"We don't want to arrest anybody till we're sure we know what we're about—that's poor law," said Squire Cady, in a pedagogical and squire-ish tone, as if Chamberlain were a mere boy. But the Englishman didn't mind that.
"I think I can satisfy you that we've got the right man," he answered. "If I find him and bring him to the old red house this afternoon, so that Miss Redmond can identify him, will you have a sheriff ready to serve the warrant?"
"Yes, I can do that."
"Very well, then, and thank you, sir," said Chamberlain, moving toward the door. "And I'm keen on hearing how you got even with Mr. Thayer on the Horace."
The light behind the squire's parchment face gleamed a moment.
"Come back, my boy, when you've done your duty by the law. Every citizen should be a protector as well as a keeper of the law. So come again; the latch-string is always out."
It was mid-morning before the details connected with the sheriff were completed. By this time Chamberlain's heavy but sound temperament had lifted itself to its task, gaining momentum as the hours went by. His next step was to search out the Frenchman. The meager information obtained the day before was to the effect that the marooned yacht-owner had taken refuge in one of the shacks near the granite docks in the upper part of the village. He had persuaded the caretaker of the Sailors' Reading-room to lend him money with which to telegraph to New York, as the telegraph operator had refused to trust him.
It was not difficult to get on his trade, even though the village people were constitutionally reluctant to let any unnecessary information get away from them. A mile or so farther up the shore, beyond the road that ran like a scar across the hill to the granite quarry, Chamberlain came upon a saloon masquerading as a grocery store. A lodging house, a seaman's Bethel and the Reading-room were grouped near by; the telegraph office, too, had been placed at this end of the town; obviously for the convenience of the operators of the granite quarry. The settlement had the appearance of easy-going and pleasant industry peculiar to places where handwork is still the rule.
Chamberlain applied first at the grocery store without getting satisfaction. The foreign looking boy, who was the only person visible, could give him no information about anything. But at the Reading-room the erstwhile yacht-owner was known. Borrowing money is a sure method of impressing one's personality.
The Frenchman had been in the neighborhood two or three days, latterly becoming very impatient for a reply to his New York telegram. A good deal of money had been applied for, was the opinion of the money-lender. This person, caretaker and librarian, was a tall, ineffective individual, with eyes set wide apart. His slow speech was a mixture of Doctor Johnson and a judge in chancery. It was grandiloquent, and it often took long to reach the point. He informed Chamberlain, with some circumlocution, that the Frenchman had been extremely anxious over the telegram.