“Did he?” cried Larry eagerly, all his old suspicions reviving. “How much. Was it in thousand-dollar bills?”
“No; I couldn’t say they was,” replied Bert Bailey slowly. “But he sure was lavish. Why, he used to buy five-cent cigars at the store, and everybody around here smokes twofers.”
“Twofers?”
“Yes, two for five cents, you know, an’ they’re expensive enough for anybody. An’ then this feller give Hank Solomon half a dollar one day, jest for rowin’ him out in the bay after fish. He didn’t git none, neither. Why, fifty cents! Hank never gets more than twenty-five. Say, that feller was just made of money!”
Once more Larry’s heart sank. Clearly the old fisherman, with exaggerated ideas of the value of money, had brought the reporter down on a wild-goose chase.
“You said in your telegram that he acted strangely,” said Larry, to Bert Bailey. “What did you mean?”
“Well, I guess you’d call it queer if you went past his cabin at all hours of the night, and heard him ravin’ about a big theft, and the loss of papers, and all such. Sometimes he’d be yellin’ for some one to unhand him, whatever that is, and again he’d yell suthin’ about he must git them papers. Once I heard him cry out: ‘Officer, do your duty!’ Now, if that ain’t queer I’d like to know what is.”
“You heard him say these things?” asked Larry, a new idea coming into his mind.
“Sure I did. He was talkin’ in his sleep I reckon, for it was mostly at night I’d hear him. Then, too, he went about as if he didn’t know what to do next—sort of lookin’ up at the clouds, and talking to himself. Oh, he was queer, all right, and he certainly blew in his money. I remembered you said you’d like to hear when there was any news down here, and so I telegraphed you. I’m sorry, though, you had your trip for nothing, but late this afternoon that feller went off, bag and baggage.”
“I don’t know that I’ve had my trip for nothing,” said Larry, all excitement once more. “In fact, I’m beginning to believe now that this man is the very one I’m after.”