Hydrofoil Mystery (3 page)

Was he trying to get my money? Was he tricking me? I tightened the hold on my cash.

“Come on, lad, do you think I'm trying to take your few coins?” Herbie asked.

“No,” I lied uncomfortably. Hesitantly I turned over the money. I watched him walk over to the other sailor. I felt better when I saw them exchange a few words I couldn't hear, then Herbie pointed in my direction and pressed the coins into the other man's hand.

I looked away and around the ship. It was fairly large for a ferry. Other sailors were working on the deck, and a few passengers milled around or stood at the railing looking out at the water. It was calm, and except for the wake of the ferry there was hardly a ripple on the surface. The sun was bright and there weren't any clouds anywhere in the sky. What little breeze there was carried the smell of the baked goods from the lounge. I inhaled deeply and my stomach rumbled in response.

“Here you go, laddie.”
I turned around. It was Herbie, and he was holding out a cup of steaming coffee and a bun split down the middle with orange marmalade peeking out.

“Take these,” he said.

“I'm not hungry,” I immediately replied.

“First thing, you are hungry. Second, even if you weren't you'd still want to sink your teeth into this bun. Now take them!” he ordered. “And don't worry none about the money.”

My eyes fell to my feet.

“No crime in being a little short. I've been there a few times myself. If it makes it any easier, think of it as a loan.”

“A loan?”

“Yep. Baddeck is a small place. We'll run into each other a few times during the summer. You pay me back by buying me a coffee. Okay?”

“Thanks,” I said as I reached out and took the offerings. The bun was still warm and I took a big bite. It was delicious! A little dribble of warm marmalade escaped from the corner of my mouth and started to run down toward my chin. I flicked out my tongue and captured it before it could get away.

“Where are you going to be working?” Herbie asked. “At the Bell place,” I answered reluctantly.

“Then you'll surely have the money to pay me back.

No matter what people may say about old man Bell, nobody ever questioned his money. He pays good and he pays on time.”

“What do people say about Bell?” I asked. I wondered if he had a reputation for being nasty with his hired hands
and that's why he had to get help from so far away, because none of the locals would work for him.

“Some people say he's a bit batty.”

“Batty?” I asked.

“You know … a little touched,” Herbie replied, tapping a finger against the side of his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Man is reported to spend most of his nights walking around the back roads of the county. Just wandering, sometimes muttering to his self or laughing out loud. Doesn't even have the sense to come inside when it starts to rain—just keeps walking. And you hear about all manner of peculiarities up at that estate.” He paused. “Building and flying gigantic kites, and experiments with sheep and … but I shouldn't be spreading rumours about things I don't know.”

What I wanted him to do was spread more than a little bit of the rumours. Or maybe I wished he'd said nothing at all. Even I knew a little bit about Alexander Graham Bell. The telephone was just one of his inventions. The way I'd heard it, there was nothing he wouldn't experiment with if it took his fancy. He'd even done some work on steam-powered aircraft.

“But you know it's just like they say,” Herbie explained, “genius and insanity are opposite sides of the same coin, and the man is a genius … even if he is batty.”

I turned to face out over the railing onto the lake. What had my mother gotten me into? She had arranged for the job through an old grade school friend, Mrs. McCauley-Brown, who was the head of Bell's household staff. Maybe I should have argued more with her, maybe I should have
just refused to go. Then again, knowing my mother, she might have tried to put me over her shoulder and carry me to the train. I was certainly much bigger than her, but nobody was more determined. She was probably the most stubborn person I'd ever met. More than once she'd told me that saying somebody was a stubborn Scotsman was like saying the same thing twice.

I couldn't help but wonder if things might have been different if my father had been around more. He probably wouldn't have made me go. But then again, if he were at home I probably would have wanted to leave.

“My name's Herbert Campbell. My friends call me Herbie. What's your name, son?”

“Billy McCracken.”

