"Well, Mr. Fletcher, I think Mr. Tolman will recover from this. We
shall get him through." And when he spoke, Dr. Peters waved his hands
as if he had already disposed of this case and now passed it out of
sight.
"However, Mr. Fletcher, the case will need careful watching, and you had
better take charge of it, unless his daughter might come down to relieve
you."
"Possibly his granddaughter," thought Dave.
"I don't think we can ever rely on Toby Tolman's resuming his old duties
here--might do a little something, you know--and you had better get
Thomas Trafton or some trusty man to help you. When will the inspector
be here?"
"Our lighthouse inspector, Captain Sinclair, doctor?"
"Yes."
"In about a fortnight, perhaps sooner. The steamer that brings supplies
for the lighthouse will soon be here, and Captain Sinclair will come in
her, I think."
"The inspector, to look after matters?"
"Yes, sir. Of course I shall report what you say about the keeper to
headquarters at once."
"I would. It is very important. And when Captain Sinclair comes, let
me know, please."
"I will, sir."
"Of course it is necessary that things should be inspected. I am glad
he is coming. Well to be careful."
"What does he mean?" wondered Dave. "Has he got hold of those stories
about misappropriation? Well, when Captain Sinclair comes I hope he will
sift things to the bottom. I am not afraid of an investigation."
Dave took satisfaction in the consciousness of his integrity; still it
was not pleasant to be suspected. It was Toby Tolman's mysterious
language, indicating that he too held Dave in some kind of suspicion,
which troubled Dave painfully. The day after Dr. Peters's visit the
light-keeper again referred to this mystery. He roused himself into a
state of seeming consciousness, and then relapsed. Again he awoke. He
looked around him and fastened his eyes on the top of a clothes-press in
the room.
"What do you want, sir? Anything there that you want to put on?" asked
Dave.
The keeper shook his head. Pointing at the top of the press, he said,
"Dave, I would put it back."
"What do you mean? I don't understand you."
The keeper, though, was gone again, murmuring about the tide, which he
said was very late, and when would it come in? He had been awake long
enough to cruelly wound Dave once more.
Bart Trafton had gone home with Dr. Peters, rowing him to town in the
same dory that brought him to the light the night before. In two days
Bart was down again. As he sat in the kitchen eating some apple-pie
offered him by his father, he said, "Father, I found something in our
shed."
"What was it, Bart?"
Laying down his lunch, Bart drew out of a package a chronometer.
"Found that in the shed?" asked the surprised father.
"Yes, on a shelf."
"Why, Bart, this has got the letters of our lighthouse on it. Must have
come from here. And in our shed! How did it get there? I must show
this to Dave," said Thomas Trafton.
"Hush-sh!" exclaimed Dave, when his assistant entered the room; "Toby is
trying to get some sleep."
"See here!" said Thomas, in low tones. "Must show you something."
"I never saw it before," replied Dave, handling the chronometer. "It
belongs here, though. There are the initials. Where did you get it?"
A stir among the bedclothes arrested the attention of the two men. Toby
Tolman had opened his eyes, and was looking at them. Something he saw
must have pleased him, for he smiled.
"That is right, Dave. I am glad you brought it back. I would put it
up."
"Where?" asked the astonished Dave, anxious to lay hold of any clue to a
serious mystery.
"Up there."
He pointed at the top of the clothes-press. The press was not a tall
one. Dave standing on tiptoe could reach to its top, and he now laid
the watch there.
"Is that right?" asked Dave.
The keeper nodded his head, and then closed his eyes, his face wearing a
satisfied expression foreign to it all through his sickness.
"Is not that queer?" whispered Dave. "Some mystery that is too deep for
me."
He beckoned Thomas and Bart out of the room, and then followed them
downstairs.
"Now, how do you explain that?" asked Dave, as the three clustered about
the stove, whose heat that day was acceptable, for the air was chilly
and the wind was a prophet of storm.
"Don't know," said Thomas.
"I'd give this old pocket-book full of silver," declared Dave, "to have
that thing cleared up. It takes a load off my mind, I tell you. The
old man has been harping on the fact that I took something, and he has
been looking toward that old clothes-press in such a strange way. I
didn't know anything was up there. Did you see how he acted, smiled
about it?"
"Where did you get this pocket-book?" asked Thomas.
"The day that Toby was taken sick I picked it up among the rocks here.
I had been over at your fish-house, and found it when I was coming back.
Been in the water, you see."
"Here are some letters on it--T.W."
"That means Tobias Winkley or--"
"Thomas Winkley. Can't prove it to be Thomas Trafton; and if you could
no money is in it. 'T.W.,' that is Timothy Watson."
"Or Timothy Waters."
"Yes; Timothy Waters, or anything that would go with those initials.
Toby Tolman wouldn't go."
"Now I must go upstairs again to be with my patient."
Dave Fletcher's heart was lighter as he went upstairs again, but the
burden now lightening on his shoulders seemed to be transferred to those
of Thomas Trafton.
"Don't understand this!" he exclaimed. "Where is Bart? Bart!"
There was no response to this call, and the father went downstairs into
the storeroom to hunt up Bart.
"Nobody here. I'll go into the signal-tower," said Thomas; and up in
the engine-room, looking soberly out of a window fronting the breakers
on the bar, stood Bart.
"You here, Bart? What are you doing here?"
"Thinking," said the boy gloomily.
"What makes you so sober, Bart?"
"Don't like to have folks suspected."
"Neither do I. That old thing was found in our shed, but I don't know
anything about it."
It relieved Bart to hear his father's stout assertion of innocence, but
his burdens had not all dropped.
"You know they talk about Dave, father."
"Well, you don't believe it?"
How could Bart consent to take Dave Fletcher down from that high
pedestal to which he had elevated him? How could he believe that his
marble statue was after all only common clay, and even of an inferior
earth?
"I won't believe it till it is proved," said Bart stoutly, "nor of you
either, father."
This relieved Thomas Trafton.
"Bart, you see if I don't turn this rascally thing over and get at the
truth! I'll find the mischief-maker; yes, I will."
Thomas Trafton was by nature a detective. He put himself on the trail
of this mystery, and if a trained hound he could not have followed the
track more keenly and resolutely. He announced his purpose to Dave, and
the latter would ask him occasionally if he had any clue.
"I am at work on it, still running. The scent is good, and I have
something of a trail. I'll tell you when I get through," was one reply
he made.