Calvert's Favor
There was a faint hint of coming daylight in the eastern sky when Rick,
Steve, and Scotty walked down the pier to the tied-up boats. The boys
had spent the night--or most of it--aboard the houseboat, until the
alarm pulled them from their sleeping bags at four o'clock. Steve had
breakfast cooking when they arrived at the farmhouse, and after coffee,
bacon, and eggs, they started on their mission.
"Daybreak is the lowest peak of daily activity," Steve said as they
climbed into the runabout. He took the pilot's seat, while Rick and
Scotty prepared to cast off.
"You might say that the first glimmer of daylight is man's worst hour,"
Steve continued. "It's the time when battles start, when planes take off
for dawn bombing runs. I've read that it's the time when most deaths
occur in hospitals, although I don't know for certain that it's true.
What's more important to us, it's the time of day when guards are most
sleepy and least alert."
The young agent had been working as he talked, checking the outboard
motor, checking the connections to the gasoline tank, and pumping
pressure into it. Now he pressed the starter and the well-kept motor
caught at once. Rick and Scotty cast off bow and stern lines and settled
themselves in the seat next to Steve.
"Unless this mysterious Mr. Merlin suffers from sleepless nights, he's
deep in slumber. The sound of a small boat won't disturb him, because
he's used to the noise of motors from crabbers. We'll hope there is no
guard on the place. If there is, we'll be fishing. Better have the rods
ready. One of you can sit in back and troll from there."
The outboard runabout moved away from the pier and into the creek. Steve
knew his way perfectly, and he opened the throttle to half speed,
steering through the curve at the mouth of the creek, rounding the buoy,
and heading directly toward Swamp Creek.
It had taken the houseboat over twenty minutes to make the run. Steve
covered the distance in ten. As he throttled down and swung the runabout
into Swamp Creek, Rick's eye picked up a glimmer of light, then the
shape of something white cruising toward them.
For a moment he stared into the lessening gloom, then said, "It's Orvil
Harris. Anyway, it looks like his boat."
Steve said nothing for a moment, then he headed directly toward the
crabber. As the two boats closed, Harris paused in his crabbing and
watched the three in the runabout approach.
Steve matched the crab boat's speed and nudged the runabout alongside.
"Howdy," he called.
Orvil Harris reached out and caught the runabout's gunwale, then took
the line Rick passed to him. He made it fast around a cleat. "Up early,"
he greeted them. "Come to watch me crab?"
"Not exactly," Rick returned. "Mr. Harris, this is Mr. Ames."
The crabber reached out a muscular hand and Steve stretched to meet it.
"Mighty pretty place you have on Martins Creek," Harris said. "Admired
it many's the time."
"Thanks," Steve returned. "Be glad to have you drop in any time."
"I may do that. Thanks."
"The boys tell me your cousin was the one taken by a flying saucer."
Harris grinned. "He was taken. I'm not sayin' how until I know."
"What do you know about Calvert's Favor?"
Harris rubbed his chin, and made a slight correction in the crab boat's
course. "Present owner is a man named Merlin. No one knows anythin'
about him, and no one asks. Has a big thug with him all the time, and
takes exception to people gettin' nosy. Most folks got snubbed and drew
back, so to speak. Jim Hardin--he's a fisherman hereabouts--took
exception and got beaten up. Hardin's not easy to lick. After that,
folks stopped speakin' to Merlin and company."
"How big's the company?" Steve asked.
"Merlin, bodyguard, a little squirt with no chin, and three others.
Cooks and bottle washers, likely. Would it be polite to ask why you're
interested?"
Steve had been studying Harris since the two boats joined up, Rick knew,
so he wasn't surprised when Steve gave a direct reply.
"You'll keep this to yourself, please. The boys have been doing a little
research, and it's clear these unidentified flying objects people have
been seeing come from Swamp Creek. That points to the old mansion,
especially since Mr. Merlin is so secretive about himself. We decided to
get up before the people at the mansion were likely to be about, and
look the place over. If it looks promising, we'll try keeping an eye on
it."
Harris nodded. "I'll keep it to myself, you can be sure. If the mystery
of those flyin' stingarees gets solved, we may find out what happened to
Cousin Link. I'll help if I can."
"You know these waters pretty well," Steve returned. "Is there any way
of getting to Calvert's Favor, or within watching distance, without
going up this creek?"
