the shots of Vitea. When Erika indicated she was finished, Drea, Anne, and Hieata began to undress. “I see you don´t object to skinny dipping, but would you object to me taking pictures?”
Drea and Anne exchanged glances. This was an uncomfortable position due to the fact they could potentially blow their cover as simply a pair of women visiting a college friend. It wasn´t the nudity that bothered them, it was the fact their faces –their most revealing features—would be on display.
“I can have there be no facial shots, so you don´t have to worry about you´re grandmothers seeing you.”
Drea laughed, “Since you put it that way, why not?”
Drea, Anne, Hieata, and Vitea were soon splashing about au natural. After Erika got her required shots, she too undressed and joined the group. The water was perhaps three feet deep, enough to allow swimming. When not swimming, one of the group would stand beneath the waterfall as if it were a shower.
During her stint under the waterfall, Anne saw two women walk along the bank of the stream. She couldn´t recognize their faces under the cascade, but their general build was familiar. The sleuth waded from beneath the falls and swam to the shore. By that time, the two women had turned around the bend of the path that took the trail away from the waterfall. Drea also emerged from the water and asked “Did you see them, too?”
Anne nodded, “I wasn´t exactly sure, but they could have been Glenda and Ilsa. They have the right height, right build, and right hair color.”
They started to dry off when the rest of the little group came ashore. When Erika dried off, she began to dress “I really need to get the film developed,” she announced.
Vitea dressed, then helped Erika collect the photographic equipment before she left. After they collected they gear, the two departed.
“Now why would a photographer develop picture here?” Anne wondered.
“I don´t follow you.” Hieata said.
“It´s much easier to keep the film with you and develop it when get back home,” Drea observed.
“Hieata, do have any idea where they might have gone?” Anne asked.
Well, there is a house that Monsieur de la Croix owns that he rents out,” Hieata replied, “mostly to people making long visits who do not want to live in a hotel for two months.”
“Did Glenda Chafee stay at this place?”
“I believe she did.”
“Do you know how to get there?”
“Of course.”
“Lead on, Mac Duff!”
Hieata led her two friends along the path, which turned away from the stream and the falls. Soon, they came across a house. More like a bungalow, it was one story, with a veranda around the whole structure. “Better than a hotel,” Drea observed.
“I think I should take a look around the back yard.” Anne said.
With that, she made a wide circuit of the grounds, staying close to the edge of the trees so as to be able to use them as cover should somebody spot her. There appeared to be a narrow footpath. As she approached, it, Anne noticed a human figure near the end of the path. True to her nature, Anne went to investigate. To her surprise, Anne found herself face to face with Glenda Chafee. The red tank top, white cotton shorts, and sneakers were a quite a contrast to the outfit –more like a disguise—Glenda wore as a college professor.
“Hello Anne.” Glenda said
Anne assumed a defensive pose and, for some ridiculous reason, noticed Glenda wore a brightly colored scarf as a belt. Oddly, Glenda made no attempt to move toward Anne. The young sleuth suspected somebody was behind her, so she glanced over her shoulder. This gave Glenda the chance to lunge forward and grab Anne.
Tall and strong as Anne was Glenda was taller, and just as strong. Ilsa emerged from a hiding place. She too was taller than Anne and perhaps stronger and already carrying a length of nylon rope. Anne´s wrists were bound, and as Anne tried to call out, Ilsa balled a small handkerchief and crammed it into the detective´s mouth. Glenda stepped back and undid the knot on the scarf. She wound part of the scarf over Anne´s eyes, crossed the ends behind her head, and tied the knot over the balled hanky. Anne then felt herself being lifted onto somebody´s shoulder, then her ankles being bound before they set off.