SHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES
In a few minutes the steward came down with the captain and the first
officer and a man in civilian's clothes, who carried a cigar in the
corner of his mouth and who Tom thought must be of the Secret Service.
Tom stood greatly in awe of the captain, who seemed the very type of
exalted dignity. But a cat may look at a king, and he stared at that
autocrat, resolved to answer manfully whatever questions were asked him.
"Confirms your suspicions, eh?" said the captain to the man in plain
clothes, after a gingerly inspection of the ominous piece of stove pipe.
"Hmmm," said the other man; "yes; no doubt of it. Wish I'd taken him up
last trip when he sent that message. We'll have a job finding him now."
"I don't see how he could have got ashore since nine o'clock last
night," said the first officer.
"Well, he did, anyway," said the Secret Service man; "they're getting by
every day, and they will until we have martial law along the
waterfront. You see, this is where he had to come through to his
locker," he added, looking about.
The captain gave a brief order to the first officer to have the vessel
searched at once for more bombs. The officer hurried away and presently
came back again. The Secret Service man was intently examining the
floor, the jamb around the door, and the casing of the port-hole. The
captain, too, scrutinized the place, as if he hoped it might yield some
valuable information; and Tom, feeling very awkward, stood silently
watching them.
"Here you are," said the Secret Service man, indicating a brown stain on
the door jamb.
The other three men stepped over to the spot, but Tom, who did not dare
to join them, stood just where he was, looking uncouth and out of place
in the ill-fitting white duck jacket and blue peaked service cap which
had been given him.
"There you are, Captain," said the Secret Service man; "see that
finger-mark? The skin lines aren't as clear, see? That's from constant
pressure. That's the finger he uses to press his wireless key."
"Hmm," said the captain.
"I've had my eye on that young operator for the last two trips," said
the plain-clothes man; "he's undoubtedly the fellow who sent that code
message that tipped Ekler off and posted him about the _Republic's_
sailing, I never liked his name--Hinnerman. We might have known he
wouldn't show up for this trip."
"He was a hold-over on board," said the first officer, "and didn't come
in for the government quiz. They should have all been thrown out.--Think
the other operator's all right?" he added.
"Oh, yes; he's got two brothers in military service," said the captain
conclusively.
"See, here's another finger-mark--thumb. And here's a couple more," said
the plain-clothes man, indicating several less distinguishable marks
around the port-hole.
No one paid any attention to Tom. He watched the four men as they
examined the little signs which they thought verified their conclusion
that the missing wireless operator had placed the bomb.
"You see, he knew this room wouldn't be used, probably not entered this
trip," said the Secret Service man.
"It was a lucky mistake this boy made," said the first officer, glancing
not unkindly at Tom.
"Mmmm," said the captain.
Tom did not know whether to take this for praise or not. He stood,
silent but very thoughtful. None of his four superiors took the trouble
to acknowledge his act, nor even to address him, and he had to piece
together as best he could, from their conversation, the reasons for
their long-standing suspicions of the missing operator's disloyalty.
Never in all his life had Tom felt his own insignificance as he did now.
The Secret Service man was very self-confident and very convincing. His
conclusions, in view of past suspicions, seemed natural enough, and Tom
could not help envying and admiring him from his obscure corner.
"I'll send a wireless right away," said the captain, as the four moved
toward the door.
For a few seconds Tom struggled to master his timidity. He felt just as
he had felt when he talked to Margaret Ellison and when he had faced
Roscoe Bent's father. These uniformed officials were as beings from
another world to poor Tom, and the Secret Service man seemed a marvel of
sagacity and subtle power.
As they reached the door, he spoke, his voice shaking a little, but in
the slow, almost expressionless way which was characteristic of him.
"If you'd wait a minute, I got something to say," he said.
"Yes, sir," said the first officer not unpleasantly. The captain paused
impatiently. The Secret Service man smiled a little. Indeed, there was
plenty to smile at (for the captain, too, if that dignitary would have
so condescended) for Tom's sleeves, which were ridiculously long, were
clutched in his two hands as if to keep them from running away and the
peak of his cap was almost over his ear instead of being where it
belonged.
"I heard this morning," said Tom, "that the other operator--the one that
isn't here--that he used to be a scout. I'm a scout, and so I know what
kind of fellers scouts are. They ain't traitors or anything like that.
Something happened to me lately, so I know how easy it is to get
misjudged. If he was a scout, then he wasn't a German, even if he might
have had a German name, 'cause Germans stay by themselves and don't join
in, kind of...."
The captain made a move as if to go.
"But that ain't what I wanted to say," said Tom.
The captain paused.
There was something about Tom's blunt, plain-speech and slow manner
which amused the first officer, and he listened with rather more
patience, than the others.
"There was a man tried to get off the ship last night," said Tom.
"He----"
"Oh, yes, that was Doctor Curry from Ohio," laughed the first officer
indulgently. "I hunted him up on the purser's list--_he's_ all right. He
flew off the handle because his baggage didn't come. He's all right,
boy."
"The man that started the English scouts," said Tom, undaunted, "says if
you want to find out if a person is foreign, you got to get him mad.
Even if he talks good English, when he gets excited he'll say some words
funny like."
The captain turned upon his heel.
"But that ain't what I was going to say, either," said Tom dully.
"Anybody that knows anything about wireless work knows that operators
have to have exactly the right time. That's the first thing they
learn--that their watches have got to be exactly right--even to the
second. I know, 'cause I studied wireless and I read the correspondence
catalogues."
"Well?" encouraged the Secret Service man.
But it was pretty hard to hurry Tom.
"The person that put that bomb there," said he, "probably started it
going and set it after he got it fixed on the shelf; and he'd most
likely set it by his own watch. You can see that clock is over an hour
slow. I was wonderin' how anybody's watch would be an hour slow, but if
that Doctor Curry came from Ohio maybe he forgot to set his watch ahead
in Cleveland. I know you have to do that when you come east, 'cause I
heard a man say so."
A dead silence prevailed, save for the subdued whistling of the Secret
Service man, as he scratched his head and eyed Tom sharply.
"How old are you, anyway?" said he.
"Seventeen," said Tom. "I helped a feller and got misjudged," he added
irrelevantly. "A scout is a brother to every other scout--all over the
world. 'Specially now, when England and France are such close partners
of ours, like. So I'm a brother to that wireless operator, if he used to
be a scout.--Maybe I got no right to ask you to do anything, but maybe
you'd find out if that man's watch is an hour slow. Maybe you'd be
willing to do that before you send a wireless."
The captain looked full at Tom, with a quizzical, shrewd look. He saw
now, what he had not taken the trouble to notice before: a boy with a
big mouth, a shock of rebellious hair, a ridiculously ill-fitting
jacket, and a peaked cat set askew. Instinctively Tom pulled off his
cap.
"What's your name?" said the captain.
"Tom Slade," he answered, nervously arranging his long arms in the
troublesome, starched sleeves. "In the troop I--used to belong to," he
ventured to add, "they called me Sherlock Nobody Holmes, the fellers
did, because I was interested in deduction and things like that."
For a moment the captain looked at him sternly. Then the Secret Service
man, still whistling with a strangely significant whistle, stepped over
to Tom.
"Put your cap on," said he, "frontways, like that; now come along with
me, and we'll see if Doctor Curry from Ohio can accommodate us with the
time."
He put his arm over Tom's shoulder just as Mr. Ellsworth used to do, and
together they left the store-room. It seemed to Tom a very long while
since any one had put an arm over his shoulder like that....