“Down in the cabin of the Pathfinder, what is hung on the starboard bulkheads?”
“Nothing at all, except two canary cages.”
“What is the name of that black cat you have?”
“Nibbins.”
“What is odd about your fiferails?”
“We have small hand-winches on them (monkey-winches), so that we can get a bit on anything, with two men and a boy.”
“That’s right enough,” Douglas said, “he belongs to the Pathfinder all right.”
“That’s not in question,” the officer said. “The questions are, what he is doing here and what he has been doing with the police.”
Again there might have been trouble, but for intervention. This time the launchman interfered. He had finished his onion and had licked his fingers and was now on the jetty close to Sard.
“Meesta O’Brien,” he said.