The crabber reached over and turned a switch, cutting his engine. "There
is, for that boat you're in. About thirty yards downstream from the
entrance to this creek, there is a break in the line of swamp grass
along the shore. It's a little lead, a channel maybe six feet wide and
from two to three feet deep. It runs into the swamp. Right at the place
where the water gets too narrow for the boat, a man who didn't care if
he got muddy or wet could go through the brush to an old duck blind
right across from the mansion. A pair of good glasses would give him a
right good view of the whole thing."
"We couldn't see the mansion from the boat?" Rick asked.
"The brush is too thick. Tell you what, if you got ground tackle aboard,
drop a hook and come over with me. I'll run you up the creek and you can
take a good look. If anyone's out watchin', they'll only see a crab boat
lookin' for a place to set lines."
"Scotty," Steve directed, "there's a grapnel on a line up on the bow,
under that small hatch. Toss it in, please."
Scotty stood up on the seat, stepped to the bow, and found the small,
four-pronged anchor. He dropped it into the water, let out line, and
tied the line fast to the bow cleat. "Okay, Steve."
The three got aboard the crab boat as Harris started his engine. "Make
yourselves comfortable," the crabber invited. "There's a pair of glasses
on the engine box."
With the binoculars Rick and Steve had brought, that made three pairs
each. The crabber swung the boat around expertly and headed upstream.
The sky was light now, and far overhead a wisp of cirrus was glowing
pink, a warning of coming sunrise.
Rick sat on the gunwale and looked ahead. The creek narrowed for a few
hundred yards, then widened again. The left bank, going upstream, was
lined with scrub and swamp grass. The right bank began to change, the
swampy area giving way to good ground that rose slightly from the
water's edge. Soon the right bank was nearly three feet above the water,
and the scrub had given way to an occasional tree, and some grassland
that hadn't been mowed this year.
Then Calvert's Favor came into view and Rick caught his breath. It was a
stunning plantation house. The tall columns made Rick think of pictures
of the Old South, but as the boat turned slightly and more of the house
came into view, he saw that it had a strictly Maryland character.
Attached to the largest portion of the house, the one with the columns,
was a slightly smaller section, with a still smaller section completing
the picture. It was a "telescope house"--the kind that the Eastern Shore
natives referred to as "big house, little house, and one in the middle."
A broad sweep of lawn, broken only by flagstone walks and trees,
extended from the creek's edge to the house. The trees were ancient
dogwoods, with a single huge willow for extra shade. There was a small
pier extending into the creek, and from the rotted pilings next to it,
Rick saw that the original pier had been much larger.
A white barn stood at a short distance from the house. A barn of that
size, Rick thought, meant a pretty substantial farm. He searched for
signs of life and saw none. There was a boat, he noticed, an outboard
skiff perhaps fifteen feet long, pulled up on the bank under an oak tree
at the edge where the lawn met uncut field. A lawn table and chairs
under the big willow looked inviting, and he speculated that Merlin and
friends must spend considerable time there. Some of the chairs were of
the padded variety, covered with plastic wet from the morning dew.
Scotty pointed to the roof of the mansion. "Must be a ham radio operator
there. Look at that hay rake."
Both Rick and Steve had the same thoughts as they stared at the tall
antenna, with its cluster of small rods joining a single main bar at
right angles on top of the pole. The antenna might be needed for
fringe-area television--or, on the other hand, it might be a
communications antenna, as Scotty had said.
"Looks interesting," Steve said.
The creek flowed only a little distance past the mansion before it
became so narrow that Orvil Harris had to turn for the trip downstream.
As the crab boat came abreast of the mansion again, Rick looked to the
other side of the creek and saw the duck blind. It wasn't exactly
opposite the house, being designed so that gunners in the blind would
shoot diagonally across the creek and downstream, rather than near the
house itself.
The blind was on stilts, made of board, with a big "picture window"
without glass through which duck hunters could fire freely. It was
designed for entry by boat, and there was a line of poles sticking up
from the water that marked the boat's docking place. In season, the
entire blind including the poles would be covered with a screen of fresh
foliage, so that hunters, blind, and boat would seem like a natural
object to any duck that flew by.
