The inventor reached in his pocket and pulled out the dog’s-head coin. Bud glanced at it and almost swerved off the roadway.
“How’d you get that again? Dansitt give it to you?” he asked.
“I don’t think he knows I have it,” Tom answered. “It was in with the film.”
As Tom gazed at the dog’s head, he noticed for the first time that there was a tiny hole in the peso. Wondering if it had been put there on purpose, he flipped the coin in his hand. On the obverse side was etched a full-length map of Cuba.
Squinting at the pinhole, Tom studied its position in relation to the two sides of the coin.
“What are you doing?” Bud asked. “You look like a man gone money mad.”
“Bud,” said Tom excitedly, without taking his eyes off the tiny hole, “pull to the side of the road, will you? I want you to take a look at this!”
Bud parked the jeep and took the coin.
“Look where this hole comes through!” Tom said.
Holding the peso to the light, Bud closed his left eye and peered at the dog’s head. “The hole’s right in the middle of the collar,” he said.
“Right. Now turn it over.”
Bud obeyed, then remarked, “The hole appears to be off the north coast of Cuba.”
“See any connection?” Tom asked.
ABOLOPUNCH 53
“Not particularly,” his friend replied, “except that the hole might indicate an island off the coast of Cuba or a spot in the ocean.”
“And if such an island were shaped like a dog’s head, we’d have a second clue,” Tom added eagerly. “We’d probably find Uncle Ned there!”
“Good night!” Bud shouted.
“If Dansitt’s one of the pirates,” Tom said, “I can see why he’d want that coin back. The dog’s head is probably the pirates’ insigne.”