CHAPTER VII
WORKING OUT THE PUZZLE
JED, amid all the excitement, deftly captured with the boat-hook thepainter of the small boat, then towed that little craft astern, makingit fast.
Captain Tom now manœuvred the “Rocket” alongside of the floating coat.The straw hat was also recovered and pulled aboard.
“They’re his—both the hat and the coat!” cried Moddridge, in shakingaccents. “See, here are even letters belonging to Delavan in thispocket!”
The nervous one never looked nearer to swooning than he did at thatmoment. He tried to rise, but would have tottered backward had not JoeDawson caught him and steadied him.
“Easy, sir. You’ll best keep your wits now, all of ’em,” counseled Joe,quietly. “If there’s any work to be done, you’ll have to direct it, youknow.”
With Joe’s aid Eben Moddridge reached the rail. Then Joe brought achair and Mr. Moddridge sat down.
“You can’t see the—the—poor Delavan?” fluttered Moddridge, in thegreatest agitation, as he stared out over the waters.
“We haven’t sighted Mr. Delavan as yet,” Captain Tom replied. “But youmay be sure, sir, we’re going to make a most thorough search.”
“Prentiss, help me below,” begged Moddridge, his face still ashen whiteand his teeth chattering. “I—I can’t stand any more of this.”
Indeed, the poor fellow’s looks fully bore out his words as Jed helpedhim below.
“Put him in a berth,” Tom murmured after them. “Better stay with himfor the present, Jed.”
Then the “Rocket” was started on a very slow cruise over all the watersnearby. After a few minutes Captain Halstead began to feel that furthersearch, especially in the fog, would be useless. Yet he continued thehunt for more than an hour. No further traces, however, were found ofthe boat’s owner—or late owner. Which?
Every few minutes Jed was sent up to deck to ask uselessly for news.
“How’s Mr. Moddridge getting along?” queried Captain Tom, at last.
“If he does any worse,” confided Jed, “he won’t live to reach the pier.I never saw a man more unstrung. He keeps insisting that he knows Mr.Delavan is dead—drowned.”
“And I’m almost equally positive that nothing of the sort has happenedto Mr. Delavan,” Tom Halstead retorted.
“You——?” gasped Jed, wonderingly, but could go no further, hisastonishment was so intense.
“I’m of the same opinion as Tom,” Joe Dawson added, quietly.
“You two have been talking it over, then?” Jed queried.
“Not very much,” Joe replied. “But there are some things about thiscase that look mighty queer for a drowning.”
“But it looks,” protested Jed, “as though Mr. Delavan had accidentallytipped the boat and gone overboard.”
“When you once begin to think,” retorted Joe, stubbornly, “it lookslike nothing of the sort.”
Jed Prentiss looked wonderingly from one to the other, but Tom cut inwith:
“Take the wheel, Joe, and keep the whistle sounding, for the fog isstill thicker than I like to see it. I’m going below to talk with Mr.Delavan’s friend. Jed, you’ll be more useful on deck, at present.”
Moddridge was lying in a berth in the cabin, moaning and holding ahandkerchief over his eyes.
“I’ve come to ask you what I’m to do, sir?” Tom called briskly,thinking thus to rouse the nervous one to action.
The only response was another moan.
“Come, rouse yourself, please, and think what’s to be done in yourfriend’s interests,” urged the young skipper.
There was another moan, before Moddridge answered, in a sepulchralvoice:
“Don’t ask me, Halstead.”
“Right! I guess I won’t,” Tom rejoined, thoughtfully. “You’re soutterly upset that I guess I can furnish better instructions myself.”
“Oh, yes, please,” begged the other, helplessly. “And leave me alone,Halstead, or else keep quiet.”
“But I’ve got to ask some questions, sir, and you’ll have to answerthem,” Tom went on. “So, sir, it seems to me that you will do best tocome on deck, into the open air.”
“Do you—you—really think so?” faltered the stricken one.
“It will be much better for you to be in the air, Mr. Moddridge.”
“I’d go if I could, but I feel that I simply haven’t the strength toget there,” mumbled the nervous man.
“I’ll show you how,” responded Captain Tom, briskly, almost cheerily.“Steady, now, sir. There; it’s as easy as can be.”
