CHAPTER XXI

A Gay Deception

Although the attack by Dietz and Company had had a comic ending, Biff, his uncle, and Derek realized that the next such attack might have more serious consequences.

The three had settled down on the soft white sand. No one spoke, their minds whirling with thoughts of Dietz. The giant Indian, Crunch, was a few feet removed, squatting on his huge haunches and chewing on a piece of salt grass.

Charlie Keene looked at his nephew.

“Doing some heavy thinking, Biff?” he inquired.

“Trying to, Uncle Charlie. Look ...” he paused, then went on. “I have a feeling that since Dietz failed on this try, he’ll grow even more desperate. I mean, the next time he tries, he probably won’t be so easy to scare off.”

“You’re absolutely right, Biff.”

The boy was silent again. He wanted to be clear in his own mind before he advanced the proposal he had outlined to himself.

“Derek, I don’t want you to be offended by what I’m about to say. It’s just that I want to get my thinking clear. Okay?”

“Nothing you could say, Biff, could make me feel angry with you.”

“Thanks, Derek.” The two boys looked at one another in the starlit night. The bond of friendship between them had grown stronger with each passing day.

“It’s this, Derek. Finding the pearl fishery is of secondary importance to you. Finding your father comes first.”

“You know that, Biff.”

Charles Keene waited. He knew his nephew was cooking up a plan. He also knew that most of Biff’s plans had merit.

“Well, then,” Biff continued. “As I see it, we’re faced with two big problems. First, if we abandon our search for the pearl fishery, to devote all our time to looking for your father, then we give Dietz a wide-open field to try to find the fishery. That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t, Biff. But I must find my father,” Derek replied earnestly.

“Very true, Biff,” Uncle Charlie said. “It’s quite a problem.” Charles Keene offered no suggestions. He was anxious to see how his nephew would attack the problem, what solution he might come up with.

“Uncle Charlie, a few moments ago you used the word ‘harassment.’ You said that would be the chief tactic used by Dietz to delay our locating the pearl fishery,” Biff said.

“He’ll double his efforts if I’m any judge. What’s on your mind?”

“If we can pull it off—” Biff was thinking out loud.

“Pull what off, Biff?” Derek asked.

“I’ve got a plan. I want to know what you and Uncle Charlie think of it.”

“Fire away, Biff,” his uncle invited.

“It’s this. Suppose tomorrow, we pretend to find the fishery. We’ll fire off guns. Blast off on the boat horn. Dance around the beach like mad. In full sight of Dietz, of course. Make him think we’ve located the site. Only, of course, we’ll do all this where we know there are no pearls. We’ll put on our act at one of the first places we tackled, before Dietz became so vigilant. What do you think?”

“You’ve got something there, Biff. I’m proud of you,” Biff’s uncle replied.

“It would be fun, too, to fool Dietz,” Derek chimed in excitedly.

“To make it even more convincing,” Biff went on, “we could break camp tomorrow afternoon. Pull out fast. Dietz wouldn’t follow us immediately. Not until he’d done some diving and oyster shucking himself. He’d surely want to make certain we had located the fishery.”

“You’re darn right he would,” Charles Keene said.

“That would give us a chance to get back to Trinité, slip out of town, and really concentrate on looking for your father.”

Biff paused. He looked first at Derek. He felt sure Derek would be enthusiastic about his plan. Then he looked at his uncle. He knew his uncle was considering the plan in every detail.

Uncle Charlie finally spoke. “Well, Biff, I like your plan. You didn’t know this, of course, but I was getting more and more worried about having you and Derek on the bottom of the ocean, with Dietz in his high-powered boat ready to strike at any moment. Calling off the pearl search for the time being makes a lot of sense.”

“And maybe we’ll find my father,” Derek said.

“If he’s on the island, we’ll find him,” Charles Keene said. He spoke with more conviction than he felt, to cheer the Dutch boy up. Privately, he had many doubts as to the possibility of finding Derek’s father.

“Crunch go along. Help find lost white man.”

