The Golden Eagle Mystery (11 page)

Mr. Truelove looked horrified. “Why, that’s terrible!” he exclaimed. “That’s dreadful! She ain’t smashed up bad, is she?”

“Don’t know yet,” said Captain Reckless. “I’m going to see what I can do as soon as the wind and tide goes down. Reckon you can come over there about two o’clock and give us a hand, Phinny?”

“I sure will!” said Mr. Truelove. “Miss Patty, I’m awful sorry! Indeed I am!”

Aunt Patty felt so badly over the loss of her boat that she could hardly speak, and quickly went on home.

When Captain Reckless and Billy and Emmy had gone on home in their boat, Djuna stayed on the wharf a while to talk to Mr. Truelove.

“Did you see anybody around the wharf where the
Patagonia
was tied up last night, Mr. Truelove?” he asked.

“I saw old Johnny Jackson over there this morning,” said Mr. Truelove. “He was working on one of his nets. There wasn’t anybody else over there. The boat was gone, but I didn’t pay no attention to that, because I thought o’ course that Aunt Patty had gone out in it. Hain’t she got any idea how her boat happened to get loose?”

“It didn’t get loose all by itself,” said Djuna, miserably. “That’s just the trouble. Somebody came and untied the ropes. It must have been before five or six o’clock this morning, because Mr. Jackson said he came to work on his nets then, and the
Patagonia
was gone when he came. You didn’t see anybody around there last night, did you?”

“No, there wasn’t a soul around that wharf, I’ll swear to it,” said Mr. Truelove, positively. “Leastways, there wasn’t nobody there before midnight, up to the time I went to bed. If there had been anybody monkeying around there, I’d have heard ’em. No, sir, nobody could have started the
Patagonia’s
motor without my hearin’ them, and no boat could have come in there without my hearin’ it.”

“Were you here all the time?” asked Djuna. “I mean, you didn’t go anywhere last night, did you?”

“I was right here, all the time,” insisted Mr. Truelove. “I was settin’ right here on the wharf. Harvey Bohnett and his brother come along in their boat about eight o’clock and they sat here with me, talkin’ for an hour or so. The
Patagonia
was there, then, all right, tied up over there just as usual. I remember, because Harvey says to me, he says, ‘It’s a wonder the old lady don’t give that boat of hers an overhaulin’ once in a while,’ and I says to him, ‘Well, you’re nobody to talk, Harve—
your
boat ain’t nothin’ to brag about, for looks.’

“So we set here, talkin’, till after dark, and then the Bohnett boys went on to the Harbor House, and I went back into the store and listened to the radio till I went to bed. The
Patagonia
was still there when they left, there ain’t any doubt about it. It’s a mighty funny business! Only way to explain it, as far as I can see, is that Aunt Patty didn’t fasten that boat as tight as she thinks she did. Ropes must have worked loose, some way. But I’m terrible sorry for Aunt Patty. Seems as though she’s bound to have bad luck, all her life!”

“What do you mean?” asked Djuna, wonderingly. “Has she had a lot of other trouble?”

“She certainly has!” said Mr. Truelove, shaking his head sadly. “Had a hard time of it all her life. First of all, her father, Mr. Amos Greene, died when she wasn’t but a little girl, and didn’t leave her and her mother any money to amount to anything. Her mother had a hard time of it, making both ends meet. But she brought Patty up somehow, and Patty was a grown woman when her mother died. Then Patty married Bill Tubbs, who never was much good, as far as anybody could see, and then what does he do but fall off a tree and break his neck. Since then, Aunt Patty has had a mighty hard time of it. Bill Tubbs didn’t leave her nothing but them worthless islands out yonder, and that shack he lived in, on Sixpenny. He was always beggin’ her to live out there, instead of in this nice little house, here, that her mother left her. Of course she wouldn’t—no sense in livin’ on Sixpenny, and nobody but a crazy fellow like Bill Tubbs would ever have thought of it.”

“Fell off a tree?” exclaimed Djuna. “How did that happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Truelove. “I wasn’t here at the time. That was twenty years ago. Pickin’ cherries, maybe, or apples. You’ll have to ask some of the old folks around here, if you want to know. Old Cap’n Atterbury—he’d know the whole story, if you want to hear it, probably. He’s known Aunt Patty ever since she was born. Knew her father, and her grandfather, too, I reckon. He’ll tell you plenty o’ stories about them.”

