“Then why didn’t you tell Mr. Lockyer?” was the reporter’s natural inquiry.
“Because my memory refused to come to time. The chap was in disguise. It was only his eyes and his voice, which he had altered, that seemed familiar. Putting two and two together, it looks as if some mischief was afoot.”
“You’re right,” rejoined the reporter earnestly. “That’s what I came off to see Mr. Lockyer about. After supper at the hotel this evening I was walking about the patch of a garden they have there when I overheard some voices in a summer house. I did not mean to listen, but before I could get away I heard Mr. Lockyer’s name mentioned and then a muttered curse growled out. That interested me and I soon heard enough to convince me that the men in there were discussing a plot to lure Mr. Lockyer to a deserted hotel and then kidnap him in a motor boat and make him a prisoner on one of the islands in the upper part of the inlet till he either gave them the rights to manufacture his type of boat for a foreign government, or else till it was too late for the United States government to bother any more with the Lockyer boat.”
“Jumping sand toads!” yelled Herc; “you were right, then, Ned. Did you recognize any of the fellows, sir?”
“I heard one addressed as Gradbarr. The other one, creeping closer and peering through the bushes, I perceived to be a man who had been passing himself off as a reporter. He made a disturbance on the boat this morning. Armstrong, he said his name was.”
“Then there is no doubt that Mr. Lockyer is in desperate need of help,” gasped Ned, “but what are we going to do?”
“Go to his aid,” said the practical-minded reporter.
“But a boat. We haven’t one. Say, old man, I wonder if you’d send one off from shore, and——”