It was four days after the sea funeral of Harcourt. The latter, by the terms of his hasty but authentic will, had left to Hammer all his property, consisting of the Daphne.
At first the American had flatly refused to accept the yacht, until the practical, hard-headed common sense of John Solomon won him around; and when he put the case up to Sara Helmuth she had promptly decided that he should accept.
He did so, was duly constituted as lawful owner, and there being no objections to the first mate's papers, obtained for him by Solomon, took command of the yacht until her arrival in England once again. She was at anchor off the river, Hammer and Sara Helmuth remaining with Solomon until they had agreed upon some plan.
Hammer began to feel that it was time for action. No word had drifted in from the ruins of Fort St. Thomas during the week that had intervened, and Hammer's grief had settled into a determined thirst for vengeance.
Solomon was at one with him in this, but had exercised a restraining influence to which Hammer had yielded with good grace. He had begun to find out things about John Solomon.
The man seemed to have no lack of money, and it was apparent that he was neither supercargo nor cotton-planter. The very character of his visitors precluded that, while it but vexed Hammer the more.
On one occasion it was a Kiswahili chieftain from up-coast; on another a party of dirty but stately Arabs from a dhow in port; on another a bearded, khaki-clad officer of police from somewhere up-country. These visitors were received in private and departed as they came, without meeting Hammer or Miss Helmuth.
On this, the fourth day after the sea-burial, all three were sitting in a large living-room on the ground floor of the house. Like the other rooms it held many rugs, together with native weapons and two of the ancient Shishkhana rifles from Damascus, of which Solomon was inordinately proud.
He had been seated over a little desk in the corner, busily writing in his red notebook, and when at last the impatient American had got the story of Schlak's death out of him he squatted down on some cushions beside Sara Helmuth, who, with her quiet common sense which embarrassed Hammer at times, was darning socks for the two men.
"About Jenson now," he continued, whittling at his tobacco plug—"it don't pay to be in a 'urry, Mr. 'Ammer. I 'ave men out 'unting for Potbelly——"