The Golden Eagle Mystery (12 page)

“Let’s go and tell Aunt Patty!” said Billy, starting to climb down from the
Patagonia’s
deck.

Djuna looked around to see if he had forgotten anything, and suddenly remembered the lantern he had found in the wheelhouse that morning, and had put into the locker. He ran back and got it, and showed it to Captain Reckless.

“Will it be all right if I take this back to Aunt Patty’s house?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s any oil left in it, because it was smoking so when I found it.”

“Sure, take it along,” said Captain Reckless. “And if you can figure out who lit that lantern last night, I’ll give you a dollar! It would be worth that much just to get my hands on the cowardly pup!”

“Gee, I don’t see how we can ever find out!” said Djuna. He hesitated. Staring at the lantern as if it were something he had never seen before in all his life, a strange look suddenly spread over his face. He drew a deep breath.

“Don’t tell anybody I took this lantern, will you?” he whispered.

“Why, no, I won’t say anything about it,” said Captain Reckless, surprised. “Say, you don’t think you know who it was, do you?”

Djuna shook his head, and began to look embarrassed. “No,” he said, “I just thought—well, anyway, I was just thinking!”

Captain Reckless chuckled. “You sound like Billy,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said Djuna. And he hurried over the side of the
Patagonia
, to get away before he was asked any more questions that he couldn’t answer.

But Billy was waiting for him, and, of course, saw the lantern as soon as Djuna caught up to him.

“Where’d you get the lantern?” he asked. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Djuna. “It was the one in the wheelhouse. I’m just going to take it to Aunt Patty. Say, do you know what I think?”

“No, what?” asked Billy.

“Well, I was just thinking about burglars,” said Djuna. “Burglars and the
Patagonia.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Billy. “You mean it was a burglar that stole the
Patagonia?”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” said Djuna. “I mean, suppose a burglar steals a pocketbook out of a house. Do you suppose he
keeps
that pocketbook?”

“Why, I don’t know,” said Billy. “Doesn’t he?”

“Of course not!” said Djuna. “He takes the money out of it and then he throws the pocketbook away! Now do you see?”

“No,” said Billy, looking more puzzled than ever.

“Well, that’s what the man did when he took the
Patagonia
, don’t you see?” insisted Djuna. “He didn’t want the boat—he wanted something that was
in
it! You see? So after he had had a chance to hunt for whatever it was he wanted, he threw the boat away! Just like an empty pocketbook, see?”

“For Pete’s sake!” exclaimed Billy excitedly. “Of course!”

“The only thing is,” Djuna went on, still thinking hard, “nobody can tell whether he got what he was looking for, or not. Maybe he found it, and maybe he didn’t. We’ve got to ask Aunt Patty. Gee, I hope she didn’t have anything hidden in there, that was worth a lot of money!”

“So do I,” said Billy. “But, gee, not even a G man could ever catch whoever it was that took the
Patagonia!
He’s gone, and there’s a million places he might have gone to. He was in a boat, of course. He might have gone anywhere, so where would you look? Boats don’t leave any tracks on the water. No tracks that last, anyway.”

“No,” agreed Djuna, “they don’t. But a boat like the
Patagonia
is worth a lot of money. Mr. Truelove said it would cost a thousand dollars to get one like it! I don’t think we need to find any tracks.”

Billy stared at him. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Well, look,” said Djuna, eagerly. “Do you suppose a man that stole a boat worth a thousand dollars would throw it away, if he had a chance to keep it? Of course he wouldn’t! The only reason he let the
Patagonia
go, and let her get blown onto the rocks, was because
he didn’t dare bring her back!”

Billy’s eyes opened wide, because Djuna’s voice was so excited. But he still didn’t see what Djuna meant.

“Well, of course, he wouldn’t dare to bring her back, if he had stolen her,” he said. “He would get caught right away.”

“That’s just what I mean!” cried Djuna. “He could take her anywhere else, a long way from here, and sell her, or use her, and nobody there would know where he got her from. But if he lived here in Stony Harbor, where everybody knew him, and knew Aunt Patty, then, of course, he couldn’t bring the
Patagonia
back here!”

“Oh!” said Billy. “I see now! If he
wasn’t
somebody that lives in Stony Harbor, he could have kept right on going, and could take the
Patagonia
wherever he went! But he knew he
had
to come back here, and so he
had
to leave her out in the middle of the Sound!”

