We had little time to speculate on the problem of the _Wanderer’s_
disappearance. After the first moment of stunned silence Chanler broke
down, promptly and completely.
“Hang it, hang it!” he cried, striking the bow of the canoe with his
paddle. “This is too much. Your fault, too, Gardy. Now find the
yacht.”
“Steady, George!” I warned, as the light craft rocked dangerously.
“You’re in a canoe, remember. Keep still.”
“Keep still, keep still! How d’you expect me to keep still? Isn’t this
enough to make a man nervous. Hang it! I can’t keep still, I tell you.
This is too much.”
“It nearly was,” I agreed. “A little more that time and we’d have been
in the water.”
“Then do something! Say something!” he commanded. “Where’s the yacht?
What are we going to do?”
“First of all, if you’ll please sit still for a minute or two, we’re
going to get to land without tipping over. Will you sit still that
long?”
“Go ahead! You’ve got me into this mess; now get me out.”
“Only sit still,” I pleaded and carefully guided the canoe towards the
nearest land. This was the little out-jutting point of the island from
which I had swum to the _Wanderer_ that afternoon, and I did not
breathe fully until I had beached the canoe solidly and the danger of
capsizing from George’s jerky movements was over. He stepped out
hurriedly.
“My God! This is awful, awful!” he said hoarsely, looking around in
the dark. “This is terrible! A fine mess you’ve got me into, Gardy.”
“Why, George, it can’t be so bad,” said Betty cheerily, stepping out
beside him. “The yacht’s been moved that’s all. We’ll only have to
find her new anchorage. It will be all right.”
“All right? All right! Hang it, Betty; I’m in no shape to stand this
sort of thing. It’s Gardy’s fault. He got me into it. Now what are you
going to do, Gardy? Eh?”
“Look around for the yacht’s new anchorage, as Miss Baldwin says,” I
replied. “She can’t be far off.”
“Can’t be far off! Can you see her? Is she anywhere around? Don’t you
suppose we’d see the lights if she was near?”
“Not if they had no outside lights and the curtains in the cabin were
down,” said Betty soothingly.
“Rot, rot, rot! Didn’t they know I was coming back? Weren’t they
expecting me? Wouldn’t they have the lights out so we could see’em?
Rot! They’ve gone. The yacht’s gone. What are we going to do?”
“If you will just sit here quietly with Miss Baldwin,” I said, “I’ll
take a look around. The yacht must be near, of course, and we can’t
help finding it.”
The first part of this statement I felt to be true: the yacht must be
near, for no stretch of imagination could picture Riordan putting to
sea. On the other hand I recalled the countless crooked indentations
of the fiord and knew there were a score of places where the
_Wanderer_, with lights out, might be hidden. We might even have
passed it without being aware of its nearness.
I pulled the canoe safely from the water and made my way in the
darkness around the island to the open sea. But the sea was only a
noisy waste with no light upon it. I went around the island, returning
to my starting point, and no glimpse of the yacht or her lights did I
have.
Betty now was sitting beside George, who had slumped down against a
boulder, and was patting his hand and talking to him assuringly.
“I told you so,” he whined when I made my report. “Nothing doing.
She’s gone. Now what in the world are we going to do? Eh?”
“The yacht must be somewhere in the bay. You mustn’t worry so, George;
it will all come out all right.” Betty was speaking to him as one
might to a frightened child. “Mr. Pitt has only started on his hunt,
haven’t you, Mr. Pitt?”
“Of course,” I said, “I’ll take the canoe and run up some of these
inlets. She’ll probably be there.”
I paddled away from the island with an appearance of confidence that I
did not feel. By this time I had begun to appreciate the ironic humor
with which Brack had warned us not to go too far. This was his work,
and as I recalled the sly certainty of his smile, such hope as I had
of finding the yacht dwindled to a minimum. Nevertheless I searched
the inlets on both sides of the bay for the matter of half a mile
before I returned to the island with my admission of failure.
Chanler by this time had passed into the furious stage of nervousness.
He was pacing swiftly up and down the beach, clenching and unclenching
his hands and breathing heavily.
“I don’t care—I don’t care where you did look and where you didn’t
look!” he burst out as I stepped from the canoe. “You didn’t find the
yacht, and you’ve got me into this, and I can’t stand it much longer;
that’s all.”
He swung away and I followed and caught his arm savagely.
“If you would think of Miss Baldwin a little you might forget your
nerves,” I whispered.