CHAPTER V
The Mysterious Phone Call
Rick hung up the phone in the Spindrift library and turned to Scotty."Jerry is using his car tonight. But Duke says okay. He'll make out areporter's identity card for you and a photographer's card for me.Only if anything interesting turns up, we have to give him a story."
"Good thing papers have rewrite men," Scotty said, grinning. "It's allI can do to write a readable letter. A news story would be way beyondme."
Rick picked up the phone again. "I'll see if Gus is using his car."
Gus, owner, chief mechanic, and general factotum of the WhitesideAirport, had loaned his car to Rick on several occasions. His hope, heexplained every time, was that Rick would drive it to pieces so hecould collect the insurance and get a better one.
In a moment Gus answered. "It's Gus."
"Rick here, Gus. That ancient clunk of yours still running?"
Gus's voice assumed wounded dignity. "Are you speaking of my airplaneor my automobile?"
"Your limousine. Using it tonight?"
"Nope. Don't drive it any more than I have to. When do you want it?"
"About eight, if that's all right."
"Okay. I'll drop it off at the dock. Don't bother bringing it back.Just let me know where it is so I can tell the insurance company."
"I'm a safe driver, Gus," Rick said with a grin.
"If I believed that I wouldn't lend you the car. Leave it in my backyard when you get through, huh?"
"Thanks a million, Gus. I'll take good care of it."
"Don't. You'll spoil it."
Rick rang off. "What time is it?"
"About half past three," Scotty said. "Why?"
"Let's take the Cub up for a little spin."
Scotty chuckled. "You're never as happy as when you're trying tounravel a mystery. Any mystery."
"You don't like it," Rick scoffed. "You like a peaceful, quiet life. Abook and a hammock. That's for you. Why don't you go get one of yourOat Operas to read and leave the mystery to me?"
"Got to keep you out of trouble," Scotty said amiably. "It isn'tbecause I'm interested."
They walked from the house into the orchard that separated the low,gray stone laboratory buildings from the house and headed toward theair strip. The strip was grass-covered and just big enough for a smallplane like Rick's. It ran along the seaward side of the island, withthe orchard on one side and the sea cliff on the other.
"Just thought," Scotty said suddenly. "We'd better have somebinoculars if we're going out to take a look at the fleet."
"I'll warm up while you get them," Rick agreed. He started the engineand warmed the plane until Scotty arrived with a pair of ten-powerbinoculars.
Scotty untied the parking ropes and pulled out the wheel chocks, thengot into his seat. "Let's go," he said.
Rick nodded and advanced the throttle. In a moment the Cub liftedeasily from the grass.
Rick settled down to the business of flying. He looked at the seabelow and estimated the wind force. Mentally he figured his probabledrift, then decided on south-southeast as his compass heading, andswung the little plane on course.
"Checked the equipment recently?" Scotty asked.
He referred to the two-man life raft and signaling pistol Rick hadpurchased from Navy surplus for just such overwater flights as this.
"Went through it Saturday," Rick said. "But don't worry. We won't getyour feet wet."
"You hadn't better," Scotty retorted. "These are new shoes I have on."He paused. "What do you think about that warning?"
They had discussed it thoroughly on the way home from Seaford,examining all possibilities. "I haven't changed my mind," Rick said."I think it was Carrots Kelso."
He reasoned that Red Kelso, the boy's father, had too much sense totry warning them away. The only purpose the warning would serve wouldbe to arouse their curiosity even more--which it had certainly done.
"That Carrots is a queer one," Scotty said. He had to raise his voiceslightly because of the engine's drone. "Did you notice the rifle hecarried?"
"And how! It looked like a .30-30."
"It wasn't."
Rick looked at Scotty in surprise. "No?"
"Nope. It looked like one because of the lever. Sport carbines havethose to lever cartridges into the chamber. But this one had a leverfor pumping air. I've only seen one like it before, and a professionalhunter in Australia had that one. He used it for collecting specimenswhen he didn't want to make noise. Sometimes he found severalwallabies or Tasmanian wolves together and he could get two or threebefore they knew what was up."
