Asa looked at him sharply, then away; and his accustomed volubility fell away from him. He lifted his hands. “Ask James Finch. I’ve no way to tell,” he said curtly.
“Have you no opinion?” Joel insisted.
The ship owner tilted his head, set finger tip to finger tip, assumed the air of one who delivers judgment. “Islanders, ’tis like,” he said. “There’s a many there.” He looked sidewise at Joel, looked away. Joel was nodding.
“Yes, many thereabouts,” he agreed. “But there would have been tracks. Were there none?”
“Mark left his boat’s crew,” said Asa. “Walked away along the shore. That was all.”
“No tracks?”
“They saw where he’d left the sand.” The ship owner shifted in his chair. “Seems like I’d heard you and Mark wa‘n’t too good friends, Joel. Your a’mighty worked up.”
Joel looked at the little man with bleak eyes. “He was my brother.”
“I’ve heard tell he forgot you was his, sometimes.”
Joel paid no heed. “You think it was Islanders?”