The following few days were sultry and hot. Eddie stayed pretty close
around home. He saw little of his father. Between regular teaching
duties and the search still going on for the stolen radioisotope, Mr.
Taylor was very busy. Each day he looked even more tired. Eddie could
only imagine how much the loss of the secret radioactive substance
bothered him.
Then, Friday, something happened which set all Oceanview astir. The
cause was a story on the front page of the _Globe_. There wasn’t
positive proof, but one of the Coast Guard planes on regular patrol the
previous Saturday night had picked up a strange blip on its radar
screen. By the time the plane had circled back to drop a flare and
investigate, the image on the radarscope had disappeared. Upon dropping
the flare, they had found nothing but the smooth water of the ocean just
outside the entrance to Moon Bay.
The immediate belief was that the object had been a submarine. Further,
if it was a submarine, it certainly had been a foreign craft. The
locations of all American submarines were well charted and known by the
Coast Guard.
Finally, after a week of secret investigation had revealed no proof of
the object’s actual identity, the story was released to the newspapers.
“Dad,” Eddie said that morning after breakfast, as his father prepared
to leave for school, “what would a foreign submarine be doing around
here?”
“That’s a tough question to answer, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor said. “And
remember, what showed up on the airplane’s radar wasn’t positively
identified as a submarine. It might have been a whale. Or several
whales, for that matter.”
“The newspaper doesn’t think so,” Eddie said. “Besides, no one’s ever
seen whales that close in.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“But what if it was a submarine?” Eddie insisted.
“It’s possible that it got off its course and surfaced to try and get a
bearing,” his father said. “If that’s the case, they probably were
considerably startled to find themselves so close to shore, and dived
immediately to avoid discovery. It could happen. Submarines have been
known to scout off this coast. But usually they are far out to sea in
international waters.”
“Maybe they were picking up spies,” Eddie blurted. “Or—or landing some.”
His father looked at him sharply. “What kind of harum-scarum talk is
that, Eddie?” he demanded.
Eddie swallowed uncomfortably. He wished he hadn’t said it. But he had
been doing so much thinking about the stolen radioisotope and the
missing blueprints from the Acme Aviation Company that the words had
leaped from his mouth without his realizing it.
Before Eddie could think of an answer, his father’s face relaxed.
“Forget it, son,” he said. “You always have had a pretty active
imagination. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let it get away
from you. Well, I’d better be leaving.”
“Dad,” Eddie said, “do you have a teacher at school named Simms?”
“Simms?” his father replied. “I don’t recall any Simms. What
department?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “Teena and I saw him out fishing a couple of
times with a fat man called Roy Benton. Then I thought I saw Mr. Simms
last week on the college campus.”
“Well, we have nearly two thousand enrolled for summer courses, you
know,” his father explained. “Many of them are adults. Teachers taking
extra credit courses, or studying for their masters’ degrees. I imagine
a lot of them go fishing on their days off. Any reason I should know
this Simms?”
“I guess not,” Eddie said. He was a little embarrassed at the questions
he had asked. He didn’t really know why he had asked them. Yet he felt
that the various puzzling things which had happened during the past
weeks might tie in together. He couldn’t explain the feeling, but it
gained strength all of the time.
It was the reason, too, why he decided late that afternoon to go and
take a look at the shack he and Teena had seen located back from the top
edge of the bluff the previous week.
He decided not to ask Teena to go. She had worried the other day about
the brush scratching her arms and legs. It would be simpler to go by
himself. He decided to take Sandy along for company.
He stopped at Anderson’s Landing long enough to check with the owner
about a boat for him and Teena the next day.
“That’s our agreement,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling. “After all, you
earned it. Don’t want you chasing any submarines with it, though.” The
boatowner laughed. Apparently people weren’t taking the rumored
submarine sighting very seriously. Eddie supposed that, as long as there
was no proof, perhaps it was just as well. Besides, even a foreign
submarine was not likely to cause any trouble. After all, there was no
war going on.
Still, Eddie couldn’t shrug it off so lightly. The tangle of strange
happenings during the past days upset him, and he didn’t feel much like
joking; not when his father and Teena’s father were both in the thick of
serious trouble.
Eddie took his time getting to the cove. Sandy chased back and forth
into the surf after bits of driftwood which he kept dropping at Eddie’s
feet, and which Eddie threw back into the water.
By the time he reached the cove, Eddie wished he hadn’t dawdled along so
slowly. The sun had dropped fast, and was already squashing down against
the horizon.
“Come on, Sandy,” he said, starting for the foot of the bluff. “We’ve
got to hurry.”
He started up the narrow winding trail. Sandy scurried ahead and finally
stood, panting heavily, on top of the bluff, waiting for Eddie.
The shack was still plainly visible in the waning light. Eddie started
along the path. In most places it could hardly be called a path, except
that there were dim tracks to follow. The heavy growth of brush and
weeds tore at his clothes. He kept his arms tucked in close to his body
to keep from getting scratched. Sandy had no difficulty whatsoever in
racing back and forth through the thick scrubby growth. All of his
running had tired the cocker spaniel enough that he wasn’t yipping and
barking as he so often did.
Within a few minutes Eddie was to be very thankful for that.
As he had suspected, the faint trail ended at the door of the old
abandoned fisherman’s shack. In the eerie light of dusk, Eddie
remembered Teena saying that it looked almost haunted. It certainly did.
Broken shutters dangled from boarded-up windows. Gaping holes in the
roof yawned at the darkening sky. The warped and twisted wooden siding
made the whole structure look as though it were about to cave in.
Eddie approached the shack cautiously. He figured his curiosity would be
satisfied if he took just one look inside.
His hand was poised over the latch on the door when a slight scratching
sound from inside froze it in mid-air. It sounded like someone
scratching a match.
Even as he stood there with sudden fear prickling along his spine, a
small flare of light seeped through one of the cracks between the warped
boards of the door. It _was_ a match! Eddie sucked in his breath and
drew back. His first thought was to turn and run.
On second thought, however, he paused. Perhaps hoboes now and then used
the abandoned shack for sleeping quarters. It couldn’t be very
comfortable, but it would be better than sleeping outside in the damp
ocean air. Although Eddie had no desire to meet any hobo, it was hardly
reason to run away in a panic.
Without making any sound, and glad that Sandy was off exploring in the
brush, Eddie sought one of the larger cracks in the door. Leaning toward
it, he put one eye to the crack.
It was then that Eddie’s fear took a firm grip on him. A small candle
burned on an empty fruit crate standing in the middle of the shack’s
single room. In one corner was an old double bunk, empty now of
mattresses or bedding. A couple of rickety chairs and a bench completed
what furniture was inside the shack.
Eddie’s eye was attracted by the glint of candlelight upon metal.
Squinting through the crack, he was able to make out the form of the
reflecting object. It was one of those metal tubes—like the one he had
noticed in the bottom of the strangers’ rowboat that day at the cove. On
the floor was a square battery camp lantern such as hunters often use.
There was one person in the room. He sat on the small bench. His back
was partly turned toward Eddie. He appeared to be studying some kind of
a paper, although Eddie could see only a small corner of it.
There was no mistaking the man, although his face was turned away. It
was the chubby fellow named Roy Benton.
There was nothing more to see. Eddie backed carefully away from the
door. A few yards away, he turned and scrambled back along the darkening
path toward the cove, as Sandy came crashing through the brush to meet
him.