"And I saw you up at our shed that evening. I thought it was Dave
Fletcher, taking a back view; but when I called 'Dave!' there was no
answer to it;--and, Dave, you'd speak if I called, wouldn't you?"
"I think I would."
"This other person that looked like you didn't say a word."
Timothy puffed and protested and denied, growing redder and redder.
"See here, Waters," said Captain Sinclair: "I have been looking at the
lighthouse records last year, and I have hunted up places where you have
written, and the style is like this in the letter I received--that
anonymous one--about the charges against the keepers in the lighthouse.
You come up into the room above with me."
Stuttering in his confusion, still asserting his innocence, blushing, he
stumbled up the stairway, and then alone with Captain Sinclair he was
urged to make a clean breast of it.
"Yes," said the captain, "tell the whole story; for there is enough
against you to shut you up in quarters of stone, and it won't be a
lighthouse."
Timothy was startled by this. He broke down, and made a full confession
to the inspector.