“I’d like to help out your pose, Trenwith,” Holmes said to him. “But I need you, so you’ll have to come off your perch. You’ll have to come ashore with the others, in case you should change your mind. I only want two of these girls, but the others will have to come, too, of course, because if they got away they might make trouble. You shall be perfectly comfortable, Miss Mercer, however.”
The look in Trenwith’s eyes, and the sheepish, hangdog expression of his whole face made Eleanor gasp. So he had betrayed them! After all, despite his fine talk, he had been tempted by the money that Holmes seemed prepared to spend so lavishly! And he had led Bessie and Zara right into a trap–a merciless trap, as she knew, from which escape would be most difficult, if not utterly impossible.
And in a moment the lingering remnants of her faith were shattered. For Holmes called out, in a loud tone, at Bates:
“Bates!” he cried. “Come aboard and start that engine! Then you can take your tub right up to the landing pier in front of the house.”
“Yes, yes!” said Bates. He sprang aboard, and a moment later the engine, perfectly restored, was started, although nothing had been done to it since Bates went ashore, and, the anchor lifted, the Columbia began her brief voyage to the pier.
There had been no accident at all! The breakdown had been a deception, pure and simple, intended to give Bates a chance to go ashore and warn Holmes that his prey was within his reach.
“Oh, how I despise you!” said Eleanor to Trenwith. “Go away, please, so that I won’t have to look at you!”
“Eleanor, listen!” he said, in a low whisper, pleadingly. “I can explain–”
“If you think I’m such a fool as to believe anything you tell me now,” she said, furiously, “you are very much mistaken!”
He saw that to argue with her was hopeless, and went forward gloomily. In a few minutes they were ashore. Resistance, as Eleanor saw, was hopeless; the only thing to do was to act sensibly, and hope for a chance to escape.