Food, ice-drip trays and vegetables in their dry-air receptacles, were all they discovered by a painstaking search. A glance into the “hydrator” packed with vegetables, crisp lettuce, long endive, and other varieties, a foray behind and under everything satisfied them that another clue had “gone West”—and left them very much out of favor.
No matter how closely they examined the built-in box, with its glossy enamel and bright, aluminum trays, nothing except food and drinkables in bottles revealed themselves.
And that ended it!
“I thought that was how it would turn out,” Jeff, coming from the after deck, declared.
“I’m disgusted with the whole thing,” the yacht owner grumbled. “I ought to have known better than to trust three young men under seventeen to solve such a mystery.”
He reflected for a moment and then spoke his final word.
“I think I shall land you at a Brooklyn wharf, boys, and let you go home.”
“See what Friday, the thirteenth, does for you?” Jeff said.
Neither of the chums had a word to answer.
“The date has nothing to do with it,” Mr. Everdail snapped. “It’s their lack of self-control and experience.” He turned and stalked out of the galley and after him, sorry for the three members of the disbanded Sky Patrol, Jeff moved.