# The Popular Magazine/Volume 51/Number 4/Lobster Pots

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Extracted from Popular magazine, 7 February 1919, pp. 65-79. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
Lobster Pots
By Henry C. Rowland Author of “The Arbiters,” “Pep,” Etc.
Summering on the coast of Maine may not be altogether what it seems. Also, there are more ways than one to catch the wily lobster.
WHEN Jim Stevens departed for France with the first contingent of Y.M.C.A. workers his friends and especially Katherine Blue were a little disappointed. They had all expected Jim immediately to secure a commission in the navy, the marines, perhaps, and be among the first to fight. He was thirty-two, sound of body, very rich, extremely unmarried and an experienced yachtsman. The fact that for some years he had been a strenuous Y.M.C.A. settlement worker and organizer did not entirely excuse him.
But when on his return in June he departed immediately for his bungalow on the coast of Maine with the evident intention of passing the summer there, even Katherine's faith was shaken. It had in fact been shaken a little too soon, and Jim perceived it and grew curtly reticent as to his motives. He departed with a brief remark about needing a rest and that they would meet a little later when she came down to spend August with her sister who had a summer cottage near his own. This irritated Katherine, who felt herself almost as good as engaged to Jim and quite privileged to present candidly her plans for him and the war.
In flagrant disregard of popular sentiment Jim installed himself comfortably in his luxurious bungalow with three new and unknown servants. When the colleges closed, there came to spend the summer with him a pale, spectacled young man with a slight curvature of the spine whom he casually introduced as “Professor Perkins.” Guest and host kept very much to themselves but made frequent excursions in Jim's seagoing motor boat, sometimes being absent for two or three days. This gave rise to the rumor that he was connected with the intelligence department, which was not at all the case.
Timothy French and his thirteen-year-old son Lucien thought at first that Jim must have loaned the bungalow to some friend or relative. He was their nearest neighbor, situated directly opposite their island on a piney promontory about three miles across the inlet. Learning that he had indeed returned to spend the summer there Timothy raised his sandy eyebrows.
“I declare, son,” said he to Lucien, “I'm plum surprised.”
Lucien's cherubic face expressed no dismay at this action on the part of a friend whom he esteemed. Once to win this boy's loyalty was to keep it through thick or thin.
“Jim must have some pow'ful good reason, dad,” said he. “There ain't a grain of slacker in his stuff. Let's hop in the launch and run over and tell him howdy.”
Timothy agreed, so they went down to the jetty and put off. Father and son made a curious couple. Timothy, the astute United States attorney of a Southern city; passed invariably with strangers for an artist or musician or poet by virtue of his soulful, dreamy eyes, ascetic features, black curling hair and languid manner. This was partly mask, partly the conservation of his fire for the startling effect of forensic shock when occasion required. In repose he was like a lazy hound, which animal he somewhat resembled physically as well as mentally. In action the similarity increased.
Lucien was the apt pupil of his father's painstaking lessons in criminology. The angel-faced boy was a sort of combination of Kim and Mowgli, his two childish patterns of instinct and intelligence. He had more than once actually helped his keen-sensed parent in the unraveling of some perplexing social problems, and Timothy accepted him rather as a confrère than a disciple. There was something almost pathetic in their undemonstrative devotion to each other.
Jim Stevens sighted the launch's approach and went down to receive his callers at the landing. He was a young man of small but well-rounded frame, plump in fact except for his face which was lean, alert and of kindly expression. He looked precisely what he was; an indefatigable social worker eager to do his conscientious best and ready to back his efforts with his large,-independent in come. But certain nervous lines suggested a possible impatience. if his efficient plans were to meet with criticism. One did not need to be told that he was rich and used to having his own way.
“Hello, Judge—hello, Lucien,” he called cheerily, and had them out and shaking hands and the launch made fast and a sort of questionnaire of their general well-being off the reel before his visitors had time to stretch their legs. He skipped between them, hooked arms in theirs and escorted them up the stone steps to the bungalow like a busy tug with a lumber schooner on the port and a little yacht on the starboard side, hustling to get somewhere before the tide turned.
Reaching the veranda he introduced Professor Jones, then touched a bell which was answered by a flaccid-looking manservant with restless hands.
“Set four places for lunch,” he said, and quickly informed his guests that they were to remain whether they felt like it or not. “Got a lot of things to tell you about our work over there,” said he, “and I may not get another chance. Got such an awful lot to get through between now and autumn and{bar|2}}”
He shot them a keen, half-defensive look as if expecting to be asked what he had to get through, but he was not. Timothy's dreamy eyes were resting on the door whence the butler had vanished as though his gaze having been passively led there was too inert to shift itself, while Lucien after a swift glance about the veranda, which was partly glassed-in, was looking at a blond young man with grimy hands and a chauffeur's cap who was going down the steps to the landing with a stillson wrench and a coil of copper tubing.
No, the slumbrous-eyed Southern hound and his silky, gifted pup had not the slightest desire to be told what work their host had to get through before the season's close. They knew. Timothy, in fact, had already put the matter from his mind and was reflecting on the prison pallor, restless hands, lusterless eyes and silent, shuffling gait of the butler, and from this he turned slowly to a contemplation of the flaxen hair and thick shoulders of the chauffeur, disappearing down the steps. Jim—Stevens liked to be called by his nickname on short acquaintance by those whom he approved—followed his gaze, then looked at him with a smile.
“Spotted my two jailbirds already, haven't you old sleuth?” said he, lowering his voice. “Well, why not? I got 'em from the ex-convicts aid society. That Swede boy did his time for a well-proven charge of barratry. Helped lose an ore ship he was mate of. That was three years before the war. The butler was chief steward of a royal mail ship and nabbed smuggling opium into Frisco. You know my ideas about giving a man a chance to make good—and besides this is no time to take men from useful occupations. Nobody wants these poor devils. They'd go on the bum or turn to crime again with wages at five dollars per day's unskilled labor.”
Timothy draped one long leg over the other and rubbed his shaven chin. “Uhn-h'n,” he assented. “There's right sma't of an idea for a solution of the male domestic servant problem. We might requisition a heap of timeservers and go their bonds, thereby savin' the gove'ment their keep. Car thieves and smugglers and fo'gers—and the like.” His luminous eyes rested quizzically on Jim, who flushed a little not quite knowing whether this was irony or not. He did not pursue the topic but began to talk about the war and the great work of the Y.M.C.A. But although an interesting narrator his Southern guests were conscious that he was not absolutely at his ease. There was an accent not quite of challenge but as though he were inviting some query as to why he had returned from a field where workers were so badly needed, to summer in peace and quiet on the coast of Maine. This not being put he finally approached it of his own accord.
“Yes,” said he, “we've got a splendid start, and those of us who have had the most to do with its organization now feel that what we most need is an army of men not qualified for fighters yet able to do the necessary things. The last thing we want is to steal men from the ranks.”
“I reckon there ain't much danger of thet when this new draft bill goes through,” said Timothy dryly.
