"Not on these." But there was more to do along other lines. He was waiting for word from JANIG. Barby and Jan disappeared and returned in a few moments with iced drinks. The boys accepted them gratefully. It was a warm day.
"How about a swim?" Scotty suggested.
Rick was about to point out that they might have work to do when Joe Blake, the JANIG agent in charge at the laboratory, hailed him. Rick ran to meet the agent.
"The boys on the mainland didn't turn up a thing," Blake reported. "They searched from a half mile south of the pier to a half mile north. No pram anywhere."
Rick snapped his fingers. "I had a hunch they wouldn't! Okay. I'm going to take off right now and search the coast. If that pram wasn't connected with the attack on Duke and Jerry, I'll eat it."
"Good luck," Blake said. "Let me know if you need any help."
Rick hurried back to the porch. The JANIG scout team had reported early in the morning that the pram was gone from the pier. They had been covering the Whiteside area most of the night, searching for some sign of the pair that had attacked Rick's friends, but had turned up nothing suspicious.
Then, at Rick's suggestion, they had undertaken a search for the pram. His point was simply that he had never seen a pram in the Whiteside area—something that strangers would not have known. They might have figured that tying up in plain sight was the best way of hiding their boat. It would have been, if prams had been more common.
He motioned to Scotty. "Let's go. No sign of the pram."
Barby rose instantly. "Can we go with you?"