SHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES
In a few minutes the steward came down with the captain and the first officer and a man in civilian's clothes, who carried a cigar in the corner of his mouth and who Tom thought must be of the Secret Service. Tom stood greatly in awe of the captain, who seemed the very type of exalted dignity. But a cat may look at a king, and he stared at that autocrat, resolved to answer manfully whatever questions were asked him.
"Confirms your suspicions, eh?" said the captain to the man in plain clothes, after a gingerly inspection of the ominous piece of stove pipe.
"Hmmm," said the other man; "yes; no doubt of it. Wish I'd taken him up last trip when he sent that message. We'll have a job finding him now."
"I don't see how he could have got ashore since nine o'clock last night," said the first officer.
"Well, he did, anyway," said the Secret Service man; "they're getting by every day, and they will until we have martial law along the waterfront. You see, this is where he had to come through to his locker," he added, looking about.
The captain gave a brief order to the first officer to have the vessel searched at once for more bombs. The officer hurried away and presently came back again. The Secret Service man was intently examining the floor, the jamb around the door, and the casing of the port-hole. The captain, too, scrutinized the place, as if he hoped it might yield some valuable information; and Tom, feeling very awkward, stood silently watching them.
"Here you are," said the Secret Service man, indicating a brown stain on the door jamb.
The other three men stepped over to the spot, but Tom, who did not dare to join them, stood just where he was, looking uncouth and out of place in the ill-fitting white duck jacket and blue peaked service cap which had been given him.
"There you are, Captain," said the Secret Service man; "see that finger-mark? The skin lines aren't as clear, see? That's from constant pressure. That's the finger he uses to press his wireless key."
"Hmm," said the captain.
"I've had my eye on that young operator for the last two trips," said the plain-clothes man; "he's undoubtedly the fellow who sent that code message that tipped Ekler off and posted him about the Republic's sailing, I never liked his name—Hinnerman. We might have known he wouldn't show up for this trip."
"He was a hold-over on board," said the first officer, "and didn't come in for the government quiz. They should have all been thrown out.—Think the other operator's all right?" he added.
"Oh, yes; he's got two brothers in military service," said the captain conclusively.
"See, here's another finger-mark—thumb. And here's a couple more," said the plain-clothes man, indicating several less distinguishable marks around the port-hole.
No one paid any attention to Tom. He watched the four men as they examined the little signs which they thought verified their conclusion that the missing wireless operator had placed the bomb.
"You see, he knew this room wouldn't be used, probably not entered this trip," said the Secret Service man.
"It was a lucky mistake this boy made," said the first officer, glancing not unkindly at Tom.
"Mmmm," said the captain.
Tom did not know whether to take this for praise or not. He stood, silent but very thoughtful. None of his four superiors took the trouble to acknowledge his act, nor even to address him, and he had to piece together as best he could, from their conversation, the reasons for their long-standing suspicions of the missing operator's disloyalty. Never in all his life had Tom felt his own insignificance as he did now.
The Secret Service man was very self-confident and very convincing. His conclusions, in view of past suspicions, seemed natural enough, and Tom could not help envying and admiring him from his obscure corner.
"I'll send a wireless right away," said the captain, as the four moved toward the door.
For a few seconds Tom struggled to master his timidity. He felt just as he had felt when he talked to Margaret Ellison and when he had faced Roscoe Bent's father. These uniformed officials were as beings from another world to poor Tom, and the Secret Service man seemed a marvel of sagacity and subtle power.
As they reached the door, he spoke, his voice shaking a little, but in the slow, almost expressionless way which was characteristic of him.
"If you'd wait a minute, I got something to say," he said.
"Yes, sir," said the first officer not unpleasantly. The captain paused impatiently. The Secret Service man smiled a little. Indeed, there was plenty to smile at (for the captain, too, if that dignitary would have so condescended) for Tom's sleeves, which were ridiculously long, were clutched in his two hands as if to keep them from running away and the peak of his cap was almost over his ear instead of being where it belonged.
"I heard this morning," said Tom, "that the other operator—the one that isn't here—that he used to be a scout. I'm a scout, and so I know what kind of fellers scouts are. They ain't traitors or anything like that. Something happened to me lately, so I know how easy it is to get misjudged. If he was a scout, then he wasn't a German, even if he might have had a German name, 'cause Germans stay by themselves and don't join in, kind of...."
The captain made a move as if to go.
"But that ain't what I wanted to say," said Tom.
The captain paused.
There was something about Tom's blunt, plain-speech and slow manner which amused the first officer, and he listened with rather more patience, than the others.
"There was a man tried to get off the ship last night," said Tom. "He——"
"Oh, yes, that was Doctor Curry from Ohio," laughed the first officer indulgently. "I hunted him up on the purser's list—he's all right. He flew off the handle because his baggage didn't come. He's all right, boy."
"The man that started the English scouts," said Tom, undaunted, "says if you want to find out if a person is foreign, you got to get him mad. Even if he talks good English, when he gets excited he'll say some words funny like."
The captain turned upon his heel.
"But that ain't what I was going to say, either," said Tom dully. "Anybody that knows anything about wireless work knows that operators have to have exactly the right time. That's the first thing they learn—that their watches have got to be exactly right—even to the second. I know, 'cause I studied wireless and I read the correspondence catalogues."
"Well?" encouraged the Secret Service man.
But it was pretty hard to hurry Tom.
"The person that put that bomb there," said he, "probably started it going and set it after he got it fixed on the shelf; and he'd most likely set it by his own watch. You can see that clock is over an hour slow. I was wonderin' how anybody's watch would be an hour slow, but if that Doctor Curry came from Ohio maybe he forgot to set his watch ahead in Cleveland. I know you have to do that when you come east, 'cause I heard a man say so."
A dead silence prevailed, save for the subdued whistling of the Secret Service man, as he scratched his head and eyed Tom sharply.
"How old are you, anyway?" said he.
"Seventeen," said Tom. "I helped a feller and got misjudged," he added irrelevantly. "A scout is a brother to every other scout—all over the world. 'Specially now, when England and France are such close partners of ours, like. So I'm a brother to that wireless operator, if he used to be a scout.—Maybe I got no right to ask you to do anything, but maybe you'd find out if that man's watch is an hour slow. Maybe you'd be willing to do that before you send a wireless."
The captain looked full at Tom, with a quizzical, shrewd look. He saw now, what he had not taken the trouble to notice before: a boy with a big mouth, a shock of rebellious hair, a ridiculously ill-fitting jacket, and a peaked cat set askew. Instinctively Tom pulled off his cap.
"What's your name?" said the captain.
"Tom Slade," he answered, nervously arranging his long arms in the troublesome, starched sleeves. "In the troop I—used to belong to," he ventured to add, "they called me Sherlock Nobody Holmes, the fellers did, because I was interested in deduction and things like that."
For a moment the captain looked at him sternly. Then the Secret Service man, still whistling with a strangely significant whistle, stepped over to Tom.
"Put your cap on," said he, "frontways, like that; now come along with me, and we'll see if Doctor Curry from Ohio can accommodate us with the time."
He put his arm over Tom's shoulder just as Mr. Ellsworth used to do, and together they left the store-room. It seemed to Tom a very long while since any one had put an arm over his shoulder like that....