It was high and dry, empty as last year's cockleshell. Not a sign of life, not a loose object of any kind except a filmy thing which Hambleton found himself observing thoughtfully. At last he picked it up—a long, mist-like veil. He spread it out, held it gingerly between a thumb and finger of each hand, and continued to look at it abstractedly. Part of it was clean and whole, dainty as only a bit of woman's finery can be; but one end of it was torn and twisted and stretched out of all semblance to itself. Moreover, it was dirty, as if it had been ground under a muddy heel. It was, in its way, a shrieking evidence of violence, of unrighteous struggle. Hambleton folded the scarf carefully, with its edges together, and put it in his pocket. Jimmy's actions from this time on had an incentive and a spirit that had before been lacking. He noted again the number of the car, and returned to the edge of the dock to observe the yacht. She had steamed up river a little way for some reason known only to herself, and was now turning very slowly. She was but faintly lighted, and would pass for some pleasure craft just coming home. But Jim knew better. He could, at last, put two and two together. He would follow the Face—indeed, he could not help following it. In him had begun that divine experience of youth—of youth essentially, whether it come in early years or late—of being carried off his feet by a spirit not himself. He ran like a young athlete down the dock to the nearest workman, evolving schemes as he went.
The dock-hand apathetically trundled a small keg from one pile of freight to another, wiped his hands on his trousers, took a dry pipe out of his pocket, and looked vacantly up the river before he replied to Hambleton's question.
"Queer name—Jene Dark they call her."
It was like pulling teeth to get information out of him, but Jim applied the forceps.
The yacht had been lying out in the river for two weeks or more, possibly less; belonged to foreign parts; no one thereabouts knew who its owner was; nor its captain; nor its purpose in the harbor of New York. At last, quite gratuitously, the man volunteered a personal opinion. "Slippery boat in a gale—wouldn't trust her."
Hambleton walked smartly back, taking a look both at the yacht and the motor-car as he went. The yacht's nose pointed toward the Jersey shore; the car was creeping out of the dock. As he overtook the machine, he saw that it was in the hands of a mechanic in overalls and jumper. In answer to Hambleton's question as, to the owner of the car, the mechanic told him pleasantly to go to the devil, and for once the sight of a coin failed to produce any perceptible effect. But the major-general, waiting half a block away, was still in the humor of giving fatherly advice. He welcomed Jim heartily. "That's a hole I ain't got no use for. 'Ow'd you make out?"
"Well enough, for all present purposes. Can you undertake to do a job for me?"
"If it ain't nothing I'd have to arrest you for, I might consider it," he chuckled.
"I want you to go to the Laramie Club and tell Aleck Van Camp—got the name?—that Hambleton has gone off on the Jeanne D'Arc and may not be back for some time; and he is to look after the Sea Gull."
"Hold on, young man; you're not going to do anything out of reason, as one might say?"