Tom Halstead lifted the little man bodily out of the berth, gettinga good hold on him and carrying him out to the after deck, where hedeposited the collapsed burden in one of the wicker arm-chairs.
“Now, in the first place, Mr. Moddridge,” began Tom, “try to get itfixed in your mind that your friend isn’t drowned—that there isn’t theleast probability of any such fate having overtaken him.”
“Nonsense!” declared Eben Moddridge, feebly.
“Perhaps you think Mr. Delavan stood up in the boat, and it tipped andlet him over,” argued Tom. “But that was next-door to impossible.”
“How impossible?” demanded Moddridge, taking notice sufficiently to situp a little more.
“Why, the port boat, Mr. Moddridge, on account of her heavy keel, hercomparatively broad beam and other peculiarities, belongs to a classof what are called ‘self-righting’ boats. It would take a deliberateeffort, by a very strong man, to capsize such a boat. She’s towingastern now. After a good deal of effort we righted her.”
For a moment Eben Moddridge looked hopeful. Then he sank back oncemore, all but collapsing.
“Nonsense,” he remonstrated. “Any little boat of that size can beeasily tipped over.”
“The boat can’t be capsized easily, I assure you,” Tom argued. “I knowthe type of boat, and understand what I am talking about. Now, we foundthe boat capsized. It probably took more than one man to do it. Mr.Delavan could hardly have done it alone. If it took others to help incapsizing the boat, what is more likely than that others have seizedhim, and then upset the boat in order to make it appear that he hadfallen overboard and been drowned? Mr. Moddridge, are there, or arethere not, men who would be glad to seize Mr. Delavan for a while,for the benefit of what information they might expect to frighten ortorment out of him?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the nervous man, firing up for the instant andrising to his feet full of new, brief energy. Then he sank back intothe chair.
“But I don’t believe _that_ happened,” he went on, brokenly. “I amquite convinced that my friend was drowned by the capsizing of thesmall boat.”
“Wait a few moments, Mr. Moddridge, and we’ll show you, then,” proposedCaptain Tom, turning and making a signal to Joe Dawson. “Jed, keep thebridge deck, and sound the whistle regularly.”
Captain and engineer disappeared below, going to their room. They werequickly back, clad only in their bathing suits.
“Now, you keep your eyes on us, Mr. Moddridge,” young Halsteadrequested. “Mr. Delavan is a heavy man, but Joe and I, together, aremuch heavier than he. We’ll show you how hard it is to upset a boat ofthis type.”
Though the boat’s own oars had not been recovered, there was anotherpair aboard that would serve. Joe brought these, while Halstead broughtthe port boat alongside of the barely moving motor boat. Both boysstepped down into the smaller craft. Joe applied himself at the oars. Aslight lifting of the fog now made objects visible for a radius of sometwo hundred feet.
“Watch us,” called Tom, when the port boat was some forty feet awayfrom the “Rocket.”
Both boys stood up, each resting a foot on the same gunwale of thatlittle port boat. They bent far forward. The boat heeled; they evenforced it to take in some water from the gently rolling sea. Then, asthey stepped back, the little craft quickly righted itself.
“Now, come on, Joe,” proposed the young skipper. “We’ll both stand
withour backs to the gunwale. We’ll tip the boat, and then fall backwardinto the water, just as though it were a real accident.”
Wholly at home on or in the water, the two chums went through themanœuvre with reckless abandon. Once more they succeeded in making thelittle craft heel over and take in some water.
“Now!” shouted Halstead.
Both boys lurched heavily backward, striking the water and causing theport boat to heel more than it had done. Both splashed and disappearedunder the water, but the boat righted itself as soon as relieved ofthe weight of their bodies.
Clutching the port rail of the “Rocket,” Eben Moddridge looked on inalmost a trance of fascination. A slight gasp left his lips as he sawthe young captain and engineer vanish under the waves; but they quicklyreappeared, swimming for the port boat, and climbing on board afterrecovering the oars.
“Now, you ought to be convinced that this boat couldn’t have beencapsized and left floating keel-up by any accident to Mr. Delavan,”hailed Tom Halstead, as Joe rowed in alongside.
