"Good Lord!" broke from Dennis. "It's not credible! Yet, if Frenchy was my Chicago visitor—here, old girl, sit down! I've something to tell you. I can't quite face the meaning of it—yet it's bound to mean but one thing——"
He drew the wondering sobbing girl to a chair beside him, and for the first time told her of his strange assailant in Chicago on the night of their departure. He connected up the links—finding Ericksen in the man's compartment; the square suitcase and its contents—and now the remarks of Pontifex about that phonograph, as reported by the innocent Jerry.
As she listened, the apprehension and grief of Florence for the helpless and seemingly tortured father began to be absorbed in the deep significance of the entire affair. She sat in frowning thought, while Dennis drew from his memory the little things which at the time he had scarce noted, but which now seemed so laden with significance—even the strange unconcern of Pontifex over communicating with Miles Hathaway. At this last, Florence lifted her head.
"I know—the same thing struck me, Tom. I was talking about it with Mrs. Pontifex to-day; she had the air of discouraging me in the attempt. Why? Why don't they want us to communicate with poor father? It will be hard at best, because of his eyes; I'm going to make up an eyewash for him until we can reach a doctor. But why their attitude? Everything seemed so honest and so kindly at that meeting the other day! And when I kissed Mrs. Pontifex——"
"She blushed, by George!" snapped Dennis suddenly. "And anything that could make that woman blush—here, let me think! Jerry gave the whole game away to us. The clue lies in what the skipper said about your father talking now that you were aboard——"
He broke off abruptly, filled and lighted his pipe, and sat staring before him. Not for nothing had he followed the newspaper game. Not for nothing had he been one of the best rewrite men in Chicago! He had been trained in the business of making a whole cloth from scattered scraps.
"Got it! Listen here, Florence," he said suddenly. "Pontifex found your father, and either took him to a house, where those snapshots were made, or to this ship—no matter which. Face facts, now! All this goody-goody talk is bluff. Pontifex was busy trying to extort the secret of the Simpson's position from your father, so he sent Boatswain Joe to get you; and he sent that clever little assassin, Frenchy, to get this phonograph that's in my grip—why, we don't know. But for some reason he wanted it, and wanted it badly!
"Ericksen did not want me to accompany you. He called in Frenchy at the last minute to put me out of the way—and Frenchy meant murder. There's a salient fact! How did Boatswain Joe slip up, as Pontifex termed it? In not bringing you alone. They wanted you—alone! A second salient fact. Why? Pontifex has said it: in order to force your father to talk!"
"But Tom!" broke in Florence quickly. "Father can't talk!"
"All bluff. Pontifex can communicate with him, somehow. They simply didn't want us to do so."