by John Blaine
Almost at the edge of the road was a clump of brush, a good big one that would hide him very well. But Page 35
he would have to cross an open space to get to it. He estimated his chances. They were good, unless Jerrold turned around. He was facing out to sea, evidently waiting for the Phantom Shark to come by boat.
Rick crawled down the knoll and reached the bottom safely, then, bent very low, he ran, careful to place his feet correctly. He was halfway to the brush when Jerrold turned. Instantly he froze, sinking to the ground. For a long moment Jerrold surveyed the hill behind him, then resumed his gazing out to sea. Rick was in the clump of brush with three long steps. Moving carefully, he wriggled to its very center and a little beyond. Now, by moving a branch, he had an excellent view of the beach.
There was no sign of the expected visitor. Jerrold waited for long minutes, then sat down on the sand.
Rick kept a careful watch in all directions, just in case the Phantom Shark decided to come by land. He wondered where Scotty had disappeared to. But then, his friend could have been within yards of him and he wouldn’t have known it. He stirred a little. Mosquitoes had found him. They whined around his ears and almost drove him crazy. Now and then he brushed some of them away, but cautiously. He didn’t dare slap.
Sand grated a few yards away. Rick froze. Then, with infinite slowness, he picked up a handful of leaf mold and smeared his face and hands. Why hadn’t he done it before? He was wearing dark slacks and shirt. Now, with his face and hands darkened, he couldn’t be seen. He turned, very carefully, so as not to disturb a single twig. A short distance away, behind a hummock of earth, a figure was just settling to the ground. The figure was indistinct, but he knew it wasn’t Scotty.
Where was Scotty?
He faced forward again, not even daring to breathe normally in case the unexpected watcher had good ears. Then he saw Jerrold stand, and beyond him, he saw the dark bulk of a boat.
The Phantom Shark had come!
He kept his eyes on the figure across the road, and on the dark bulk beyond that was the Phantom Shark’s boat. Now and then he turned his head, very slowly, to look at the figure next to him. The man, whoever he was, hadn’t moved.
The boat grew more distinct as it neared the shore. It was a small, narrow ship’s dory, rowed by its single occupant. Again he wondered. Where was Scotty?
He had lost track of time. Surely hours had passed. He wished for a look at his watch, but the luminous dial was hidden by his shirt sleeve and he didn’t dare expose it.
There was the sound of wood grating on sand as the rowboat was beached. He strained to see as a figure climbed out and walked to meet Jerrold. Posture, walk,general distribution of bulk-all those things played as great a part in identification as a face. He knew he probably wouldn’t see the Phantom Shark’s face. But although Jerrold was fairly distinct and recognizable, the newcomer was only a blurred bulk.
Jerrold’s voice came to him, low but distinct. “Did you bring them?”
The dark figure nodded.
“All of them?”
Page 36
The figure shook its head.
Rick wondered why he dared to meet Jerrold in such an open spot, and decided it was about the safest place. The beach was unoccupied and few people came this way at night. His wealthy customer wasn’t apt to give him away; that would cut off the supply of pearls needed to match the priceless necklace.
Should a car come, which was unlikely, the Shark had only to get into his boat and row away. Jerrold would not need to explain his presence, even to the police.
“Let me see them,” Jerrold said. He took a flashlight from his pocket and shot a narrow beam down on what Rick could clearly see were black gloved hands. He caught a glimpse of white in the gloves and guessed they were pearls.
There was disappointment in Jerrold’s voice. “Is that all?”
The dark figure shrugged.
“You said you would have enough when I met you last time.”
Another shrug.
“When will you have them?”
The figure stopped and wrote something in the sand, then erased it.
“I can’t wait that long,” Jerrold said irritably. “I must leave here.”
The black figure turned and walked to the boat.
“Wait,” Jerrold cried.“All right.How much for these?”
The Shark wrote again in the sand.
It was a long minute before Jerrold spoke again. “Here’s your money. You’re bleeding me, because you know I’ll pay to finish the necklace. But don’t push me too far. And remember, if these don’t match, you get them back.”
The figure nodded.
