“That settles it,” he murmured. “Come on over to my schooner.”
They went to his schooner. A comparison of his sample of grease with that in the iron pot left no doubt as to who had greased the track over which the O Moo had glided to the water. The ax he had brought from the scow had a cross on one side of it, cut no doubt with a chisel when the steel was still hot. The cross embossed on the wood exactly fitted in the cross on the side of the ax.
“They drove the ax in to pull the nails,” Mark explained. “Then when the cleats didn’t give way, they used something to pry the ax loose. That’s how the ax came to leave its mark.”
“You’d have thought the noise would have wakened your friends,” said the officer.
“There was a wild storm. Couldn’t hear anything.”
“Well,” said the sergeant, yawning as he rose, “that fixes something definitely on them. That’s what we’ve been trying to do for some time. Next thing is to catch them.”
“But why did they do it?” insisted Mark.
“Well,” replied the sergeant, “since you’ve helped us and I know you won’t go blabbing, I’ll tell you what we think.”
It was a long story, a story so absorbingly mysterious that Mark started when he looked at the clock and saw that a whole hour had been consumed in the telling of it.
“So that’s that,” smiled the officer as he rose to go. “Tell your lady friends on this O Moo if you like but not anybody else. They’ve got a right to know, I guess, and they’ll keep quiet about it until the thing’s settled for good and all.”