At breakfast the next morning Andrew’s father held up the morning newspaper. “Well, the secret is out now,” he said. Andrew stared at the headline appalled. LOCAL MARITIME MYSTERY SOLVED? it read. ‘Oh no! Muriel is going to be very upset. I hope she doesn’t blame me,’ he thought. The newspaper article was all about the wreck of the Deeral. It went over the story of the sinking of the Merinda and of how the Deeral had set out with four men on board to search for it. Andrew noted that his grandfather’s name was there, along with Murchison’s and the names of the two crewmen. There followed a word for word copy of the 1958 article that he had read. Then there was a detailed description of how the wreck was found and of what it looked like. The concluding sentence set Andrew’s heart in his mouth with interest and anxiety. It read: ‘Now at last, after all these years, it seems that the sea might be going to give up the secret of what really happened on that fateful voyage.’ As he looked up from reading Andrew’s mind raced.