"You mean an air gun has enough power to use for hunting?" Rick knewmodern air guns had high penetrating power, but he had never heard ofone powerful enough to use on animals as big as wolves.
"This model has," Scotty told him. "It was made by the Breda GunCompany in Czechoslovakia before the war. The slug is about .25caliber, but heavier than the kind we have in America."
"Wonder where he got it," Rick mused.
"Hard to tell. They're expensive guns, believe me."
The Cub had been flying only a few hundred feet above the water.Behind them, the New Jersey coast was still in sight. Rick climbed toa thousand feet and told Scotty to start looking for the fishingfleet.
"How many shots can you get out of that air rifle?" Rick asked.
"Just one. It's automatic loading, but it has to be pumped up eachtime. That's not as hard as it sounds, though, because the pump ismade so that two strokes will give it a full air charge. It's about asfast firing as a single-shot .22 rifle."
Rick's eyes scanned the horizon. "How do you suppose Carrots trackedus to Cap'n Mike's shack?"
"Easy enough. He could hike along the shore and keep us in sight."
"He was risking being seen when he put that warning on the seat.Suppose one of us had looked out the window?"
"Then he would have pretended to be just hiking, or looking at theboat or something. It wasn't really much of a risk."
"I suppose not," Rick agreed. Small specks on the horizon caught hiseye suddenly and he pointed. "There's the fleet!"
Scotty held the binoculars to his eyes. "Sure enough. About eighttrawlers so far, pretty well scattered."
In a few moments they could see clouds of gulls and petrels around theboats, a sure sign of plenty of fish. Then they made out the detailsof the big nets used by the fishermen for catching the menhaden.
"See if you can spot the _Albatross_," Rick said.
"You'll have to go down and pass each boat, then. I couldn't make outthe names from this height."
"Okay. Here we go."
On each of the craft, fishermen waved as the Cub sped past. Scottyread the names aloud. None of the trawlers was the _Albatross_.
Rick put the Cub into a climb. "There must be other trawlers around.Let's go up and take a look."
Scotty shook his head. "I have a better idea. We'll see the_Albatross_ tonight, anyway. Why not go into shore and fly over CreekHouse? Sometimes you can see things from the air you can't see fromthe ground."
Rick considered. Flying out to the fleet had been only an impulseanyway; he hadn't expected to see anything. He was quite sure the_Albatross_ would look and act just like the rest of the Seafordfleet.
"Good idea," he said finally, and banked the Cub around. He pointedthe little plane south of west to compensate for the wind, thensettled back.
Rick kept an eye out for landmarks as the coast approached andpresently he made out the steel towers of an antenna field. That wouldbe the Loran radio range south of Seaford. He had compensated a littletoo much for drift. He banked north and in a few moments Scottyspotted Seaford.
Rick dropped down, but kept out to sea so that he wouldn't violate thelaw about flying too low over towns. He saw the windmill and Cap'nMike's shack behind it.
"Go past Smugglers' Reef and then turn and come back over CreekHouse," Scotty suggested.
Rick nodded. Dead ahead he could see the curving arm of the
reef andthe wreck of Tyler's trawler. He saw that the fishing craft had piledup just about midway between the navigation light on the reef's tipand the old tower where the light formerly had been. Men were workingabout the trawler. Then, as the Cub flashed overhead, he saw a largetruck that had backed down the reef toward the wreck as far as it wassafe to go.
Scotty had been watching through the glasses. As Rick swung wide outto sea and banked around to go south again, he said, "Know whatthey're doing down there? They're stripping the wreck."
"That makes sense," Rick said. "Probably the insurance company wantsto salvage what it can. They'd have to act fast before sea waterruined the engines."
He banked sharply over Brendan's Marsh. To the right was the highwayleading from Whiteside to Seaford. Between the highway and the sea wasthe marsh. Although the marsh looked like solid growth from theground, it could be seen that it was cut up by narrow waterways, mostof which wandered aimlessly through the rushes and then vanished. SaltCreek was sharply defined, however, indicating that it was much deeperthan the surrounding water.
