by John Blaine
To Barby’s astonishment, Rick nodded. She had expected opposition. “You and Jan can keep watch of the houseboat. Scotty and I will take the mainland. If the houseboaters start for Whiteside pier, you’ll tell us. We’ll pick them up as they land and trail ‘em.”
Barby nodded, pleased. “The Megabuck Mob goes into action! We’ll use the radio network.Right?”
“Yes. First thing is,where do you take up a position? If I remember correctly, you can see North Cove from the attic. It will be kind of hot up there, but maybe we can rig a fan.”
“We won’t mind,” Jan said swiftly. “When do we start?”
“Right now.”
Scotty spoke up. “You said you had a couple of things. What’s the other one?”
“We have to get a look at the barber’s machine. I don’t know how we’ll do it. But we can figure out something.”
In the back of Rick’s mind was the thought that the houseboaters might have moved nearer White-side for the purpose of contacting the barber, as well as to get a better look at traffic between Spindrift and the mainland. If that were true, they had better hurry.
He had another thought, too. “What time is it?”
Barby consulted her watch. “Five before eight. Why?”
“The barbershop doesn’t open until nine. I think it might be useful to have someone call on the house-boaters and try to pump them a little. It might be interesting to hear why they chose to anchor in North Cove.”
Barby’s eyes got round. “Would you do it?”
Rick shook his head. “It can’t be anyone from Spindrift, or from the police. It has to be someone plausible. I’m thinking of Cap’n Mike.”
“Hey, that’s just the ticket!” Scotty shook Rick’s hand solemnly. “Cap’n Mike can pretend to be fishing, the way he used to when he was keeping an eye on Creek House.
He could drift over to the houseboat and ask for a drink of water, or something, and strike up a conversation. They’d think he was just a typical salty character.”
“Then that’s how we’ll do it. Scotty, suppose you get the binoculars for Barby, then rig up a fan. I’ll go get Cap’n Mike. It won’t take long, and we can have something set before the barbershop opens.”
Scotty helped Rick push the plane out from the beach,then collected the binoculars.
Rick warmed the plane and checked the gas. He could use a few minutes to gas up, too.
There was a pier inSeaford where he could land and get the proper grade of fuel.
He taxied out, headed into the wind, and took off. Then, to confuse watchers, he headed straight for Whiteside. As he passed over the cove he saw the houseboat, anchored in the best position for watching the Spindrift-Whiteside boat course. His mouth was set in a straight line. Maybe there was no proof, but how much circumstantial evidence was needed to paint a picture? He was sure the houseboat was a part of the plot against the project.
Far inland, out of sight of the coast, he swung south, picked up Salt Creek and followed it to Smugglers’ Reef. He turned down the coast past the town, buzzed Cap’n Mike’s shack, and landed.
Captain Michael Aloysius KevinO’Shannon was at the pier when he docked. Rick cut the engine and climbed out on the pontoon. He heaved a line to the old seaman, who hauled him to the pier.
Cap’n Mike was nearly seventy years old, but as Rick well knew, he had the vigor and keen mind of a man twenty years his junior. Under the battered master’s cap was a thatch of white hair and a strong, weather-beaten face.
“About time you paid a friendly call,” Cap’n Mike greeted him. “Sorry I found no strangers for you.Wasgoin ’ to call today. Where’s Scotty?”
Rick felt a twinge of conscience. He had intended to pay a visit to his friend so many times, but something always seemed to get in the way. It had been many weeks since his last call.
“It isn’t exactly a social call,” he said apologetically. “We need your help, Cap’n Mike.”
The old man looked at him quizzically.“What for?Fishin ’ ordetectin ’?”
“Detectin’,” Rick answered.
“Accepted!Now I see why you werelookin ’ for strangers. When and where do I start?”
“Right now, at Spindrift. Can you come?”
“Wait’llI turn off my coffeepot. Anything I’ll need?”
“We’ll want you to do a little fishing, too.”
