That was no more than Jim had expected. He had passed the first ordeal with flying colors. In the clear morning light, neither Barrows nor Svenson had recognized him, and he breathed a sigh of relief as they went below.
At the table, where they had an excellent breakfast, served by a Japanese steward, who had, it seemed, also cooked the meal, a good deal of constraint was noticeable. Jim was, naturally, somewhat nervous. He wanted to find out all he could, but he was also anxious to get away, and he wondered how he should manage it, if, after he had found out all he could, Barrows tried to keep him there. Svenson was surly and ungracious, eating like an animal, and taking no part in what conversation there was, and Barrows was the only one of the three who was completely at his ease.
“You can put me ashore after breakfast?” suggested Jim finally.
“Surely,” said Barrows. “But I can’t say just how soon. I hope you won’t mind the delay. It’s too bad to hold you up this way, but the fact is, this isn’t exactly a pleasure trip, as you can guess by looking at this craft. We’re doing some advertising work—going to distribute circulars during the race, and, soon afterward, to the yachts and among the crowds. So our boats are all away just now, and I’m not sure of what time they’ll return.”
Jim admired such cleverness. In case he suspected anything was wrong from the presence of the extra supply of tenders, here was a plausible explanation. He was ready to admit that Barrows was clever—he was only afraid that he might be so clever that, in spite of the information already obtained, and the confirmation of their suspicions, he might succeed in causing the defeat of Yale by unfair means and the loss of a great deal of money by Yale men.
Barrows made several excuses to keep Jim below after breakfast, and seemed inclined to stay with him. But Jim was greatly relieved, finally, to hear Svenson’s roaring voice calling his host on deck. And, as soon as he was alone, Jim began to explore the cabin.
The first thing he found was a government chart of the Thames. Red markers showed the buoying of the course for the Harvard-Yale boat race, with the flags marked every half mile, all the way up the river. And, as Jim studied the map, certain blue crosses also attracted his attention. There were three of these—one about a mile from the start, another at the navy yard, where the river bends slightly, and the third almost opposite Red Top, under the western shore of the Thames, and at a point where the Central Vermont Railway and the observation train pass for a few hundred feet out of sight of the racing shells.
Jim puzzled long over this map, trying to make out the significance of the three blue crosses. That they were important he was quite sure, and he lost no time in fixing their locations in his head, so that he could point to the spots marked in case the need for doing so arose. He was afraid to take the map, although he would have had no conscientious scruples against doing so, because he was afraid that he might be searched, and he wanted to maintain his pose of complete innocence and ignorance until he was off the boat.
He stole to the ladder that led to the deck and listened to see if Barrows were returning. But he heard the gambler’s voice lifted in loud conversation with Svenson, and, returning to the cabin, found that he could still hear their voices so plainly that he would have warning, from the cessation of the talk, of any impending return to the cabin.
Then, feeling that he was free, for the moment, to pursue his search, he went on. And in a few minutes he made a discovery that laid the whole secret bare to him. Accidentaly moving a sofa cushion, he found that it concealed the model of a racing shell, and he fell to studying the model closely. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, apparently made to scale, so that it was a perfect reproduction, in a small compass, of the boats in which Harvard and Yale would test each other’s mettle the next day.