“No, of course not,” Jim answered, and seemed embarrassed for a moment. Lucien, glancing at his father whose signals he had learned to read like a book, caught the heavy droop of the eyelid which he knew to be a masked wink. His own face was guileless as a seraph's, which showed this child's extraordinary powers of self-control. He was glad when presently they said good-by and got far enough away to have his laugh out in safety.
“Jim would have busted if we'd stayed much longer, dad,” said he. “So would I.”
“Uhn-h'n,” answered Timothy, absently. “I wonder naow if maybe I oughtn't to tell him to look aout for that daid fish of a butler.”
“Forger, ain't he, dad?”
“Uhn-h'n. Might have smuggled opium, too, as a side graft. I do natchully hate buttin' into crim'nal stuff on my vacation. Say, son, it sho' needs a simon-pure honest guy like Jim to rouse suspicion in the human mudhead.”
“And to see through as easy as a Georgette blouse,” said Lucien.
“Listen to me, Luce,” said Timothy, pursuing his line of thought and ignoring Lucien's, “inside a fortni't some o' these porch-settin' gasbags will be botherin' the bureau of public information about a young man flush with money makin' mysterious runs offshore with a professor and a German-lookin' mechanic in a speed launch. Might make Jim a sight o' nuisance.”
“Then why don't he say right out what he's aimin' at, dad?”
“H'm—partly because his friends and likely that Katherine girl of his have got him riled, and partly because he's afraid he might slip up on gettin' his commission, and a man like Jim can't bear a failure. No, he cal'lates to let 'em all go the limit knockin' him fo' a slacker while he's quietly crammin' up on navigation and gunnery and memorizin' pilot charts and all the other requirements, then go up for his naval exam and tear the pants off it. He's playin' dark horse, and he figures to collar his stripes and then give 'em the Cheshire cat. That's all right, but his housing those two calaboose veterans sorta worries me. Naow, I wonder{bar|2}}”
He paused for so long a time that Lucien asked a little diffidently: “If he got them, dad—or they got him for some game of their own?”
“Uhn-h'n. You said it, son. We don't want to see Jim get in wrong. He did his trick in Y.M.C.A. work because it was immediately up to him and he wasn't then qualified to go after a commission. But he wanted the navy from the start, and naow he's after it tooth and nail, and he's got to go some to beat the draft. That tutor looks like a right capable higher-mathematic wiz.”
“When I looked at the table and saw that book of logarithms and the chart and parallel rulers, and then thought of them running out every day to practice triangulatin' with that Boche-lookin' barrator I could hardly keep from laughin', dad. Could a fella stage spy stuff any better if he tried? What in the nation does Jim think, anyhow?”
“It's his spotless innocence and high endeavor, son,” Timothy answered, a little impatiently. “A good many such snowy birds have made unnecessary work for the intelligence department. They can't jam the odor of suspicion and themselves into the same thought. Well, let's sit tight and see what happens, just for fun. They can't do more than teach him a little something besides plain sailing.” He rubbed his chin. “But I wish he hadn't complicated his case with those two felons{bar|2}}”
Coached by his efficient and zealous tutor, Jim pursued his intensive nautical cramming in peace for about three weeks, during which time he made quite extraordinary progress. As an experienced yachtsman he was already a good boat handler and well grounded in seamanship, which had always appealed to him. Having gone to Yale from a military school, he had also received his due amount of infantry training in so far as it went.
It was practical navigation in dangerous waters that Jim wanted more than anything else, and this he was rapidly acquiring so that he was soon to take accurate sights on the swaying deck and work out his position closely from a solar or stellar observation, verifying it with azimuth bearings on known landmarks. He showed rather more sense about these maneuvers than the shrewd Timothy had given him credit for, so that his lessons were proceeding most satisfactorily, and he was beginning to feel confidence in himself for this sort of work when interruption came from the quarter which he had rather dreaded, yet anticipated with a certain amount of eagerness. This was the arrival of Katherine Blue to spend three weeks with her sister who had a pretty summer place about half a mile from his own bungalow with its ten containing acres of rocks and pines.
Jim had first met Katherine there about four years previously and had pursued a sort of sporadic courtship of her ever since. This had been rather a perennial affair, burgeoning every summer in a season too short to bring it to maturity, like a semi-tropical tree planted in a harsh climate. They had not seen a great deal of each other in the winters, she living in Washington and he in New York. There had been some rather torrid passages between them, however, and Jim had about made up his mind that the way of happiness lay in his taking her to wife at some indefinite time. He considered her the most complete girl he had ever met, and she was indeed very lovely and desirable.
But one thing was quite certain in his mind, and that was his fixed determination not to marry until after the war. He did not indeed purpose even to become engaged until after the war. During his Y.M.C.A. service in France he had seen much of the unwisdom of these impulsive weddings and betrothals on the eve of separation. He knew Katherine to be a warm-natured girl, and ripe for matrimony as a peach which yields itself to the hand on the least pres sure of its ruddy cheek, and feeling that she favored him he quite realized the danger of not being on guard.
Nevertheless, it gave him a decidedly pleasant thrill to learn that she had arrived and that there might be certain moonlight digressions from midnight oil and trigonometry. Jim had strongly resented her assumption that he had wearied of war work establishing Y.M.C.A. huts at the front, and had come home to slack down and enjoy his ease a little. But he felt quite able to for give her that after a month of hard study and the almost exclusive society of his tutor; rather more ready in fact than was Katherine to condone his hauling off to the Maine coast to loaf about in his boat and make pretense of propaganda work when so many splendid ones not half so free to do so were cheerfully offering themselves to the sublime sacrifice.
Wherefore, through her temperament and his folly in not frankly telling of his ambition, they had rather a hot and cold monkey-and-parrot time of it for a couple of weeks during which Katherine's disposition and Jim's nautical progress suffered painful setbacks, this resulting finally in a burst of indignation on her part and the request that he return her letters and consider all which might have passed between them as null and void. Jim was for heatedly protesting this ukase, but on second thought accepted it with bitter dignity.
This had happened on a bit of neutral ground, a strip of beach and bowlders be tween their two places of abode and as they left it Jim thought he saw a dark figure slip from behind a big adjacent rock into the shadow of the pines. He could not be sure, however, nor could he imagine why anybody should have been spying on them, so he put the matter from his mind, and after escorting her home returned to the bungalow in a state of righteous and injured gloom. He would return her packet of letters with no further effort to see her, and a little later when she heard of his commission followed by speedy promotion to the command of a submarine chaser or destroyer or mine sweeper, she would realize her great mistake in him.
The next morning he sat down at his desk and unlocked the drawer to get the letters and send them forthwith. At sight of them a sudden tenderness possessed him. After all, no doubt she was right, thinking as she did. Still, she should have had more faith in him. Anyhow, there was one particular letter which he felt that he would like to read again. He had in fact reread it several times, the last quite recently. But now he searched for it in vain. That charming epistle was gone, and yet he distinctly remembered having replaced it with the others and slipping the narrow rubber band around the lot. More than that—for Jim was something of a precisian—he remembered that the band was old and stretched beyond its strength and had snapped as he replaced it, and when not finding another ready, he had passed it around and tied it in a square knot.