Cap’n Mike nodded and hurried up the pier to his shack. In a few minutes he was back, rod case and tackle box in hand. He cast off and climbed into the plane. “Let’s go, boy!
Time’s awastin ’.Who we after this time?”
Rick started the engine and was air-borne before he answered. Then, almost
immediately, he had to land again to take on gas. By the time he was in the air en route to Spindrift, Cap’n Mike was squirming so impatiently that the whole plane seemed to vibrate.
“Well, get on with it,” he said irritably.
Rick smiled.“All right. We don’t know who we’re after.”
Cap’n Mike grunted.
“Seriously, we don’t. Some folks in a houseboat are anchored in North Cove. We want to find out why.”
Cap’n Mike nodded sagely.“For no reason. They just might be dangerous criminals, so you want to investigate. All right, go ask “em.”
“We can’t. We want you to go fishing, and work your way to the houseboat. Ask for a drink of water or something,then find out if you can what they’re doing.”
“Got it all worked out, have ye?” The old captain Cap’n Mike quickly hauled the Sky Wagon to the pier snorted. “Where’s the fun in that?Like to do things my own way.”
Rick hurriedly backtracked. “All right, do it anyway you like. We just want the information.”
“What for?”
Rick sighed.“Can’t tell you, Cap’n.”
“Must be I got untrustworthy since I saw you last.”
“It isn’t that. It’s a-well, it’s a government matter.”
Cap’n Mike smacked his thigh with a calloused hand. “I should ‘a’ known! All right, Rick. I’ll do it. Then maybe I can get my congressman to tell me what I’ve done.”
Rick made a great swing around Whiteside, pointing out the houseboat to Cap’n Mike as he passed North Cove, and landed off Pirate’s Field. Scotty was waiting.
After greeting the old seaman, Scotty said, “The girls are watching from the attic. When do we get started?”
“As soon as Cap’n Mike is fixed up.”
Cap’n Mike was pretty self-sufficient and required little attention. A cup of hot coffee, a jug of fresh water, a little bait and a rowboat, and hewas on his way. Fortunately, the Spindrift boat landing was not in sight of North Cove. Cap’n Mike sculled slowly along the shore. He would emerge at the cove, surprising the houseboaters.
Rick checked on the girls. They were engaged in making themselves comfortable on an old bed they had dragged in front of the window from which North Cove could be seen.
He borrowed the glasses and looked at the houseboat, then handed them back, satisfied.
They could see everything that went on.
Barby had her plastic set in place. Rick checked, and found that she had forgotten to turn it on. He grinned at her embarrassment.
“I’ll call you from downstairs, and again when we get set on the mainland. Good luck.”
The girls echoed the wish.
Cap’n Mike was fishing, allowing the rowboat to drift slowly in the direction of the cove. Rick watched awhile, and was satisfied. If anyone could put it over, Cap’n Mike could.
“Now,” he asked Scotty, “how do we get to White-side without attracting attention?”
Scotty scratched his head. “I don’t know.Unless you want to walk. We could cross the tidal flats and hike to town.”
Rick vetoed that.“Too far and too slow. The barber would have time to cut twenty heads of hair before we got there.”
“How about asking Jerry to come for us?”
“Yo
u’ve got it! He could come down the wood road and pick us up right behind the island. He knows the way.” Rick went into the library and called the Morning Record number. Duke Barrows answered. Rick explained that they had to get to Whiteside by the back way, without volunteering why. Duke hesitated,then agreed to send Jerry.
Rick smiled as he hung up. “Duke will get a story out of this somehow,” he said. “He’s so curious he could burst a seam. Come on. Jerry will get started right away.”
Just beforenine o’clock the boys and Jerry arrived at the newspaper office. Jerry was about to burst with curiosity, but he wasn’t going to let it get the better of him. He hadn’t asked a single question all the way from the wood road back of Whiteside into town.
Duke Barrows was apparently taking the same tack. He looked up as the boys entered, grunted, then continued working on the following day’s editorial.
