"When did you discover he had disappeared?" Scotty queried. "You said he had been visiting his mother."
"That's just it. Took me all this time to remember." Cap'n Mike shook his white head. "Reckon I'm getting old. His mate said he'd gone to visit his mother, so I thought no more about it. Until this morning. Then I remembered. Jim Killian never knew his mother. He was brought up by an uncle and aunt, both of them dead ten years now. Struck me all of a sudden. It had sort of been nagging at the back of my head that something was fishy about that mate's story anyway, so this morning I went to his house and I collared him."
"Did you get anything out of him?" Rick asked eagerly.
"Not much. Jim Killian showed up at his trawler the morning after Tom Tyler wrecked the Sea Belle. He just told the mate to shove off without him, and said if anyone asked, he was visiting his mother, who was sick. And I'm sure that's all the mate knows, except that he knew Jim Killian didn't have a mother."
Rick pursed his lips thoughtfully. "He showed up himself? Then he must have left of his own free will. At least he wasn't kidnapped. But why would he run away?"
His eyes met Scotty's and he knew his pal was thinking the same thing.
"He was threatened," Scotty said.
"Looks like it. Suppose he had let a word drop that night about something being a little off the beam about Smugglers' Light?" It sounded reasonable to Rick. "The Kelsos would have paid him a visit for sure."
Cap'n Mike wagged his head sadly. "I sure pinned a lot of hope on Jim Killian. After you explained what might have happened to Tom, I was sure Jim might have something real useful to add. But it looks mighty bad now."
"Mighty bad," Rick agreed. Their effort to catch the Kelsos red-handed had boomeranged on them and now what might be proof of their theory had vanished.