“Then what do you propose to do?”
“To go up on foot with a half dozen picked members of our force just as soon as you’ve had a bite to eat and changed your flying togs. A private detective of Gildersleeve’s—Lynch his name is—has discovered how that water-gate up there is operated, and we’re taking him along to show us how to get in.”
“Is Gildersleeve here?”
“He was, but he left for town on the early tug this morning, though I have a hunch I should have put him in custody until this whole thing is cleared up.”
“You still suspect him of underhand work?”
“Just now I hardly know what to suspect. There seems to be some unholy mystery here that’s mighty difficult to get to the bottom of. Gildersleeve may be innocent of having anything to do with the abduction of Miss Stone, but I am becoming more and more certain that there is some part he played out here he’s anxious to conceal. I expect you noticed that the beaver-dam in Solomon Creek was gone and the head of water that came down last night forced out the booms of pulpwood in the bay?”
“Yes. I imagine Gildersleeve would be wild over that.”
“Wild is no name for it. Before he left this morning he spent most of the time cursing everything and everybody. I think the man was drunk. Anyway, he insists that the North Star people blew up the dam with dynamite while the storm was on. But we can’t take any action on mere conjectures. Even if the dam were blown up the freshet left no clues behind. Our men made a thorough investigation this morning and could find no proof that the dam did not give way through natural causes. Now Gildersleeve swears he’s going after the Dominion government for damages because we did not have a patrol watching the dam. I suppose we might have taken that precaution, but no one thought of danger from that direction.”
“Without proof that the disaster occurred through preventable causes I don’t see how he can produce grounds for damages,” asserted Hammond.
“Nor I,” returned the inspector. “Furthermore, Gildersleeve has not from the first dealt on the square with us or taken us into his confidence. Off-hand, I’d say he appears to me like a man who’s been beaten to it at a game of double-cross where he was as deep-dyed as the other fellow and now he’s aching to take his spleen out on a third party.