Henry thanked the commander and withdrew from the cabin. Hardly had he left before the captain punched his call-bell and sent Rollin to summon the quartermaster. The latter was the captain’s prime favorite and right-hand man among the non-commissioned officers.
“Quartermaster,” said the commander when his helper appeared, “immediately after I go back to the bridge, I want you to slip into the wireless stateroom without being observed, and search the place. Keep your eyes open, especially for nails like this,” and the commander held out the two nails Henry had given him. “Look in all the nooks and corners, the bunks, and elsewhere, and notice anything out of the ordinary that you find. Above all, as you value your job, don’t say a word about this to any one.”
When Captain Hardwick passed to the bridge, he poked his head into the radio shack. “Belford,” he said, “I want you in the chart-room. And I want you, Black, to stick close to your instruments. Don’t leave them for a second. The Rayolite may be signaling us at any time, and it’s important to catch her message instantly. The hawser is likely to part at any moment if we aren’t careful. Harper is to stand watch with you.”
Belford followed his commander up to the chart-room, where he was put to work erasing lines from some old charts. The quartermaster promptly seized his opportunity to slip into the stateroom, where he locked the door, hung a cloth over the window, and got to work. For more than an hour he searched everywhere and found nothing out of the way. But when he got to work in the bunks, he found, tucked securely away under the top mattress, a peculiar little hammer. He put the room to rights again, uncovered the window-pane, picked up the hammer, and, concealing it in the palm of his hand, stepped out on deck.
He found himself face to face with the ship’s carpenter. A sudden lurch of the ship threw them together. Laughing, each grasped the other. As well as he could the quartermaster kept his fingers closed over the hammer-head, but the quick eyes of the carpenter saw the protruding ends of it.
“So you’re the fellow who borrowed that, are you?” he said. “I’ve been hunting all over for that hammer. Why didn’t you tell me you had borrowed it?”
For a moment the quartermaster was at a loss. He knew not what to say. Then he asked the carpenter to come with him to the captain.
“Captain,” said the quartermaster, when they had mounted to the bridge, “I have some things I would like to tell you. The carpenter here can help explain them.”
The captain stepped to the chart-room and dismissed Belford, who at once departed. Then the captain, the quartermaster, and the carpenter stepped into the chart-room and closed the doors.
“I found this hammer under the mattress of the top bunk in the wireless men’s room,” explained the quartermaster. “Black sleeps in that bunk. As I came out on deck I bumped into the carpenter, here. I thought that I had the hammer concealed, but he caught sight of it in my closed fist. It seems he has been looking for this very hammer for some days. It belongs in his tool kit.”