TOM HAS SOME OF HIS OWN WAY
“OH, what a pity!” cried the girl, in a voice of genuine distress. “I’m
almost certain Mr. Tremaine won’t like that.”
“It is a matter with which Mr. Tremaine has very little to do,” replied
the youthful skipper of the “Restless.” “A robbery has been committed
on the boat I command, and it’s my duty, as well as my own desire, to
have the police come aboard.”
On shore, in the sleepy-looking little town, nearly a dozen people
of varying ages were visible from the boat. All of these had turned
waterward when the whistle sounded so long and shrilly.
“Likely as not the police force has taken a small boy with him and gone
fishing somewhere,” observed Halstead, dryly, as he reached once more
to sound the whistle.
The Tremaines and Dixon had come up on deck through the after cabin
hatch, and now stood looking curiously ashore.
As the second series of long whistles woke the echoes of this little
Florida town, a negro was seen to amble down to the shore, step into
a boat and push off. He rowed until within hailing distance, when he
called:
“W’ut you-uns gwinter want—provisions or gas-oil?”
“We’ve been sounding the police call,” Tom shouted back. “Send a
policeman 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 had
gotten his passenger aboard, the negro rowed more lustily than he had
previously done, and soon ranged up alongside the “Restless.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” sang out the white man, “this amiable black
Ananias 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 a
disappearance of money on board. I shall be much obliged, as will
most 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, then
drew the rowboat in close. As the officer stepped up onto the deck
of the “Restless,” he threw back his coat, displaying a police star
beneath.
“I am the one who lost the money,” explained Henry Tremaine, stepping
forward and introducing himself. “I don’t want to subject anyone,
especially this young captain and engineer, to any search. I’d sooner
lose 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’t
take the money,” rejoined Tom Halstead, hotly. “Officer, I want the
search 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 the
policeman, who gave his name as Randolph.
Henry Tremaine told the story quickly.
“Why, sir,” replied Officer Randolph, “if you, Mr. Tremaine, refuse to
make 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 lay
myself liable if I were to search anyone.”
“Why do you object, Mr. Tremaine?” appealed Tom, turning to the
charter-man.
“Because,” replied that gentleman, “it’s all a puzzle to me, as it must
be to the rest of us. I am satisfied that, somehow, the whole matter
will be cleared up, presently, without recourse to the law.”
“But I want my boat and ourselves cleared,” protested the young
skipper, looking more than ever worried.
“You and your boat will be cleared—somehow—not long from now,” replied
Henry Tremaine, shortly. “I decline to be mixed up in any legal
proceedings.”
“But Ah reckon Ah’s gotter hab de officer look me ober,” declared Ham
Mockus, coming up from below, ready to go ashore, and carrying a most
dilapidated valise. “You-all will see each other again, you-all, but
I’se gwine ashoah, an’ likely yo’ll nebber see me again. So I asks de
officer kindly to look mah bag frou, an’ den come below an’ look me
ober. Ah don’ want to have you-all t’ink, bimeby, mebbe yo’d better had
Ham Mockus looked ober.”
“Well, open your baggage, then,” grinned the police officer. “I’ll
accommodate you, Mockus.”
Ham’s meagre baggage, on exploration, proved innocent enough. Then the
officer took him below to the engine-room, soon coming back to the deck
with 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 said
Ah’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 grin
that he gave, while he protested his thanks.
While Mr. Tremaine was bargaining with the negro boatman to put them
ashore, Ida Silsbee moved over to Tom’s side.
“I know, Captain Halstead,” she whispered, “that you feel disappointed
over not having a search made. But believe me, Mr. Tremaine does not
understand how you feel. He doesn’t for a moment suspect, now, that you
or Mr. Dawson took the money, and he knows Ham hasn’t it. Mr. Tremaine
has his own notions of sensitiveness, and he prefers to drop the whole
matter. He has been drugged. There isn’t a doubt about that, and his
head 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 have
the thing settled myself.”
“This man is going to take us ashore,” broke in Mr. Tremaine, from
several feet away. “Then he’ll come back for the baggage. Captain, you
and Mr. Dawson will join us ashore at breakfast, won’t you?”
“One of us will,” Halstead made answer. “The other must remain aboard
the yacht to look out for it.”
Ham went over the side with the late passengers, Officer Randolph
remaining behind at Tom Halstead’s almost whispered request.
By the time that the boat put out from shore again the two boys and the
Tres Arbores policeman were just coming up from below.
“Since they want one of us ashore, Tom,” urged Dawson, “you’d better be
the 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 to
sit at table with that fellow Dixon. I’d feel a violent impulse, all
the 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,” Joe
added, 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, or
why don’t you, tell Mr. Tremaine about that?”
“He’d be likely to suspect I was trying to throw suspicion on his guest
to 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 tell
his chum, in whispers, about the incidents of the vial and the water
bottle. 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 young
sailing master to the little hotel of which Tres Arbores boasted.
In the parlor they found the passengers of the “Restless” awaiting the
summons 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 in
the next room. As the proprietor seated them, Dixon was on one side of
the 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 affair
again. Yet I feel it due to myself to say that I have succeeded in my
purpose of having Dawson, myself and the ‘Restless’ searched.”
“You have?” demanded Henry Tremaine, looking surprised though not
altogether 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 gasoline
tanks, sir. I found no trace of the money.”
As Tom Halstead’s glance swept the opposite side of the table he
encountered the covert, sneering look of Oliver Dixon.
“Confound the fellow!” muttered young Halstead, under his breath. “I
can sympathize with Joe’s desire to hit him!”