“Isn’t there going to be any luncheon?” he asked.
“Thunder!” cried Tom. “What time is it? I forgot all about it!”
“We all did,” said Dan. “Get a move on, Tommy; Mr. Hawkshaw is in a hurry.”
“Well, but I want to hear about it,” objected Tom. “You fellows come on down.”
So they all adjourned to the engine room and while Tom set about the preparation of luncheon Bob made his report.
“I found out two or three things,” said Bob. “In the first place, Spencer Floyd is still there, because I saw him and he saw me. In the second place the Henry Nellis sails to-morrow morning for St. Johns, Newfoundland.”
“Then we’ve got to get busy to-day,” said Dan resolutely.
“She’d have been gone several days,” Bob continued, “if it hadn’t been for some row between her owners.”
“Then Captain Chowder doesn’t own her?” asked Nelson.
“He owns a fourth,” answered Bob. “After I got on the wharf I went across to a schooner lying on the other side, the Two Brothers. I told one of the men on deck that I’d like to come aboard and look around and he said all right. We got quite chummy and he told me about the Henry Nellis. He had been talking to one of her crew. I asked him what he knew about Captain Sander, only I didn’t let on that I’d ever heard of him before. He said he didn’t know anything about him except what the other chap had told him, which was only that the captain was a tartar when he got mad. I kept my eye on the Nellis all the time. I could see over her rail from where I sat on the deck of the other boat, but I wasn’t in plain sight in case the captain had happened along. But I didn’t see anything of him and the chap I was talking to didn’t know whether he was on board or ashore. The only men I saw on the Nellis were a couple of deck hands, one of them that Dago with the earrings. I guess most of the crew were ashore. But presently somebody walked out of the galley and tossed a panful of potato parings over the farther side and I saw that it was Spencer. When he came back toward the galley I stood up. At first he didn’t see me, but just as he was going through the doorway he glanced across and stopped. He didn’t recognize me at all until I made a motion with my hand. Then he looked forward where the two men were sitting, back to him, and walked over to the rail and pretended to scrape the tin pan clean. But he was looking me over and I saw that he remembered my face but couldn’t place me. So I climbed back to the wharf and moved over toward him. When I got about ten feet away I turned my back to him and pretended to be looking at the Two Brothers.”