twisted on a rock. Whit caught her before she could pitch forward, but the rock skipped over the ledge formed by the gravel shoulder of the road and dislodged a nest of pebbles, which tumbled noisily into the sea.
'Oh!' Barbara bit her lip in disgust. The clamor had aroused swift activity aboard the houseboat. From across the water, she heard the echo of running feet, followed by aloud, hollow thud. Seconds later, a sputtering engine growled twice before resolving itself into a steady putt-putt fading toward the open sea.
Whit had sprinted ahead, but he was unable to catch more than a shadowy glimpse of the figure crouching in the motor boat.
'He's half a mile away by now,' he said gloomily, striding back.
'I really put my foot into it that time,' Barbara scolded herself. 'Whit, I am sorry!'
'Forget it-we had about one chance in a thousand, anyway. The slightest noise would have alerted him. You notice he had the motorboat all primed for a quick getaway.'
Clinging to Whit's arm, Barbara hobbled mournfully along. Even though he didn't blame her for the blunder, she could sense his deep disappointment. An answer to the mystery of the Albatross had been almost within his grasp-until she had kicked it out of his reach.
'Perhaps we frightened him away before he found whatever he came for.' She offered the faint consolation hopefully.
Whit allowed her to precede him up the gangplank, which swayed creakingly in the night breeze, then strode across the deck. 'I'm half-inclined to hope that he got it,' he growled. 'Maybe then we'd get a little peace and-' He bit off the sentence as, wrenching open the cabin door, his eyes fell upon the wild disarray inside.
'Oh, what a mess!' Barbara gasped.
Whit snapped on the light powered by the boat's generator. Following him inside, Barbara saw that the bunks had been ripped apart and the heavy chairs upended. Books, papers, pictures were strewn about and tossed carelessly into corners. Even the light fixture had been unscrewed, leaving the bare bulb glaring from the ceiling.
'The next room is in even worse shape,' Whit reported glumly, returning from a hasty inspection tour. 'Looks as if he had just started on the galley-only a couple of cupboards disturbed there.'
'That's a good sign,' Barbara offered hopefully. 'If he was still searching when we interrupted him, it means he didn't find what he was looking for. I imagine he was slowed down considerably by having to rely on a flashlight.'
'Maybe we ought to hold 'open houseboat', ' Whit grumbled. 'Burglars welcome Tuesdays and Thursdays.'
He wrestled a chair upright and climbed on the seat to replace the light fixture. Barbara stooped to collect the scattered books and papers. 'Are you going to notify the police?' she asked.
'I don't see what good it would do. Anyone would know better than to leave his fingerprints lying around. And I'm afraid that if this got into the papers the unpleasant advance publicity might jinx our restaurant business.'
'Yes, I can see that people might be wary of a place that is reputed to have the crown jewels or a pirate treasure stashed away in a sliding bulkhead,' Barbara agreed. She stacked a handful of books on the shelf. 'Whit what do you suppose it is?'
'To me, it looks like a place that's just had a rodeo in it,' observed a wry voice behind them.
Barbara whirled to see Greg leaning against the doorframe.
'You won't think it's so funny when you have to sleep on a mattress that's had half its stuffing gouged out,' Whit predicted.
While he and Barbara sketched in the details of the prowler's discovery and escape, Greg rolled up his sleeves and helped them restore order to the cabin.
'I can't see that anything is missing,' he said presently.
'Would we know if it was?' Whit countered.
'I don't believe the burglar was after anything you boys own,' Barbara said. 'I have an idea he thinks Lance Shelby concealed something of value here.'
'Lance Shelby!' Greg exclaimed. 'Was this his houseboat?'
'Why, yes.' Barbara eyed him curiously. 'Did you know him?'
'He visited the base early this month,' Greg said. 'He had been granted permission to interview Admiral Billingsly. A lot of the brass sat in on the conference, and since I was acting as the admiral's aide at the time, I stayed during the interview. Saw quite a lot of Shelby.'
'You'd have thought he was the President coming to bestow a couple of light cruisers on the fleet, the way everyone catered to him,' Whit contributed. He snapped his fingers. 'Speaking of Lance Shelby, didn't Buck Younger trigger off that riot in front of the admiral's quarters the same evening the great newsman arrived?'
Greg nodded. 'What a brawl! Took every Shore Patrolman in Port Dixon to break it up. I don't think anyone ever did discover what it was all about, but Buck was headed for a long stretch in the brig because of it.'
'He broke out a couple of days later, though, and nobody's seen him since.' Whit frowned suddenly. 'And wasn't it the very next morning that they discovered-'
Barbara intercepted the warning look that Greg shot his friend. 'Discovered what?' she prompted.
'Me and my big mouth!' Whit groaned. 'Sorry Miss T., Military Secret.'
Barbara did not press him. For a moment, though, the conversational trend had reminded her of something, some obscure piece of information that she had recently garnered while reading or watching a news telecast. The vague memory skipped away before her brain could really take hold of it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Barbara slept late the next morning, awaking barely in time to shower and dress before attending church services. Although invited to come along, she had decided against accompanying Regina to her aunt's home, where the entire Prescott family planned to gather for a relative's birthday party. Instead, she purchased a fat Sunday newspaper and carried it to a park bench.
'Houses, flats-here we are, apartments, furnished,' she murmured, creasing open the want-ads section. Unless she found an apartment within the next three weeks she would have no choice but to give up her job and return to Los Angeles.
How disgusting! she fretted, when the tightly crammed column revealed nothing suitable in a moderate price range. If only I had left work early last Friday. Just an hour sooner and I would have had first crack at the houseboat.
Then she was forced to smile. The situation wasn't quite that desperate yet. And, she reminded herself, Whit intended to make very good use of the Albatross. In any case, she would have found it difficult to cope with the bewildering assortment of persons who continued to demonstrate their interest in the houseboat-even to the point of illegal entry.
'I'd like to know if that awful Mr. Smith was our burglar of last night,' Barbara mused aloud.
She considered it quite likely that the stocky foreigner was the culprit. But then again, it might also have been the man with the Southern drawl.
'If Whit was right and the man he saw in the car was Buck Younger, what connection might he have with the Albatross?' she asked herself.
The mention of the brawling Texan reminded her of the abruptly terminated conversation of the night before. What sort of military secret could possibly have involved a rough and tumble sailor like Buck Younger? Again, she struggled to retrieve the dim memory that had teased her brain, but whatever it was had firmly entrenched itself in her subconscious, and no amount of puzzling could coax it out.
Well, anyway, I'll bet the mystery has something to do with Lance Shelby, Barbara thought, abandoning side issues like Buck Younger. Think of the secrets a famous newspaperman might uncover!
Perhaps Lance Shelby had obtained documents which incriminated a gang of racketeers. These criminals would certainly attempt to recover such evidence before the police learned of the newspaperman's discovery. But why such concentration on the houseboat? Why not search his desk at the Courier office-or his apartment?
How do I know they haven't? Barbara thought suddenly. With reporters and cameramen bustling in and out of
