our hopes too high. The pictures don't show any contraband in those
cases, and that's what you'll need."

"I know, Dad," Rick replied. "But at least we know now why we've
always been wrong. We were backwards!"

He hurriedly excused himself, then he and Jerry hurried after Scotty.

Scotty already had loaded the rephotographing camera with film and
screwed a photo flood bulb into a convenient receptacle. It took Rick
only ten minutes to select the frames he wanted to rephotograph and
finish the operation. Then he gave the rephotographing camera to
Scotty who wound the film all the way through and took it out.

"Let's develop it," he said, and reached for the shelf to take down a
small developing tank.

"Wait!" An idea struck Rick. "How do we know Brad isn't going to load
again tonight? Remember the Kelsos have only a few more days at Creek
House."

Jerry snapped his fingers. "That's right! And I'll bet they're
gloating over hoodwinking the State Police, too. They wouldn't be
afraid to ship _out_ another load, particularly since they know
they're suspected of smuggling stuff _in_ and it might be their last
chance."

"We can't risk it," Rick said decisively. "We'll take this film to
Whiteside and have the photographer at the paper develop it. How about
that, Jerry?" The reporter nodded agreement and he continued, "While
it's being developed, we can go through the New York papers again and
find out if a ship of Caribbean registry is sailing. About midnight
would be right for a sailing time."

Scotty reached for the light. "We'd better hurry." He snapped it out
and led the way through the door. He and Jerry went directly to the
boat landing while Rick ran upstairs and picked up his infrared
camera, just in case. If the police raided Creek House tonight, he
intended to be on hand.

Scotty had chosen the fast speedboat and already had the engine
turning over. Rick jumped aboard and they roared toward Whiteside. At
the dock they transferred to Jerry's car and sped through the streets
to the newspaper office. Duke Barrows had just finished with the early
newscast and, taking advantage of the lull, had gone home for dinner;
he would return in about an hour, the photographer said. He was the
only man in the office. Jerry gave him the roll of film on which Rick
had rephotographed the critical scenes from the movie and asked for
two enlargements of each.

"It's urgent," he said. "Duke will want to see these when he gets