“Mr. Truelove, what will Aunt Patty do, if they can’t get the
Patagonia
off the rocks?” asked Djuna anxiously. “How can she go out to get the lobsters from her lobster pots?”

“Well, now, that’s a question,” said Mr. Truelove, gloomily. “If she can’t save the
Patagonia
, or get herself another boat, she’s bound to have a worse time than ever. That’s about all she’s got to depend on, lobsterin’, and summer boarders like you.”

“How much would a new boat cost, Mr. Truelove?” asked Djuna.

“Well, it would cost plenty,” said Mr. Truelove. “I reckon you couldn’t get one the size of the
Patagonia
for less than a thousand dollars. What’s the use of talkin’? She hain’t got the money, anyway.”

“A thousand dollars!” exclaimed Djuna, horrified. “Why, that’s an awful lot of money! And you said she hasn’t got any money at all!”

“Not unless she’s got something saved up that nobody knows about,” said Mr. Truelove. “As far as I know, shell either have to sell her house, or starve. It’s terrible!”

Djuna’s heart sank. He walked home to Aunt Patty’s house very slowly, trying to think what he could possibly do to help her.

Aunt Patty was feeling so badly that she went upstairs to her bedroom and lay down, a little while after Djuna got home. So Djuna decided to go back to Billy’s house and talk things over with him.

“I asked Mr. Truelove if he saw anybody sneaking around the
Patagonia
last night,” said Djuna, “and he said he didn’t see anybody at all. He didn’t see anybody last night, he said, except Harvey Bohnett and his brother.”

“Harvey and Bonehead?” exclaimed Billy. “Gee, they’re so mean they would do anything! I’ll bet they did it! I’ll bet they stole it just on purpose to wreck it! I’m going to tell my father! They ought to be arrested, right away!”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Djuna. “Mr. Truelove said he saw them go away, and the
Patagonia
was still there, after they left. I guess you couldn’t arrest them if nobody saw them take it. Mr. Truelove didn’t even hear anybody, all night long, so he thinks the rope just got untied, all by itself, and the
Patagonia
just floated off.”

“He’s crazy!” exclaimed Billy indignantly. “She couldn’t have got all the way out there, unless somebody towed her there! Who does he think lit that lantern, anyway? Does he think that got lit all by itself? Didn’t you tell him about that?”

“No,” said Djuna, “I didn’t say anything about it. What was the use? He was asleep, of course, when it happened. He doesn’t know anything about it, that’s all.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Billy, scowling. “Maybe he knows all about it. Anyway, I think we ought to see if we can find out about Harvey and Bonehead from somebody else, if we can. I know where they are now. They’re over at the Harbor House. Come on, let’s go over there and see.”

“Well, all right,” said Djuna, “but it’s no use asking
them
. Do you know anybody else there, somebody who might know where they were last night?”

“Sure, I know Mr. Primrose,” said Billy. “He’s the colored man that takes care of the rooms. We can ask
him.”

When they got to the Harbor House, they could see the Bohnett brothers and two or three other men sitting on the front porch, but Billy led the way around to the back door, where they found Mr. Primrose resting on a bench in the back yard.

“Hello, Billy,” he said, grinning, “you got that trick dog of yours with you? I can’t see him, but I expect he ain’t far behind you.”

“I left him at home,” said Billy. “We’re G men.”

“Oh, you is, is you?” said Mr. Primrose. “You ain’t aimin’ to arrest
me
, is you, Mister G Man Reckless?”

“Not if you tell us what we want to know,” said Billy. “We just want to know if Harvey Bohnett and Bonehead were here last night. Were they?”

“They certainly was!” exclaimed Mr. Primrose. “And how! They come in just when I was fixin’ to go to baid and kept me runnin’ up and down stairs with ice water, and this and that, most all night long! Then they tell me be sure and wake ’em at seven o’clock, so I does. Seems like I hardly got any sleepin’ done
at
all!”

Billy and Djuna looked at each other.

“That’s just what Mr. Truelove said,” whispered Djuna. “He said it was pretty late when they left his wharf. Then they must have come right over here. Oh, gee!”

“Anything else you gentlemen want to know?” said Mr. Primrose. “Because if there ain’t, I aim to catch up on my sleep some more.”

And he settled back on the bench and closed his eyes with a sigh. “Goo’bye!” he said.

