CHAPTER VIII
Calvert's Favor
There was a faint hint of coming daylight in the eastern sky when Rick,Steve, and Scotty walked down the pier to the tied-up boats. The boyshad spent the night--or most of it--aboard the houseboat, until thealarm pulled them from their sleeping bags at four o'clock. Steve hadbreakfast cooking when they arrived at the farmhouse, and after coffee,bacon, and eggs, they started on their mission.
"Daybreak is the lowest peak of daily activity," Steve said as theyclimbed into the runabout. He took the pilot's seat, while Rick andScotty prepared to cast off.
"You might say that the first glimmer of daylight is man's worst hour,"Steve continued. "It's the time when battles start, when planes take offfor dawn bombing runs. I've read that it's the time when most deathsoccur in hospitals, although I don't know for certain that it's true.What's more important to us, it's the time of day when guards are mostsleepy and least alert."
The young agent had been working as he talked, checking the outboardmotor, checking the connections to the gasoline tank, and pumpingpressure into it. Now he pressed the starter and the well-kept motorcaught at once. Rick and Scotty cast off bow and stern lines and settledthemselves in the seat next to Steve.
"Unless this mysterious Mr. Merlin suffers from sleepless nights, he'sdeep in slumber. The sound of a small boat won't disturb him, becausehe's used to the noise of motors from crabbers. We'll hope there is noguard on the place. If there is, we'll be fishing. Better have the rodsready. One of you can sit in back and troll from there."
The outboard runabout moved away from the pier and into the creek. Steveknew his way perfectly, and he opened the throttle to half speed,steering through the curve at the mouth of the creek, rounding the buoy,and heading directly toward Swamp Creek.
It had taken the houseboat over twenty minutes to make the run. Stevecovered the distance in ten. As he throttled down and swung the runaboutinto Swamp Creek, Rick's eye picked up a glimmer of light, then theshape of something white cruising toward them.
For a moment he stared into the lessening gloom, then said, "It's OrvilHarris. Anyway, it looks like his boat."
Steve said nothing for a moment, then he headed directly toward thecrabber. As the two boats closed, Harris paused in his crabbing andwatched the three in the runabout approach.
Steve matched the crab boat's speed and nudged the runabout alongside."Howdy," he called.
Orvil Harris reached out and caught the runabout's gunwale, then tookthe line Rick passed to him. He made it fast around a cleat. "Up early,"he greeted them. "Come to watch me crab?"
"Not exactly," Rick returned. "Mr. Harris, this is Mr. Ames."
The crabber reached out a muscular hand and Steve stretched to meet it."Mighty pretty place you have on Martins Creek," Harris said. "Admiredit many's the time."
"Thanks," Steve returned. "Be glad to have you drop in any time."
"I may do that. Thanks."
"The boys tell me your cousin was the one taken by a flying saucer."
Harris grinned. "He was taken. I'm not sayin' how until I know."
"What do you know about Calvert's Favor?"
Harris rubbed his chin, and made a slight correction in the crab boat'scourse. "Present owner is a man named Merlin. No one knows anythin'about him, and no one asks. Has a big thug with him all the time, andtakes exception to people gettin' nosy. Most folks got snubbed and drewback, so to speak. Jim Hardin--he's a fisherman hereabouts--tookexception and got beaten up. Hardin's not easy to lick. After that,folks stopped speakin' to Merlin and company."
"How big's the company?" Steve asked.
"Merlin, bodyguard, a little squirt with no chin, and three others.Cooks and bottle washers, likely. Would it be polite to ask why you'reinterested?"
Steve had been studying Harris since the two boats joined up, Rick knew,so he wasn't surprised when Steve gave a direct reply.
"You'll keep this to yourself, please. The boys have been doing a littleresearch, and it's clear these unidentified flying objects people havebeen seeing come from Swamp Creek. That points to the old mansion,especially since Mr. Merlin is so secretive about himself. We decided toget up before the people at the mansion were likely to be about, andlook the place over. If it looks promising, we'll try keeping an eye onit."
Harris nodded. "I'll keep it to myself, you can be sure. If the mysteryof those flyin' stingarees gets solved, we may find out what happened toCousin Link. I'll help if I can."
"You know these waters pretty well," Steve returned. "Is there any wayof getting to Calvert's Favor, or within watching distance, withoutgoing up this creek?"