“That’s the way it was, I should think,” said Djuna, looking very serious. “So we’d better be careful. Whoever did it is probably right here in Stony Harbor right now, this very minute. You can’t tell who it might be. Don’t you say a word to
anybody
, Billy, because it might be the very one!”

Billy looked quickly around, in a worried sort of way, but the only thing he saw was old Mr. Jackson’s cow, trying to find some grass in the stony field next to the stone lighthouse.

“No, I’ll be careful,” he whispered. “But, gee, who do you suppose it is?”

“Well, I thought at first it might be that old Harvey Bohnett and his brother,” said Djuna. “But now that we’ve found out that they were at the Harbor House all night, I don’t know at all.”

“Then what shall we do next?” asked Billy.

“We’ve got to ask Aunt Patty what was in her boat,” said Djuna. “That’s the first thing to find out.”

They hurried on to Aunt Patty’s and into her kitchen.

“It’s fixed, Aunt Patty!” they yelled. “Your boat’s fixed! Hurrah!”

Aunt Patty was so glad that she almost cried.

“I’ve been so worried I didn’t know what to do,” she said, wiping the tears of joy from her eyes. “I couldn’t even bear to go down to the Point and look at the
Patagonia
, I was so afraid she couldn’t be saved. Have they really got her afloat?”

“Well, they’re just waiting for the tide,” said Djuna. “They’ve fixed up the leaks, and as soon as she floats, Captain Reckless is going to pull her around to his wharf, so he can fix her some more.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” exclaimed Aunt Patty. “Now, you boys sit down and have your dinner. I expect you’re pretty hungry, after all you’ve done today. I declare, I’m so thankful I’m as hungry as a bear!”

They all sat down at the table and while Aunt Patty heaped their plates, Djuna told her about the strange way in which a hole had been chopped through the side of the
Patagonia’s
wheelhouse, by the person who had stolen her boat.

“What were they looking for, Aunt Patty?” he asked. “You didn’t keep any money, or anything special, in there, did you?”

“Money?” repeated Aunt Patty. “I haven’t got any money, child. And if I had, I wouldn’t have kept it in any such place as that. That’s certainly queer, their ripping out those boards, just out of meanness. I can’t imagine why they should want to do it!”

“Didn’t you
ever
keep anything in there?” persisted Djuna.

“No, not as far as I can remember,” said Aunt Patty slowly. “No, I’m sure I never did.” Then she smiled. “But that reminds me,” she went on. “There was a little cubbyhole between the wall of the wheelhouse and the hatchway partition. Captain Tubbs, that was my husband, used to keep things in there. But that was so long ago I’d almost forgotten.”

“What did he keep in there?” exclaimed Djuna eagerly, looking at Billy.

“Oh, just all sorts of odds and ends, anything he happened to tuck away,” said Aunt Patty. “Fish hooks, and lines, and his pipe and tobacco, and this, that, and the other thing. I used to laugh at it, it was such a regular squirrel’s nest, so he got to calling it his squirrel’s nest. But after—well, after he was gone—I cleaned it out and boarded up the wall, so as to make more room in the hold. I’d forgotten all about it, till just now.”

“And didn’t he ever keep any money in there?” asked Djuna, disappointedly.

“Mercy, no!” said Aunt Patty. “If he had, I would have found it.”

T
HE
Patagonia
floated off the rocks at high tide that evening, and the temporary patches that Captain Reckless had put in her kept her from leaking too much while he towed her back to the harbor, at the end of a long rope. He told Aunt Patty that he would have to rip off the old planks and put on new planking, which would take him two or three weeks. In order to do this work, he had to haul the
Patagonia
up out of the water, on the sloping beach by his house, and prop her up with big logs. Billy and Djuna spent hours in watching him do it, and sometimes Captain Reckless would let them help a little.

But Djuna never stopped thinking about the mysterious way in which the
Patagonia
had been stolen and set adrift, and the mysterious way in which Aunt Patty’s darning egg and the umbrella top that looked like an egg had disappeared from her house. More and more he thought about what Mr. Truelove had said to him, about the way Aunt Patty’s troubles had begun when she was a little girl, when her father died and didn’t leave any money for her mother and Patty to live on. He remembered that Mr. Truelove had told him that old Captain Atterbury knew Aunt Patty’s father and mother, before they died.

