Rick dropped into the idiom of the sea. "I like to know the course before I haul anchor."
Cap'n Mike chuckled. "Didn't expect caution or wisdom from you."
Scotty grinned. "Don't worry. He's neither cautious nor wise. He can't wait to get started and neither can I. But Rick's right. We have to know the whole story."
"Right. Well, there isn't much. Something's been going on in Seaford. Don't ask me what, because I don't know. I think Tom Tyler does, and I think his finding out is what led to the wreck of the Sea Belle." He held up his hand as Rick's lips framed a question. "You're going to ask me how I know that. Well, I don't know it. I just suspect it. I was a mite too positive when I said I knew. All I know is Tom Tyler told me one day that he had an idea that something strange was going on at the Creek House, and that he intended to find out what it was. Now! He must have had a good idea that whatever was going on was crooked, because Tom isn't the kind of man to pry into folks' business without a good purpose."
"Do you think he found out?" Rick asked.
"I do. I think he found out four nights ago. I was sitting in my dory jigging for eels a little distance down from the Creek House fence right at the mouth of Salt Creek. I saw Tom. He didn't know I saw him. He came around the corner of the fence and for a minute he was silhouetted against a light. I didn't see his face, but I'm sure. Known him since he was a shaver. Next morning I bumped into him at the pier, getting ready to go out on the Sea Belle. He said to see him at his house that night, because he had something to talk to me about. Well, I saw him that night, but not at his house. He was sitting at a corner table in Sam's Lobster House, and can you guess who was with him?"
"Red Kelso?"
Cap'n Mike nodded at Rick. "It was Kelso. He was doing the talking, too, and from the expression on Tom's face, he wasn't saying anything Tom liked a whole lot. After a while he left, and I went over to Tom. I asked casual-like what it was he wanted to talk with me about and he froze up like a clam. He was scared, at first. Then he seemed to get sort of mad, too, because he said, 'I'm going to call his bluff. Wait and see.'"
"Meaning Kelso," Scotty said.
"I reckon, but Tom wouldn't talk. He said it was better that I didn't know what he was talking about. He got up and left and I didn't see him again until last night at City Hall after he wrecked the Sea Belle."