CHAPTER V
TOM HAS SOME OF HIS OWN WAY
“OH, what a pity!” cried the girl, in a voice of genuine distress. “I’malmost certain Mr. Tremaine won’t like that.”
“It is a matter with which Mr. Tremaine has very little to do,” repliedthe youthful skipper of the “Restless.” “A robbery has been committedon the boat I command, and it’s my duty, as well as my own desire, tohave the police come aboard.”
On shore, in the sleepy-looking little town, nearly a dozen peopleof varying ages were visible from the boat. All of these had turnedwaterward when the whistle sounded so long and shrilly.
“Likely as not the police force has taken a small boy with him and gonefishing somewhere,” observed Halstead, dryly, as he reached once moreto sound the whistle.
The Tremaines and Dixon had come up on deck through the after cabinhatch, and now stood looking curiously ashore.
As the second series of long whistles woke the echoes of this littleFlorida town, a negro was seen to amble down to the shore, step intoa boat and push off. He rowed until within hailing distance, when hecalled:
“W’ut you-uns gwinter want—provisions or gas-oil?”
“We’ve been sounding the police call,” Tom shouted back. “Send apoliceman on board.”
“Good Lawd!” ejaculated the black man at the oars. But he put about,beached his boat and vanished up the street. Presently he came back,followed by a drowsy-looking white man, not in uniform. After he hadgotten his passenger aboard, the negro rowed more lustily than he hadpreviously done, and soon ranged up alongside the “Restless.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” sang out the white man, “this amiable blackAnanias tells me you want a police officer.”
“_I_ do,” replied Halstead. “I am captain of this yacht——”
“_You?_” returned the Tres Arbores officer, staring hard.
“I am captain of this yacht,” Tom nodded, “and there has been adisappearance of money on board. I shall be much obliged, as willmost of the others, if you’ll come on board and search all the men.Afterwards, if necessary, the boat.”
“I reckon, I’ll have to understand this,” responded the lone policeman,as the negro in the small boat held out an oar which Ham seized, thendrew the rowboat in close. As the officer stepped up onto the deckof the “Restless,” he threw back his coat, displaying a police starbeneath.
“I am the one who lost the money,” explained Henry Tremaine, steppingforward and introducing himself. “I don’t want to subject anyone,especially this young captain and engineer, to any search. I’d soonerlose the money than bring upon any innocent person such a humiliation.”
“It won’t be any humiliation to me to be searched, when I know I didn’ttake the money,” rejoined Tom Halstead, hotly. “Officer, I want thesearch made, and I’ll submit to it first.”
“But I object,” broke in Mr. Tremaine. “I don’t want anybody searched.”
“I reckon p’raps you-all had better explain this to me,” requested thepoliceman, who gave his name as Randolph.
Henry Tremaine told the story quickly.
“Why, sir,” replied Officer Randolph, “if you, Mr. Tremaine, refuse tomake any complaint, I don’t see that I can do a thing.”
“But a crime has been committed,” insisted Halstead.
“It was committed outside this township, then,” responded Randolph.“And, since Mr. Tremaine refuses to press the matter, I might laymyself liable if I were to search anyone.”
“Why do you object, Mr. Tremaine?” appealed Tom, turning to thecharter-man.
“Because,” replied that gentleman, “it’s all a puzzle to me, as it mustbe to the rest of us. I am satisfied that, somehow, the whole matterwill be cleared up, presently, without recourse to the law.”
“But I want my boat and ourselves cleared,” protested the youngskipper, looking more than ever worried.
“You and your boat will be cleared—somehow—not long from now,” repliedHenry Tremaine, shortly. “I decline to be mixed up in any legalproceedings.”
“But Ah reckon Ah’s gotter hab de officer look me ober,” declared HamMockus, coming up from below, ready to go ashore, and carrying a mostdilapidated valise. “You-all will see each other again, you-all, butI’se gwine ashoah, an’ likely yo’ll nebber see me again. So I asks deofficer kindly to look mah bag frou, an’ den come below an’ look meober. Ah don’ want to have you-all t’ink, bimeby, mebbe yo’d better hadHam Mockus looked ober.”
“Well, open your baggage, then,” grinned the police officer. “I’llaccommodate you, Mockus.”
Ham’s meagre baggage, on exploration, proved innocent enough. Then theofficer took him below to the engine-room, soon coming back to the deckwith the young colored man.
