“It was only what Burkett let drop when he came after some money. I suppose he thought it was safe to talk to me. But what's the good of my giving you guesswork? I don't know anything definite. I don't understand sailor matters.”
“Bradish, what Burkett said—was it something about the compass—about putting a job over on me by monkeying with the compass?”
“It was something like that.” His tone exhibited indifference; it was evident that he was more occupied with his terror than with his confession.
“Didn't Burkett say something about a magnet?”
“He got off some kind of a joke about Fogg in the pilot-house and fog outside—but that the Fogg inside did the business. And he said something about Fogg's iron wishbone.”
“So that was the way it was done—and done by the general manager of the line!” cried Mayo. “The general manager himself! It's no wonder I have smashed that suspicion between the eyes every time it bobbed up! I suspected—but I didn't dare to suspect! Is that some of your high finance, Bradish?”
“No, it isn't,” declared the New-Yorker, with heat. “It's an understrapper like Fogg going ahead and producing results, so he calls it. The big men never bother with the details.”
“The details! Taking away from me all I have worked for—my reputation as a master, my papers, my standing—my liberty. By the gods, I'm going to live! I'm going through those breakers! I'll face that gang like a man who has fought his way back from hell,” raged the victim.
“This—this was none of my father's business! It could not have been,” expostulated Miss Marston.
“Your father never knows anything about the details of Fogg's operations,” declared Bradish.