"The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Брендел Марк)

6 The Lost Cargo

“I had just come back from the hospital, visiting my father,” Constance said. “The phone was ringing in his office and I answered it. It was Oscar Slater. He comes from down South somewhere, Alabama, I think. I’d met him two or three times because Dad had taken him out charter fishing before. Before the last time, I mean, when Dad lost his boat. Slater said he’d found a stranded whale on the beach.”

She went on to tell them how she had helped rescue the whale. The first thing she did was round up two Mexican friends who owned a tow truck. They rigged a big canvas sling to the crane and drove down to the cove, where Oscar Slater was waiting for her.

Once they had hoisted the whale into the truck, Constance packed wet foam rubber around it and they took it up to Slater’s house and set it free in the swimming pool. The Mexican friends left in the tow truck and Constance swam around with Fluke, as she had decided to call him, making friends with him and getting him used to the pool.

Oscar Slater drove off to buy some live fish at a storehouse Constance knew about, and everything went fine until he got back. Fluke was already responding to Constance’s friendliness and seemed quite happy in his new surroundings.

“Of course, all whales are intelligent,” Constance explained, starting up the ramp to Santa Monica. “More intelligent than human beings in some ways because they have a larger brain. But I could tell at once that Fluke was exceptional. I’ve been training and working with all kinds of whales for years, but Fluke was the fastest learner I’ve ever met. He’s only about two years old, which would make him around five in human terms, because most whales are fully grown by the time they’re six or seven. But he’s much brighter than any ten-year-old child I’ve ever known.”

Constance went back to describing that first day at Oscar Slater’s house. She had fed Fluke the fish that Slater had brought back. Then she decided to return to San Pedro and stop by the hospital for news of her father. She asked Slater to drive her. He was standing by the pool with the sun gleaming on his bald head, and he was looking at her in a calculating way.

“I’ll get Ocean World to send some people over tomorrow,” she told him. “They’ll probably return Fluke to the ocean, or they may decide to keep him for a day or two. In any case, he’ll be fine now.”

She started away from the pool toward the driveway. Oscar Slater stopped her.

“Just a moment, Constance. I think there’s something you ought to know. Something about your father.”

She had never exactly liked Oscar Slater. Until then she had never thought about him much. Now she felt she was really seeing him for the first time. She realized she didn’t like him at all.

“What about my father?” she asked.

“He’s a professional smuggler. He’s been taking tape recorders and pocket radios and all kinds of electronic equipment into Mexico for years and selling it there for three or four times what he paid for it.”

Constance waited. She didn’t want to believe what Slater was telling her. But she had heard her father drop an unguarded word now and then. And, well, she loved him and he had been a wonderful father to her; he had taken good care of her since her mother died. But no one could pretend he was exactly a solid citizen.

“He had a particularly big load on the last trip,” Slater went on. “Mostly pocket calculators, which fetch a high price in Mexico. And when the boat sank, they went down with it.”

Constance waited for Slater to get to the point.

“There must be twenty or thirty thousand dollars’ worth of them in that wreck,” Slater told her. “And half of the money tied up in them was mine. Your old man and I were partners on the deal. Those calculators are sitting safely down there in a waterproof container. And I don’t intend to lose my investment. I’m going to salvage that wreck and recover those things. And you’re going to help me.”

His slow southern voice was threatening now.

“You and that whale, Fluke, or whatever you call him. You are going to help me, aren’t you, Constance?”

She thought it over carefully before she gave Slater her answer.

She was sure that from the American government’s point of view, her father had done nothing criminal. There was no law against taking pocket calculators or tape recorders out of the United States once you’d paid for them. If Slater was trying to blackmail her by threatening to make trouble for her father with the American police, he was wasting his time. And there was nothing the Mexican authorities could do unless they actually caught her father smuggling things into Mexico.

But the problem was that her father, in his happy-go-lucky way, had let the insurance on his boat lapse. He had no medical insurance either, and his intensive care at the hospital was costing hundreds of dollars a day. If she helped Slater recover those things from the wreck, her father was entitled to his share of them. Ten thousand dollars would go a long way to help pay the hospital bills.

And she wouldn’t be doing anything illegal either. She didn’t like Slater. She liked him less and less every minute she spent with him. But what harm could there be in doing a salvage job for him?

“So I agreed,” Constance finished as she drove up into the hills. “And that’s the way things are now. I’m trying to train Fluke to find that wreck for us.”

Jupe hadn’t said a word since they had turned onto the Coast Highway. He was silent for another minute.

“So that’s what the straps were for,” he said thoughtfully. “That harness you were fitting on Fluke’s head. You’re going to attach a television camera to him. And a whale can dive much deeper and swim much faster than any scuba diver possibly could. So Fluke will be able to cover much more of the ocean floor much more quickly, and there’s a far better chance that the camera on his head will pick up a sight of your father’s boat on the bottom of the ocean.”

