This was also Thorndyke’s opinion, but he was deeply interested in the report of Varney’s disappearance. Nor was he entirely without a clue to it. His observations of Margaret and Varney suggested a possible explanation which he did not think it necessary to refer to. And, in fact, the conversation was here interrupted by their arrival at the pier, where an elderly fisherman who had been watching their approach came forward and saluted them.
“Here you are then, Skipper,” said Phillip, “punctual to the minute. We’ve got a fine day for our trip, haven’t we?”
“Ay, sir,” replied the skipper. “ ’Tis a wonderful calm day for the time of year. And glad I am to see it, if we are to work close in to the Wolf, for it’s a lumpy bit of water at the best of times around the rock.”
“Is everything ready?” asked Phillip.
“Ay, sir. We are all ready to cast off this moment,” and in confirmation he preceded the party to the head of the ladder and indicated the craft lying alongside the pier beneath it—a small converted Penzance lugger with a large open cockpit in the fore part of which was the engine. The four men descended the ladder, and while the skipper and the second fisherman, who constituted the crew, were preparing to cast off the shore-ropes, Phillip took a last look round to see that all was in order. Then the crew—who was named Joe Tregenna—pushed off and started the engine, the skipper took the tiller and the boat got under way.
“You see,” said Phillip, as the boat headed out to sea, “we have got good strong tackle for the creeping operations.” He pointed over the boat’s side to a long, stout spar which was slung outside the bulwarks. It was secured by a chain bridle to a trawl-rope and to it were attached a number of creepers—lengths of chain fitted with rows of hooks—which hung down into the water and trailed alongside. The equipment also included a spirit-compass fitted with sight-vanes, a sextant, a hand-lead, which lay on the cockpit floor with its line neatly coiled round it, and a deep-sea lead stowed away forward with its long line and the block for lowering and hoisting it.
The occupants of the cockpit were strangely silent. It was a beautiful spring day, bright and sunny, with a warm blue sky overhead and a tranquil sea, heaving quietly to the long swell from the Atlantic, showing a sunlit sparkle on the surface and clear sapphire in the depths. “Nature painted all things gay,” excepting the three men who sat on the side-benches of the cockpit, whose countenances were expressive of the deepest gravity and even, in the case of the two Rodneys, of profound gloom.
“I shall be glad when this business is over,” said Phillip. “I feel as nervous as a cat.”
“So do I,” his brother agreed. “It is a gruesome affair. I find myself almost hoping that nothing will come of it. And yet that would only leave us worse off than ever.”
“We mustn’t be prepared to accept failure,” said Thorndyke. “The thing is there and we have got to find it—if not to-day, then to-morrow or some other day.”