“So,” was all Perk allowed himself to say, but it testified to his understanding of the policy involved in Jack’s general scheme of things.
This was done as quietly as the conditions allowed, and how fortunate it was they had held off from crossing over from the gulf until the middle of the night–but then it might be expected that Jack would consider all such things in laying out his movements.
In the end they managed to get the amphibian between two jutting banks where the vegetation was so dense that there was no chance of a trail or road passing that way. In the early morning Jack planned to once again conceal his ship, even as the captured sloop had been camouflaged by Perk’s clever use of green stuff.
“That part of the job’s done and without any slip-up,” Jack was saying, vastly relieved, “and now we can take things easy for a spell, during which time I’ll try and post you as far as I can about this queer fish, Oswald Kearns, and what they’ve begun to suspect he’s been doing all this while.”
“In the first place he’s about as wealthy as any one would want to be, so the reason for his playing this game doesn’t lie back of a desire to accumulate money. Some say he must have run afoul of the customs service in the days when he hadn’t fallen heir to his fortune and all this is just spite work to get even–a crazy idea, but there may be a germ of truth in it after all.”
“He has a wonderful place not far out of Miami–they all say it’s a regular palace, where he entertains lavishly and yet not at any time have they known of a raid staged on his castle, as some call the rambling stone building that shelters a curio collection equal to any in the art museums of New York City.”
“Every little while Oswald Kearns disappears and no one seems to know his whereabouts–some guess he’s fond of tarpon fishing and goes out with a pal to indulge in the sport, his destination being kept secret so that the common herd can’t swarm about the fishing grounds and annoy him; then another lot say he is not the bachelor he makes out, but has a little cozy home somewhere else with a wife who detests society and that’s where he goes when away from the Miami paradise.”
“Both of these guesses are wide of the truth–what they told me up at the Treasury Department set me thinking and I found some papers aboard that sloop we captured that opened up a startling line of action that might be unbelievable if it were any other man than the eccentric Oswald Kearns.”
“By the way, Perk, after I’d committed the contents of those papers to memory I sent them by registered mail to Headquarters because, you see, something might happen to us before we get to the end of this journey and I reckoned the Department would like to be able to take advantage of our discoveries.”
“You did jest right there, partner,” Perk told him–he was sitting there drinking it all in with the utmost eagerness. “It sure would be a pity if we kicked off an’ Uncle Sam couldn’t profit by what work we’d done. But what you’ve already told me ’bout this here queer guy gets my goat, like as not there never was a feller as full o’ kinks as he is.”