They got there just about noon. They saw a commercial plane come in for a landing.
They watched the plane taxi in. They had to pass right by it on the way to the seaplane. The door of the plane opened as they went by. Passengers began deplaning. Derek looked back at them. He grabbed Biff’s uncle by the arm. Charles Keene swung around in time to see Dietz and Specks come down the unloading stairs.
“Come on, don’t let them see us.” Keene took Derek by the arm and hustled him away.
“This calls for a change in plans,” Biff’s uncle said. “Something must have gone wrong. I’m really worried about Biff now. I’ll fly you over to La Trinité, then get back to Curaçao. You’d better lie low. Dietz will be heading for La Trinité as soon as he learns we’ve beat him to the punch again.”
“As soon as I can. As soon as I can free Biff. Don’t let Dietz get his hands on you while I’m gone.”
“I won’t,” Derek declared. “I’m going to spend the time, until you and Biff return, looking for my father.”
Charles Keene was winging his way back to Curaçao. Derek Zook was in La Trinité across the Island of Martinique from Fort-de-France. Biff Brewster was still a prisoner in the cellhouse outside Willemstad. Herman Dietz and Specks Cade were at the Fisheries Commission Office in Fort-de-France, giving a cowering clerk a very hard time.
A tall, gaunt man, his body wasted away by a long siege of fever, lay on a narrow cot in a monastery high in the Pitons du Carbet.
The time was approaching when all these people would be drawn closer and closer together, the magnet attracting them being a small but rich pearl fishery in the Baie du Trésor.
When Charlie dropped Derek off at La Trinité, he had had one suggestion as to where the Dutch lad could best start his search for his father.
“The post office, Derek,” Charles Keene had said. “That would be your best bet. Your letter and mine both bore the La Trinité postmark. See what you can find out there.”
Derek was now following Charles Keene’s advice.
“A tall man, you say. Very fair with light-brown hair?” the postal clerk asked.
“Yes. My father,” Derek said. “I know he was here about three months ago, perhaps a little longer than that.”
The postal clerk thought for a moment. “There was such a man as you describe. I recall him. His appearance was in such contrast to the rest of us here in Trinité. But I have not seen him for months.”