The flashlight clicked off. Then the Phantom Shark turned and jumped into the rowboat. A powerful push with an oar shoved it into the low surf.
Determined not to let the Phantom Shark leave without asking him some questions, Rick was in the middle of the road before he remembered the watcher. He turned in time to see a figure lunging at him, and his action was instinctive. He reached forward and grasped a thick wrist. Then, as the man reached him, he fell backward, his leg pushing upward into his attacker’s stomach, throwing the man completely over his head.
But the weight of the man’s flying body snapped his head down sharply against the paved road. The strength drained out of him. He sat up dizzily and turned to see his attacker get to his feet again and charge.
Page 37
Rick wasn’t there to meet the charge. He ducked to one side, and his attacker flailed past, reaching for him. The boy shook his head, still groggy from the bang on the pavement. He stepped back as the man rushed again, and his foot met dry, slippery grass. He had stepped off the road. He fell to one knee, and the driving figure smashed into him with stunning force. Locked together, they rolled off the strip of thin grass to the beach.
Rick brought his hands up sharply against the man’s throat and broke his hold, then he struggled to his feet and jumped to one side, prepared to meet the next charge. It came with jarring force, and the soft sand betrayed him. He fell forward, his arms around his opponent’s waist. He heard the man’s heavy breathing, then winced at hammer blows on the back of his head. With a heave he threw the man from him and followed up with a rush that drove his head into the pit of the attacker’s stomach.
The man fell back a little, against the bank. One hand flashed to his hip and Rick’s breath caught at the gleam of steel.
Rick leaped forward and shot an uppercut that started at his shoe tops. The shock of impact ran up his arm and jarred him.
The assailant’s knees buckled. He dropped to the sand on his face.
Rick whirled, wondering about Jerrold. For an instant he didn’t see the big man, then he saw two figures struggling on the beach. He ran to them, unsteady in the sand, just as the smaller of the two figures catapulted away from the pile and rolled over.
Scotty!
Rick tensed for a dive at Jerrold, but the big man’s voice stopped him cold.
“Don’t try it. I’ve got a gun pointed right at your middle.”
He could tell from the tone that the American wasn’t fooling.
Jerrold got to his feet as Scotty sat up. “I don’t know what this is all about,” he muttered, “but keep your distance because I won’t hesitate to put a slug through you and call it self-defense. What’s the idea, anyway?” He took the light from his pocket and flashed it at Scotty. The boy blinked in the sudden glare.
“Why did you jump me?”
“Your man jumped my friend,” Scotty said coolly.
“My man?”Jerrold shot the light at Rick’s assailant. He walked over to the huddled form and turned him over. It was the half-caste clerk!
“Never saw him before,” Jerrold said flatly. “Now, come on.Talk.”
“All right,” Rick said. “We’re here because we knew you were going to meet the Phantom Shark. We want him, because he cut our rudder cables.”
Jerrold laughed harshly. “You’re
lucky he didn’t cut your throats. Maybe he will yet. And how did you know I was going to meet him?”
“You told us,” Scotty said. “So don’t get careless with your gun, because if we got hurt, our friends Page 38
would pass the word around that you told us, and it would be your throat the Shark would work on.”
Jerrold chuckled again, and there was merriment in it this time. “All right, kids. We’ll call it a stalemate. I admire your nerve, but take a tip and keep quiet about this. People who stick their noses into my business get hurt.”
He put the gun and the flashlight back into his pocket and walked to the road. He turned, waved jauntily, then hiked rapidly toward town.
“Scotty, are you all right?” Rick asked anxiously.
“Just a lump on my jaw.He’s strong as an ox. I thought he was going to jump you, so I tackled him.”
Just then the unconscious man groaned.
“He’s coming to. Watch him, Scotty. He’s got a knife.”
Scotty’s hands patted the clerk’s clothes and came up with a wicked-looking stiletto. He tossed it into the surf. “What do we do with him?”
Rick knelt beside the clerk. “Ask him some questions.” He shook the man. “What were you doing here?”
No answer.
“He won’t talk,” Scotty said. “I know his type. Better tie him up and leave him here, then we can send the police for him.”