Rick saw that the entrance, at the point where the boat would nose in,
was downstream from the mansion, at the back corner of the blind. Anyone
approaching from the swamp behind the blind could enter unseen from
Calvert's Favor.
Not until they were back at the cove did any of them speak.
"That antenna was odd," Steve said. "Did you ever see anything like it,
Rick?"
"Not exactly," Rick admitted. "It could be for TV, although it's an
unusual design, or it could be some kind of ham rig, as Scotty said."
"Or it could be something else," Steve concluded.
"No sign of a flyin'-saucer launcher," Orvil Harris said. He was stoking
his battered brier.
Rick grinned. "I wouldn't know one if I saw it."
"Well, that wraps it up," Steve said. "Let's get aboard the runabout and
head home. I've got to make a plane." He shook hands with Orvil Harris.
"Glad to have met you after waving at you for so long."
"Likewise. Now, you let me in on this if you can. I'm Link's only kin
hereabouts, so I feel responsible, so to speak. Call me up. I'm in the
phone book. I'll keep crabbin' in this creek until further notice, so
you can find me here until midmornin' any day."
"We'll let you know if anything comes up," Rick agreed.
Scotty borrowed a boat hook and pulled the runabout closer, then he
stepped to the forward deck while Steve and Rick got into the seat.
Scotty pulled up the grapnel while Steve started the motor. In a moment
they were waving to Harris as the runabout headed for home.
It was full daylight now, and the rim of the sun was just above the
trees on the horizon.
"Two items from the morning's work," Scotty summed up. "We know how the
mansion can be watched, and we have an odd kind of antenna. Anything
else?"
"We have an ally," Rick reminded. "Orvil Harris."
"We bought him on pure faith," Steve pointed out. "It isn't often I
stake the game on a man's face, but if Orvil Harris isn't a sound
individual, I'll lose my faith in human nature."
Back at the farmhouse, Steve made fresh coffee and toast. While the boys
relaxed sleepily, he went to a closet and brought out a case and a
leather gadget bag.
The boys sat up and watched while he opened the case. Rick gasped. It
was a telescope, a marvelously compact reflector type, precision made
and very expensive. Rick had often studied the ads of this particular
model, and he looked at it with some envy. He could hardly keep from
picking it up.
Steve opened the gadget bag and brought out a Polaroid camera and set of
rings. Then he returned to the closet and brought back a sturdy tripod
with a geared head.
"Here's the equipment," he said. He took the telescope from its padded
case, and screwed its base to the tripod, then he adjusted the tripod
until it was standing securely.
"Watch this," he commanded. "You'll have to do it, because you can't
carry the whole thing assembled."
Using the rings, which were adapters, he fitted the camera to the
eyepiece of the telescope. "That's all there is to it. You focus the
'scope eyepiece by turning this knurled knob. Then you set the camera to
infinity, adjust the iris for the proper light, and put the camera in
place. Any questions?"
"What aperture?" Rick asked. "Normal exposure?"
"Make it one f-stop less than you'd use if you were taking the picture
through a regular camera with a long lens. Anything else?"
Scotty grinned. "It's pointless to ask what you want us to do with this.
We're to get pictures of that antenna--from the duck blind."
"Plus anything else that looks interesting, including the occupants,"
Rick added.
Steve spread his hands in an expressive gesture. "What more could an
instructor want than students who know the answers before the questions
are asked? I won't even tell you to be careful, because I know you
will."
"We will," Rick assured him.
"All right. Listen, boys, we have no idea what we're up against, but we
do have some facts." Steve ticked them off on his fingers. "One, flying
objects originate at the mansion. There's no other place on the creek
that seems likely. Two, the house is inhabited by a man who doesn't like
questions. Three, said man has a bodyguard who gets rough. Four, one man
already is missing, perhaps because he got curious. Enough said?"
The boys nodded soberly.
"Then go to it, whenever you feel like it--after you've dropped me at
the airport, that is. Be here by four this afternoon. If I don't call,
meet the five-o'clock flight. If I do, it will mean I've gotten tied
up."
Steve hesitated. "Just one more thing. Be _really_ careful. All I have
is a hunch, but that hunch tells me we're up against something
dangerous. If Link Harris is dead, as he probably is, there's a fair
chance he was murdered."
The agent's keen eyes met theirs in turn. "Don't get into a spot you
can't get out of," he concluded.