It struck him suddenly that the band he had just removed had stretched easily and with no threat of snapping. On the contrary it looked new, a pale-gray in color and very elastic. He examined the knot and his lips tightened as he discovered it to be not a square one but a granny. Jim never tied a granny. He had not tied a granny since early boyhood when the captain of his father's schooner yacht had shown him the difference.
There was no longer any doubt. Somebody had picked the lock of the drawer and abstracted this particular letter. But why? Of what possible interest or value could that letter be to any third person? It was not a compromising letter. None of them were. Such a charming letter with its little hint of tender feeling might have been written by any well-bred girl to any young man for whom she had a little warmth of sentiment. So why steal it?
Jim was pondering the mystery, more puzzled than angry, when he heard a quick step on the veranda outside, then Lucien's voice asking for him. He remembered that he had asked the boy, of whom he was very fond, to run around to Rockland with him on the boat, Timothy being engrossed in some legal papers just received.
“Come on up, Luce,” he called, and a moment later Lucien entered. Jim got up and greeted him, then closed the door. “Look here, Lucien,” said he, “your dad swears that some day you are going to make Sherlock Holmes look like the village idiot, so now see what you can get out of this. Last night Katherine blew me up for being a slacker and asked me to send her letters back. Well, maybe I am and maybe I am't, but anyhow she bawled me out. Now, looking over her perfectly harmless correspondence, all or any of which might be read as models of discretion in any convent school, I find that one has been swiped. Very recently swiped, as I read it myself and put it with the others about ten days ago. More than that, there was a different band around the batch. What do you think?”
“Coarse work,” said Lucien.
Jim smiled. “Granted,” said he, “but that's not the point. Why any work at all? What's the good of the letter but to Katherine or me—and that's purely negative?”
Lucien opened the door, glanced out, then shut it softly.
“For a model,” he answered. “You make me tired, Jim. Do you hope to get a commission in the navy with an ivory nut like that?”
Jim stared, then burst into a cackle: “Oh, so you've guessed, have you? Well, I reckon dad is right about his olive branch. Go on, my seraphic Machiavelli. Why a model, even if it is a pretty and winsome fist?”
“To copy, admiral,” retorted Lucien. “To forge, crib, imitate or fake. To write you a billet-doux from your ex-inamorata and lure you off to a midnight reconciliation while your repentant sinners loot the shack and crack the crib and beat it in the boat. Are you trying for a billet on the naval intelligence, Jim, or the international naval strategy board?”
“I was,” said Jim, “but I've changed my mind. Assistant barnacle scraper of the fourth class, or chain tailer's mate is about my fair rating. Oh, the vipers!”
“Any school child would pipe your butler for a writing master by his hands,” said Lucien, “and if you clapped your hands behind that big manila-headed Swede he'd holler 'Kamerad.' I'll bet a prize hawg to a cootie that before we got into the war he was a motor-truck driver in the crown prince's furniture-moving corps.”
“Sapristi, I believe you're right, seraph. How about my third bandit, the cook. He's a Greek named Sardanapopulous, or something of the sort.”
“Is he a stone breaker, too?”
“Not to my knowledge. Just plain Greek.”
“That's worse. He looks like a Gallipoli ghoul. Probably a triangle team.”
“Never mind the triangle. I've been wearing it on my arm and the place is sore. What shall we do about these reformed apaches?”
Lucien reflected for a moment, when his oval face with its pure and perfect features, clear, fine skin and spiritual eyes would have led a Frenchwoman to exclaim: “Ah, le petit Jésu!”
“Better let on to fall for it like the goop they take you for, Jim, then put a signal over to dad and me. Dad sholy hates odd jobs when he's on his vacation, but it can't be he'ped. A crim'nologist is sorta like a doctor, always on the job. Dad's a roarin' lion when he takes after a crook, if he does look most times like he had to lean against the fence to bark.”
“How will the trouble start, you little Alabama Kim?”
“The professor goes to bed early, don't he?” Lucien asked.
“Yes—and I follow in about six short hours.”
“Well, that flat-foot steward of yours will probably bring you a note in Katherine's han'writin' sayin' she's sorry for the scrap and will you meet her down on aidge of the rocks and kiss and make up. The buzzard mus' know you had a fallin'-out and that's why he wanted a specimen of her han'writin'.”
Jim nodded. “I thought I saw somebody sneaking off between the rocks when we left the beach,” said he.
“That was your faithful felon Higgs. If it had been Jansen you would have seen his white top, and if it had been the Greek you wouldn't have seen him at all. There would only be a snake wabble in the sand. You took Katherine home and Higgs racked back here and got his specimen.”
“Then you think the motive is robbery?” Jim asked. “There isn't much to steal.”
Lucien looked for a moment like a meditative angel. He seemed a little loath to give his final decision.
“I don' see what else it could be, Jim,” said he. “This yeah's a triflin' bunch of petty larceners and the times are hard. For one thing they know that their job with you is a'most over and like as not they count on y'-all bein' a Christian young man who will take his loss and let 'em go. Higgs prob'ly figgers like this: '’E's a sensitive bloke and 'as 'is pride, so, 'avin' 'ired us from the ex-convicts aid 'e won't want 'is friend to 'ave the larf on 'im.' ”
Jim grew rather red. “Higgsis darn near right,” said he. “As a matter of fact that's just about what I would do. I signed them on with my eyes open and I'd stand the shot. There is always a bit of cash in my desk, and then I've got a few jeweled scarf-pins and some table silver and trinkets and things{bar|2}}”
“And some valuable nautical instruments,” Lucien added. “The chronometer and binoculars and sextants and compasses, all high-priced junk jes' this moment. They must realize that you could ketch 'em up befo' they got far, but you see they count on you lettin' 'em go.”
Jim nodded. “Higgs knows of course that I'm cramming hard for a commission and trying to beat the draft to it. He's banking partly on my being an easy mark and partly on my having no time to bother with a criminal suit. Then, as you say, he reckons on my not caring to advertise myself as a darn fool. Well, he's right. I don't want to shove them in again, but I would like to give them a rattling good scare. How can we manage it, Luce?”
“I reckon I'd better ask dad. The chances are they'll make sure you've gone to keep the date before startin' in to crack your little safe. Maybe I'd best lope back and tell him 'bout it now.” He rose and his violet eyes flitted about the room with a sort of birdlike curiosity. A door of the big clothes closet was open and something hanging from a hook caught his attention. “What's that rubber thing?” he asked.
“That is a funk bag, old sleuth. A rubber live-saving suit guaranteed to be warm and water-tight with grub lockers and brandy flask and a whistle to show them that you are not a floating mine when they come to pick you up. We all had them going over in case of getting torped. I bought mine so that anybody else could have my place in the boat.” He stepped to the closet, took the suit from its sack and spread it out. “A nice little hood to keep your permanent Marcel wave intact. Leaded soles to hold you down to your load water line. I tried it here the other day and it was a lot of fun but I have no more time for toys, and it is not a becoming costume for a prospective Farragut, so I will make you a present of it. Keep it on that badly installed speed thing of yours which is sure to get on fire some day. You and the judge might both squeeze into it at a pinch.”
