A STRANGE STORY
The little motor boat had left the _Apollyon_ far behind, ignoring
shouts from its deck to halt, before Skippy dared break the tense
silence.
“Gee, Pop,” he stammered fearfully, “what happened between you and Mr.
Flint anyway, huh? Because you didn’t even say goodnight to the mate an’
you got in the boat an’ told me so cranky an’ all to push off before I
got a chance to say goodnight to him, either—gee whiz! I never seen you
act so funny before in my life. What’s the matter, huh?”
Toby Dare groaned and buried his face between his hands. Then, for what
seemed to Skippy an interminable time, he rocked to and fro and the
groans that escaped him were distressing to the waiting boy.
Finally Skippy could stand it no longer.
“Pop, you gotta tell me what’s the matter! Gee, it’s somethin’ terrible
the way....”
“Sonny,” Toby interposed brokenly, “git back ter the _Minnie M. Baxter_
jest as quick as yer kin! I got ter put as much water between me—me
an’—an’ _him_ as it’s possible ter put.”
“Pop?”
“It’s like a dream, Sonny—a bad dream—a terrible dream. I can’t make
head or tail uv it yet. I went ter his cabin ’midships like that mate
told me....”
“Yes?” Skippy encouraged.
“I knocked on the door an’ I could uv sworn I heard a kinda grunt like
Ol’ Flint does. He’s a man uv few words. Anyways, I goes in an’ there
he’s sittin’ in a big chair with a funny grin on his face.”
“Grinnin’ at _you_, Pop?” Skippy asked clenching his straight white
teeth.
“That’s what I thought an’ right away I got wild,” Toby answered running
his hands nervously through his disheveled hair. “I forgot what I
promised—I forgot everythin’ ’ceptin’ the way he’d cheated me an’ I got
tellin’ him so but he didn’t say nothin’, but jest kep’ sittin’ there
a-grinnin’ that funny way. Well, I knowed as how he always was a man uv
few words but I thought he could stop grinnin’ an’ at least say
_somethin’_. But he didn’ an’ that’s what made me see red—I thought he
was a-makin’ fun uv me, sorta, an’——”
“You didn’t go for him?” Skippy interposed fearfully.
“Sonny, I jest sorta lost my head,” answered Toby brokenly. “I kin
hardly remember what happened ’ceptin’ I realized all uv a sudden that I
had my hands ’round his throat an’ I was chokin’ him.”
“And didn’t he make any noise or anythin’?” Skippy was horrified.
“That’s what made me let go. I got wise right then that somethin’ was
funny ’cause he didn’t let a sound outa him all the time. His eyes
seemed ter git funnier lookin’ though, but he kep’ on grinnin’ jest the
same. Then I let go quick an’ _plop_—over he fell, head first he fell
an’ that’s when I saw it——”
“_What?_”
“That he’d been shot in the back,” Toby whispered looking about
uneasily.
“_Pop!_”
“Sure as guns, Skippy,” Toby moaned pitifully. “Then I knew he musta
been dead all the time—even before I got in the room.”
Skippy too groaned.
“How—how could he sit up like that then, if he really was _dead_?” he
asked with an audible gulp.
“That’s what I’ve been wonderin’ an’ all I kin think is that whoever did
it, sat him up that way after it happened. I could see in his bedroom
off uv the room he was sittin’ in an’ papers was lyin’ all ’round like
as if there’d been a scrap.”
“With somebody else,” Skippy murmured as if to himself. Then, in a
frightened whisper: “What then, Pop?”
“All I could do was stand there like a crazy man,” Toby groaned. “I
don’t even remember how long I stood there. It’s all like part uv that
nightmare so I can’t remember.”
“I know, Pop.” Skippy tried to sound comforting. “Who—what groaned that
time? The second mate and me heard it plain’s anythin’.”
“Me. That was when I knew he was dead! It jest sorta come ter me full in
the face an’ I was so full uv fright that I had ter let it out some
way.”
Skippy turned around and for a few moments searched the face of his
unhappy father.
“Pop—Pop,” he faltered, “just one thing I can’t understand—why—why
didn’t you tell the second mate, an’ me, right then? Why—why didn’t you
spurt it right out an’ not run away when you know you didn’t do it?”
“Who’d believe it?” Toby answered hopelessly. “There was the mark uv my
fingers on his throat—_there they was_! I’d even have ter admit ter that
mate that I was mad enough ter choke Ol’ Flint ter death—he could see my
fingers there ter prove it, couldn’t he? Well, why wouldn’t he think I
give him an automatic in the back afterwards, hey? Why wouldn’t he?”
“_But, Pop!_ If you only had said _sumpin_!”
“I wanted ter git away from that awful grinnin’ face. As far away as I
c’d get. I—I couldn’t stay there ter tell nobody _nothin’_, Skippy.
Besides, do I know I didn’t choke him ter—ter...” He sobbed a moment,
then looked up. “Mebbe ’twasn’t the automatic what really got him,
Skippy—mebbe ’twas _me_, hey?”
Skippy reached out and grasped Toby’s damp flannel shirt sleeve in
agony.
“Pop, it wasn’t you—I know it—_I just feel it_!” he cried. “I can tell
from all you told me about him grinnin’ like from the time you got
inside the room.” He hesitated a moment, then: “You don’t remember him
makin’ a sound at all?” he asked, anxiously peering into his father’s
face.
“Not one sol’tary sound, Sonny—I didn’t hear a one!”
Skippy sighed and again took up the task of steering the little motor
boat upstream. His tired young face, however, had taken on a new look of
resolution.
“You’re tired, Pop, an’ I’m gonna take you back to the _Minnie M.
Baxter_. Then I’m gonna turn this kicker straight back and head her
downstream again an’ I’m goin’ aboard that _Apollyon_ an’ explain the
whole thing. I’ll tell ’em everythin’ like you told me an’ I bet they’ll
believe it all right ’cause they’ll see that my Pop couldn’t kill
anybody.”
Toby said nothing but continued to rock back and forth with his head in
his hands.
“Maybe—maybe you’re not so tired an’ you’d turn ’round with me an’ go
back an’ tell ’em, huh Pop?” Skippy returned anxiously.
“Skippy,” Toby cried hoarsely, “jest now I wanta go back ter the _Minnie
M. Baxter_ an’ think. Like a good boy don’t talk about it no more till
we get there, hey?”
Skippy, bewildered, promised that he wouldn’t, and let the little kicker
out to the best of her ability. From time to time he heard the miserable
sighs of his father, and over and over again he told himself the story
of Josiah Flint’s strange death just as Toby had told it. But with each
recurring thought, a strange suspicion asserted itself and clamored so
hard in the boy’s conscious mind that he was forced to recognize that it
was a doubt, a small one, but nevertheless a doubt of his father’s
story.
And by the time they were once more on board the _Minnie M. Baxter_,
Skippy was fearful that possibly, after all, his father might be the
actual murderer of Josiah Flint!