“Something just occurred to me,” Rick said, after greeting the editor. “Isn’t this pretty early for you and Jerry to be at work? I thought a morning paper didn’t open for business until afternoon.”
“We never sleep,” Duke said, without interrupting his work. “What do you think this is, The New YorkTimes?”
“Never occurred to me,” Rick said politely.“Although the quality of the paper is about the same.”
The editor looked at Jerry. “When he talks like that, he wants something. What is it?”
“Search me. I don’t know what these two want, and I don’t know when they got deaf.
Notice they’re both wearing hearing aids?”
Duke hadn’t. The boys grinned at his look of astonishment.
“What we’d like,” Scotty said, “if you care to cooperate, is to have someone take a look at the barbershop. We want to know if the new barber is on the job.”
Duke sharpened his pencil with loving care, using a penknife. “I won’t ask why you can’t take a look yourselves,” he said finally. “It’s pretty obvious.”
“Not to me,” Jerry objected.
“It should be. They don’t want the barber to get a look at them, because he saw them inWashington . They don’t want him to know they’re interested, or that they know he’s in town.”
Rick started to ask how Duke had known thatmuch, then realized that the editor had simply drawn the correct conclusion from the few words that had been said before.
Again Rick gained a clear insight into how a little information can be built up into a lot.
No wonder Steve and his people had so much trouble protecting official secrets.
Duke put his pencil down and rose. “It happens that I need a haircut. Stand by.” At the door he paused. “Anything else you want to know?”
“We want to know about his massage machine,” Rick said urgently. “Find out all you can, Duke. Please?Particularly if it has any electrical connections besides the wall plug.”
Duke studied them thoughtfully for a long moment, then turned and left.
Jerry watched his boss leave. “He’s kinder to you two than I would be,” he stated. “He didn’t ask a single question, even about the hearing aids.”
Rick considered. There was nothing secret about the Megabuck network, except that he and Barby would use it for a mind-reading act. Jerry was trustworthy; he wouldn’t give the act away.
“Promise you’ll keep it to yourself,” Rick asked, and at Jerry’s excited nod he took the tiny receiver from his ear and handed it to Jerry.
The reporter held it to his own ear, moving closer to Rick because the cord was just long enough to reach from ear to inner pocket.
Rick said, “Barby, say hello to Jerry.”
Apparently Barby did, because Jerry gave a surprised start.
“Can I talk to her?” Jerry asked.
Barby answered the question herself. The microphone, built right into the little unit, was very sensitive and Rick’s thin jacket did not muffle it very much.
“I’m fine,” Jerry said.
Rick grinned.
Scotty could hear both sides of the conversation through his own set. Now he broke in.
“Any sign of activity yet?”
“Cap’n Mike is fishing right near the houseboat. I can see the people on the houseboat, but they’re just having breakfast on the rear deck. Where are you?”
“In the newspaper office.Duke has gone to check on the barber.”
Rick held out his hand and Jerry gave him the earpiece, grinning. “What a rig!” the reporter marveled. “Where did you get it?”
“Built it.”
During the next half hour, while they waited for Duke to return, Rick told Jerry the story of the Megabuck Mob, omitting only what followed when Steve Ames arrived.
Then Duke returned, freshly barbered, trying to scratch his back. “One thing about this new barber,” he greeted them. “He’s no better at keeping hair out of your shirt than Vince is. Why is it that barbers can’t cut hair without getting it into places where it itches?”
Rick smiled sympathetically. He knew how it was. No matter how careful a barber tried to be, it seemed impossible to get a haircut without a shower of hair clippings down the back. Usually they lodged where it was impossible to scratch.
Duke rubbed against the doorframe. “It’s Vince Lardner’s day off,” he began.
Rick tensed. If the houseboaters were going to contact the barber, they would naturally try to choose a time when they could see him alone. Maybe there had been an earlier contact, and the barber had told them he would be alone today. That might account for the houseboat’s moving closer to Whiteside.
