“Simply enough understood, Grey,” he said, “when you realize that I had every dock and railway station covered. And a mighty good scheme it was—that of handling the thing by water. I might have known——”
He broke off short. A thought had hit him which brooked not an instant’s further delay in speculation. Much as I had come to dislike the man, I could but admire his promptitude and vim.
He tugged me into a brisk run, and we caught a trolley car which he had managed to whistle to a stop on the instant it was crossing the nearest avenue’s corner.
“To the water,” said he, in indefinite explanation, when we were seated. “The water, that’s it! The cue word in this little job, I believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not until to-day have I ever known Stroth to use Stevens for a thing but water work. Fact is, where Stevens is there’s a water trick.”
“You mean that you think——”
“I mean that I’d be willing to stake a hefty sum that the schooner is lying this very minute not two hundred yards off Orr’s Island, right here in Casco Bay.”
“The schooner?”
“Stroth’s boat—the one I was telling you about.”