“What did you discover, Dick?”
At Sandy’s cry his chum, as well as the oldest Sky Patrol, turned.
“Nothing!” said Dick.
He made a disgusted gesture toward the open front of the refrigerating box, to the four ice cube trays lying empty on the galley4 floor.
“They were as empty as our heads!” Larry was dispirited.
177
“Sure they were!” the chef, who had observed their invasion of his cookery compartment5 with amazement6, spoke7 up. “I had to use all of ’em to freeze the cubes for your dinner. No use to fill ’em again till I wash ’em up, so I left ’em out while I ‘defrost’ the box—cut off the current and let the box get warm enough to melt the frost that collects when you freeze a lot of cubes.”
He indicated the refrigerating unit which had heavy ice clinging wherever the chill had congealed8 the moisture from the evaporation9 of the water.
“Any other trays?” Mr. Everdail snapped.
“Only them, sir.” The chef threw all the compartments10 wide.
Food, ice-drip trays and vegetables in their dry-air receptacles, were all they discovered by a painstaking11 search. A glance into the “hydrator” packed with vegetables, crisp lettuce12, 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 glossy13 enamel14 and bright, aluminum15 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.
178
“I’m disgusted with the whole thing,” the yacht owner grumbled16. “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 wharf17, 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.
“Sorry, buddies,” he said, shaking hands at the pier18 to which the yacht tied up briefly19. “Don’t let it stand between your coming out to that-there new airport once in awhile to see me. I guess if Atley is through with you he’ll be done with my crate20 too, so maybe we’ll meet up one of these days soon. If we do, and I have the money for gas and oil, Larry, you get some more flying instruction. You may not be a crackerjack detective, but when it comes to handling that-there crate, you rate mighty21 good.”
179
He said a pleasant word to each of the other two, added a friendly clap on the arm and, with Mr. Everdail saying a brief, if not very angry farewell, the Sky Patrol quit its service, finished its air work and took to its feet.
Explanations at home accounted for the termination of their stay, which had been arranged by telephone at the beginning; and it seemed to them that the Everdail Emerald mystery was, as Dick dolefully said, “a closed book without any last pages.”
So despondent22 was Larry at his failure as a sleuth that he did not like to discuss their adventures with his chums.
His depression was more because his air training was over than from a real sense of failure. To Larry, one only failed when one failed to do his best—and that he had not failed in.
As a week went by Dick saw something to laugh about in their wild theories, their almost fantastic deductions23. He found an old stenographers’ note book and jotted24 down, in ludicrous terms, the many clues and suspicious incidents they had encountered.
But Sandy was really glum25.
To Sandy, the fault for their dismal26 failure lay at his own door.
180
“If I hadn’t gone off ‘half-cocked’,” he told his comrades, “maybe we would have seen something or somebody really worth following up.”
He made a vigorous mental resolve never to be caught in such a trap again.
That very afternoon he passed a news stand and was chained in his tracks by a small headline in black type at one corner of a paper, in a “box,” or enclosure of ruled lines that set it off from the other news.
“Take a look at this!” he hailed Larry as the latter sat on Dick’s porch, whittling27 on the tiny struts28 of a model airplane.
Both chums read the box he thrust under their eyes.
“Ghost Again Walks In Haunted Hangar.”
Under that heading the story reminded readers that the Everdail estate had been haunted several weeks before according to report.
The millionaire, it went on, coming East to meet his wife, returning on their yacht from Europe, had investigated the uncanny events reported to him by his caretaker and others.
He had learned nothing, the reporter had gleaned29 from the caretaker of the deserted estate.
181
However, it ended, as soon as Mr. Everdail had sailed on the yacht to join his wife at their lakeside camp in Maine, uncanny light, odd noises and other strange things had become evident again, as an excited local correspondent had notified the paper. Reporters, searching, and watching, had found nothing so far but the public would be informed as soon as they discovered the secret.
“What do you think of that?” Larry looked up.
“I don’t know what to think,” Dick admitted. “No ghost does those things. A real person has some reason for doing them. Who? And why?”
“The only way we’ll find out is by going there, at night, and watching,” Larry declared.
“Not for me,” Sandy said, surprising his chums. “We were ‘kicked out’ once. If we were to be caught on the place we’d be trespassers—and if the clever news reporters are watching and don’t find anything, how can we?”
“I’m going to be too busy earning money to finish my flying lessons to bother, anyway,” Larry decided30.
“Still—” Dick began, and then, looking down the street, he became alert.
“Larry! Sandy! Look who’s coming. That’s the man who flew in the ‘phib’ with Mr. Everdail—the day the yacht came in!”
“It is!” agreed Larry. “He’s coming here. I wonder what for!”
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收听单词发音
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1
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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2
cluttered
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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3
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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4
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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5
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
congealed
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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evaporation
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| n.蒸发，消失 | |
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compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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11
painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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12
lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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13
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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14
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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15
aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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16
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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17
wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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21
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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22
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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deductions
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| 扣除( deduction的名词复数 )； 结论； 扣除的量； 推演 | |
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24
jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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25
glum
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| adj.闷闷不乐的，阴郁的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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27
whittling
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| v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 ) | |
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28
struts
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| （框架的）支杆( strut的名词复数 )； 支柱； 趾高气扬的步态； （尤指跳舞或表演时）卖弄 | |
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29
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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