“Vince had gone fishing.” The editor grinned. “I suspect that’s the only reason he got a helper, anyway, so he could go fishing more often. There isn’t really enough work in town for more than one barber.”
“Did you look at the massage machine?” Rick asked anxiously.
The editor nodded. “It’s nothing but a hood, with three ordinary massage gadgets inside.
Vibrator heads, I think they’re called.”
That tallied with the description Steve’s agent had given. “Did you examine it closely?”
Rick pursued.
“Yes. There’s only one cord attached-the power cord. But I did notice an interesting thing. Set around the edges are little disks, like round covers. I started to lift one up, but the barber asked me to stop. He said the machine is adjusted very carefully and I might upset the adjustment.”
“Tough luck,” Scotty said, disappointed.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Duke’s eyes twinkled. “I got enough of a look to see two tiny holes in the piece of stuff the disk covered. The stuff was black, probably plastic. Like telephones are made of.”
“In other words,” Rick said slowly, “you saw holes for electrical plugs?”
“I think so. I don’t know what else they could be.”
Rick and Scotty exchanged glances.
“What does it mean?” Jerry asked.
Rick answered. “We don’t know. And I’m not kidding. We really don’t know.”
“I believe you,” Duke said briefly. “Okay. I’ve done my bit, including getting my hair cut.Anything else?”
“We’d like to stick around,” Rick replied. “Jerry already knows about this, but Barby is watching a houseboat anchored in North Cove. If anyone leaves the houseboat for the Whiteside pier, she’ll call us. We’ll take over at the pier. It just might happen that the houseboater will pay a call on the barber.”
Duke didn’t comment, but Rick knew the editor’s mind was at work. “Makeyourself at
home,” Duke said, and went back to his editorial writing.
Now and then Barby called, wanting to chat, but Rick discouraged her. He was
reasonably sure the enemy wouldn’t be listening in on the extremely short wave length on which the Megabuck network operated, but there was no use taking any chances.
After each conversation he identified the sets with his own amateur call letters, even though it was unlikely an
yone could hear the conversation. The little sets operated essentially on a line of sight because of the short wave length used. They couldn’t be heard beyond the horizon, if they were heard that far.
After an hour of waiting, Barby called in high excitement. Cap’n Mike was aboard the houseboat The boys waited anxiously for some further report, but Barby was only able to say that the old seaman had departed after a ten-minute visit and was now fishing again.
Atnoon Jerry and Scotty slipped out for a sandwich. When they returned, Rick and Duke went to eat. According to Barby, all was quiet.
Aroundone o’clock Cap’n Mike returned to Spindrift and reported a friendly
conversation with the houseboaters. They had anchored in North Cove because someone down the coast had told them fishing was good around there, which was a true
statement.
The retired skipper had only one additional comment, which Barby relayed. The folks had been friendly, but he thought they were a little nervous, and anxious to get rid of him. He had no other information of value.
Atmidafternoon Jerry went on a brief sortie, came back, and reported business was slow in the barbershop, which was not unusual for a Tuesday. The barber was reading a magazine.
Rick and Scotty were restless. The chairs in the newspaper office were hard, and they had exhausted the reference materials on the bookshelf.
Duke Barrows looked up from a story he was editing and grinned. “Espionage isn’t as adventurous as some folks would like you to believe. It’s generally nothing but sitting.And waiting.Just as you’re doing now.”
Rick grinned back. Duke was telling him nothing he didn’t know. He had waited like this before.
Barby called urgently, “Rick! The pram is leaving. One man in it, and he’s just starting
the outboard motor!”
“All right,” he said swiftly. “Let us know which way he goes.”
In a moment Barby answered. “He’s going to the pier!”
“Roger. We’re moving!”
CHAPTER XIV
Surveillance-with Cereal
The plan of action had been set in advance. Scotty hurriedout, while Rick settled down to wait. Scotty, using Jerry’s car, would locate the houseboater at the pier. Rick would standby, ready to take over as necessary.
