“He must have a boat,” the professor said, panting. “Cut him off!”
They turned and raced back down the hill towards the cove. Pete and Cluny soon outstripped the others and reached the cove in minutes. But the fleeing man was nowhere in sight!
“Over there!” Jupe shouted from the higher ground behind them. “To your left!”
The running figure was just disappearing over a ridge to the north of the cove. Pete and Cluny ran in pursuit. Bob and Professor Shay turned off towards the ridge. Jupiter slowly puffed along far behind them.
Bob and Professor Shay reached the ridge first, with Pete and Cluny close behind. A small, narrow beach lay before them at the foot of the ridge. The fleeing man was already in his motorboat. As he headed the boat away from the island, he looked back for a moment, and the pursuers saw his face.
“It’s the man in the green VW!” Bob cried.
Professor Shay stared out at the thin young man with the black moustache and wild black hair.
“Why,” the professor said, “it’s young Stebbins! Stop, you young villain!”
The motorboat moved farther away from the island.
“The young rascal!” Professor Shay roared. “Quick, to my boat!”
They ran again to the cove. On the way they met Jupiter, still puffing towards the little beach! The portly leader of the Investigators looked at them hopelessly as they raced past him going the opposite way.
“Oh, no!” he groaned, and turned to pant after them again.
The lines were untied, the engine was started, and Pete was ready at the helm when Jupiter finally arrived and collapsed in the boat. Pete steered for the open water. The motorboat was only a few hundred yards ahead.
“Full speed, Peter! Catch him!” Professor Shay urged, and shook his fist towards the motorboat. “Stebbins, you thief!”
Still panting, Jupiter sat up. “You know him, Professor? The young man in the VW? Who is he?”
“My former assistant, young Stebbins,” Professor Shay raged. “He was a graduate student over at Ruxton University, a poor young man, and I tried to help him. But he stole from me! He tried to sell valuable historical items from the Society’s museum. I had to fire him, and he was sent to prison for a year!”
The motorboat was much farther ahead now, almost a half a mile.
“We’ll never catch him,” Pete said. “We’re too slow.”
Professor Shay glared towards the now distant motorboat.
“You wondered how Java Jim knew so much about the treasure and the Gunns, Jupiter,” he said. “There’s your answer! I recall now that Stebbins was very interested in the Argyll Queen and old Angus Gunn! He must have escaped, or been paroled. Now he’s up to his old tricks. He’s probably working with your Java Jim, by Caesar! He’s a most dangerous young criminal!”
“Stebbins must have been the one who photographed the journal at Headquarters last night,” Bob decided.
“Yes,” Jupiter agreed. “That’s how he knew about the island. But he didn’t find anything. If he had, he wouldn’t have stood around there watching us.”
“That makes us even,” Bob said. “We didn’t find anything, either.”
Bob’s words cast a pall over the sailing-boat, and they sailed the rest of the way in silence. Professor Shay stared after the now vanished motorboat. When they docked in the marina, there was no sign of Stebbins, his boat, or his Volkswagen.
“I shall report that villain to the police at once,”
Professor Shay said angrily. “He did break into your office last night.”
“I didn’t actually see him, sir,” Jupiter pointed out.
“But you know he did, and at least I can alert the police to the young blackguard!”
“What a day!” said Pete. “We let a crook slip out of our hands, and we couldn’t find the treasure.”
The professor shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, boys. This treasure hunt looks hopeless. Perhaps a hundred years is just too long ago.”
“I must admit we’re making little progress,” Jupiter said.
Cluny cried, “There’s still more than a month left in the second journal, fellows! Don’t stop now!”
“I’m afraid,” Professor Shay said sadly, “if you do go on, I’ll have to leave it to you boys. I mustn’t neglect my work. But I’ll be most eager to hear if you do discover something.”
They watched the professor walk to his station wagon and drive off. Cluny looked at the boys hopefully.
“Jupe?” Pete said. “We’re not quitting, are we?”
“We’d better all go to lunch,” Jupiter said unhappily. “I want to think awhile. Then we’ll go to Phantom Lake and decide.” He sighed. “Something in this case is eluding me.”
Dejected, the boys got on their bikes and started home.
Bob had just finished his lunch when his mother called to him that Jupiter was on the telephone.
“I believe we made a completely erroneous assumption, Records!” Jupiter announced eagerly. “It gives me an entirely new conception of old Angus’s puzzle!”
Bob grinned as he held the receiver. For once he wasn’t bothered by Jupiter’s big words. It was the old Jupe talking again, all traces of dejection gone.
“Meet at the yard,” Jupiter instructed. “I have a plan!”
Bob hung up and got his bike. When he arrived at the salvage yard, he saw Jupiter and Pete standing by the pickup truck with Hans. He loaded his bike into the truck at Jupe’s direction, then climbed in with the others. Hans drove off.
“I told Uncle Titus that Mrs. Gunn might have some junk to sell, which is true,” Jupiter explained, but said nothing more. Pete and Bob knew better than to question him. The stocky boy never revealed his surprises and deductions until he was ready.
Cluny was standing on the steps of Gunn Lodge when the truck drove up. Jupiter asked for Cluny’s mother. The red-headed boy led them round the house to an old stone-and-wood shed at the back. Inside, Mrs. Gunn was repotting a large hibiscus in a big redwood tub.
“Ma’am,” Jupiter said at once, “we all assumed that the load Angus had in his boat on the trip to the island was something he took there. But I read the passage again, and I’m convinced now that it was something he brought from the island! Can you think of anything here that could have come from there?”
Mrs. Gunn smiled. “My goodness, Jupiter, how could I know that? I wasn’t here, and I suppose he could have bought anything from that Cabrillo squire.”
Jupiter nodded as if he hadn’t really expected her to know.
“Try to think, ma’am,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ve thought of a whole new interpretation of old Angus’s message. He says, Follow my last course, read what my days built. He says days, not day, and I think he means his whole course. All he did will add up to some message when we put it together. Like a jigsaw puzzle. We need all the pieces at once!”
“Wow!” Pete exclaimed. “That would explain why the ghost town and the island didn’t tell us anything!”