He didn’t know what he had expected to see inside the cabin, but certainly he had anticipated something more dramatic than the scene that showed itself there.
The interior of the tiny room was snug and pleasant. In the light of an oil lamp, hung on an old-fashioned wall bracket, the room glowed warmly.
“Like a picture on a calendar,” Ken thought to himself with anger and amazement.
The man they had followed was no longer wearing his pea jacket or his cap. In a heavy turtle-necked sweater he sat at ease in front of a small, round coal stove. There was a white mug in his hands, and he was in the act of tipping his head back to drain the last swallow from it. Then he leaned forward toward the stove, refilled his cup from a white enameled coffeepot, and settled back again.
His feet were propped on the rim of the sand-filled box in which the stove stood, while his whole big body relaxed in warmth and comfort. As they watched he reached toward a paper bag on a gleaming oilcloth-covered table and pulled out a fat doughnut.
The boys could only see his back, but even the thick folds of his neck seemed to wrinkle with pleasure as he dunked the doughnut in the coffee and carried the dripping object to his mouth.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sandy muttered. “This is killing me.”
“Wait a minute.” Ken craned his neck, trying for a new angle of vision through the narrow slit. Finally he spotted what he had been looking for. The package the man had brought from the cigar store lay, still unopened, on one of the bunks against the port bulkhead.
“I’d certainly like to know what’s in that thing,” Ken whispered.
“I’ll go in and ask him,” Sandy offered. “Maybe he’ll give me a cup of coffee and a doughnut while I’m there. Even if he slit my throat afterward,” he added, “it would almost be worth it.”