“Once you realized the masked giant and Paul Donner were the same man, everything else began to fit into place —”
He broke off as Don entered. The Vietnamese houseman was carrying a huge wooden bowl. He set it proudly on the table in front of Sebastian and the Three Investigators.
“Lunch,” he announced. “Very healthy food. All natural. All unpreserved.”
Pete looked into the bowl. It was some kind of salad. At least it had lettuce and slices of cucumber in it. But most of it seemed to consist of thin pink slivers of some unidentifiable substance.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s that pink stuff in it?”
“Fish,” Don told him. “Raw fish.”
“Raw?” Pete tried to keep the dismay out of his voice. “You mean it isn’t — it isn’t cooked?”
“Cooking very bad,” the Vietnamese explained.
“Very unhealthy. Destroys all natural vitamins.”
“But you used to cook the brown rice,” Pete argued. “You said the television guru —”
“That guru wrong guru.” Don shook his head sadly. “His show canceled. Have new afternoon-time guru now. This one much better. Especially for cooks. He say cooks no cook. You eat your lunch, please.”
“But we haven’t any plates,” Bob objected. “No plates or knives or forks or anything.”
“You eat with fingers. Dip in bowl. New guru say better put your hand in your mouth than unnatural metal instrument. Same with plates. China unnatural too. You eat from healthy wooden bowl. Much better.”
“Much better for dishwasher, anyway,” Sebastian suggested. “New guru says dishwasher mustn’t wash dishes.” He sighed as the Vietnamese went back to the kitchen.
“Oh, well, dip in,” he said. “That cucumber doesn’t look too bad. At least we can have jelly beans for dessert.”
While the Three Investigators dipped their fingers into the bowl and nibbled the lettuce and the cucumber, Hector Sebastian asked them how Constance’s father was getting on and how she had managed to pay the hospital bills.
“Captain Carmel’s fine,” Bob told him. “He’s out of intensive care, and they’re going to discharge him next week.”
“As for the hospital bills,” Jupe added, “that worked out okay too. The Treasury people are paying Constance a reward for recovering those forged bills and leading them to the arrest of Slater and Donner. It won’t be as much as ten thousand dollars. But at least it’ll be in legal currency.”
“There’s a chance Constance may be able to recover some money from Slater too,” Bob said. “After all, he did sell those pocket calculators in Mexico and got paid for them —”
He broke off, looking at Pete.
“You’re eating it!” he exclaimed. “You’re eating that raw fish!”
“Well, I’m hungry,” Pete defended himself. “And it isn’t too bad. It’s really quite interesting once you get used to it.”
He popped another sliver of fish into his mouth.
“And besides,” he went on, “it is good for you. Good for your brains. Look at Fluke. He never eats anything but raw fish. And look how smart he is,”
Hector Sebastian had to admit there was something in that. But he still stuck to the cucumber and lettuce.
“How is Fluke?” he asked.
“He’s fine,” Jupe told him. “He was pretty sad for a while. He just hung around the cove. Constance was afraid it was because he couldn’t get used to being back in the ocean.”
“And now?” Hector Sebastian prompted him. “Has he got used to it now?”
“No,” Bob answered. “Constance realized that wasn’t the problem. The thing Fluke couldn’t get used to was being without her. He’d grown so fond of her. He missed her too much.”
“So she took him to Ocean World,” Jupe explained. “And he seems very happy now. She gave us all free passes. So we can visit him any time we want to.”
The First Investigator looked up as the Vietnamese houseman returned.
“Come to think of it,” Jupe said. “If Don would give us a doggie bag — I mean a whaley bag — we could visit Fluke this afternoon and take some of this interesting raw fish with us!”