Lucien's eyes glistened. He was after all just a fourteen-year-old boy though small for his age and with the face which goes with ten. He was delighted with the present and desired to try it immediately in spite of Jim's warning that he had better provide himself with an electric torch to find his way around inside it. But reflecting that priority should be given the donor's personal affairs, Lucien put the suit back into its sack, and telling Jim that he would watch for his re turn and run over immediately, went down to his launch and put off.
The boy was loath to disturb his father who was at work on the data of a criminal case which was the first on the autumn calendar. But Timothy heard him arrive and called out to know why he had returned.
Lucien hurried up the steep stone steps, his precious gift over his shoulder. Timothy had seen the device and asked: “Jim give you that, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Lucien answered. “She's some suit, dad. You could use it for duck shootin' or to go ashore if your dinghy struck adrift, or campin' out and sleepin' in the rain{bar|2}}” He suddenly bethought him of the important reason for his return. “Say, dad, Jim's buccaneers are fixin' to put one over on him and trickle away.” And Lucien forthwith described the situation as he saw it, briefly and with the police-court slang so dear to his boyish heart.
Timothy hung himself in bights over his morris chair and listened, at first with an expression of sleepy, indulgent interest as one might turn from tedious application and give ear to the insistent prattle of a child, but as Lucien proceeded his attention seemed to waver and his soulful eyes which were brown and soft and slightly prominent turned frequently to the funk bag on the floor. Lucien finished and looked at him with the eager expectancy of the pup watching for some sign of action in the older dog. Timothy surveyed him with a sad and pensive air. His expression suggested philosophic disappointment.
“That all?” he asked.
Lucien squirmed uneasily. “Yes, sir, so far,” he faltered.
“'Fraid this yeah toy sorta lured you off the trail, son; like a haoun' dawg jumpin' a fox when he's runnin' a deer.”
“You reckon' there's more to it, dad?”
“Uhn-h'n. A whole heap. Trewth is our theories only touch in spots, Luce. Naow stop and think. Let's go back to the start and assume that Higgs overheard the lovers' quarrel and stole the letter. He's the brains of the scheme, ain't he?”
“Yes, sir. Jansen is thick as pea soup.”
“And conspicuous, especially right naow. Higgs, on the contr'y, is a right commonplace-lookin' cuss with nothin' much to distinguish himself. Would he be apt to hitch up with Jansen?”
“He'd need Jansen to run the boat or the car.”
“Maybe—if he wanted the boat or the car. But if his motive is robbery, he don't need the boat or car. Jim often goes off in the boat overnight and Higgs would have all the time he needed to make his getaway.”
“Of co'se, dad,” murmured Lucien, “but then he wouldn't need to fo'ge a note from Katherine, either.”
“Ce'tainly not. But he must be aimin' to, or he wouldn't have stolen a specimen of her handwritin'. But he has, and that shows that he wants to pull this thing off when Jim is home. Why? Because when Jim is there Jansen is there, and he needs Jansen. Why? He sho'ly ain't fool enough to try to steal the boat or the car. Then what is it he aims to steal that needs Jansen's help?”
The boy gave his father a sick look. “Jim, of course,” he croaked, like a dejected little bittern. “I don't know where I been totin' my brains, dad.”
“Nor I no more, son,” drawled Timothy. “I declare, I'm plum' surprised. That bathe-and-keep-dry suit must have tu'ned your haid.”
“Reckon so, dad. And here I've been tormentin' Jim about his ossified gray matter. Why, it's plain as plain. I never gave that old squid of a Higgs the credit for having the nerve. Of course he knows that Jim's in a desperate hurry, and every day worth a fortune if he hopes to beat the draft, now they've speeded it up. Higgs counts on his coming across first and trying to get him afterward—if he does try, which is doubtful. Jim's got a skin like a shedder crab when it comes to gettin' grilled.”
“Uhn-h'n.” Timothy leaned back, brought the tips of his long, slim fingers together and stared absently at a horse-mackerel harpoon which decorated the wall of the camp. “That boy ain't in a position for much roastin' just naow. For him to get kidnaped like a toddlin' baby might be as much as his chance of a commission was worth. What if they kept him so's he couldn't register? He might have a hard time putting himself right.”
Lucien nodded. “They shorely could make him look plum' foolish, if not worse,” he admitted. “S'ppose they claimed he was party to it? Even his friends have been hinting at his havin' a gun-shy streak. And what chance would he have with that big Scandabochian? He could shove Jim into his hip pocket and set on him. I don't like it, dad.”
“Nor I, son. There are lots of lonesome places along this coast where they could stow a man away for a spell; deserted camps on wooded promontories and outlyin' islands with abandoned fishin' or lobsterin' camps.” He unfolded his lank frame and rose. “I reckon I'll go over and talk to Jim a mite. In most cases I'd admire to nab those crimps in the act, but that ain't such a sight of importance here. The main thing is to get shut of them before they have a chance to start anything.”
He strode to the door, then gave a snort of impatience. Picking up his glasses from the table he focused on some distant object. “There he goes naow. Full clip to the east'ard. Reckon we could overhaul him, son?”
Lucien shook his head. “'Fraid not, dad, with that screw of ours. One of the blades is badly bent from that wipe we gave it. I was going to take her over to the yard to get it hammered out this afternoon. Besides, we're sho't of gas and he's got too big a start. But you don't reckon there's any immediate danger, do you?”
Timothy rubbed his chin and looked at his small son under corrugated brows. “Can't always tell which way such brutes may jump, son. Naow if that Higgs got the notion Jim missed the letter and was tellin' you about it he might spring his deadfall right off. He only needed to sneak up and hear a word or two. Let's wait a shake and then spin over and see if he's there.”
This they accordingly did, making with their damaged propeller about half of the swift launch's possible speed. Timothy was taciturn and laconic, but Lucien in a state of cold and nervous apprehension which increased to a dismal despair as they drew near enough to see that the windows of the bungalow were closed with the shades drawn snugly down. The place wore in fact an air of cold desertion. Many of the summer cottages had been shut up for the winter, especially where there were children in the family as the schools were about to begin—and also the 18-45 year draft! In the case of shore houses the floats and many of the boats were still in the water waiting for the local caretakers to find time to haul them out.
They made the launch fast and rapidly mounted the winding stone steps. And then as they reached the veranda Timothy stared at the front door and puckered his smooth-shaven lips with a long, low whistle. For a piece of typewriter paper was stuck against the glass inside and on this was written in a large, bold hand which much resembled, but was not that of Jim:
Gone for a short cruise. May return in ten days' time.
“Don't fret so, son,” drawled Timothy. “'Twas my fault jes' as much as yours. More, I reckon, for not startin' right over the minute I guessed what was afoot.”
