The Case of the Templar's Sword

By Charles E. Morgan, III

In “The Case of the Templar’s Sword,” Brains Benton (Operative X) and Jimmy Carson (Operative Three) find themselves up to their eyeballs in mystery.

A house appears to be haunted and it gets broken into. However, nothing was taken! What were they looking for?

The firm of Benton and Carson flies into high gear and uses all of their resources to try and figure things out. That includes using their new hydrofoil speedboat and going on a perilous journey underneath a mountain of rock!

Join our daring operatives in their latest adventure of chills and spills!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781300283027

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Wet And Whoops!

I’ve got to tell you, I was excited! I was piloting a hydrofoil speedboat across the glassy surface of Lake Carmine. The gentle late-summer breeze had turned into a windy howl because of how fast I was flying across the water.

It was like I was in a rocket ship!

I was coming up to the tricky part of the test ride and the butterflies in my stomach were starting to do loop-de-loops.

I knew I was pushing it.

It’s funny, because I was both excited and nervous at the same time!

The throttle was opened up and the engine was roaring like a den of hungry lions.

I came to the moment of truth. I gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands as I guided the hydrofoil into a sharp turn.

I guess I should stop right here and explain a few things.

My name is James MacDonald Carson, but everybody calls me Jimmy. The only time ever I get the full legal name treatment is when I’ve done something wrong at home.

I’m of average height and weight for a kid my age, with brown hair that my dad thinks needs a trim.

I live at 43 Maple Street in the town of Crestwood. It’s a small town with about eighteen thousand people in it. That’s according to the last census.

A lot of kids my age want to move away from the place once they grow up. They complain there’s nothing to do.

My best friend in the world is Barclay Brains Benton. He’s a tall, thin drink of water. He wears glasses and has red hair that’s about as brilliant as a four-alarm fire.

One look at Brains and you’d never forget him. A couple looks at me? You’d probably still get me confused with somebody else.

Unless, of course, you’re my parents. And even then, my dad would still insist I needed a haircut.

Truthfully though, Brains could’ve been nicknamed something like Stretch, Specs, or Red. But the kid was so doggone smart that the moniker, Brains, fit him like a glove!

Brains came by his smarts naturally. His dad was a history Professor at Crestwood College and his mother taught art there too.

Unlike other kids in Crestwood, Brains and I have plenty of things to do. You see, even though we’re just a couple of high school kids, we’re also private investigators.

Brains and I had met in elementary school and realized that we both had an interest in sleuthing. That’s when we started the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency.

Now, a lot of grown-ups laugh at the idea of a couple of kids being private investigators. But Brains and I have solved a bunch of cases over the years. Sometimes, I even get the willies just thinking about them! All anyone has to do is checkout some back issues of the Crestwood Daily Ledger to find out that Brains and I are the real deal.

I used to work for the Ledger as a paperboy. But during the summer, I’d gotten a part-time job at Irving’s Sports. It’s a sporting goods store located downtown on Main Street. It’s owned by a guy named Sam Irving. He’s a pretty good boss. But I learned real fast that he cares about being on time!

Mr. Carson, 5 o’clock means 5 o’clock. Not 5:02! he’d admonished me once, while glaring over the top of his glasses.

After that, I started trying to get to work as early as possible.

I’d been a paperboy for a lot of years and it was hard to give up my route. But I was old enough now for what my dad liked to call a ‘real’ job.

I handed my paper route over to Stinky Greene. He’d been my substitute from the beginning. So at least I knew my customers would be getting good service.

While I’d spent the summer working at Irving’s, Brains had gone out to Conway Air and worked on the speedboat with Max Lane, the head engineer and machinist out there.

You see, Brains had actually found the speedboat in an old junkyard. It had a big hole in the hull. Brains had worked on patching it and making it seaworthy.

And he’d done it!

So you can see what I mean. He’s brilliant! I guarantee you if I’d tried to fix the boat, it would’ve wound up at the bottom of Lake Carmine.

Once Brains had gotten the boat to float, he’d taken it out to Conway Air where he and Max had started working on refurbishing the engine.

Now that I think about it, I guess refurbishing isn’t the right word. They juiced that motor up so much that it could almost fly!

They were excited and tried to explain to me in great detail about how they’d tinkered with this and tweaked that. But my brain just locked up. It was all Greek to me!

The bottom line was, Brains and Max had worked hard on the engine but decided the speedboat would go even faster if they could make it hydroplane.

A hydrofoil is a foil or wing placed underneath the boat that lifts the hull above the water, Brains explained. You see, Jimmy, at a certain speed, the lift produced by the hydrofoil equals the sum of the boat and cargo weights, causing the hull to rise . . .

My mind fogged up. He sounded just like a college professor!

Brains and Max had even lightened the boat by replacing some of the wooden body with fiberglass. That meant that it could go even faster!

Brains had painted the boat a neat bluish-black color and named her, Dark Operative.

The name was ironic. Because when Brains and I work on a case, we use code names. He’s Operative X and I’m Operative Three.

And no, there is no Operative Two.