“Pleased to meet you, Billy,” he said, thrusting out his hand.

I popped the last of my bun into my mouth and shook his hand.

“This is a nice ship. What is it, about a hundred and twenty feet in length?”

“Yeah, almost exactly. One hundred and twenty-three,” Herbie answered.

“What does she displace?”

“About 350 tons, empty, and up to 420 fully loaded.” “Must be a shallow keel. How many feet of water does she need under her?”

“Under five feet,” Herbie said. “Where'd you learn about ships, Billy?”

“My father.”

“He's a sailor is he?”

“Merchant marine. Cargo ships mostly … Atlantic crossings.”

“That's real sailing, not like this little delivery boat. This is nothing but a glorified grocery boat!” Herbie exclaimed. “And of course, except for that one lad you met when you came on board, this ship is all crewed by old men. The younger sailors are all working on the Atlantic crossing, or at war. I worked the North Atlantic myself for over thirty years. Had two ships go down underneath me and lived to tell of it.

“In those days, of course, I only had to worry about wind, waves and ice. Now with the war those ships have to be dodging German submarines … there's been a terrible toll taken … I hear that more than four hundred ships went down in April alone, around 875,000 tons to the bottom of the …” Herbie stopped and looked up at me. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking to you about such things, what with your father and all.”

“That's all right,” I said softly. It wasn't like he was telling me something that I didn't know. I read the shipping reports in the newspapers listing the names of the ships that had been sunk. Since my father was crewing on so many different ships, we didn't even know the name of the ship he was on most of the time. The only way we'd ever find out if he was lost was if we received a visit from the government man—going from house to house to tell a woman and her children that their man's ship had gone down.

The only thing worse than him coming to our door would be if it happened when I couldn't be there with my mother. No matter what I knew, she still loved him.

Chapter Three

I
SPENT THE REST OF
the voyage standing at the railing, staring out over the water. We never seemed to stray very far from land, and the ship put in at three small towns before I overheard another passenger say that Baddeck was on the horizon.

The first things to appear were the tall, thin spires of two churches. Next I could start to make out the outlines of buildings. Everything seemed to be painted a bright white and stood out against the dark greens and browns of the surrounding countryside. As we cruised in toward the town wharf, I could see a series of smaller wooden buildings, probably stores and houses, as well as a number of larger stone and brick structures. Then, well away from the village, my eye was caught by the sight of a large building, high on a hill, set back from the water's edge. There were all sorts of peaks and sections to the place, and while I couldn't be sure, I thought this must be the Bell mansion.

With a slight bump, the
Blue Hill
touched in at the wharf. I circled around to the front of the vessel, where I'd set down my bag. The sailors were busy tying off the ship while the passengers were gathering their possessions and lining up to leave as soon as the gangplank was
set into place. I fell in behind the others and the line soon began moving. I stepped off the ship and began walking down the wharf toward the town.

“Hey, Billy!” a voice called out behind me.

I turned around. It was Herbie.

“I'll be seeing you around town. Don't be forgetting about my coffee!”

I smiled, and waved.

He smiled back and returned to making the bow fast to the wharf.

It was obvious Baddeck wasn't a big place, but it certainly was active. People, many of the men dressed in fancy waistcoats and the women wearing their Sunday-best dresses and big fancy hats, milled along the plank walkways that lined the wide dirt street. A number of horses and wagons were tied up or moving slowly up the road. I wondered if there was something special going on in town, and then I remembered it was Sunday, and these people had probably just left one of the big churches whose spires were so visible from out on the water. Mother and Sarah were probably just leaving church now. I didn't know where my father was—at sea or in port— but I did know he wasn't in church.

There were also two buildings, a hotel and a courthouse, which loomed larger than the surrounding stores. The courthouse wasn't of any interest to me, but I'd never heard of a hotel that wasn't home to an occasional card or dice game.

“You look lost, son.”

I looked over. A policeman stood in front of me, in a polished uniform.

