“Who is that?”
“One of Harry Ware’s ghosts,” declared Persimmons soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye nevertheless.
“I guess we can safely call the ghosts out of it,” laughed Ralph, in spite of his vexation. “The thing is, who would have a motive to try to prevent the River Swallow leaving Dexter Island to-night.”
“There’s only one motive that I can suggest,” said young Simmons seriously.
“And that one is?”
“A desperate desire to prevent us from communicating to the authorities our experiences of last night.”
“But who could know anything about that? We agreed to keep that part of the object of our journey to ourselves. Nobody could know of it.”
“Unless somebody overheard us when we talked it over.”
“What do you mean?”
“That maybe Harry Ware wasn’t so far off as we thought he was, when he declared he heard a rustling in that shrubbery.”