“Good suggestion, but what with?”
Scotty pointed to his belt.
As they began to unbuckle their belts the half-caste made a convulsive movement, rose to his feet and dashed across the road, vanishing into the brush.
“Just what did we get out of this junket?” Scotty remarked sourly.
Rick scratched. “Mosquito bites,” he said ruefully.
CHAPTER VIII
The Mate’s Story
Rick looked at his watch. Amazingly, it was only a little afterhalf past nine ! A lot had certainly happened in a short time. He scratched a mosquito bite furiously and stated, “We’d better get humping. We can still get back aboard ship before theWarrens and the others return.”
Page 39
Scotty and Rick walked rapidly as they talked, and soon a few scattered lights showed thatNoumea was right ahead.
“Almost there,” Rick remarked. “By the way, where were you before the battle started?”
“Buried in the sandbank when that half-caste clerk jumped you.Wonder what was he doing there?”
Rick thought about it for a few moments. Finally he said, “I think he was there as a guard. Otherwise, why would he have jumped me like that? We know the Phantom Shark is pretty cautious. Scotty, you were closer than I. What did he look like?”
“Search me,” Scotty replied. “He not only covers his face but his body. No chance of recognition. I think you’re right about the clerk being a guard. I’m not proud of the way we let him get away. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him turn up with some more mischief like cutting the Tarpons steering cables.”
“No proof,” Rick objected. “We surmise he is a confederate of the Phantom Shark, but how could we prove it?”
“Maybe we can,” Scotty answered. “Jerrold and the Phantom Shark are going to meet again on the fifteenth of the month. Jerrold turned on his flashlight and I saw the Shark write the date in the sand.”
“Did you see how much Jerrold paid for the pearls?” Rick asked.
Scotty shook his head. “I tried, but he stepped in front of what the Shark wrote.”
Rick turned the information over in his mind. “Listen. Jerrold expected to get enough pearls to fill his string. The Shark didn’t have them. But he’ll have some more on the fifteenth. Where is he going to get them?”
“Probably rob some poor Kanaka boy,” Scotty guessed.
“Not according to your way of figuring. He couldn’t get that many pearls from a hundred Kanaka boys-not and have them match.”
“Well, however he gets them, we’ll be a good many miles away from here by the fifteenth,” Scotty said resignedly.
They had reached the city. In a few moments they were walking up the pier to greet Jack Pualani.
The big Hawaiian tilted back in his deck chair and looked them over.“A pretty sad-looking pair.”
Rick saw that Jack had a twinkle in his eye. He was curious as to what had happened. The boy decided to take a chance. “We’ll tell you the whole story,” he offered, “if you’ll keep it quiet until I have a chance to see Dr. Warren alone.”
Jack grinned. “I’ve been guilty of a lot of things in my time. But talking too much was never one of them.
Shoot.”
Rick did. He started at the moment he and Scotty had left the ship, with Scotty adding his own Page 40
comments.
Jack Pualani listened closely, and his eyes showed his admiration for the venturesome pair.
“Miracle you didn’t get hurt,” he said. “But I guess you can take care of yourselves. Too bad that cable cutter got away. Well, what’s the next step?”
“I don’t know,” Rick confessed. He sat down on the deck next to Jack’s chair and rested his back against the wheelhouse. “I’d like to know what reason the Shark had for sabotaging us. If we knew that, we’d be able to figure out the next step.”
“That’s easy,” Jack said.
Rick and Scotty looked at him in surprise.
“Can’t you guess? Only reason he could have would be to keep us away from Nanatiki for a while.”
“But he isn’t in Nanatiki. He’s here,” Rick objected.
Jack shrugged.“Any reason why he can’t leave here? He must be getting his pearls from somewhere, and both the Dutchman and the Australian said he hangs out near Nanatiki.”
It made sense. It made excellent sense, Rick thought.
“Fifteen days,” Scotty mused. “That doesn’t leave much time for him to get his pearls, does it? He has to get there by boat. That must mean he isn’t planning a robbery. If he were, he wouldn’t have set a schedule.”
