Five miles back toward home, Rick stopped at another gas station and asked the attendant to look at the oil. None was needed, so the boys bought another pair of c.o.kes and engaged the man in conversation.
"Ever see any flying saucers in this area?" Rick asked.
"Nope. My brother did though, late one afternoon when he was on duty."
Scotty took out the notebook. "We"re trying to get some information about them for a story we"re writing. Do you remember when it was?"
"Let"s see. I was workin" in the evenin" that day, so it must have been a Sat.u.r.day. Last month, it was. Oh, I recall it now. Next day I took the kids to my mother"s. It was her birthday. That would make it the tenth."
"Where was your brother when he saw it?" Rick queried.
"Pumpin" gas. Right here. He said it sort of came up over the trees, glittering like fire." The attendant pointed to a patch of trees down the road. The direction was almost directly southwest.
Scotty scribbled in the notebook. "Any other details you remember? What time in the afternoon was it?"
"Between four and five. Can"t say exactly. He was still buzzin" when I came on duty at six. Wanted to call the newspapers, but I talked him out of it. People would think he was a fool."
"Did you?" Rick asked quietly.
"Nope. I know Chick. He"s got a straight head on him. It may not have been a flyin" saucer, but you can bet it wasn"t anythin" common, or anythin" he"d seen before."
"Score one," Scotty said triumphantly as they drove off.
"One flying saucer doesn"t make a Martian invasion," Rick reminded him.
"Let"s keep it up."
By lunchtime they had interviewed a dozen people who claimed to have seen flying saucers. All details of the sightings had been noted in Scotty"s book. During lunch, at a small restaurant in the old town of Oxford, they scored three more times after interviews with fishermen.
After lunch, they crossed the Choptank and headed south to the little town of Vienna. From there the route led to the sh.o.r.e town of Elliott, back to Vienna, and past the corner of Delaware to Salisbury, a good-sized town on the Maryland Eastern Sh.o.r.e.
There was a newspaper office in Salisbury. A chat with the editor and a quick skim through the back files added more data to the growing list.
Rick had a hunch there was a pattern shaping up, but he could not be sure until the information was all laid out for examination.
By the time the boys met Steve at the small airport, both Rick and Scotty had writer"s cramp, and the notebook was nearly used up. They had recorded over half a hundred sightings.
Steve listened to a report of their day with an appreciative smile.
"Nothing like a mystery for keeping you two out of mischief," he told them. "Want to eat out? Or cook a steak in the yard?"
"Eat out," Scotty said promptly.
"We can get steak at home," Rick added. "But not Chesapeake Bay clam fritters or Maryland crab cakes."
Steve had a favorite place of his own, a small, nondescript joint called "Louie"s Crab House" up the Choptank River, near the town of Denton.
There, on wooden trestle tables covered with brown wrapping paper, he introduced them to a favorite Chesapeake Bay pastime known as a "crab feast."
The waiter set wooden blocks in front of them, with a round piece of hardwood, a fork, and a sharp paring knife. A stack of paper napkins was supplied, and individual pots of melted b.u.t.ter completed the setting.
The boys waited impatiently, hungry, but trusting Steve"s word that the result was worth the wait. The waiter reappeared carrying a huge tray, stacked with a towering pyramid of whole crabs, steaming and red, coated with the spices in which they had been cooked. Placing the tray on the table, the waiter asked, "Anything else?"
Scotty said, dazed, "I don"t believe there"s anything else left in the kitchen. We have all the crabs in the world right here."
"Only three dozen," the waiter said. "Jumbos, of course. You want anything, you yell."
Unidentified flying objects were forgotten as Steve initiated them into the proper method of eating fresh crab. It turned out to be quite an art, but one that they mastered quickly. Soon all three of them were munching succulent back-fin crab meat drenched in fresh b.u.t.ter. The wooden block served as an anvil, and the round hardwood piece as a hammer for cracking claws. The paring knife was used for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and for scooping out delicious bits of meat. The fork was utilized to persuade small tidbits to leave their sh.e.l.l cages. Three or four napkins were used between each tidbit to mop b.u.t.tery hands, and even chins, down which the b.u.t.ter sometimes dripped. It was a feast, indeed.