The crabber reached over and turned a switch, cutting his engine. "Thereis, for that boat you're in. About thirty yards downstream from theentrance to this creek, there is a break in the line of swamp grassalong the shore. It's a little lead, a channel maybe six feet wide andfrom two to three feet deep. It runs into the swamp. Right at the placewhere the water gets too narrow for the boat, a man who didn't care ifhe got muddy or wet could go through the brush to an old duck blindright across from the mansion. A pair of good glasses would give him aright good view of the whole thing."
"We couldn't see the mansion from the boat?" Rick asked.
"The brush is too thick. Tell you what, if you got ground tackle aboard,drop a hook and come over with me. I'll run you up the creek and you cantake a good look. If anyone's out watchin', they'll only see a crab boatlookin' for a place to set lines."
"Scotty," Steve directed, "there's a grapnel on a line up on the bow,under that small hatch. Toss it in, please."
Scotty stood up on the seat, stepped to the bow, and found the small,four-pronged anchor. He dropped it into the water, let out line, andtied the line fast to the bow cleat. "Okay, Steve."
The three got aboard the crab boat as Harris started his engine. "Makeyourselves comfortable," the crabber invited. "There's a pair of glasseson the engine box."
With the binoculars Rick and Steve had brought, that made three pairseach. The crabber swung the boat around expertly and headed upstream.The sky was light now, and far overhead a wisp of cirrus was glowingpink, a warning of coming sunrise.
Rick sat on the gunwale and looked ahead. The creek narrowed for a fewhundred yards, then widened again. The left bank, going upstream, waslined with scrub and swamp grass. The right bank began to change, theswampy area giving way to good ground that rose slightly from thewater's edge. Soon the right bank was nearly three feet above the water,and the scrub had given way to an occasional tree, and some grasslandthat hadn't been mowed this year.
Then Calvert's Favor came into view and Rick caught his breath. It was astunning plantation house. The tall columns made Rick think of picturesof the Old South, but as the boat turned slightly and more of the housecame into view, he saw that it had a strictly Maryland character.Attached to the largest portion of the house, the one with the columns,was a slightly smaller section, with a still smaller section completingthe picture. It was a "telescope house"--the kind that the Eastern Shorenatives referred to as "big house, little house, and one in the middle."
A broad sweep of lawn, broken only by flagstone walks and trees,extended from the creek's edge to the house. The trees were ancientdogwoods, with a single huge willow for extra shade. There was a smallpier extending into the creek, and from the rotted pilings next to it,Rick saw that the original pier had been much larger.
A white barn stood at a short distance from the house. A barn of thatsize, Rick thought, meant a pretty substantial farm. He searched forsigns of life and saw none. There was a boat, he noticed, an outboardskiff perhaps fifteen feet long, pulled up on the bank under an oak treeat the edge where the lawn met uncut field. A lawn table and chairsunder the big willow looked inviting, and he speculated that Merlin andfriends must spend considerable time there. Some of the chairs were ofthe padded variety, covered with plastic wet from the morning dew.
Scotty pointed to the roof of the mansion. "Must be a ham rad
io operatorthere. Look at that hay rake."
Both Rick and Steve had the same thoughts as they stared at the tallantenna, with its cluster of small rods joining a single main bar atright angles on top of the pole. The antenna might be needed forfringe-area television--or, on the other hand, it might be acommunications antenna, as Scotty had said.
"Looks interesting," Steve said.
The creek flowed only a little distance past the mansion before itbecame so narrow that Orvil Harris had to turn for the trip downstream.As the crab boat came abreast of the mansion again, Rick looked to theother side of the creek and saw the duck blind. It wasn't exactlyopposite the house, being designed so that gunners in the blind wouldshoot diagonally across the creek and downstream, rather than near thehouse itself.
The blind was on stilts, made of board, with a big "picture window"without glass through which duck hunters could fire freely. It wasdesigned for entry by boat, and there was a line of poles sticking upfrom the water that marked the boat's docking place. In season, theentire blind including the poles would be covered with a screen of freshfoliage, so that hunters, blind, and boat would seem like a naturalobject to any duck that flew by.
