The letter, having yielded up this much of its secret to the squire, became immediately of greater interest to him; but, at the same time, an object of greater annoyance and perplexity. He couldn’t get the thing off his mind. It became a sort of continual nightmare to him. Why, he asked, should any one write to Mr. Carleton about a key to a lock aboard the Viking?
Being somewhat heavy-witted, in spite of a certain natural shrewdness, the squire did not answer his own question readily.
On this particular afternoon, however, he advanced a step farther.
“Perhaps,” he said to himself, “that word, ‘sound,’ does not refer to timbers at all. It might be Long Island Sound, where this yacht has been at some time, probably. Oh, I wish I had the rest of the letter.”
“I tell you what!” exclaimed the squire, “this thing is queer. That’s what it is. Who should know anything about this yacht, and who would be writing to Mr. Carleton about it? It couldn’t be the men that had it before the boys got it. They were a band of thieves. What’s that? Hello! Why not? This man Carleton has cleared out. He didn’t buy that land of me. He never intended to; that’s what.”
“I’ve got it!” he cried, jumping up excitedly and thumping his desk with his fist. “Chambers! Chambers! That’s the man. He’s the man that set fire to the hotel. He’s the man that Jack Harvey captured down in the Thoroughfare. He’s the man that knows about the Viking—and there’s his name in the letter—or a part of his name.
“Those letters, ‘mbers,’ don’t mean ‘timbers’ at all. They were a part of the name ‘Chambers.’ Yes, and those letters at the end of the list, ‘ays,’ don’t mean ‘stays,’ either, as I thought they did. That word is ‘says.’
“‘Chambers says’ something—now what does he say? I have it:
“‘Chambers says key to the lock must be still aboard yacht.’
“Wait a minute,” said the squire to himself. “That word, ‘starboard’ comes in here somewhere. Starboard—starboard—oh, I see; ‘starboard locker.’ That first word is ‘locker,’ just as I thought in the beginning.”