Lieutenant Ames followed Sandy over the side and joined him on the deck of the little sloop, where he examined the holes in the sail and the furrows in the deck and the coamings. “They sure came close!” he said. “You’re pretty lucky to be here in one piece now.” He ran his finger thoughtfully along a deep scar in the coaming near where Sandy’s head had been, and whistled low when he saw the splintered spot on the tiller.
Lieutenant Ames followed Sandy below in search of the spare mooring line. (The original one had been left dangling from the deck of the freighter.) He stood stooped over in the low cabin, surveying the trim accommodations. At last, Sandy found a line that would do, stowed away up forward with the anchor.
Joining Ames in the cabin, he pointed to the locker above the compact galley. “There’s where we found the money when we went looking for the canned food,” he said. “It was filled up all the way to here,” he indicated, sliding back the locker door.
“What do you mean, was?” the Coast Guard officer asked with a gasp. The open locker door revealed the stacked counterfeit, untouched, just as the boys had first seen it!
“Whew!” Sandy sighed. “Well, I guess that takes care of our case against Jones!”
As they towed the sloop back to Cliffport, heading into the bright colors of a Pacific sunrise, they pieced together what must have happened.
“From what we overheard on the freighter,” Sandy said, “Jones and the freighter captain were both dissatisfied with the original deal they had made for the counterfeit money. Jones wanted more for the stuff, because of the risk he had run with us and because of the added chances he was taking if we disappeared from Cliffport. A local investigation of our disappearance might turn up someone who had seen us near his island.”
“Right,” Jerry added. “And the Captain wanted a larger share than usual for himself because of the risk he was running in getting rid of us for Jones. They bargained about it for a long time.”
Lieutenant Ames nodded. “And Jones wasn’t taking any chances by bringing the money on board until his deal had been settled. He must have been going for it when you saw him and the Captain shaking hands on deck. And the reason he was so desperate when he saw you sailing off was that he knew you were not only escaping, but escaping with the evidence!”
“I guess it’s not always a bad thing,” Sandy laughed, “to make the same mistake twice!”