As though it had understood what he said, the whale opened its eyes wide for a moment. It looked at him sadly, resignedly, Bob thought. Then its eyes became slits and slowly closed.
“Get it back into the ocean?” Pete asked. “How? We couldn’t even move it when it was half floating out there.”
Bob knew he was right. He looked at Jupe. It struck him that the First Investigator hadn’t said anything for a long time. That wasn’t like Jupe. He was usually the first one to come up with a suggestion when they were faced with a problem.
Even if he wasn’t saying anything, Jupiter Jones was obviously thinking hard. He was pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger the way he often did when he was pondering something.
“If Mohammed can’t come to the mountain,” he said, “the mountain will just have to come to Mohammed.”
“Talk English, will you?” Pete begged him. “What mountain?”
Jupe did have a habit sometimes of using long words or of speaking in riddles that made it difficult for the other two Investigators to understand what he was getting at.
“That mountain,” Jupiter explained. “The ocean out there. If we had a spade. And let me see — a tarpaulin. And that old hand pump Uncle Titus bought for the junkyard last month, and a good long hose —”
“We could dig a pit,” Bob interrupted him.
“And line it with the tarp,” Pete added.
“And pump it full of water,” Jupe finished. “We could make a sort of swimming pool where the whale could survive until the tide comes back in.”
After a short discussion it was decided that Bob and Pete should cycle back to The Jones Salvage Yard for the supplies while Jupe stayed with the stranded whale.
After the other two had gone, Jupiter searched the flotsam on the beach until he found a battered plastic bucket that would still hold water. For the next half hour, while he waited for his friends, he spent his time trudging out to the edge of the sea, filling the bucket, then trudging back and emptying it over the stranded whale.
The First Investigator had never much enjoyed physical work. He preferred to use his brain. “About time,” he said crossly when the other two Investigators came back, although as a matter of fact they had been surprisingly quick.
They had brought all the things he had asked for — a long roll of tarpaulin, the hand pump, a good sharp spade, and a hose.
“Let’s dig as close to the whale as we can,” Jupe directed. “Then maybe we’ll be able to roll it over into the pool.”
Pete, who was the strongest of the three, did most of the digging. Luckily the damp sand under the surface was quite soft. In less than an hour they had made a trench about ten feet long, two feet wide, and almost two feet deep.
They lined the trench with the tarpaulin to make it watertight. Then Pete worked the pump from the edge of the sea while Bob and Jupe stretched the long hose to the pool. It was a good pump that had probably once belonged aboard a fishing boat. They soon had almost two feet of water in the trench.
“Now comes the hard part,” Jupiter said.
“Thanks a lot,” Pete told him. “I hope that means you’ll do your share of the work this time.”
Jupe didn’t bother to answer him. It seemed to him he had already done more than his share. The whole plan had been his idea.
After they had rested a moment, the Three Investigators gathered on the side of the whale away from the pool. They leaned forward and rested their hands against the animal. It lay there without moving, its eyes closed. Bob patted its head. It opened its eyes at once, and Bob could have sworn it smiled at him.
“Now, when I say ‘heave,’ ” the First Investigator said. “Are you ready? All together —”
He never finished his command. As the three boys strained, ready to heave, the whale seemed to be straining, too, gathering itself. With a sudden convulsive movement of its body it flipped itself up, turning, spinning in the air, and landed on its back in the pool.
“Wow!” Bob exclaimed. Jupe and Pete were excited too.
Once in the water the whale righted itself. It submerged for a minute, wallowing in the pleasure of being in its own element again, then floated slowly to the surface and spouted up a single jet of water from its blowhole. It was exactly as though the whale were thanking them.
“Now, when the tide comes in —” Jupiter began.
“Never mind the tide,” Pete interrupted him. “It must be nine o’clock now! We promised to work at the junkyard this morning. And I haven’t even had my breakfast yet.”
Jupiter’s uncle Titus Jones and his aunt Mathilda, with whom he lived, ran The Jones Salvage Yard on the outskirts of Rocky Beach. The three boys often worked in the yard, sorting and repairing the old furniture, scrap iron, and odds and ends of machinery that Uncle Titus was always buying.
Hastily they said goodbye to the whale.
“Take care of yourself and keep wet,” Bob told it. “We’ll be down early this afternoon to see you get back in the ocean.”
The three boys put on their socks and sneakers, picked up the pump, the spade, and the hose, and hurried off. They were at the top of the cliff, retrieving their bicycles, when Jupiter heard a sound behind them.
About two miles offshore a small outboard cabin cruiser was chugging slowly past. There were two men on board, but the boat was too far away to see what they looked like.
Then Jupe saw a flash of light from the boat, then another and another.
“Looks like they’re signaling,” Pete said.
The First Investigator shook his head. “There’s no pattern to the flashes,” he said. “My deduction is that one of those men is using a pair of binoculars, and those flashes are the reflection of the sun on the lenses.”
It sounded reasonable and ordinary enough to the other two Investigators, but Jupe didn’t pick up his bike. He was still watching the boat, which was turning toward the shore now.
“Come on,” Pete told him impatiently. “Stop trying to make a mystery of everything. Hundreds of people along this coast go out every day to look at the gray whales.”
“I know,” Jupe agreed as they pushed their bicycles toward the road. “But the man on that boat wasn’t watching the whales. He had his glasses turned the wrong way. Toward the shore. In fact, it seemed to me that he was watching us.”
“Maybe he saw us save the whale,” said Bob indifferently, and Jupe dropped the matter.
Jupe’s Aunt Mathilda was waiting for them when they reached the salvage yard. She was a kind, cheerful woman who enjoyed living in the small coastal city and running the junk business with her husband. She enjoyed having Jupe live with them, as he had ever since his parents had died. But the thing she enjoyed most in life was putting the boys to work.
“You’re late,” she greeted them as they cycled into the yard. “I suppose you’ve been busy with one of your puzzles again.”
Jupiter had never explained to his aunt that he and Bob and Pete were serious investigators, taking on professional cases for all kinds of people who needed their services. Aunt Mathilda thought they were just members of a club that met to solve riddles they found in newspapers and magazines.
The boys put in several hours’ hard work in the junkyard before Aunt Mathilda gave them their lunch and told them they could have the rest of the day off.
It was after three before the Investigators reached the cove again. The tide was coming in fast over the sand. They left their bicycles at the top of the cliff and hurried down to the beach.
Pete, who could run faster than the other two, was the first to reach the pool. He stopped abruptly, his back stiffening with dismay, as he stared down into it.
Jupiter and Bob joined him. They were dismayed, too, when they saw what Pete was staring at.