Poor Lucien's eyes were red-rimmed and his face haggard from worry and loss of sleep. The boy's bitter self-reproach for his unusual bungling in this of all cases was making him positively sick. He could not touch his breakfast, but Timothy was liberally disposing of the fat salt mackerel and delicious hot bread of their able, sable cook.
“Seems like we ought to be doin' something, dad,” he protested for the tenth or twentieth time.
“We're pretty apt to, soon as we go over for the mail,” said Timothy. “No use messin' things up. I'm naturally the man that Jim would turn to, 'specially as he knows I'm well acquainted at the bank in Po'tland. Right pleasant day for a spin over the road. Wonder what they'll have the gall to ask for Tim?”
“What I'm wondering is where and how they'll want the money handed over,” Lucien answered. “Risky job for them, dad.”
“They don't think so. But somehow I kinda look at it like you do, son.”
Lucien shot him a quick glance. “If they want it left out on some offshore reef, they'll need a faster boat than Jim's to get away with it,” said he. “We might get one of the patrol-fleet swifties with her three-inch gun.”
“And give Jim dead away?” drawled Timothy, raising his bushy eyebrows. “He wouldn't thank us, Luce. No, I reckon we can pull it off without any he'p from the navy. Uhn-h'n.” He rubbed his chin and smiled.
“Dog-gone it, dad!” Lucien burst out, “I know it's against the rules. It ain't etiquette and all that, but I'll begin to run around in circles if I don't know what's up your sleeve. My brain's been doing it all night. How the nation will they want this money paid over? Where will they want it put?”
Timothy appeared to hesitate. “Waal, son,” he drawled, “of co'se I can't say for certain where they may want it put, but I'm plum' sure where' I'd want it put if I was in their shoes. That would be some nice safe place about ten miles of a line of unbroken coast so's to give me plenty of leeway. And I'd give directions to have it put there about half an hour befo' dark and the depositor to mosey off in the opposite direction, so's I could see him out of sight before venturin' to c'llect.”
Lucien wrinkled his infantile nose. “But where would you find such a place? And with the big southeast swell that's been runnin' the last three days{bar|2}}”
“Wouldn't bother my place a mite, son. There's oodles of 'em all the way from Montauk to Sable Island inshore and offshore wherever the bottom's rocky.”
“Land o' love! I declare, dad, I'm jes' like runnin' into the Bay o' Fundy; gettin' thicker and thicker every minute. Of co'se. A lobster pot{bar|2}}”
“There, you guessed right the very first time, Luce,” said Timothy dryly. “That would be my scheme. A lobster pot on a sunken ledge about ten miles aout. A lobster pot with a nice bright red buoy, the third o' the line, maybe, and not too near the aidge of the sunken reef. A nice fat roll of three figgers each in a preserve jar crammed in the way the lobster goes, and there you are. Safe, simple and easy; no resk, bother nor expense—except for Jim, and all he wants is what the whole world wants mo' than anything else jes' now: Liberty.”
Lucien's face fell a little, then he glanced out of the window. “Then there's no chance—here comes the launch, dad.”
A few minutes later they were speeding in after the mail, but to Lucien's distress no letter came until that of the evening, and this with a Portland postmark. There could be no doubt whatever but that it was Jim's own writing and composition, and as Timothy flicked it open there fell out a check to his order for ten thousand dollars.
“Uhn-h'n,” he murmured, “about what I expected. Round and reasonable sum and no strain on Jim's cash balance. Let's see how he feels.” It read:
Dear Judge: No doubt after what Luce has told you, this comes as no surprise. My grateful timeservers acted on the opportunity I so kindly offered to make men of themselves. The cook was not mixed up in it. Higgs had maneuvered a blackmail on him for what he had been knocking down on household bills and made him beat it while the beating was good.
Higgs overheard enough of Luce's and my talk to know that he must get busy dam quick, and did. Jansen followed me down into the cabin when I went aboard the boat and put me to sleep without rocking. Then Higgs came aboard and now we are “somewhere in America,” I don't know myself just where.
Needless to say, I am in a hurry to get back and prefer to pay the fare than be indefinitely delayed. Also, I prefer not to have the story get out or risk being late for my date with the navy examining and registration board. So please follow directions implicitly with no effort to collar these birds.
This is what I must ask you to do. Cash the check as quickly as possible for nineteen five hundreds and five hundred in three one hundreds and the rest tens and twenties. Place the roll in a preserve jar and, getting in your boat alone or with Luce, go to the Moser Ledge, which, as you know, is about five miles southwest of Pemaquid Point, and nearly halfway between it and Monhegan Island. Half or three-quarters of a mile due south of the nun buoy on Moser Ledge you will find a line of lobster pots, or at least their buoys which are black with white ends, as Holstein cows. But one has a lobster pot at the other end, and that is the fourth from the ledge. The others are tied to rocks.
Please go there the first clear evening at six-thirty p.m.; to-morrow if possible, weather permitting and visibility good, put the money in the lobster pot and proceed straight home. Any attempt to catch these birds might result in delay and I would rather pay the money. They will play the game and let me go as soon as they get the dough, knowing that unless I am released in the next few days I don't much care how long they keep me.
Of course, I feel no end of a fool, and don't want the story to get out, as it would make a silly goat of me and might hurt me in other ways. If there should be any wind and sea, wait until the weather moderates as the place is nasty with a sea running. Take my car to run into Portland after the money. The garage is not locked. In case of fog or thick weather please wait as you will be watched from some point.
Jim.
“Golly, but he must be sore, dad,” said Lucien.
“Likely to be{bar|2}}” Timothy glanced at the barometer. “Reckon we can manage it to-morrow evenin', son.”
“Dad!” Lucien's face was pale and his eyes like sapphires.
“Waal, Luce?”
“We don't need to go to Portland.”
“Jes' what I was thinkin', son.”
“This stuff is no more of a roast on Jim than it is on me{bar|2}}”
“On us,” Timothy corrected. “I went to sleep at the switch.”
“We owe it to ourselves to nail those birds.” Lucien's eyes strayed to the funk bag in the corner. Timothy drew down the corners of his mouth and laughed.
“Uhn-h'n. I figure to. You're improvin', son.”
Lucien leaned forward with an eager face. “Dad, let me pull it off. I messed it up. Please let me, dad.”
Timothy reached out a long arm and let his hand fall caressingly on the boy's curly, chestnut hair. His soulful eyes were brimming with paternal love.
“Shucks, honey, you're not big enough. You would rattle aroun' in that thing like a pea in a pod. This is more fun than I've had sence we rescued May. That May gal and Jim sho'ly need a nu'se.”
He rose with surprising quickness, and deaf to Lucien's protests took out the life-saving suit and spread it on the floor. With deep chuckles rumbling in his chest he carefully examined the hood.
“Jes' needs a black mask and a little rockweed,” he murmured. “Lordy, son, but that will sho'ly be one scandalized squarehead!” He straightened up and looked through the open door toward the float. “Let's hop in the boat and run over to taown and get us some black and white enamel quick-dryin' paint.”
“Dad{bar|2}}”
“Yes, sonny.”