Jack Pualani stood up and stretched. “Better change your clothes. I’ll go into the galley and make us some chocolate, then, when you get back, I’ll spin you a yarn about the Phantom Shark.”
A few minutes later the boys and Jack Pualani were seated on deck with hot cups of chocolate. But before Jack had a chance to begin his yarn there was a hail from the dock. It was theWarrens and Barby and Chahda returning from the governor’s palace. TheWarrens said good night and gave Barbara a very pointed hint about the efficacy of beauty sleep. But when she found out that Jack Pualani was in the midst of a story she and Chahda hung back.
Jack took time out to light a very large and very odorous pipe. “I’d heard about the Phantom Shark for a long while,” he began, “but I always dismissed the yarn as being folklore. We Hawaiians have a lot of folk stories about shark gods, and man-sharks, and things like that.”
“Was this before the war?” Back asked.
“No. It was about two years ago. As I said, I thought the stories were just good yams. But then I found out a friend of mine had actually seen the Phantom Shark.”
They were listening attentively.
“A lot of the stories about the Phantom Shark described the pearls he had. Some even said they were as big as golf balls. Pearls don’t grow that big, of course. I heard tales that he had sold pearls to tourists, and that was a new wrinkle. When a mythical shark god starts being a salesman, I give up. Anyway, the Page 41
story my friend told me was about a rich tourist. He had been trying to match up a set of pearls for his daughter’s wedding present. He was in a hurry, and he didn’t care how much he paid. He could probably have matched the set at a pearl dealer’s, except for one thing: The set was made up of black pearls.”
Rick had never before heard of black pearls. “’That’s a funny color to collect,” he said.
“They’re very rare, and very valuable,” Barby said. “What kind of set was it?”
&nb
sp; “Earrings, a bracelet, and a pendant.He had bought some in Java, some in the SuluSea region, and some inCeylon . He had about ten, and he needed about five more. Well, he was staying at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. One day he got back from dinner, and there was a typewritten note on his telephone stand. It said that if he wanted enough black pearls to finish the set, he was to row a boat to a point just outside of KewaloBasin . He was to tell no one. He was to bring a hundred thousand dollars in medium denomination bills, and he had ten days to get the cash. The pearls would be in a can. If he wanted them, he was to take them and leave the money. If not, he could just row back to shore and forget it. He could go by daylight, just before evening, so he could be sure robbery wasn’t in the wind.” “Was the note signed?” Scotty asked. “No. But wrapped in it was a single shark’s tooth.” “Go on,” Barby pleaded.
“What did he do?” “He cabled his bank inNew York , and had a courier sent toHawaii by air with the money. He had the fever, all right. Man starts matching pearls and it gets him. Well, just as instructed, he rowed out past the reef, and found a big tin floating there. It was one of those five-gallon gasoline tins with a screw top. Inside were five black pearls, and they were just exactly what he wanted. There was even an odd-shaped one that was perfect for a pendant. This man took the pearls, put his money in the can,screwed the cover on tight and rowed back to shore. He was perfectly satisfied with the deal. He figured he had kept his part of the bargain, so he decided there was nothing wrong in seeing what happened to the money. He invited a few friends to keep watch with him. They all borrowed powerful glasses, then went up on the roof of the hotel, just about dusk. They could see the can bobbing around the swell. Did I say it was anchored? With a rope tied to a big hunk of coral.”
“What a chance,” Rick said longingly. “He must have used a small boat. They could have trailed him.”
“Not so fast. Listen to the rest. These people watched until it was almost dark, then there was a swirl of water next to the can. They saw it clearly. They also saw a giant silver fin. The can vanished under the water, and so did the fin. And that was all there was to it.”
Jack paused. “Sounds incredible, doesn’t it? But remember there were reliable witnesses, including my friend, and they all saw the same thing. They got a powerboat and went out to where the can had been. It was only about ten feet deep. My friend went over the side and hunted on the bottom, using the ship’s searchlight to see by. He found the rope, and the coral it was tied to. There was no sign of the can. He brought the rope up and they examined it. The upper end had been sheared, as though a knife had been used. A shark could have sheared it in the same way.”