  With the arrival of the Coast Guard, the problem of finding Jones solved itself. He quickly realized the hopelessness of his position and swam in from the darkness toward the cutter and the sloop, tamely giving himself up. It was only after he and Turk had both been taken on board the Coast Guard vessel and placed under guard that the captain of the cutter, Lieutenant Ames, started to ask the necessary questions. He listened, absorbed in the story, until Sandy had finished talking. Then he sighed. “That’s quite a yarn, boys. It sounds pretty wild. For your sakes, I hope that you can show some evidence to back it up. Otherwise, all we have is your word. Now, your word may be good enough for me—” he held up a hand to forestall Sandy’s objections—“but it’s going to take more than that to make a charge of counterfeiting stick in a court of law.” “We’ve got more than that!” Sandy said angrily. “We can show you the island, and unless I miss my guess, we’ll find Jones’s counterfeiting presses there!” “I hope so,” Lieutenant Ames said. “Meanwhile, since you’ve made charges against these men, I’ll hold them in custody until we get ashore. Then I’ll turn them and the whole case over to the FBI, where it belongs.” His official statement done, Lieutenant Ames relaxed into a boyish grin. “You can get those scowls off your faces now,” he said. “I just wanted you to realize that we’ve got to have good, solid proof before this business is over with. As for me, I believe your story, and I think the FBI will, too.” “I’m not too worried about proving our story about Jones and Turk,” Sandy said. “But what worries me is how we’re going to get the freighter, now that it’s out of U.S. coastal waters.” “The Navy will take care of them,” Lieutenant Ames said. “But that reminds me, you didn’t tell me the name of the freighter, and we’ll need to radio that to the Navy right away.” “I noticed the name on the lifeboat,” Jerry said. “It was the Mary N. Smith, from Weymouth.” “No!” Sandy said. “You must have gotten it mixed up in the darkness. I saw it clear as day on the stern. It was the Martin South from Yarmouth!” “I’m sure I had it right,” Jerry said. “I remember thinking to myself that it was a pretty innocent, girlish name for such a dirty freighter!” “Maybe you’re both right,” Lieutenant Ames said. “It sounds to me as if both names have a lot in common. They probably have a set of phony papers under each name—and maybe under three or four more names that sound a lot like those. That way, all they have to do is paint out and change a few letters after each port, instead of having the whole job to do. It allows them to make quick shifts of identity.” “It also lets them explain that they were picked up because of an accidental similarity of names, in case of trouble,” Jerry put in. “I wonder what name they’re using now,” he added. “That’s pretty easy to guess,” the Coast Guard officer said. “If I were changing names after leaving a port, I’d paint the bow and stern while I was at anchor, and leave the lifeboats and other things for when I was at sea. My guess is that we’ll find them sailing as the Martin South from Yarmouth.” “Unless,” Sandy added, “unless they decided to change it to something else while at sea, after the trouble. After all, they have no idea whether Jones got us or we got him, and they’ll probably be expecting to get picked up.” “Well, we won’t take any chances,” Ames said. “I’ll radio the Navy now to be on the lookout for any freighter with a name anything like Martin South or Mary N. Smith. And if I know those boys, we’ll have a report on them within the next few hours!” After giving his instructions to the radio operator, Ames decided it was time to head for shore and turn over Jones, Turk and the boys to the FBI. It was decided to take the sloop in tow behind the cutter, and Sandy went over the side to find a towing line to hand up to the cutter’s deck. “Come on over with me,” Sandy said, “and I’ll show you some of the bullet holes we’re carrying. They ought to help support our story!” Lieutenant Ames followed Sandy over the side and joined him on the deck of the little sloop, where he examined the holes in the sail and the furrows in the deck and the coamings. “They sure came close!” he said. “You’re pretty lucky to be here in one piece now.” He ran his finger thoughtfully along a deep scar in the coaming near where Sandy’s head had been, and whistled low when he saw the splintered spot on the tiller. Lieutenant Ames followed Sandy below in search of the spare mooring line. (The original one had been left dangling from the deck of the freighter.) He stood stooped over in the low cabin, surveying the trim accommodations. At last, Sandy found a line that would do, stowed away up forward with the anchor. Joining Ames in the cabin, he pointed to the locker above the compact galley. “There’s where we found the money when we went looking for the canned food,” he said. “It was filled up all the way to here,” he indicated, sliding back the locker door. “What do you mean, was?” the Coast Guard officer asked with a gasp. The open locker door revealed the stacked counterfeit, untouched, just as the boys had first seen it! “Whew!” Sandy sighed. “Well, I guess that takes care of our case against Jones!” As they towed the sloop back to Cliffport, heading into the bright colors of a Pacific sunrise, they pieced together what must have happened. “From what we overheard on the freighter,” Sandy said, “Jones and the freighter captain were both dissatisfied with the original deal they had made for the counterfeit money. Jones wanted more for the stuff, because of the risk he had run with us and because of the added chances he was taking if we disappeared from Cliffport. A local investigation of our disappearance might turn up someone who had seen us near his island.” “Right,” Jerry added. “And the Captain wanted a larger share than usual for himself because of the risk he was running in getting rid of us for Jones. They bargained about it for a long time.” Lieutenant Ames nodded. “And Jones wasn’t taking any chances by bringing the money on board until his deal had been settled. He must have been going for it when you saw him and the Captain shaking hands on deck. And the reason he was so desperate when he saw you sailing off was that he knew you were not only escaping, but escaping with the evidence!” “I guess it’s not always a bad thing,” Sandy laughed, “to make the same mistake twice!” |
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