“Those are powe'ful strong glasses of Jim's. This westerly weather is right clear, and if they're watchin' from Pemaquid Point or Monhegan they might smell a rat. You got to keep down on the flooring and I'm such a little tad. Seems like there ought to be two of us always in sight and one of us right tall.”
Timothy rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at his son. “Uhn-h'n,” said he. “Maybe you're right. The visibility is mighty high. But Jim is set on keepin' the business secret and you know what these fellas 'round here are like.”
“Katherine Blue is right tall,” said Lucien. “Got a heap of sense, too, and she means to marry Jim some day.”
“H'm. Jim sho'ly needs a wife to mind him. You think she's game?”
“Sho' to be. When she learns what Jim's been up to she'll be sorry the way she flew off the handle.”
Timothy indulged in one of those instantaneous reflections which occurred when his bright mind was sparking rapidly under its dull gray hood. He liked and admired Katherine Blue and considered that she would make a most desirable wife for Jim whether in peace or war.
“All right, Luce,” said he. “We'll pass by there and you can invite her for an evening spin to haul some lobster pots. Don't tell her anything about Jim or what we aim to do. Jes' say we're goin' lobsterin' offshore and if she'll come and he'p we'll give her the biggest lobster that we catch.”
Experimenting with the life-saving suit proved as Timothy had feared, that it floated him entirely too high for his masked and hooded head to pass possibly for a lobster buoy, even with its Holstein camouflage and liberally fouled with seaweed. So his fertile brain suggested a safe and practicable way to sink his shoulders awash. He bought a length of lead water pipe, and this caught about his hips gave him the proper level while if so desired he could slip it by a slight tug with both hands.
In the water thus equipped with a fringe of rockweed tied about his neck and streaming off with the tide Lucien swore that the decoy was perfect. By tilting his head to the side he could get the proper angle for a lobster-pot buoy in the current over a ledge. He purposed to moor himself with a large flat stone and a stout cod line, naturally removing the actual buoy which his well-furnished head was to impersonate. Above the leaden girdle he would wear a belt in a holster of which on either side was a .38 revolver protected from the wet by a thin sheet of dentists' rubber which could readily be ripped away. A moment's immersion could do no harm.
Having tested everything to his satisfaction, Lucien assisting with a tense and worried face, Timothy stowed the whole in the little cabin and about the middle of the after noon they shoved off and headed across the inlet to pick up Miss Katherine Blue, which young lady, in a very low state of mind over Jim and herself, had accepted with alacrity an invitation for a spin offshore with the only male individuals of the entire summer colony for whom she possessed a liking and esteem. Both Timothy and Lucien possessed a curious fascination for most people, especially women and children, who invariably offered them immediate friendship. By strange men they were usually accorded a sort of puzzled deference. Despite his slipshod, Southern speech and quaint, flowing style of dress Timothy was immediately assayed as the real thing; an eccentric, but distinguished personality while Lucien's seraphic beauty and hard, worldly knowledge with apt slang often invented for its aplomb excited a desire to know more of the odd pair. Both had the faculty of mixing without being mixed with.
Katherine, a temperamental and eager-natured girl, was no exception to the rule. She had known them for a number of years, but never well, and desired to increase her acquaintanceship. She thought Timothy a dear and Lucien a darling, but was a bit awed by Jim's stories of their feats in the suppression of crime. It seemed incredible that throughout the Gulf States the mere mention of Timothy French's name was enough to make the malefactor shiver in his shoes. Though actually but forty, he might have passed for any age from twenty-five to sixty-five, and one would have placed him under a flowering tree reciting an ode to the curve of his lady's lip rather than tense and magnetic in a criminal court delivering a ferocious invective which would send some bloodstained local bogie to the gibbet.
Timothy greeted and assisted her aboard with old-fashioned Southern courtliness, then rather to her surprise as the swift launch proceeded to rip a long white scratch in the polished surface of the sea, reached in the locker cabin and extricating a newfangled life-saving suit from its sack began to put it on.
“Do you always do that when you go to sea in this boat, Judge French?” she asked, thinking that if this were a token of his confidence in the craft and the dangers of the deep to be anticipated aboard it he might have taken similar precautions in behalf of a lady guest.
“Only when we go lobsterin', Miss Katherine,” said Timothy suavely. “Haulin' in the catch I might fall ove'board and I can't swim a blessed stroke.”
“It must be very hot,” she observed.
“Yeah, these things are ce'tainly right stuffy,” he admitted, “so with yore kind permission I reckon I'll lie daown here in the shade.”
He stretched his inflated figure at her feet, his head pillowed on a heap of wet seaweed and it was then that Katherine noted the peculiar marking of the hood.
“Is the headpiece painted that way to attract attention?” she asked.
“Not exactly, Miss Katherine,” Timothy answered. “That's jes' the latest camouflage. If Fritz was to sight it he'd take you fo' a lobster buoy struck adrift.”
“How very ingenious,” murmured the girl. “But that might cut both ways. What if he was fond of lobster?”
“Ah, my dear lady, but they can't cook on U-boats. Luce, give Miss Katherine an oilskin ove'coat and a sou'wester. The spray is goin' to fly when we raoun' the p'int.”
“Oh, thanks, but I have my raincoat,” said the girl.
“No, I must insist,” said Timothy with such finality that her gray eyes opened a little wider. He gave her his benevolent smile, and she wondered why his slumbrous orbs twinkled that way at the corners. “Lobsterin' is dreadful messy, Miss Katherine; mud and slime and putrid bait—and you know we caount on you to he'p.”
She made no more demur but slipped on the garments Lucien offered for her, when being a tall and slenderly rounded girl of twenty-four she would have passed readily at five-mile range through a strong glass for Timothy.
“I see that Jim Stevens' boat is gone,” said she, looking back toward the bungalow. Her positive, pretty face burned with a sudden flush. “Off for another little cruise, I suppose.” She knit her straight brows and stared down at the recumbent Timothy. “You are an authority on human motive, judge. I wish you would tell me how it is that Jim can come here and fool around all summer at such a crisis in the world's history, and America's.”
“Why don't you try to study it out fo' yourse'f, Miss Kath'rine?” was the unexpected answer.
“What? But I have. I can't{bar|2}}”
“Maybe you started with a preformed theory and tried to make things fit to it,” Timothy suggested.
“I don't believe I understand,” said the girl, a little stiffly.
“Of co'se you don't. You haven't tried to understand.” A certain austerity infused the drawling voice. “You preferred to take it fo' granted that Jim was a slacker, and then set to work to find out why he was a slacker. Yore procedure was European, Miss Kath'rine, in assumin' that the accused was guilty and requirin' him to prove his innocence. We don't do it that way in America.”
“But how could I assume anything else under the circumstances?” she demanded hotly.
“Just as we do in a co't of law when tryin' a criminal case. Examine the previous record of the accused. Is there anything in your knowledge of Jim's record that would warrant your assumption that he is unpatriotic or a coward, or cares mo' for his personal comfort than fo' his honor and the Cause of Humanity?”