"If I hadn"t been a heavy eater before, I"d be one after this," Scotty observed happily.
"Beats hunting flying stingarees," Rick agreed. "Pa.s.s another crab, please."
Not until the table had been cleared by the waiter, who simply removed the utensils and tray, then wrapped up all the sh.e.l.ls in the brown paper and carried it off, did the conversation return to the mystery.
Rick hadn"t told Steve of last night"s meeting with the white-haired man or of the thinly veiled warning. He described them now in detail.
"Odd," Steve said. "This familiar face needs identifying. No normal person worries about anyone asking casual questions. That"s a sure mark of insecurity. In other words, the man is afraid. People who are afraid often have something to hide. Do you have any reason to think he may be tied up with the flying stingarees or saucers?"
"None at all," Rick answered.
"Do you know where Calvert"s Favor is?" Scotty asked. "The location wasn"t given in your books. There was quite a lot about the plantation house."
"No, never heard of the place. But we"ll find out when we pa.s.s through Cambridge. I know a man there who knows everything about this area."
Steve held out his hand. "Let"s see your notebook."
Scotty handed it over. The young agent leafed through it rapidly.
"That"s some list. If I had any doubt that people were seeing things, it"s gone now. How are you going to arrange the data?"
"In tables, and on a map," Rick explained.
"Fine. We can do it tonight. Want anything else?"
Scotty groaned. "I couldn"t even drink a gla.s.s of water."
"Same here," Rick agreed.
"Then let"s leave the crabs behind and take a ride."
On the way back to Cambridge, Steve Ames mused aloud. "You know, it"s an odd world. A few years ago there were flying saucer reports by the dozen. Each one was given lots of newspaper s.p.a.ce. The Air Force conducted investigations. Then flying saucers got unpopular, the Air Force closed its project, and the newspapers wrote a funny story every time a report came in. Now we have a rash of sightings in one small area. People talk about it, but no one gets excited. The authorities brush it off as just hok.u.m. Yet, your investigation today shows that people are seeing _something_, even if we don"t know what."
Rick nodded thoughtfully. "What"s even odder is that a well-known man disappears, people search for him for a couple of days, and then do nothing but talk about it. The police aren"t even interested, so far as we can tell."
Steve laughed. "You"re right. But look at it in another way. a.s.sume you"re the local policeman. Someone rushes in and tells you that Joe Doakes has been carried off by a flying saucer. You don"t believe in flying saucers, but you know Doakes. You investigate. His boat has been found, but his body is missing. What do you a.s.sume? That he was really toted off by some mysterious object? Nope. You a.s.sume he was hurt or killed falling out of the boat. You know that sharks come into the bay and sometimes swim up creeks. You figure that the currents sometimes act in odd ways, depending on the winds. You figure a dozen natural kinds of things, none connected with mysterious flying objects. You call a coroner"s jury, and not a man on it is willing to say for the record that he believes in flying saucers. What happens?"
"Case closed," Scotty said slowly, "because the body isn"t around. No proof of death, or even of accident. Pending proof of death--meaning the body--the jury finds that Joe Doakes is missing under mysterious circ.u.mstances and may have met with death or an accident by misadventure while engaged in his lawful business of crabbing."
"That"s about it," Steve agreed. "It isn"t really odd when you look at it that way. But you can bet the case isn"t closed. It"s just inactive, until something turns up. Remember there"s no detective squad in a small town."
There was a combination gas station and store on the outskirts of Cambridge. Steve drove in and honked the horn. A young boy looked out of the store and called, "Howdy, Steve. Want gas?"
"Not tonight, Jimmy. Ask your grandfather where Calvert"s Favor is located, will you?"