“When will you come back?” Derek asked.
“As soon as I can. As soon as I can free Biff. Don’t let Dietz get his hands on you while I’m gone.”
“I won’t,” Derek declared. “I’m going to spend the time, until you and Biff return, looking for my father.”
CHAPTER XV
Almost Away
Charles Keene was winging his way back to Curaçao. Derek Zook was in La Trinité across the Island of Martinique from Fort-de-France. Biff Brewster was still a prisoner in the cellhouse outside Willemstad. Herman Dietz and Specks Cade were at the Fisheries Commission Office in Fort-de-France, giving a cowering clerk a very hard time.
A tall, gaunt man, his body wasted away by a long siege of fever, lay on a narrow cot in a monastery high in the Pitons du Carbet.
The time was approaching when all these people would be drawn closer and closer together, the magnet attracting them being a small but rich pearl fishery in the Baie du Trésor.
When Charlie dropped Derek off at La Trinité, he had had one suggestion as to where the Dutch lad could best start his search for his father.
“The post office, Derek,” Charles Keene had said. “That would be your best bet. Your letter and mine both bore the La Trinité postmark. See what you can find out there.”
Derek was now following Charles Keene’s advice.