“I wonder!” said Jack. “Anyway, it’s all a puzzle to me. Why should the men have hidden it on the Sea-Lark? And if they did hide it there, why didn’t they take it away again during all the time the sloop lay on the dunes?”
Bob Sennet shook his head in perplexity. “Now’s the time to find out, if it ever is to be found out,” he said as the schooner’s sails dropped and she sidled toward her usual berth, much to the surprise of those who had seen her put to sea a short time before.
“What’s amiss?” Cap’n Crumbie shouted from Garnett and Sayer’s wharf, seeing the sloop towing astern and Bob Sennet aboard of her.
“Telephone to the police station,” replied Captain Sennet, “and tell the chief he’s wanted down here, quick. I want to get off to sea as soon as I can.”
The watchman delivered the message, and shortly afterward the chief stepped on board the Ellen E. Hanks, where the crew were standing expectantly in a group. Jack, limping painfully, had joined them, determined to see the thing through now. Rodney and Cap’n Crumbie had also gone on to the schooner as a matter of course.
“What is it?” asked the chief as he stepped off the wharf.
“There’s two men trussed up in the cabin, who are going to prison for several years, if I’m any judge,” replied the skipper. “Theft, and usin’ firearms, and goodness knows what else. We happened along just when they were in the thick of it. Afore you go down and take a squint at ’em I want to tell you all I know.”
“Go ahead,” replied the chief, alert and ready to grasp the essential points of the case. Bob Sennet briefly told of all he had seen, and showed the bag of money to the police official, who raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
“And you say there’s just twelve hundred and forty dollars there! That must be the stolen bag, all right,” he said. “This explains a lot that we didn’t rightly understand before.” The latter remark was addressed to Jack. “But the robbery took place a long time ago, and we may have difficulty in fastening the guilt on these men, even if they are the actual culprits, unless one of them can be made to confess. However, I may be able to work it. Men of that kind have no scruples when it comes to saving their own skins. Bring them up on deck one at a time.”
A minute later the man known as Martin was ushered into the presence of the chief. The latter looked at him curiously for a brief space, and then smiled grimly.