Djuna and Billy went back to Billy’s house feeling completely discouraged. If it was not the Bohnett brothers who had taken Aunt Patty’s boat, who could it have been?

“The best thing we can do is to go and hunt around the wharf where the
Patagonia
was,” said Djuna. “Maybe we can find some footprints, or something. Maybe we won’t, but we can try, anyway.”

And try they did, for all the rest of the morning, searching over every inch of the wharf where the
Patagonia
had been tied and all the beach near it; but they could find nothing at all that looked like a clue.

Djuna went home, got something to eat and then put on his bathing suit and hurried down to the Point. The wind had gone down, and the waves had almost flattened out. The tide was so low that the rocks were now out of water, and the poor old
Patagonia
was perched on top of the rocks on which she had been driven by the wind. Djuna waded out to her. The water was only knee-deep, now. When he reached the
Patagonia
, she was a sorry sight. The sharp points of the rocks had crushed holes in her planks, and the water that had rushed in was now dripping out again, so that it looked as if she were bleeding.

Just as he got there, Captain Reckless’ motorboat came along from the harbor, towing a rowboat behind it, and Captain Reckless anchored in the channel as close as he could get to the
Patagonia
. He had brought Mr. Truelove and the old fisherman, Mr. Jackson, with him. They were all wearing boots. They got into the rowboat and came over to the
Patagonia
, bringing some new planks, hammers and saws, a bucket of tar, a bundle of tow and oakum, and other tools. The tide was now so low that they had to get out of the rowboat when they were still a little way from the
Patagonia
, so they waded the rest of the way in their boots, dragging the rowboat behind them. Billy had come with them, and splashed along in the lead.

Captain Reckless walked all around the
Patagonia
, looking her over very carefully to see how much damage had been done.

“Well,” he said at last, “she’s jammed in there so tight that there’s no use trying to patch her up from outside. We’ll have to see what we can do about plugging up those holes from the inside, enough to get her floated again.”

He climbed on board the
Patagonia
, and Djuna scrambled up beside him. Captain Reckless opened up the hatch cover beside the little wheelhouse and peered in.

“Say, what’s this?” he exclaimed. Djuna squeezed up beside him and ducked under his elbow to see.

The boards that had separated the wheelhouse from the rest of the forepeak space had been sawed through and ripped off! The broken boards and splinters of wood floated in the water in the bottom of the boat. Through the hole that had been made, they could see the inside of the wheelhouse.

“Just plain meanness!” said Captain Reckless angrily. “The skunks that took her weren’t satisfied with just stealing the boat, they had to try to tear her to pieces, too!”

“Gee, what did they want to do
that
for?” exclaimed Djuna. “Were they trying to make her sink?”

“No, I just can’t see any reason for it at all,” said Captain Reckless, shaking his head in bewilderment. “You could tear out all that part and still it wouldn’t let any water in. It just looks to me like plain crazy meanness. If I ever find out who did this, I’ll make him wish he hadn’t! Well, we can’t waste time on that now. First thing to do is to get some of this water out of the bilge. No time to lose!”

Leaning over the side of the
Patagonia
, he asked Mr. Truelove and Mr. Jackson to hand the bilge pump up to him, and then to come and help him. The bilge pump was a long hollow tube, with a piston inside it which was moved up and down in the tube by a long rod with a handle at the top. When the bottom of the tube was put into the water which had leaked into the
Patagonia
and the handle was pushed up and down, the water was pumped up. It was very hard work, and the three men took turns at pumping. But when they had worked at it for about an hour, the water had been pumped out so that they could reach the broken planks near the
Patagonia’s
keel.

Then they set to work with their tools and patched up the holes in the
Patagonia
with new planks, which they fastened very strongly to the old ones, and then they stuffed the oakum under the edges of the planks and smeared tar over it, so that no more water could leak in. This was a long job, and although they worked as fast as they could, it was six o’clock by the time they had finished. The tide had reached its lowest point at three o’clock, and now it was creeping back in again, and the rowboat was floating again.

“There!” said Captain Reckless, as they finished the work. “In a couple of hours more, the tide will be high enough to float the
Patagonia
and we can pull her off.”

“Hurrah!” yelled Billy and Djuna. They had been watching the whole job with breathless interest, and had even been able to help some, by handing tools to the men, when they asked for them.