Constance smiled. “You know,” she said, “you’re pretty bright, aren’t you? Pretty bright for a human being anyway.”

Jupe smiled back at her. “We can’t all be as intelligent as whales,” he said.

“Okay.” Constance glanced at him in her direct, friendly way. “Suppose you tell me your story now. Why are you so interested in Fluke? What is it you’re investigating?”

Jupe thought of the anonymous caller who had promised them a hundred dollars. He wanted to be as frank with Constance as she had been with him, and he didn’t see that he would be betraying any confidences if he told her the truth.

“We’ve got a client,” he explained. “I can’t tell you his name, because I don’t know what his name is. But he hired us as investigators and promised us quite a large fee to find the lost whale and return it to the ocean.”

“Return it to the ocean?” Constance asked. “Why? What for?”

“I don’t know,” Jupiter admitted. “At least I don’t know yet.”

“Well, you’ve done half your job already, haven’t you? You’ve found Fluke.” Constance pulled up in front of the expensive-looking ranch house belonging to Oscar Slater. “So why don’t you help me finish the job?”

“Sure,” Bob answered. “How can we help?”

“Have you ever done any scuba diving?”

The Three Investigators had. Jupe explained that Pete was the best at it, but they had all taken a scuba course and been checked out by the instructor in their final tests.

“Great,” Constance said. “Then let’s work together. I’m going to put Fluke back in the ocean as soon as I can. As soon as I feel he likes me enough not to run away. After that I could use your help in finding Dad’s boat. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bob and Jupe replied together. It sounded great to them. They would not only be earning their fee, but they would have all the added fun and excitement of searching the ocean for the wrecked boat and recovering the cargo on board.

“Then come on.” Constance opened the door of the truck. “Come on in and meet Fluke again.”

The little whale was dozing, floating half submerged in the pool, with his closed eyes and his blowhole above the water. He awoke at once when Constance turned on the underwater lights. He swam to her and lifted his head and wagged his flippers with pleasure.

He seemed to recognize the Three Investigators too. When they knelt at the edge of the pool, he went to each of them in turn and nuzzled them gently with his pursed lips.

“Wow,” Pete said. “It’s almost like — I mean, do you think he really remembers us?”

“Of course he does,” Constance told him impatiently. “You saved his life. You think he’d forget a thing like that?”

“But he’s only —”

Bob could see that Pete was going to say Fluke was only a whale. He nudged him quickly to shut him up.

Then, remembering Pete had missed all that Constance had told them on the ride, he drew him aside and filled him in.

Constance fed Fluke, then started to put on her flippers. She was slipping her feet into them when she suddenly turned with a look of startled annoyance.

Two men had come out of the ranch house and were walking toward her. Jupe recognized Oscar Slater from Pete’s description of him.

All three of the Investigators recognized the other man at once. He was very tall and thin with narrow shoulders and, even in the underwater light from the pool, they could see the crease — almost like a scar — under his right eye.

“You agreed to stay out of this,” Constance told Slater angrily. “Stay away from the pool until I’ve finished training Fluke and I’m ready to start searching for Dad’s boat.”

Slater didn’t answer her. He was looking at the Three Investigators.

“Who are these kids?” he asked in his slow, drawn-out way. He made it sound like “kee-uds.”

“They’re friends of mine,” Constance explained coldly. “Scuba divers. I’m going to need help and they’ve agreed to work with me.”

Slater nodded. Jupe could tell he didn’t like it. He didn’t want them around. But if Constance said she needed them, he would have to accept them.

“And who’s your friend?” Constance glanced at the tall, thin man who was standing beside Slater.

“My name is Donner,” the man introduced himself. “Paul Donner. I’m an old friend of Mr. Slater’s. And also a friend of your father’s, Miss Carmel.” He paused, smiling. “An old friend from Mexico.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Jupe was sure that the name meant nothing to Constance, that she had never seen the man before. But he could guess from the way Donner smiled when he said “from Mexico” that he was telling Constance not to worry. He knew all about her father’s little smuggling game and he was on her side.

Paul Donner was still smiling as he looked at the Three Investigators. “So you’re scuba divers,” he said. “Do you work at Ocean World with Miss Carmel?”

“Now and then,” Constance told him. “When I need extra help. Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce you. Jupe and Pete and Bob.”

“Glad to meet you.” There was not a trace of recognition in the tall, thin man’s eyes as he shook hands with them.

Either he had a worse memory than an absentminded sleepwalker, Jupe thought, or else Paul Donner didn’t want Slater to know that he had ever seen the boys before.

Why not? Jupe wondered. What was Paul Donner trying to hide?