Rick Brant - Smugglers' Reef Part 13

Cap'n Mike, hurled clear by Scotty's rush, was getting to his feet.

Scotty departed on a dead run.

Rick collected his thoughts and yelled, "Hey! Wait! Where're you going?"

"After Kelso," Scotty called back over his shoulder.

Rick didn't know what had happened, but evidently Scotty did and was doing something about it. He ran after his friend, brushing off dirt from his clothes as he did so. He heard Cap'n Mike call, "Wait for me!" but he didn't pause.

At the entrance to the pier, Rick caught up with Scotty who was looking up and down the street, his face flushed with anger.

"He's gone. No use looking for him because he could hide anywhere around here. But we'll catch up with him one of these days, and when we do ..."

"What's it all about?" Rick demanded.

"Carrots tripped that scoop on us. I don't know how, but I know he did it."

Cap'n Mike came up behind them in time to hear Scotty. "He's the one, all right. There's an emergency trip on those scoops, set in the wall.

It's in case the operator loses control. Then the scoop can be dumped without having all that weight smash against the end of the track and break things. Young Kelso must have punched the trip."

"He sure did." Rick sniffed angrily. "And I smell like ten days in a bait pail. Scotty, we've got to get home and get out of these clothes.

I can't stand myself."

"Check," Scotty replied. "Well, I guess that wraps up the investigation for the night, Cap'n."

Cap'n Mike nodded. "I want to be around when you boys meet up with young Kelso. That was as fishy a trick as I ever saw pulled."

Rick looked at the old sea captain suspiciously. Cap'n Mike was having a hard time to keep from laughing. Then Rick had to grin himself.

"Don't laugh too loud," he reminded. "If Scotty hadn't pushed you, you'd be smelling like a week-old herring yourself."

"I know," Cap'n Mike said. "Thanks." He threw back his head and roared.

Rick laughed, too, but when Cap'n Mike doubled up with mirth, he began to grow a little irritated. "It isn't that funny," he said, a little tartly.

Scotty chuckled. "Maybe this is what amuses him." He reached over and plucked a small menhaden from the breast pocket of Rick's jacket.

"Dangdest place to carry fresh fish I ever saw," Cap'n Mike said, and went off into gales of laughter again.

Rick took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. "Well," he said, grinning, "I'm sure glad those menhaden weren't whales."

They drove home to Whiteside with all windows wide open and newspapers on the seat to protect the car, but even so, the stench of oily fish made Rick feel a little queasy.

"We can't go to Spindrift like this," he complained. "Tell you what, I'll take the wood road that goes down by the tidal flats. Then one of us can cross over, get clean clothes for both of us and some soap and towels. We can go to Walton's Pond, take a swim, scrub off the fish, and change."

"Good idea," Scotty agreed. "But these coats and pants will have to be dry cleaned."

"That's easy. There's a night service door at the cleaners where we can just push them through."

Scotty chuckled. "You won't get any thanks for that. The whole dry cleaning place will smell like a fish market before morning."

"We'll wrap them up good in plenty of newspapers."

"Where do we get the papers?"

"From the _Morning Record_. I want to go there, anyway."

Scotty gave him a sideways glance. "Got an idea?"

"Just a glimmer." Rick's lips tightened. "And I'll tell you something else. Until now, this case was just sort of interesting for itself, but now I have a personal interest. I think the Kelsos are at the bottom of it."

"And we owe them a debt," Scotty finished. "Carrots, anyway. What do you suppose he dumped the scoop on us for?"

Rick shrugged. "Sheer poison meanness. And weren't we warned not to go to Seaford?"

An hour later, when they had cleaned up, the boys returned the car to Gus, apologized for the faint but definite aroma of dead menhaden, and walked to the _Morning Record_ office.

Duke Barrows, a veteran newspaperman but young in years, greeted them cordially. "h.e.l.lo, Rick, Scotty. Here are those cards you asked for."

He swiveled his chair around and regarded them with interested eyes.

"Getting anywhere on that Seaford yarn?"

"We're still feeling around," Rick replied. "But there's a good story in it if we can find the lead."

"Keep working then," Duke said. "I'll pay you s.p.a.ce rates if it hits page one."

"How much is that?" Scotty wanted to know.

"Twenty-five cents a column inch on this sheet. You didn't expect to get rich, did you?"

Rick returned Duke's grin. "If this story is as good as I think it is, we'll just about get rich. You'll want to cover the whole front page with it."

"Can't be that good," Duke returned.

Rick looked around the office. "Where's Jerry?"

"In the composing room. He'll be back in a minute. Got anything on your mind?"

"Just an idea. Do you keep a file of New York papers?"

"Over there. On the shelf. Help yourself."

Rick nodded his thanks. "Let's go give my idea a try, Scotty."

Scotty tucked his press card into his wallet. "I could probably help if I knew what the idea was."

Rick explained briefly. He wanted to check the shipping sections for the dates when the _Albatross_ had been seen at Creek House. He particularly wanted to know what ships had arrived at New York at noon or before on those dates. He was interested in ships arriving from southern ports in the Caribbean, or from southern Europe. That, he figured, would give them only the ships that might have been standing off Seaford in the early hours before dawn on the critical dates. He had a vague idea that he might find some sort of similarity in the ships that had been off Seaford on the critical dates. The registry might be the same, or the ownership.

But when the compilation was complete, there were no similarities at all. In fact, so far as he could determine, no ship had been off Seaford during the time he had chosen as having the best possibilities.

As they walked toward the Whiteside boat landing after saying good night to Duke and Jerry, Rick rapidly reviewed all they knew about the wreck of Tom Tyler's trawler and the events at Seaford.