Rick saw that the entrance, at the point where the boat would nose in,was downstream from the mansion, at the back corner of the blind. Anyoneapproaching from the swamp behind the blind could enter unseen fromCalvert's Favor.
Not until they were back at the cove did any of them speak.
"That antenna was odd," Steve said. "Did you ever see anything like it,Rick?"
"Not exactly," Rick admitted. "It could be for TV, although it's anunusual design, or it could be some kind of ham rig, as Scotty said."
"Or it could be something else," Steve concluded.
"No sign of a flyin'-saucer launcher," Orvil Harris said. He was stokinghis battered brier.
Rick grinned. "I wouldn't know one if I saw it."
"Well, that wraps it up," Steve said. "Let's get aboard the runabout andhead home. I've got to make a plane." He shook hands with Orvil Harris."Glad to have met you after waving at you for so long."
"Likewise. Now, you let me in on this if you can. I'm Link's only kinhereabouts, so I feel responsible, so to speak. Call me up. I'm in thephone book. I'll keep crabbin' in this creek until further notice, soyou can find me here until midmornin' any day."
"We'll let you know if anything comes up," Rick agreed.
Scotty borrowed a boat hook and pulled the runabout closer, then hestepped to the forward deck while Steve and Rick got into the seat.Scotty pulled up the grapnel while Steve started the motor. In a momentthey were waving to Harris as the runabout headed for home.
It was full daylight now, and the rim of the sun was just above thetrees on the horizon.
"Two items from the morning's work," Scotty summed up. "We know how themansion can be watched, and we have an odd kind of antenna. Anythingelse?"
"We have an ally," Rick reminded. "Orvil Harris."
"We bought him on pure faith," Steve pointed out. "It isn't often Istake the game on a man's face, but if Orvil Harris isn't a soundindividual, I'll lose my faith in human nature."
Back at the farmhouse, Steve made fresh coffee and toast. While the boysrelaxed sleepily, he went to a closet and brought out a case and aleather gadget bag.
The boys sat up and watched while he opened the case. Rick gasped. Itwas a telescope, a marvelously compact reflector type, precision madeand very expensive. Rick had often studied the ads of this particularmodel, and he looked at it with some envy. He could hardly keep frompicking it up.
Steve opened the gadget bag and brought out a Polaroid camera and set ofrings. Then he returned to the closet and brought back a sturdy tripodwith a geared head.
"Here's the equipment," he said. He took the telescope from its paddedcase, and screwed its base to the tripod, then he adjusted the tripoduntil it was standing securely.
"Watch this," he commanded. "You'll have to do it, because you can'tcarry the whole thing assembled."
Using the rings, which were adapters, he fitted the camera to theeyepiece of the telescope. "That's all there is to it. You focus the'scope eyepiece by turning this knurled knob. Then you set the camera toinfinity, adjust the iris for the proper light, and put the camera inplace. Any questions?"
"What aperture?" Rick asked. "Normal exposure?"
"Make it one f-stop less than you'd use if you were taking the picturethrough a regular camera with a long lens. Anything else?"
Scotty grinned. "It's pointless to ask what you want us to do with this.We're to get pictures of that antenna--from the duck blind."
"Plus anything else that looks interesting, including the occupants,"Rick added.
Steve spread his hands in an expressive gesture. "What more could aninstructor want than students who know the answers before the questionsare asked? I won't even tell you to be careful, because I know youwill."
"We will," Rick assured him.
"All right. Listen, boys, we have no idea what we're up against, but wedo have some facts." Steve ticked them off on his fingers. "One, flyingobjects originate at the mansion. There's no other place on the creekthat seems likely. Two, the house is inhabited by a man who doesn't likequestions. Three, said man has a bodyguard who gets rough. Four, one manalready is missing, perhaps because he got curious. Enough said?"
The boys nodded soberly.
"Then go to it, whenever you feel like it--after you've dropped me atthe airport, that is. Be here by four this afternoon. If I don't call,meet the five-o'clock flight. If I do, it will mean I've gotten tiedup."
Steve hesitated. "Just one more thing. Be _really_ careful. All I haveis a hunch, but that hunch tells me we're up against somethingdangerous. If Link Harris is dead, as he probably is, there's a fairchance he was murdered."
The agent's keen eyes met theirs in turn. "Don't get into a spot youcan't get out of," he concluded.