The Secret of Skeleton Island Page 2

  JUPITER, Bob and Pete crouched beneath an overhanging rock. It wasn’t completely dry, but it provided some shelter from the wind and rain. During the last few minutes, they had scrambled over enough of the little island to convince them it had to be The Hand, and that there was no one else on it, and no boat.

  They had taken a close look at the curious spout, which shot up from the middle of a flat place on the rocky hump. Jupiter, whose scientific curiosity never flagged under any circumstances, explained that there must be a crack in the rock that went deep under the island. The waves of the storm forced water into it, to be expelled up the blowhole.

  However, they hadn’t lingered to study the spout. They had to find shelter. After more stumbling around, they had found the rocky crevice that protected them now.

  “Sam’s marooned us!” Pete said indignantly, wiping rain from his face. “Why did he do it, that’s what I want to know?”

  “Maybe he made a mistake and thought this really was Skeleton Island,” Bob suggested.

  “No.” Jupiter shook his head. “He brought us here on purpose. I confess I am baffled as to his reason. I am also baffled by the fact that he knew we were investigators.

  There’s something queer going on.”

  “I’ll buy a double helping of that,” Pete grumbled. “I only hope we don’t starve to death on this island before someone finds us!”

  “We’ll be found in the morning,” Jupiter said. “Some fishing boat will spot us. We’ll just have to stick it out tonight.”

  “But there aren’t any fishing boats up at this end of Atlantic Bay,” Bob put in anxiously. “Don’t you remember those articles we read? Some tiny red parasite has got into the oysters in this part of the bay. All the fishing boats have moved down to Melville, at the south end, where the shellfish are still safe to eat. Fishingport is almost a ghost town because of the sickness of the oysters.”

  “Someone will spot us,” Jupiter said. “There will be a search on for us when it is learned we have disappeared. And at least we have seen the spout actually working.”

  There didn’t seem much more to be said. Fortunately it was not too cold on the island, and the storm seemed to be letting up. The only thing they could do was wait for morning. When they had decided that, they relaxed. Soon they found themselves dozing off.

  Suddenly Pete awoke. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was and what had happened. Then he saw that the storm had passed. The stars were out. And out on the water a hundred yards away a light was flashing.

  Pete leaped up and started to yell. In a moment, Bob and Jupiter were awake and struggling sleepily to their feet.

  The light turned in their direction, like a probing finger trying to find them. Pete ripped off his yellow raincoat and waved it madly.

  “Here, here!” he shouted.

  The light caught the billowing raincoat and held. Whoever was out there had seen them!

  The powerful beam of light pointed upwards, illuminating the sail of a small boat.

  Then it flickered along the shore and picked out a little beach. It held on that spot, bobbing as the boat moved.

  “He’ll land there,” Pete said. “He wants us to meet him there.”

  “Luckily there is some starlight now.” Jupiter observed. “Even so, we’ll practically have to feel our way.”

  “Look!” Bob exclaimed. “He’s trying to help us.”

  The flashlight was now flicking over the ground between the boys and the shoreline, showing them the way in brief glimpses.

  They made the best time they could. Even so, they each fell down and Pete skinned his knee. By the time they reached the beach, a small sailing-boat was drawn up in the sand, the sail down. A boy in a windbreaker jacket and trousers rolled up to the knees stood on the sandy shore.

  He flashed his light briefly over their faces, then reversed it to shine it on himself.

  They saw a tanned, smiling face topped by dark curly hair. Merry black eyes glinted at them.

  “Ahoy!” he said, in a voice with a foreign accent. “You are the three detectives, yes?”

  It seemed that everyone knew who they were. “We’re The Three Investigators,”

  Jupiter said. “We’re certainly glad you found us.”

  “I think I know where to look for you,” the boy said. He was almost as tall as Pete, but skinnier, though he had powerful chest and arm muscles. “I am Chris Markos.

  Christos Markos, in full, but call me Chris, okay?”

  “Okay, Chris,” Pete said. They took an immediate liking to this smiling, cheerful boy who had come to their rescue. “How’d you know where to look for us?”