“_He_ hasn’t much money about him,” reported Mr. Randolph.
“He’ll have a little more money now, though—his wages for the cruise,”replied Captain Tom, handing the black man an envelope.
“But Ah didn’ bargain fo’ no wages,” gasped Ham, in surprise. “Ah saidAh’d work fo’ passage.”
“Anyone who works for us gets paid for it,” rejoined Halstead,laconically.
Plainly enough Ham was overjoyed at this. His teeth showed in the grinthat he gave, while he protested his thanks.
While Mr. Tremaine was bargaining with the negro boatman to put themashore, Ida Silsbee moved over to Tom’s side.
“I know, Captain Halstead,” she whispered, “that you feel disappointedover not having a search made. But believe me, Mr. Tremaine does notunderstand how you feel. He doesn’t for a moment suspect, now, that youor Mr. Dawson took the money, and he knows Ham hasn’t it. Mr. Tremainehas his own notions of sensitiveness, and he prefers to drop the wholematter. He has been drugged. There isn’t a doubt about that, and hishead is still bothering him so that he isn’t able to think clearly.Having made up his mind as best he can, however, he won’t change it.”
“It’ll be all right,” replied Tom, moodily, in a low voice. “I’ll havethe thing settled myself.”
“This man is going to take us ashore,” broke in Mr. Tremaine, fromseveral feet away. “Then he’ll come back for the baggage. Captain, youand Mr. Dawson will join us ashore at breakfast, won’t you?”
“One of us will,” Halstead made answer. “The other must remain aboardthe yacht to look out for it.”
Ham went over the side with the late passengers, Officer Randolphremaining behind at Tom Halstead’s almost whispered request.
By the time that the boat put out from shore again the two boys and theTres Arbores policeman were just coming up from below.
“Since they want one of us ashore, Tom,” urged Dawson, “you’d better bethe one to go.”
“Why don’t you get on land and stretch your legs?” Halstead inquired.
“Humph!” grunted Dawson. “I don’t believe it would be safe for me tosit at table with that fellow Dixon. I’d feel a violent impulse, allthe time, to put my closed hand against his face.”
“Not in the presence of ladies!” smiled Skipper Tom.
“It would be quite easy to decoy the fellow outside. Especially,” Joeadded, in a whisper, “after what you told me about that vial Dixon had,and his dropping some stuff in the water decanter. Why didn’t you, orwhy don’t you, tell Mr. Tremaine about that?”
“He’d be likely to suspect I was trying to throw suspicion on his guestto keep it off myself,” Halstead replied, shaking his head.
While this was being said, Officer Randolph, who had walked astern,was out of hearing. While they were below Tom had found chance to tellhis chum, in whispers, about the incidents of the vial and the waterbottle. They had even investigated the water bottle on the sideboard,but had found it empty.
So it was Captain Tom who, on the third and belated trip of the boat,went ashore. Randolph went with him, even accompanying the youngsailing master to the little hotel of which Tres Arbores boasted.
In the parlor they found the passe
ngers of the “Restless” awaiting thesummons to breakfast.
“You’ll join us, Mr. Randolph, of course,” pressed Mr. Tremaine.
“Thank you; I shall be happy to sit down and drink coffee with you,”replied the Southerner.
At that moment the proprietor entered, calling them to breakfast inthe next room. As the proprietor seated them, Dixon was on one side ofthe table, with the Tremaines, Ida Silsbee being on the opposite side,between Randolph and the young motor boat captain.
As soon as the waiter had left them, Tom looked across at Mr.Tremaine, eyeing him steadily.
“I am sorry, sir,” remarked Tom, “to bring up this morning’s affairagain. Yet I feel it due to myself to say that I have succeeded in mypurpose of having Dawson, myself and the ‘Restless’ searched.”
“You have?” demanded Henry Tremaine, looking surprised though notaltogether displeased.
“Yes, sir,” Randolph took the matter up. “As Captain Halstead insisted,after you had gone ashore I searched both young men, their baggage,their wardrobe lockers—every place and spot aboard—even to the gasolinetanks, sir. I found no trace of the money.”
As Tom Halstead’s glance swept the opposite side of the table heencountered the covert, sneering look of Oliver Dixon.
“Confound the fellow!” muttered young Halstead, under his breath. “Ican sympathize with Joe’s desire to hit him!”