The Creek House was fenced in on only two sides, he saw. The highboards separated it from the next hotel on the south, and from theroad on the sea front. But inland, a continuation of the marsh servedas a dividing line. Salt Creek made the fourth side. The old mansionwas set in the middle of the square with a big combination garage andboathouse behind it, almost against the marsh on the creek side. Thedoors were open and he could make out a black car, probably a coupe ortwo-door model, in one of the stalls.
"See anyone?" Scotty asked.
"Not a soul." Evidently the Kelsos were indoors.
Rick climbed as the Cub passed over Seaford, then turned out to seaand went northward again. Scotty kept the glasses on Smugglers' Reef.As they flashed past, he swiveled sharply. "Rick, make another run,right over the wreck."
"You won't be able to see it if I go right over it," Rick objected.
"I don't want to see the wreck, I want a closer look at the oldtower."
Rick shot a glance at his pal. "See something?"
"I'm not sure."
"I'll throttle down so you can get a better look." He made a slowbank, lined up the wreck and throttled down, dropping the nose to ashallow glide in order to maintain flying speed. As the Cub passed theold tower, he looked curiously. He couldn't imagine what had attractedScotty's interest. The thing was only a steel framework, red withrust. Not even the top platform was left.
Off Seaford, he banked out to sea again.
"See enough?"
Scotty dropped the binoculars to his lap. "I saw bright metal on thelowest cross girder. I couldn't tell much, but it looked like a deepscratch. And some of the rust had been flaked off around the spot,too. I could tell because it was a redder color than the rest."
Rick thought it over. "I can't make anything out of that," he saidfinally. "What's your guess?"
Scotty shrugged. "I don't have one. But it's a cinch someone has beenup there, and within the past couple of days, too. Raw metal rustsfast right over the sea like that, and this spot was bright enough toattract my attention. Maybe we'd better have a closer look from theground."
"It wouldn't hurt," Rick agreed. "Well, what now?"
"Might as well go home," Scotty said. "We can take it easy until afterdinner, and then go to Whiteside, pick up those cards from Duke andget the car from Gus."
They had been flying steadily north. A moment later Spindrift loomedon the horizon. Rick saw the gray lab building and, to its left,Pirate's Field where the rocket launcher had once stood. He waiteduntil the Cub was abreast of the old oak on the mainland that he usedas a landmark, then cut the throttle. The plane lost altitude rapidly,passed a few feet over the radar antenna on the lab building andsettled to the grass strip. Rick gunned the tail around and rolled tothe parking place.
They staked down the Cub and walked through the orchard to the house.In the kitchen, Mrs. Brant was rolling out piecrust. She smiled at theboys. "Been riding?"
"We went out to watch the fishing fleet," Rick said, "then swung downover Seaford for another look at that wrecked trawler. What kind ofpie, Mom?"
"Butterscotch."
Scotty smacked his lips. "We should have waited a little while, thenwe could have had a sample when we got in."
"No samples," Mrs. Brant said. "It would spoil your supper."
"Not mine," Scotty replied. "Nothing spoils my supper. Got anydoughnuts handy, Mom?"
Mrs. Brant sighed. "In the stone crock. And there's milk in therefrigerator. But only one doughnut!"
"Only one," Scotty agreed. "How about you, Rick?"
"I'm not hungry. I think I'll go up and work on the camera for awhile." He would have over an hour to work on it before it was time toeat. He started for the stairs, then paused as the telephone rang.
Hartson Brant, who was working in the library, answered it and called,"Rick? It's for you."
"I'll take it upstairs, Dad." He hurried to the top of the stairs andpicked up the hall phone.
"Hello?"
"Rick Brant?"
Rick stiffened. It was a man's voice, but obviously disguised asthough the man spoke through a handkerchief held over the mouthpiece.
"Yes. Who is it?"
"A friend," the disguised voice answered. "You're a nice kid and Idon't like to see you getting into trouble. Keep out of Seaford.Remember that! Keep out of Seaford and stop flying over in yourairplane or you're going to get hurt. You won't be warned again. Nexttime, you'll wake up in a hospital!"
There was a click as the speaker hung up.