  “Long story,” Chris told them. “Climb in my boat, and we will sail to town. Movie people are very upset. We will make them feel better to see you.”

  “Aren’t you part of the Chase Me Faster company?” Bob asked as they clambered into the tiny boat.

  “No, not me,” Chris said, shoving the boat off and wading after it. He climbed in the rear and settled himself by the tiller. Soon the little sail had caught the breeze, and the boat began to cut through the water. In the distance the boys could see the lights of the little town of Fishingport.

  Once the boat was under way, Chris Markos told them about himself. He had grown up in Greece, on the shores of the Mediterranean, where he had lived with his father, a sponge fisherman. His mother was dead. Greek sponge fishers went down great depths to gather sponges from the ocean bottom, using no diving apparatus except a heavy stone to take them down swiftly.

  Chris’s father, one of the most daring divers, had one day been afflicted by an attack of the bends, the dread of every diver. As a result he was partially disabled and had been unable to continue diving. But a cousin who was an oyster fisherman in Fishingport had sent money for him and Chris to come to the United States.

  “For a few years, fishing goes well,” Chris said. “Then oysters get sick. Little red bug gets into them. Oyster fishing around here is all finished. My father’s cousin, he has to sell his boat. He goes to New York to work in a restaurant. But my father is not well enough. He gets worse from worrying. Now he is in bed almost all the time. I try to take care of him, but I have trouble getting a job. I hear movie company is coming to town, they maybe need a diver. I am a good diver. When I was a little boy, I start practising to be a sponge fisher like my father. But movie people, they say no. They do not like me.

  Everybody is suspicious because I am a foreigner. Oh well, maybe luck will turn soon.”

  They were sailing along briskly now. The boys could hear the mutter of breaking waves, and see splashes of whitecaps off to their left.

  “Where are we now?” Pete asked. “How can you find your way when you can’t see what’s ahead? You may crash on one of those rocks.”

  “I tell by the ears,” Chris said cheerfully. “I hear waves break, and know reefs are off there. They are what some people call The Bones. Skeleton Island is off ahead, to the left.”

  The boys all peered ahead, trying to see Skeleton Island. They knew its history by heart, from studying the papers Alfred Hitchcock had given them.

  Skeleton Island had been discovered in 1565 by an English sea captain, Captain White. He had explored the island briefly, discovering that it was used as a sacred burying ground by Indian tribes on the mainland. As the Indians did not bother about digging very deep graves, many skeletons had been found. Because of this, and its skeleton-like shape, Captain White had named it Skeleton Island. At the same time he had visited The Hand, noticed the reefs which made it seem like a hand, and so given it its name. Then he had sailed away.

  In the years that followed, pirates had infested the whole south-eastern sea coast.

  They had used the island for winter quarters, and come to the mainland to spend their gold. Blackbeard himself had spent one winter there.

  But gradually the British authorities began to crack down on the pirates. By 1717, after Blackbeard was dead, the only buccaneer lef
t in the region was the notorious Captain One-Ear. One night the British troops had made a surprise attack on his quarters on Skeleton Island.

  While his crew was being slaughtered, the captain himself had escaped with his treasure chests in a longboat. The British commander, as anxious to recover the gold as to exterminate the pirates, gave chase.

  Captain One-Ear, finding he could not escape, made a final stand on The Hand.

  Here his remaining men were killed and he was captured, badly wounded. But the chests that the British had been so anxious to recover turned out to be empty. The treasure had disappeared. The Hand was too rocky for him to have buried the gold there, and the British could find no other hiding place. To all questions, Captain One-Ear gave only one laughing answer.

  “Davy Jones has my gold doubloons in his grasp now, and he’ll hold them tight until he decides to give them back. And that won’t be until the crack o’ doom!”

  Even when he was hanged, he would say no more, and the British commander was cheated of his spoils. It was obvious Captain One-Ear had dumped the treasure overboard, just to disappoint his pursuers. It was scattered over the sea bottom now, and no one could ever find it again.

  The boys peered through the darkness, hoping to see the outline of the fabled Skeleton Island. It was too dark, however, to see anything.