There was nothing somnolent about Timothy now, either in his eyes, voice or attitude. Neither was he severe. He was merely examining.
“Why—no,” Katherine faltered. “That's what makes his behavior so incomprehensible.”
“Then why do you try to comprehend something that you admit there is no reason to assume exists? You pronounce him guilty because you find him too proud or too indifferent to prove his innocence, and in the same breath you admit that you know of nothing in his character or past life to justify a conviction.”
Katherine's eyes flashed. “Isn't his being here dawdling about on his boat proof enough that he's a slacker?” she demanded.
“Of co'se it isn't. I'm heah, and for all you know dawdlin' about on my boat but that doesn't prove me a slacker. I brought my work here with me. How do you know that Jim has not done the same? I'm only fo'ty, physically sound, of independent fo'tune and a native-bawn American, a widower with an only child whose future is amply provided for. Do you consider me a slacker?”
“Of course not. Your work is to suppress crime here while our soldiers and sailors suppress it over there. We can't leave our country at the mercy of lawbreakers.”
“But you happen to know what my work is.” Timothy's tone fairly reeked with a suggestion, but it was lost on this arbitrary beauty.
“Well,” said she, “until I know that Jim's is something more patriotically strenuous than writing his war memoirs, the chances are I'll feel the same about him, and that isn't feeling very much.”
The luster seemed to fade in Timothy's eyes leaving them dreamy again. “Uhn-h'n. Well, maybe after all that's better, Miss Kath'rine.” And he began to discuss the merits of the new draft.
They had brought their supper with them, and presently Lucien who had grown very quiet as they sped along, gave the wheel to Katherine and proceeded to lay out a repast which the food administration might have disapproved, but could not have censured, all of its directions being duly observed. It takes more than scant material to dismay an Alabama cook, and the absence of meat, sugar and flour are the very least of his cares. There were big, deviled crabs and a chicken salad and several varieties of hot breads light as toy balloons, from the boat's fireless cooker, and golden honey with the bees' hive tag on it. Timothy and Lucien were what a New England housewife of the grease-and-sinker school would have called “finicky feeders.”
Lucien had no intention whatever that his beloved parent should commit his body to the deep ballasted amidships with no more than a lead pipe, and Katherine was equally amazed at the tender solicitude with which the boy plied him with food, and Timothy's liberal imbibing of hot tea while incased in an air-tight life-saving suit. In fact the girl was rather bewildered with the whole picnic. It struck her as decidedly uncommon to be lectured on the error of jumping to conclusions by a distinguished Southern United States attorney baled up in a rubber suit with a freshly painted hood while tearing miles and miles to sea in quest of lobster. She could not understand why it was necessary to burn so much gasoline in pursuit of this most edible scavenger, and presently said so.
“Why are we going so far?” she inquired. “We've been passing lobster pots ever since we left.”
“Ah, Miss Kath'rine,” said Timothy, “but we're not after the common, ordinary little ol' lobster. The kind we want is right sca'ce jes' now and we have to go 'way out to get him.”
“Don't you find it rather stupid lying there in the bottom of the boat, judge?” She then asked: “Why don't you get up and look around?”
Timothy, who was raised on one elbow munching corn biscuits and honey, shook his head. “I'm a powerful bad sailor, Miss Kath'rine,” said he, “and this long swell is mighty disturbin'. Sighted the buoy, son?” For Lucien had picked up his glasses.
“Dead ahead about two miles, dad,” the boy answered, and Katherine wondered at his pale and anxious look. She had never heard that lobstering was a dangerous sport except in the careless handling of the game.
The maneuvers which then began made her wonder if she was herself quite sane or had possibly been enticed upon an outing by two members of a family afflicted with periodical lunacy. Lucien asked her to take the wheel and steer for the speck ahead, then proceeded to festoon the neck and shoulders of his parent with masses of rockweed which he secured with fishline. This done he took from the cabin a circle of lead pipe which Timothy clasped about his waist. A leather belt from which hung what appeared to be two cracked-ice bags was adjusted above it.
Timothy then fitted the black-and-white hood snugly over his head, keeping all the time below the coaming of the launch. But when Lucien produced a black made with two slits for the eyes and strings at the four corners and began to tie this on his father's face, the young girl could no longer contain her fears.
“Merciful Heaven!” she breathed. “Do you intend to haul your lobsters up or go down after them?”
“This kind takes a heap of careful stalkin', Miss Kath'rine,” mumbled Timothy.
“But you haven't any mask—I mean helmet.” Katherine's head was beginning to spin. “You'll drown!”
“I don't figure to go plum' to bottom,” Timothy answered. “Eve'ybody has his own method, and mine is to bob 'round on the surface and sing. The lobster leads a lonely life and has a shy but sociable nature. Professor Agassiz demonstrated that he was a true music lover. Better slow daown, Luce, and get that mooring stone ready to slide over.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Spotted the fourth buoy?”
“Almost up to it, dad.” Lucien released the clutch and slowed the motor. Katherine, now convinced from the expression of the boy's face that they were about some purposeful and deadly serious business, invited no more mocking answers but stood by to lend a hand if required.
The launch glided slowly up to a lobster buoy painted precisely like Timothy's hooded head and the girl's heart gave a sudden flutter. So this was the game; spy hunting; communication between the shore and an enemy submarine! Her eyes flashed down at Timothy, and suddenly reaching out her hand she laid it against one of the rubber sacks and felt the butt of the revolver within.
“I see{bar|2}}” she whispered. “You are a wonder, judge.”
“Now don't jump at conclusions, Miss Kath'rine,” Timothy answered in a muffled drawl. “We haven't caught our lobster yet.”
Lucien hooked up the buoy and drew it inboard. “You two haul the boat across the coamin' 'thwartships,” directed Timothy, “then as the la'nch drifts fore and aft to Pemaquid Point and Monhegan, I'll slip over behind it. Here she comes—keep between me and Monhegan, Miss Kath'rine.”
The lath trap with its ballast of stones came to the surface presently and was hauled over the side. Timothy, keeping low and between the “pot” and Katherine wormed over the side and into the water. Lucien lowered the mooring stone after him and Timothy gathering in the line caught a turn of it in his belt. “All right,” said he, “let her go and beat it, son. Jim and I will follow sho'tly.”
“Jim!” cried Katherine, wildly. “Jim Stevens a spy—impossible{bar|2}}”
“Naow there you go beatin' the pistol again, Miss Kath'rine,” said Timothy. “Ain't it jes' as possible as Jim's bein' a slacker? I declare, young lady, I'm afraid yo're goin' to be awfully disappointed about your lobster. Unhook her, son.”
Lucien's face had the bleak, strained look of a thirteen-year-old boy who is exerting all of his will power to obey with military promptness and fight back the tears. His adored father had always seemed invulnerable to him so far as mere men were concerned, but that which took the limit of the little fellow's nerve was to leave him thus alone suspended over the abyss. What if the rubber suit were to spring a leak or a big cruising shark to pass that way and scent meat inside that inhuman-looking object? Local fishermen had told him that a person in the water falling foul of a school of dogfish would probably be cut to pieces and devoured. There was a distinctly blubberish look to the bloated contraption, and Lucien's heart was fathoms deep.