“I—I am convinced—_almost_,” chattered Moddridge, excitedly.
“Then please take our word for whatever you can’t quite realize,”begged the young skipper, as he clambered aboard the “Rocket.” “Comeon, Joe, we’ll get into dry clothes. Mr. Moddridge, be sure of onething: if any accident happened to Mr. Delavan, there were otherspresent when it happened.”
With that parting assurance Halstead and his chum vanished below.Almost incredibly soon they were once more on deck, appareled in dryclothing. Jed then went to bale out the port boat, which was nexthoisted to her proper davits.
As Captain Tom, still thinking fast and hard, took his place at thewheel, Eben Moddridge, even though he moved somewhat shakily, managedto climb the steps from the after deck and take the chair nearest tothe young skipper.
“Halstead,” he queried, hoarsely, “you even went so—so—far as todeclare that you d-d-don’t believe Frank Delavan to be drowned.”
“I don’t believe it in the least,” Captain Tom declared, stoutly. “Now,Mr. Moddridge, if we’re to be of real help to you, you must answer somequestions, and you must answer them fully and clearly. Will you do so?”
“I—I’ll try.”
“On your honor as a man, sir, do you know of any reason why Mr. Delavanshould _want_ to disappear, leaving behind the impression that he hadbeen drowned?”
“G-g-good heavens, no!” shuddered the nervous one. “Want to disappear?Why Frank Delavan has every reason in the world for wanting to keep inclose touch with New York, and with me, his associate in some presentbig deals.”
“Then, if he has disappeared, as seems evident, it must have beenthrough the compulsion of some other parties?”
“Yes—most absolutely, yes!”
“Mr. Moddridge,” pursued the “Rocket’s” young skipper, impressively,“have you any idea who those other persons are?”
Moddridge’s face worked peculiarly for a few seconds, before hereplied, slowly, hesitatingly:
“I might suspect any one of a score of men—perhaps almost the samescore that Frank Delavan might name under the same conditions. But Ipledge you my word, Halstead, that I do not know enough to suspect anyone man above all others. It would be all guess-work.”
Hesitatingly as this response had been delivered, Tom, watching hisman, felt certain that Eben Moddridge was trying to speak the truth.
“Then,” said the young skipper, at last, very deliberately, “since it’sa pretty sure thing, in our minds, that Mr. Delavan wasn’t drownedthrough accident, there can’t be much sense in trying further to findhis body. Instead, our search must be after those who may be holdinghim, against his will, aboard some craft in these waters.”
Joe, listening nearby, nodded his approval of this decision.
“We can’t do much, though, until this confounded fog lifts,” groanedyoung Halstead.
Just as he was reaching to sound the whistle once more Captain Tom’shand was arrested by a sound that made Joe and Jed also start slightly.
Then out of the fog, three hundred feet away, going at fifteen miles anhour, or more, glided swiftly the same long, narrow racing craft theyhad encountered the day before.
That strange craft crossed the “Rocket’s” bow, at least a hundred andfifty feet away.
“Racer ahoy!” bawled the youthful skipper, in his loudest voice.
But the swift craft vanished into the fog on the other side.
Was it fancy, or were all three of the young motor boat boys dreamingwhen they believed that back from that swift-moving racer came a soundof mocking laughter?
“Get into the engine room, Joe,” shouted Captain Tom. “Jed, up forward,on lookout!”
With that the young skipper swung around his speed control. The“Rocket,” obeying the impulse, leaped forward, then gradually settleddown into a steady gait, while the young skipper strenuously threw hissteering wheel over.
“What are you going to do, Halstead?” demanded Eben Moddridge, leapingto his feet as he caught the infection of this new excitement.
“Do?” uttered Captain Tom. “That’s the same craft that hung about usyesterday, plainly trying to nose into our secrets. The same craft thatafterwards tried to play a trick on us to make us reach East Hamptonlate. And just now the fellows aboard the stranger laughed at us. Whatam I going to do? Why, sir, we’re going after her, going to overhaulher, if there’s the speed in the ‘Rocket.’ We’ll even try to board thatstranger, Mr. Moddridge, and see whether Francis Delavan is aboardagainst his own will!”