“I’m prepared to believe that you never did,” agreed Pawlinson; “for the man has proven himself wise enough, and big enough, never to appear personally connected with the jobs.”
“But how could he——”
“Here,” put in Pawlinson. “I’ll state it in a nutshell. About the robberies along the Sound, you know. And you know, too, as do the rest of the police, that the tricks were invariably pulled off by water—that is, the lads worked by boat. But what they don’t know is that this man Carl Stroth is the head, center, and chief of a gang—a thoroughly organized and completely equipped gang of crooks.
“And just to show you how complete is the equipment—well—quickly stated again—there’s a hundred-foot auxiliary schooner, speedy, with a machine gun under a tarpaulin, manned by a crew, a real crew.”
He had a sharp, decisive way of narration.
“Sounds fishy, don’t it? Fishy, but a fact,” he went on. “Now, the way a crib was cracked was this—is cracked, I suppose I had better say, for they haven’t been once checked yet: The schooner lies well off shore—’most any distance, in fact. Then the launch—the very launch, by the way, that you figured in yourself yesterday—is manned by experts at this very game. They land, clean out the place selected, back to the launch, back to the schooner. So it’s really very simple, as you see. And in its simplicity lies its great effectiveness. The schooner carries regular yacht papers, and everything is quite proper. Get it?”
“I understand,” said I slowly; “but I can scarcely believe such a thing possible in this day and generation.”
“Why not?” he snapped. “For the life of me I can’t see why the field for absolute and out-and-out piracy isn’t greater now than ever. Pretty nearly every invention, though it gives pursuit improvement, likewise equips the pursued. The world’s very much the same—— But, heavens and earth, man, this is scarcely the time to get too wordy; and I’ll let it out now that the only reason I had in all this explanation was to watch your face closely while I was telling it.”
“Why, what do you mean by that?” I cried.
“Well,” he explained haltingly, “Carl Stroth’s hand reaches far.”