When they reached the dock Smeltzer was the first man to step ashore. He took his station beside the gangway. He had watched it from the time they had left Mackinac and he was not going to be cheated out of his reward now. There was an exultant look in his eye, it seemed to Harcourt, as from the upper deck he watched the man.
"You'd better go on ahead," he said to Bess, "and among the first. I will catch up with you. No, I don't know that he associates me at all with your party, and I don't even know that he would recognize you as belonging to it, but it is just as well to be on the safe side."
He saw her run the gauntlet unchallenged. Smeltzer was looking for a woman and a child. He had spent the last few minutes before the boat stopped in studying a picture he had in his possession. One after another passed out, but no woman and child. Harcourt could have jumped up and down with delight to see Smeltzer's look of anticipated triumph merge slowly into anxiety and then to mystified chagrin. Nothing but a realization that it might be an awkward position for him prevented his staying to witness the detective's interview with the captain. That one was impending was evident from the man's face. The last passenger to leave the boat was Harcourt.
"Hello, Smeltzer! You here? You didn't get off to Chicago."
"No," said Smeltzer curtly, starting back across the gangway. Harcourt hurried on after Bess. They had walked but a little way when she said, in great perturbation, "Oh, I've left my umbrella. Can't we go back for it?"
They had reached the boat and he was stepping aboard, when he was arrested by the sound of Smeltzer's voice in altercation with the captain and the stewardess as they stood at the head of the gangway.
"Then she's on this boat," they heard him say.
"Did any woman get off at Detour?" asked the captain.
"Yis, sor. The wash-lady."
"Was there any child?"