  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. |
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