But the boy had been trained by love to unquestioning obedience and knew that one infraction of this would mean future exclusion from his father's man hunts. Timothy had indeed told him as much. So with white, tense features and a curt “good luck, dad,” he reached for his controls and a moment later the launch was tearing away over the long, glassy undulations.
Timothy watched it out of sight which did not take long, his horizon being the minimum except when slowly raised on the great ground swell. He found a curious interest in his peculiar situation and speculated on the emotions of a man thus struck adrift on the sinking of his ship in mid-ocean. It struck him the Almighty had grievously hampered the human creature in not providing it with wings, and he watched enviously the little terns which were circling about attracted by the brine stirred up from the thrash of the boat's propeller.
One of these presently fluttered down to light upon his head, where it perched investigating the seaweed trailing from his shoulders as though foul of the buoy line. Timothy was greatly pleased at this proof of the efficiency of his camouflage and reflected that if he could fool a seabird he had little need to fear detection from a Swede. He was in no way anxious over the outcome of his stratagem or the position in which he found himself, neither did Lucien's shark reflections disturb him. He reasoned that such a marauder would appear upon the surface to investigate before venturing to attack, and that a bullet through the dorsal fin and with the concussion close to the water would discourage molestation. As one would naturally expect of a Gulf State United States prosecuting attorney, Timothy was an expert with firearms and had yet to meet his equal in fancy shooting. The practice was in fact one of his favorite recreations.
The launch dissolved into the void and the afterglow faded slowly in the depths of limitless space. It seemed to Timothy that he was the most minute particle of indivisible matter, an atom which it needed but a drop to dissolve. He decided that after all it would not be very painful to perish under similar circumstances, one being so overwhelmed with a sense of insignificance.
This dwindling impression was suddenly arrested by a throbbing against his ears, the rubber covering of which acted as a tympanum. Timothy was quick to recognize the staccato thump of a “make-and-break” gas engine of the sort in general use on fishing boats. The sound appeared to come from directly underneath him and Timothy chuckled at the fantastic idea of being suddenly boosted in air astride a periscope. He thought of what a joke it would be to get behind the opening hatch and hold up the outfit like a lonely sea highwayman.
Then in the growing gloom he suddenly sighted on the crest of a moving, burnished hill a small object which he correctly guessed to be a fisherman's motor dory. It was almost in line with the end of Pemaquid Point, which did not surprise Timothy as he had thought of the wooded banks along the John's River with their widely separated camps, now unoccupied owing to the war, as an excellent place to hold a prisoner for a few days.
The big dory rapidly approached and Timothy discovered it to contain two figures, one leaning over either side. He chuckled to himself and decided that there was in this case probably also a third; that of Jim. Neither kidnaper would trust the other to go for the ransom alone and the chances therefore were that they would have brought their victim with them, no doubt secured against the possibility of mischief in the bottom of the boat.
The dory came surging noisily up and in the gathering murk—for they had timed their coming just as darkness fell—Timothy through the slits in his mask saw Higgs and Jansen staring eagerly over the bows. Within fifty feet the current was switched off and then as the boat drifted down upon him the prodigy occurred.
Jansen was leaning far over the gunnel to grasp the buoy when Timothy loosed the lead pipe and let it sink. The result of this jettisoning was that he bobbed up suddenly chest-high, his head actually coming in contact with that of the Swede. Timothy let out a rebel yell which was drowned in that of Jansen and poorly echoed by the terrified Higgs in a sort of quavering bleat.
It must indeed be painfully upsetting to reach over for the buoy of a lobster pot presumably containing a liberal stake and in the act of so doing have a bloated, streaming, black and faceless creature leap at you from the depths. In fact it came very near upsetting the dory, both the big Swede and the bulbous Higgs going over backward so violently that if Timothy had not flung his arms over the gunnel the boat might have capsized. Observing the morale of his coup de théâtre, he let out another and more bloodcurdling catamount screech, and at this horror the blond viking utterly collapsed. He floundered in the bottom of the boat in an absolute convulsion of terror. And Higgs was not much better off. Even Jim in the stern sheets, hand bound behind his back and secured to a ringbolt, was petrified with shock and dread.
“Eeeee-yaow-w-w-w-w!” screeched Timothy a third time with the fearful Louisiana Tiger yell, and getting nothing but squawks and burbles in reply began to change his note. He screamed with laughter and as this outrageous mirth trickled through the auditory nerves of the kidnapers Jansen's big arms came slowly down from before his face and he stared with growing infinite relief into the muzzle of a .38. This slowly reassured him. It percolated to his brain that the monster was not the Old Man of the Sea or the revivified corpse of a submarined sailor come to get him, but merely a creature of flesh and blood who had managed somehow to pop up out of the water for the purpose of marching him back to prison.
If Timothy could have swarmed into the dory unassisted he would not have needed any weapon at all. Even as it was, it took some time for the blasted nerves of his captives to respond to stimulus. Higgs was the first to recover sufficiently to obey the drawling admonitions delivered him with the sting of a black-snake whip.
“Tu'n yore master loose, yo' putty-faced fool,” requested Timothy. “Get a move on, naow, before I put a leak in yo'. Crawl aft you Scandahoovian or I'll crease yore hide. Git aft, dog-gone ye—yo' hear me talkin'?”
“Oh, sir!” panted Higgs. “You give us such a turn, sir. One minute, sir.” And wabbling to the stern his trembling fingers found a knife and cut Jim's bonds.
“Kick that Swede aft, Jim, and he'p me aboard,” said Timothy. “It's gettin' late and Lucien's shore to be plum' anxious.”
“One minute, judge,” Jim answered. “Give me a second to make up my mind whether I'm going to laugh or cry.”
The ancient 5-HP motor pounded the big dory along at a good clip and the night was still young when they chugged past the bell buoy off The Hypocrites. Jim looked at the drooping figures in the bow and laughed.
“Let's let 'em go, judge,” said Jim. “If they got half the scare I did when you bobbed up over the side and cut loose that rebel yell they've been punished enough. Besides, we've got something to laugh at for the rest of our lives.”
Higgs stirred in the bow and looked aft appealingly. “Thank you, sir,” said he. “I assure you, sir, my 'eart will never be the syme again, sir.”
“How about you, Jansen?” Jim asked.
The big Swede gave a deep sigh. “I ban scairt to death, zir,” he answered. “Yo—I still feel pretty bad.”
“Well, cheer up, then,” said Jim. He reflected for an instant. “What will you do if we let you off?” he asked.
“I do what you say, zir,” Jansen answered, promptly.
“All right. That's a bargain.” He turned to Timothy. “Say, judge, what did you think about while you were anchored out there?”
The lawyer hunched his shoulders a little higher. He had taken off the rubber suit and there was a chill in the night air.
“I was thinkin' about Lucien,” he answered, “and how sometimes he was the image of his ma.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 91 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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