  “You must sail these waters a lot,” Jupiter said to Chris, “if you can tell where you are by sound.”

  “Sure thing!” Chris agreed. “I sail all round here. Sometimes I dive, too. I look for gold – you know gold scattered over the bottom of bay.”

  “Yes, we know,” Bob said. “Over the years quite a few doubloons have been found that way. Probably from the treasure Captain One-Ear dumped overboard.”

  “Have you found anything?” Pete asked.

  Chris hesitated. Then he said, “Yes, I find something. Not a big something. But something.”

  “How did you find it, Chris?” asked Jupiter.

  “I find it just last week,” Chris said. “Only a little something, but who knows, maybe I will find more. Can’t tell you where, though. Secret one person knows is a secret.

  Secret two persons know is no secret, Secret three persons know is knowledge shouted to the world. That is an old saying. Duck your heads, we come about on a new tack.”

  They ducked. The sail swung from one side to the other. The boat heeled the opposite way and started on its new tack, straight towards the lights of Fishingport.

  “Skeleton Island is right behind us now,” Chris said. “But we head for town.”

  Again the boys peered through the darkness, trying to see the island. Then Bob gasped.

  “Look!” he yelled. “Lights!”

  Suddenly in the darkness lights had

  appeared. They made a circular pattern, like

  the lights on a merry-go-round. Music –

  carousel music! – floated over the water.

  The lights started to revolve, slowly, then

  faster and faster. A moment later, a pale

  figure appeared, moving among the merry-go-round’s painted horses.

  “The phantom of the merry-go-round!”

  Pete cried. “It has to be – it’s a girl in a

  white dress!”

  “Chris, turn round!” Jupiter begged.

  “We have to investigate this.”

  “Not me!” Chris exclaimed. “That is the

  ghost all right. She is back to take her ride

  on the merry-go-round now the movie

  people have it fixed. We get away from here.

  Wish I had a motor, so we go faster! “

  He kept the boat headed straight for

  Fishingport. Bob and Pete were rather glad,

  but Jupe was obviously disappointed. He

  itched to see a real phantom at close range.

  Behind them the merry-go-round kept spinning, a blaze of lights in the darkness.

  Sally Farrington trying to finish her last ride, twenty-five years after she had died! Bob shivered at the thought.

  Then, unexpectedly, the music stopped. The lights went out. The carousel and the white figure were gone. For some reason poor Sally Farrington had been unable to finish her last ride.

  Jupiter sighed in disappointment. Half an hour later they were safe at Mrs. Barton’s boarding house in Fishingport, and Mrs. Barton was spreading the news by telephone of their being found. She made Pete, Bob and Jupe take hot baths and get straight into bed.

  They were glad to do so. But, just before he dozed off, Jupe murmured out loud, “I wish I could have got closer to the phantom!”

  “That remark,” replied Pete sleepily, “does not reflect the sentiments of the rest of The Three Investigators!”

  Skeleton Island at Last

  As BOB AWOKE, he was puzzled to see a slanting ceiling with striped wallpaper over his head. Then he remembered. He wasn’t at home. He was three thousand miles from Rocky Beach, in a town called Fishingport, on Atlantic Bay.

  He sat up and looked round. He was in the upper half of a double bunk. Below him Pete was fast asleep. In a bed a few feet away Jupiter Jones was also sleeping.

  Bob lay back again, thinking over the strange events of the previous night.

  There was a rap on the door. “Boys!” It was Mrs. Barton, the plump, cheerful landlady. “Breakfast is waiting, and Mr. Crenshaw is downstairs. Be down in five minutes or we’ll throw it out! “

  “We’ll be there!” Bob leaped down to the floor. Pete and Jupiter, awakened by the voices, were soon dressed, and they all hurried downstairs. In a bright yellow dining room, decorated with various nautical objects, breakfast was waiting. Two men sat at the table, conversing in low tones and drinking coffee.