At last he decided that he would ask Captain Atterbury about them.

Captain Atterbury’s little house was on the east side of the village, with a front porch that looked out over the water. Captain Atterbury was sitting on the porch when Djuna got there. He was very short and very fat, with a red face and white hair, and bushy white eyebrows. He took the pipe out of his mouth and stared at Djuna as he came up the front walk.

“Well, young man, what can I do for you?” he asked. His voice rumbled.

“My name’s Djuna,” said Djuna, bashfully. “I’m staying at Aunt Patty Tubbs’ house this summer. Could I ask you something, please, Captain Atterbury?”

“Oh, I heard Aunt Patty had a boy boardin’ with her this summer,” rumbled the Captain. “So you’re the one, hey? Come aboard, come aboard, and set down. What is it ye want to know? Fire away, and ask all the questions ye want.”

Djuna sat down in the chair the Captain pointed to, and squirmed around in it. He didn’t know exactly how to begin.

“Well,” he said, “could you tell me why Aunt Patty’s boat is named the
Patagonia?”

Captain Atterbury stared, chuckled, coughed and wheezed. “That’s a funny one!” he chuckled. “Aunt Patty wouldn’t tell you herself, would she? No, of course not! She’s awful closemouthed, when it comes to anything that has to do with Bill Tubbs. Well,
I
can tell ye, but the whole story goes back a mighty long way. About a hundred and fifty years, as a matter of fact. But just don’t ye hurry me, and I’ll tell it to ye.”

He refilled his pipe, lighted it, and puffed away at it, his eyes twinkling.

“Yes, sir, the answer to that question of yours goes ’way back to the year George Washington was ’lected President,” he said. “Because that was the year when Aunt Patty’s great-grandfather, Ben Greene, was fust made captain of a whaling ship. A little ship named the
Osprey
, she was.”

“Oh, Aunt Patty told me about him!” exclaimed Djuna. “She’s got an old wooden sea chest up in her attic, with his initials on it! I saw it!”

Captain Atterbury nodded. “That’s the man,” he said. “We’ll come to that sea chest, later. As I was sayin’, Cap’n Ben Greene was a mighty young man when he took command of the
Osprey
, but he’d been at sea ever since he was a boy, and he was a right smart officer. That fust voyage of his, he sailed northward, huntin’ black whales, where he’d been before. He was gone a year, and came back with full barrels, sold ’em, and started off again. This time, he sailed south, after sperm whale. He had pretty good luck that voyage and the next; and after the second one he got married. Then he set sail on his third voyage south, and that one turned out even better than the others. But he was mighty lucky that he got back at all, from that one.”

“What happened?” exclaimed Djuna.

“Well, that voyage, he sailed even farther south than he had before,” said Captain Atterbury. “He’d heard tales that the English whalers, and some of our men from Nantucket, too, were findin’ plenty of whale down around the Falkland Islands, so he kept right on a-goin’. He had close to ten thousand miles o’ sailin’ to do, before he got there, and it must have taken that little ship o’ his all of three months, if not more. It took ’em another three months of cruisin’ around the whaling grounds before they had struck enough whales to fill their barrels, and start for home. Their food and water was gettin’ low, so they put in at the Falkland Islands, to try to get some. But the Falklands are a barren place, and the men at the tradin’ post there couldn’t spare them what they wanted. So Cap’n Greene decided he’d steer a course for the nearest part of South America, and see if he could get any supplies from the Indians on the coast.

“That coast was only a matter of three hundred miles west of the Falklands, so he came in sight of it in less than a week, although the wind was contrary and drove ’em a good deal south of their course. They landed on the coast of Tierra del Fuego.

“It was a terrible cold windy country, with the mountains off in the distance all covered with snow, but there was plenty of streams running through the valleys, and they filled all their water kegs with fresh water. They found an Indian village on the bank of one of the creeks, and tried to make the Indians understand that they wanted to get corn and fresh meat, but the Indians didn’t have any.

“They sailed on toward the north and pretty soon they came to the coast of Patagonia, where there were no more mountains in sight, just low treeless plains. There were wide gravelly beaches between the sea and the low cliffs where the plains began, and on some of these beaches there were herds of sea lions, thousands and thousands of ’em, barking and bellowing and makin’ the most awful noise.