“Rather,” said Henry Burns.
“And the banker’s daughters,—were they pretty, Henry?” asked Tom.
“I didn’t notice particularly,” said Henry Burns.
“Henry never does notice those things,” said Arthur, dryly.
“Oh, no, never!” said young Joe.
“You fellows will notice something, if you don’t let up,” said Henry Burns, getting a little red in spite of himself.
Then he told them all that he had learned from Mr. Miles Burton about the man Kemble, who was not Kemble at all, but one Craigie, and a desperate man; and all about the plans that were now to be put into operation to capture Craigie and whosoever should come to meet him.
The money, too, that had come to each one of them, as his share of the reward, seemed like a fortune, while no expedition that they had ever heard or read of seemed half so full of mystery and danger as that upon which they were now entering.
Sometime between ten and eleven o’clock Henry Burns left them, and, proceeding to the hotel, unlocked a door in the basement, got out his bicycle, and rode away. In a little more than half an hour afterward he had dismounted from his wheel at Captain Hervey’s house, four miles from the hotel, on the western side of the island, near the head. The house was closed, as the captain and his family were away at sea. Down at the shore was an old boat-house, where Henry Burns left his bicycle. He sat on the edge of a bluff overhanging a landing-place for boats, and waited for the launch. He could see her lights already, out on the bay, and it was not long before the little craft had come to shore. Four men disembarked, and the launch steamed away again.
“Hello, Private Detective Burns,” said Miles Burton, laughing, as he came up the ladder from the landing. Then he added, as he introduced the others to the boy, “This is a rival to Inspector Byrnes of New York.