Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.
"They have antic.i.p.ated our intention," he said, thoughtfully. "Doubtless the things were emptied into sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or taken in the boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"
Hurrying to the _Whim_ he returned with his lens, while from the mate he had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot rule and a sail needle.
"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember, that as no personal belonging remains, even the books being gone, we must infer they made a great effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue.
They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly careful. What would she do then? Exactly as we would do--hide her message so the others could not discover it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy Tommy, take my lens and look for places where the glue has been disturbed on furniture joints; I will measure the desk, piano, panels--everything--for a secret hiding place!"
"Well, I"ll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You"re some cop, professor!"
When each of us had finished and reported failure, Monsieur did not seem at all discouraged.
"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in mind, whenever you search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place to look, not off at the clouds--and nothing is too insignificant to escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key holes, unravel carpets----"
"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a hearty laugh, saying:
"Gezabo, there isn"t a girl in a million who"d think of those places, and if she did she wouldn"t credit us with enough sense to find "em.
Call off your bloodhounds! There"s no message for us, that"s a cinch!
Let"s get busy at once on something practical!"
"That"s what I say," I chipped in. "It"s only eleven o"clock, and we have eight good hours of daylight. Let"s go back and call Gates for a conference, without losing a minute!"
"You may be right," he sighed, "but--well, let us go, as you say. With eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring success!"
CHAPTER XII
THE HURRICANE
Tommy"s spirits were sky high. While treating our situation seriously he found in every phase of it some new sense of humor, whereas the professor looked on with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way and the other. But I was gripped by a single idea, a deep and growing love for this fugitive girl to whom I had never spoken, who I did not know, but had sworn to rescue.
As we climbed back to the _Whim_ and summoned Gates it was understood that haste meant everything. Yet we could not very well move before knowing whither the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast stretch of coast?
Would they entrench and wait? Were they even now watching with binoculars from a pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the prairies, or the forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses to the eastward might hide a battalion of men for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope of finding them?
These and other facts I put before my friends while they listened in glum silence--indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy"s brier was empty, but his teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws working, as though grinding up my conclusions.
"So that"s how it stands," I said, at last. "Personally I lean to the Ten Thousand Islands. Gates tells us the location is unexplored; it offers ten thousand hiding places and, in the circ.u.mstances, they couldn"t ask for anything better."
Monsieur stretched back in his chair and blew out a volume of smoke, adding:
"It is the Islands, of course. And I think there is little doubt what they did after landing. They did not start inland. They feel secure where they are, and there they will remain to watch us. It may also be their lair, their home, for they must have a home ash.o.r.e somewhere! _Mon Capitaine_, you know with certainty there is not a channel deep enough for our yacht?"
"I never heard of one," Gates answered. "Of course, there might be; only I never heard of it."
"If there were, why did they abandon the _Orchid_?" Tommy asked.
"It will bear looking into," the professor mused. "Now, that paper with the dots and rambling line! Could it represent a chart to their stronghold?"
"From what I saw in it, as a sea-faring man," Gates answered, "the bearings on that paper didn"t tell enough. No one could sail in new water without a plainer chart than that. No, sir, if it means anything at all, I"d say it meant something else."
"We"re wasting a lot of golden time here," I said. "What if there is a channel, and what if the paper does mark the entrance to it! That doesn"t get us anywhere. How could we tell which were the right two islands to go between, when there"re thousands of "em on the water and less than fifty on the paper, and not even a landmark of any kind indicated! As Gates says, it isn"t plain enough."
Monsieur seemed to be unconvinced, and Tommy began to laugh at him, saying:
"Gates would be an idiot to sail into a lot of treacherous oyster bars guided by that poor excuse of a thing! Sylvia drew it for a subterfuge, anyhow, not a chart. I"ve got the right dope, so listen: Those crooks are ash.o.r.e watching us right now--it"s a cinch they are, because any of us, placed in their position, would be doing the same. Now if we sail in and push things, they"ll run off and we couldn"t find "em again--probably never. So let"s divide our crew and sail both yachts straight out across the Gulf--like we"re going home. Then they"ll think we"ve given up the chase and be off their guard. But when we get over the horizon we"ll make a circle back, and after dark anchor in some cove north of this island area--if Gates knows a good one. From that point, being well hid and unsuspected, we"ll conduct operations by land as we think best. How about it?"
It was the most sensible thing I could see, and said so. The others quite enthusiastically agreed, and in a few minutes the two yachts were sailing prettily westward. Lower and lower sank the Ten Thousand Islands, and sometime after we finished luncheon a sailor aloft reported them gone. Then with a will we changed our course and began the big circle back.
Gates had been making observations. His chart showed a cove about ten miles north of the island area, but too shallow for the _Whim_. Yet ten miles farther north of that was another inlet with fairly good water.
Some thought this would be the logical place to anchor, while others insisted it was too far from operations.
"We might establish an outpost in the little cove," I said, at last, "making a camp there and keeping the launch with us, while the _Whim_ stays in the larger cove as a base to fall back on in case of necessity."
"The launch won"t do," Tommy corrected. "In a quiet place like that its put-put could be heard for miles. Paddles, oars or sails for these still waters, Jack!"
He was right. Moreover, one of our small boats did have a center-board, thwart and portable mast, so that obstacle was easily crossed.
"Now," he continued, "I approve of Jack"s plan, and suggest that tonight we slip into Big Cove--hereinafter to be so called--and anchor the _Orchid_. Then with a whole crew we"ll sail down outside of Little Cove, land provisions, ammunition, and stuff like that for the scouting party.
After this the _Whim_ goes back and waits alongside the _Orchid_. The thing now is to decide on signals. Who knows the Morse?"
Gates answered promptly that he did; but I did not, so Tommy wrote the alphabet on a card, saying:
"You"ve this afternoon to memorize it, and tonight I"ll drill you. It"ll do between ourselves, Jack, if we get separated. But how shall we reach you, Gates? Have you any black powder for smoke b.a.l.l.s?"
"Lor" bless you, sir, we"ve only what"s in a few sh.e.l.ls belonging to Miss Nancy. It would take a fair sized keg to signal that far, sir!"
I will not recount the hours I walked back and forth along the deck, with a flag in one hand and Tommy"s card in the other, making what to the uninitiated would have seemed a perfectly ridiculous spectacle. But I had got quite well along, and was standing near the foremast wig-wagging a message to an imaginary pair of violet eyes--for man can be silly and serious at one and the same time--when a little puff of hot air struck my face. It was the second puff of this kind I had noticed.
Gates now came up and joined me.
"There"s a howl of something coming, sir," he said. "I"ve had suspicions of it all day, but now the barometer"s touched bottom."
"The sky"s clear," I suggested.
He laughed, though without humor.
"A sky isn"t always clear because there"re no clouds in it, Mr. Jack."
"But what do you expect, Gates? We don"t have storms at this season!"
"You"re right, sir. But once in a long while there"ll be a howler, and that"s what the barometer is trying to tell us now. As we have only harf a crew on each yacht I think we"d better make a bee-line in. "Twill take us twenty miles north of where we were, and those fellows carn"t see us."
I never disputed conditions of weather with Gates, so the course was changed and we started on our run to land, which he thought might be reached by dark. In this he was right, for as the sun, like a strangely weird greenish ball, touched the horizon our prow, leading the _Orchid_ by half a mile, entered the protecting waters of Big Cove.
Just at this moment Bilkins dashed up from the cabin, looking scared and yelling: