“Here’s something that will interest you, Mr. Sabin,” he called out. “Won’t you step this way?”
Mr. Sabin mounted the iron steps carefully but with his eyes turned seawards; a large yacht of elegant shape and painted white from stern to bows was lying-to about half a mile off flying signals.
Mr. Sabin reached the bridge and stood by the captain’s side.
“A pleasure yacht,” he remarked. “What does she want?”
“I shall know in a moment,” the captain answered with his glass to his eye. “She flew a distress signal at first for us to stand by, so I suppose she’s in trouble. Ah! there it goes. ‘Mainshaft broken,’ she says.”
“She doesn’t lie like it,” Mr. Sabin remarked quietly.
The captain looked at him with a smile.
“You know a bit about yachting too,” he said, “and, to tell you the truth, that’s just what I was thinking.”
“Holmes.”