But the girl answered his unfinished question.
"Yes," she said slowly, "I think they found out. That is why they never got out alive."
"But they were wrecked and drowned."
Dickie shook her head slowly. "I have never thought so," she answered in a half-whisper. "Listen," she went on, "boats like the Sea Gull don't wreck themselves and a better man with a launch than my dad never lived. Men like him don't drown easily. He was a regular fish in the water and had got out of many a smash-up before."
"But they were drowned. The coroner himself told me——"
"You're right," she interrupted. "Any man can be drowned. How long do you suppose you and Tom Howard would have lasted on the island if you had insisted on staying the night we were over here?"
Gregory considered her words carefully. In the light of past events, they held some truth. But if Bill Lang and his father had met with foul play, why were the bodies ever recovered? Why would it not have been simpler to have made way with them entirely? He put the question and Dickie answered promptly:
"That would have caused a search of the island.
Just what they do not want, if they are up to anything crooked over here. With the bodies recovered and the boat smashed, it had all the appearance of a natural wreck."
"Why have you never said anything like this before?"