After Brains had finished the boat, he’d decided to enter it in the annual Lake Carmine Inboard Speedboat Derby, which would be held on Saturday during Labor Day weekend.

The event was a big deal. People from all around the state came to watch the race. There’d be TV, radio, and newspaper coverage, too. If Dark Operative won, Brains and I would get our faces plastered on the front page of a bunch of newspapers!

One group though—Hot Cinders’ Boating out of Middlebury—had won the race the last couple of years. By all accounts, they were the team to beat.

Brains didn’t really care about winning the race. All he cared about was the mathematical formulas that he used to make the engine run as efficiently as possible.

It was going to be a regular David VS. Goliath thing as some of these speedboaters were professionals.

I’d begged Brains to let me be the driver and that’s what I was doing out on Lake Carmine that day, a week before the big race.

Brains and Max were on shore, timing the speedboat with stopwatches to see how fast I was going. They were hoping I’d hit 90 miles per hour, which would be near the record speed for this type of racing.

So as I came to the first turn, I had the engine wide open. I started to turn the steering wheel.

Suddenly, to my horror, the front corner of the boat started to rise like a ghost out of a grave. Then, as if it were a slow motion nightmare, the whole boat rose up into the air!

This wasn’t good because I was already hydroplaning above the water. My heart started beating out a drum solo and I began to panic.

I frantically reached out for the throttle and pulled it back.

But it was too late!

The front of the boat caught like a kite, jerked, and lifted higher into the air. Then, to my horror, it started to fall backwards.

The next thing I knew, I was thrown from the speedboat and tumbling through the air!

CHAPTER TWO

Practice Makes Perfect

Creeps! I was helpless!

I had no control as I spun through the air like a crazed top. I was terrified as the hydroplane arced high over my head.

Instinctively, I knew I had to get as far away from the speedboat as I could, if I didn’t want to get squashed like a bug. But no matter what I did, the boat followed me like a shadow!

I knew I had to dive into the water and go down as deep as I could.

My eyes widened. The water was coming at me fast!

I tucked, put my hands over my head, and took a deep breath all at the same instant.

Then I went into the water.

It felt like concrete and the top of my head exploded with pain.

Fortunately, I landed in such a way that I was able to slice through the cold water.

I heard a tremendous splash above me.

Once my momentum slowed down, I angled upwards and swam away from where I thought the boat might be.

I could’ve taken a peek. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see much through the murky lake water. Besides, I don’t even like opening my eyes in a swimming pool!

I put a protective hand over my head and crashed through the surface. I immediately grabbed a lungful of air.

Oww! I cried to no one, as I touched the top of my head.

I wiped the water from my face and looked around.

The speedboat was about ten yards away. It was dead in the water and floating upside down. With the hydrofoils sticking up, the speedboat looked like a cartoon bug on its back.

I treaded water and I looked to shore. I saw a frantic group of people running around.

A moment later, a motorboat was speeding its way towards me.

I tried to give my rescuers a thumbs-up to let them know I was okay. But they hurried towards me anyway.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to swim fully dressed before, but it feels like you’re wearing a concrete suit with lead boots! Treading water while dressed is hard and it wears you out!

Fortunately, the boat got out to me in no time at all. A man I didn’t know was piloting the thing. Brains and Max were by his side.

Jimmy, Jimmy, are you all right?! Brains yelled as they approached.

I nodded my head. Yeah, I think so, I called back.

They reached out and started dragging me over the bow.

I plopped down onto the deck like a drenched fish.

Wait. Can fish get drenched?

I was handed a towel and I was glad. Even though it was late August, we’d been having an unseasonably cool month. It’d even gotten into the forties at night!

I’m sorry about Dark Operative, I said to Brains.

It’s okay, he said. As long as you’re all right.

But one look at those baby blues behind his glasses and I knew Brains was mad at me. He’d warned me to be careful on the turn. But I guess I’d just gotten all caught up in the moment of trying to set a new world’s record.

Ironically, now that Brains knew that I was okay, I think he wanted to kill me!

Max Lane looked out at the capsized boat. "Towing Dark Operative back to land shouldn’t be too difficult. We tinkered with various materials, cognizant of the buoyancy variables of the boat. We were well aware of Archimedes’ principle. ‘Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object’."

Man! Max sounded just like Brains!

Max was a tall willowy guy with black framed glasses. If I had to guess, he was around thirty-years-old. Although they have different hair color, I could see Brains looking a lot like Max when he got older.

That is with the exception of the bowtie. Max always wore a bowtie. Here he was out here in a boat on the lake, wearing a white lab coat and a bowtie.

It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t for me causing such a mess!

Once we ascertain the damage, Max continued. It shouldn’t be too difficult to repair.

So everything should be okay? I asked hopefully.

Yes, Max answered.

Thank heavens! I exhaled.

I looked over at Brains. He didn’t look quite as mad.

I got up off the floor and took a seat.

Max crouched down next to me. Jimmy, look at my eyes.

I did.

He examined me. Then he said, Okay, now follow my finger.

I