“I’d like to know myself,” her uncle returned grimly. “I didn’t rent it to any of the guests. Either someone sneaked it out after dark last night, or Bill used it. If I thought he was responsible, I’d fire him. This boat is practically ruined.”
“You’ve discharged poor old Bill three times already,” Madge reminded him impishly. “When he tells you his hard luck story, you always take him back.”
At this very moment the veteran workman slouched leisurely into view and Mr. Brady promptly hailed him. Old Bill approached warily, knowing from the tone of the voice, that something unpleasant was in store. Confronted with the evidence, he staunchly denied having used the boat the previous night.
“You think I’d go out on the lake after toting stone all day? Not me! I tell ye, a man’s dog tired arfter workin’ hard from mornin’ till night. An’ if I had a taken out the boat, you’d heve found it tied up ship-shape. No, sir, arfter I had me supper last night, I went straight to bed.”
He would have continued with a more elaborate denial but Mr. Brady cut him short. Bill went off looking affronted.
To question the guests was a delicate matter, but Mr. Brady was bent upon getting at the bottom of the matter. He politely brought up the subject at the dinner table, and both the chemist and Mr. Brownell insisted that they had not used the boat.
“Someone is telling a whopper,” Madge thought. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the person who took that boat used it to visit Stewart Island.”
Although the question had been put to him in a casual way, Clyde adopted the attitude that he was under suspicion. He sulked about the house the early part of the afternoon, scarcely addressing a pleasant word to anyone. Then, evidently upon sudden impulse, he rented the canoe and set out for Stewart Island.
Mr. Brownell who had been loafing about the lodge the better part of the morning, did not see him leave, but a few minutes later, he too expressed a desire to go out upon the lake. Madge explained that with the skiff damaged, the canoe in use, and Bill hauling stone in the boat, it would be impossible.
“But I must get over to Stewart Island,” he protested. “I’ve put it off too long now.”