“Anyway,” said Mr. Clark, “she ’asn’t got your correct address. She said she’d been looking all over the town for a shop with Dobb on it. And nacherally I didn’t tell ’er that the board still showed your wife’s name of Goffley. And she didn’t know that you’re married yet, neither.”
“Can’t you just see them ‘Raven’ chaps a-grinning when they fixed all this up for me?” growled Mr. Dobb.
“Did she seem sort of forgiving at all, Sam?” asked Mr. Lock.
“Oh, dear me, no!” returned Mr. Clark. “Quite the contrary, in fact. You oughter seen the way she folded ’er lips. A nice-spoken, pleasant-looking, ladylike gal like that, too! I was surprised ’ow sharp and determined she could be.”
And now Mr. Clark, with considerable pride in his diplomacy, proceeded to speak of the clever foundations he had laid for an alibi. Insisting that Mr. Dobb was not within a hundred miles of Shorehaven, he had admitted to Miss Radling that the remaining members of the “Jane Gladys” crew now resided in the town. This, he suggested to her, might explain matters. Confusion of identity, he had reminded her, was of frequent occurrence among the mercantile marine.
“‘But I see ’Orace with my very own eyes,’ she says, and goes on to describe the very clothes you’re wearing, ’Orace,” continued Mr. Clark. “‘Why,’ says I, ‘that just shows ’ow wrong you are! Them clothes is the clothes worn by Peter Lock on ’igh days and ’olidays,’ I says.”
Mr. Lock uttered an exclamation denoting surprise.
“Well, I chose you because you was always the dressy one on the ‘Jane Gladys,’ Peter,” explained Mr. Clark. “‘That there’s Peter Lock in ’is Sunday clothes you saw,’ I tells ’er, ‘and you mistook ’im for ’Orace Dobb. You’ve forgot what ’Orace looked like, and Peter Lock ’aving been on the ‘Jane Gladys,’ to your knowledge—”
“That’s it, that’s it?” approved Mr. Dobb. “I’ll lend you these ’ere clothes, Peter, for a hour or two, if you takes care of ’em, and you can meet ’er in them and prove old Sam was right.”
“Anyway, you can try to,” said Mr. Clark, soberly. “I must say she didn’t look altogether convinced, as it might be.”