“Nope, I'm not lost.”

“Did you come in on the morning ferry?” he asked. He had a distinctive Irish accent.

“Yes, I did,” I answered in surprise. How did he know? “Don't look so shocked. It's my job to keep track of the comings and goings of everybody, and you're one of only a few strangers on this whole street. What's your name and business in Baddeck?”

“I'm going to be working at the Bell mansion,” I answered, giving him only part of what he'd requested.

“It's called Beinn Bhreagh.”

“Beinn what?” I asked.

“Beinn Bhreagh. It's Gaelic for ‘beautiful mountain.'

That's the name Mr. and Mrs. Bell gave to their place when they first came to Baddeck.”

“Is it that big place up on the hill?”

“Yes, it is. You probably saw it from the ferry. Best way to get there is to walk along the main road out of town to the east. It'll take you less than twenty minutes … fifteen, if you walk with determination.”

“Thanks. I better get going,” I said and turned to walk away.

“Hold on a second,” the officer instructed, and I stopped in my tracks.

“My name is Corporal O'Malley, and you were forgetting to tell me your name.”

“Um … Billy McCracken.”

“Well, Mr. McCracken, it was a pleasure to meet you, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you around town occasionally. After all, there's nothing that goes on in these parts that I'm not aware of. Nothing. Good day to you,” he
said, and he spun on his heel and marched off down the street, the soles of his boots clicking against the plank sidewalk.

This certainly didn't seem like the “friendly” country reception I'd expected. I stepped down off the crowded walk and onto the street, starting off in the opposite direction.

I
ENTERED THE PROPERTY
through an arched gate in a low stone wall that stretched out in both directions and curved out of sight. The house was set well back from the road, and the driveway was long and better maintained than the road running by the estate. The house was gigantic, and the closer I got the larger it seemed to become. The lower levels were constructed of fieldstone, topped by green clapboard for two storeys, then covered by a dark brown roof. The roof was broken up by a few dormer windows and six different sets of chimneys poking up into the sky. The windows and trim were painted white, and a large deck and a glass-enclosed sunroom stretched most of the way across the front of the house. Off to the side stood two flagpoles; at the top of one fluttered the “Stars and Stripes,” while a Union Jack adorned the second. Farther back I could see a number of other buildings; at least two of them looked even bigger than the house. I wondered what they were for. A few people were moving in the distance. Cautiously I approached the house.

I walked along the verandah and stopped in front of a large door. I took a deep breath, reached out and pushed the doorbell. A harsh ringing came from within the house. Almost immediately I heard the sound of
rushing footsteps and the door was flung open. A young woman in an apron stood before me.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I'm here to see Mrs. McCauley-Brown.”

“Are you now? And does she know you're coming?” “Yes, she does, but she didn't know I was coming today exactly … just sometime this week, I think.”

“I see. Step in and I'll get her,” the woman said, holding the door open wide.

As soon as I stepped in she closed the door behind me and rushed off. I looked around the entranceway. There was a large stone fireplace off to the side and another wall was covered by shelves crammed with books. The carpeting was fancy and the ceiling extended high above my head.

“Ahh, you must be Billy!” a plump, motherly woman called out as she rushed into the room and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly. She released her grip and took a step back, still holding me by the shoulders. “And you look so much like your mother! You have Cora's eyes and nose for sure you do, for sure!”

“I guess … I mean … here,” I said, pulling a letter out of my pocket. “This is from my mother.”

“Wonderful! Bless her heart. Now come with me and I'll have a chance to read it.” She opened the front door and motioned for me to go back outside. I felt confused but followed her direction. She led me along the porch, down a set of steps and around to the side of the house. “That's the main entrance, Billy, and it's just for guests of the Bells'. You shan't be using that any more. When you come up to the main house, you need to be coming in through this door.”
Of course, I thought, servants always use the back door so they don't mix with the fancy folks.