  Pete’s father, a large, ruggedly built man, jumped up as the boys entered. “Pete!” he exclaimed, putting an arm round his son. He shook hands with Bob and Jupiter. “I certainly was glad last night to hear you’d been found and were safe. By then you were asleep, so I hurried back to Skeleton Island. We have to guard our supplies and equipment every minute these days. But we’ll come to that later. Right now I want your story.”

  As The Three Investigators ate, they took turns telling what had happened the night before. The other man, who was introduced as Police Chief Nostigon, nodded and puffed on a stubby pipe as he listened. While the boys got to the part about the man named Sam, Mr. Crenshaw turned to the police chief.

  “This fellow Sam?” he asked. “Can you place him?”

  “Sounds like Sam Robinson to me,” the chief said, a trifle grimly. “Know him well.

  Been in jail a few times. Do anything for money, and likes to play practical jokes.

  Wonder if he could have been trying some crazy joke last night? Expect I’ll have to ask him a few questions.”

  “That was no practical joke!” Mr. Crenshaw exploded. “I want to ask that fellow some questions myself. One, how he knew the boys were coming. Two, how he knew they were amateur investigators. And three, why he marooned them on that island.

  Why, we might not have found them until today or tomorrow if that boy Chris hadn’t rescued them! “

  “That’s a fact,” the chief agreed. “When we learned you lads had got off the plane and then vanished into thin air, we were looking on lane for you. Stopped cars for miles around to ask questions.”

  “What I want to know,” said Mr. Crenshaw, “is how this kid Chris was able to find you so easily. What’s his story?”

  The three boys were forced to confess they had forgotten to ask him. They had meant to then they had seen the merry-go-round and the ghostly figure of a woman on it, and in the excitement the question had slipped their minds.

  “You saw the ghost?” Mr. Crenshaw exclaimed. “But that’s impossible. The phantom of the merry-go-round is just a local superstition! “

  “Now hold on a minute,” Chief Nostigon said. “Folks around here believe in that phantom pretty strongly. The last few years, more than one fi
sherman has seen it on a stormy night out on Skeleton Island. Hardly a soul will go near that island now.

  “What’s more, the whole town is buzzing about the phantom riding the merry-go-round last night. Lots of folks heard the music, and a few got out spyglasses and could see a white figure just like these boys describe it. I’m not saying I believe in ghosts, but you can’t get a soul in these parts to believe poor Miss Sally Farrington’s spirit wasn’t trying to ride that merry-go-round last night.”

  Pete’s father shook his head. “This whole part of the picture is jinxed! I’ll bet not a single workman shows up today.”

  “And maybe not tomorrow either,” agreed Chief Nostigon. “Well, Mr. Crenshaw, I’ll pick up Sam Robinson and ask him some questions. But we still don’t know just how the boy Chris found these lads last night.”

  “It’s darned suspicious, if you ask me,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “That kid has been pestering me for a job, but he’s got a bad reputation locally. Plenty of people say he’s a clever little thief. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a hand in all the trouble we’ve been having.”

  “Chris didn’t seem like a thief to us, Dad,” Pete put in. “He seemed like an all-right kid. He has a sick father to help, and he sails round looking for washed-up treasure, but that’s nothing against him.”

  “The boy’s right,” Chief Nostigon agreed. “I know Chris has a bad reputation, but he’s a foreigner and most folks in this town are pretty clannish. They’re ready to believe anything bad of a foreigner.”

  “Just the same, I have my suspicions of him,” Mr. Crenshaw declared. “Now that I think of it, it could easily be a boy stealing our equipment. Maybe he’s hoping to sell it to help his father.”

  He stood up. “All right, boys, let’s get going. Mr. Denton himself is waiting out on the island for us. Chief, I’ll be seeing you later. Meanwhile, I hope you can find this Sam Robinson and clap him in jail.”

  A few minutes later, Jupiter, Pete and Bob were in a fast motor-boat speeding to Skeleton Island. They would have liked to look round Fishingport more, but they didn’t have time. They saw many docks and piers, but few boats – they understood that most fishermen had gone to the south end of Atlantic Bay where oystering was still safe and legal. All in all, Fishingport looked like a small and very poor fishing village.