“Was Lantry another radio shark?”
“No, Mr. Lantry, he said, was a fog pirate.”
“A fog pirate! What’s that?”
If Watson was pretending innocence, he did it cleverly. Guy was unable to detect a suggestion of duplicity in his manner.
“That’s what I wanted to know when he used the term to me,” said the boy. “He explained that it’s a footpad in London who holds up people in the fog.”
“How did he happen to tell you about Lantry? Did he know him?”
“He seemed to. He said the man had been pointed out to him as a fog pirate.”
At the close of this conversation Guy was more puzzled than ever regarding Watson. The latter’s face seemed honest enough, but it exhibited a shrewdness of expression that determined the boy to keep on his guard. However, there was little timidity in Guy, and he could see no reason why he should avoid the man during the short period of their voyage.
But the next day something happened that put a new complexion on matters and seemed to make action with regard to this strange man necessary. The weather had been warm and fair during the first day out, and passengers could pass the time on the open decks with comfort. But the steamer took a northern route, and soon it became cold and stormy and everybody kept under cover. The reading rooms, the smokers, the parlors, and the lounges and various sheltered places of recreation, rest and amusement were well patronized.
In the middle of the afternoon of the day in question, Guy left his mother writing letters in a drawing-room and started for his stateroom to get a book. When he was about fifty feet away from his number, he was startled to see a man step hastily out of his mother’s room, which adjoined his own, close the door, and walk rapidly away.