It was the first time the giant Indian had spoken.

Biff shot a fast glance at his uncle. Charles Keene shook his head. The motion was barely noticeable. But Biff got it. He knew his uncle had some other plan for the Carib.

“I don’t know, Crunch,” Biff said. He knew the Indian wanted to remain in the party. “I think maybe my uncle has an idea where you could be a lot more help. Right, Uncle Charlie?”

Charles Keene turned to the Indian.

“If you want to be a big help to us, Crunch, it would be better for you to go back to Dietz.”

“No like Dietz. Bad man.”

“We know that, Crunch. But, while we’re gone—it will only be a few days—you can keep an eye on Dietz. You’d still be on our side, but Dietz wouldn’t know that. He’d think you were still working for him. You’d be our spy.”

“Crunch a spy?”

From the tone of the Indian’s voice, Biff could tell that Crunch was pleased. He liked the idea of being a spy.

“That’s right, Crunch,” Uncle Charlie continued. “You’d pretend to be still working for him, but you’d watch everything he did. He might even find the pearl fishery, and we’d surely want to know about that. Then, when we got back, you could tell us everything that had been going on. How about it?”

“Crunch do it. He go now.”

The Indian rose to his feet and faded into the night for his half-mile swim back to the island camp of the enemy. Biff wondered what kind of a reception he would receive from Dietz but felt sure Crunch could take care of himself.

The next morning the boys and Charles Keene were up at the first crack of dawn. Over a hasty breakfast, they went over their plan for the last time. As the sun boiled up out of the Atlantic, the three headed out to sea.

It wasn’t long before they saw Dietz’s boat come into sight, rocking above the horizon off their starboard side.

“Here we go,” Charles Keene said. “Drop anchor.”

Derek heaved the hook over. Biff was already donning his diving apparatus. Derek was only a few moments behind as Biff slipped into the warm waters of the Caribbean and made his descent.

The boys stayed down for about half an hour. When they surfaced and climbed aboard, Biff cracked open an oyster. Immediately, he let out a shout and danced up and down.

Derek joined in the deception. Charlie Keene put his head together with the two boys, and for several moments they carefully inspected an imaginary pearl in Biff’s empty hand.

They all knew Dietz was observing their actions through powerful binoculars.

With happy shouts that bounced across the waves and reached Dietz’s boat, Biff and Derek plunged back into the water. They sent up several more baskets of oysters. When they surfaced and climbed back into the boat, they shucked a few more oysters. Then Charles Keene shook each boy’s hand and clapped them on the back.

“Up anchor!” Charlie shouted. He started the motor. The boat raced back to the camp site.

“Look back over your shoulder, Uncle Charlie,” Biff said.

Dietz had brought his boat into the area just abandoned by the boys and Uncle Charlie.

“Isn’t he dropping a marking buoy right about where we were?” Biff asked.

“He sure is.”

“Then we did fool him!” Derek sang out happily.

“For the time being, at least. But we’ve got to move fast. He’ll be sampling oysters from that same bed as fast as he can.”

The three struck camp quickly. They loaded their gear into the cabin cruiser. With a triumphant blast on the boat horn and a burst of shots from Charles Keene’s gun, they pointed the bow of the cruiser toward La Trinité.

They passed within a quarter of a mile of Dietz’s boat. They could see Dietz hauling in lines holding the baskets of oysters which Specks had filled on the bottom. They didn’t see Crunch. He must have been pressed into oyster diving also.

Ten minutes later, they could barely see Dietz’s white boat bobbing on the blue water over the imaginary pearl bed.

“We pulled it off, Uncle Charlie,” Biff said.

“That we did, Biffo me lad.”

“And now we can hunt for my father,” Derek added.

“And we’ll find him, too!” Biff said confidently.

Charles Keene frowned. He erased the frown quickly, but not so fast that Biff missed it.

Biff knew his uncle believed that Brom Zook must have been lost at sea. The thought sent Biff’s high spirits plunging downward.