The house was skirted by a balcony along which a second light now came into view; this time from a lamp carried in the hand of a woman. She was wrapped in a bed gown, a straggle of loose hair hanging round a frightened face.
"We was asleep and they woke us up. They was right off there," she jerked her head to the Sound behind her.
"From the water?" Ferguson asked.
"Sounded that way," the man took it up. "We wasn't sure at first what it was; then they come crack, crack, one after the other, from somewheres beyont. My wife, she said it was motor boats, said she heard 'em off across the water. But by the time we got something on and was outside it was over. There wasn't no more and we couldn't see nothing. I bin down on the beach lookin' round, thinkin' they might have come from there, but I ain't found no tracks or signs of anybody."
"I was wonderin'," said the woman, "if may be it was that patrol boat—the one they got this summer runnin' along the shore for thieves—That they caught a sight of one and went after him."
Ferguson was silent for a moment then said:
"Is there any place round here where a boat could be hidden, deep enough water for a launch?"
The man answered:
"Yes, right down the road a step there's a cove and an old dock; used to belong to the folks that lived on the bluff but the house burned down a while back and ain't been rebuilt and no one's used the dock since. A feller could hide a boat there fine; it's all overgrown so you can't see it unless you know where it is."
"I'd like to take a look at it," said Ferguson. "Come along with the lantern."