“I have a ghastly feeling that my brother-in-law is mixed up in the sinking of the Clara.”
“Don’t be foolish!”
“I’m trying not to be. But do you remember the night I told you both that the Clara was going to Norfolk to take on her cargo? Well, he went out to get cigars, though he had a lot, and he let it slip that he had been talking on the long-distance telephone. When the Clara is sunk, he is not surprised. He says, ‘We––they have ways.’ He prophesies the sinking of all the ships Mr. Davidge––”
Abbie seized this name as a weapon of self-defense and mate-defense.
“Oh, you’re speakin’ for Mr. Davidge now.”
“Perhaps. He’s my employer, and Jake’s, too. I feel under some obligations to him, even though Jake doesn’t. I feel some obligations to the United States, and Jake doesn’t. I distrust and abhor Germany, and Jake likes her as well as he does us. The background is perfect. When such crimes are being done as Germany keeps doing, condoning them is as bad as committing them.”
“Big words!” sniffed Abbie. “Can’t you talk United States?”
“All right, my dear. I say that since Jake is glad the Clara was sunk and hopes that more ships will be sunk, he is as bad as the men that sank her. And what’s more, I have made up my mind that Jake helped to sink her, and that he works in this yard simply for a chance to sink more ships. Do you get those words of one syllable?”
“No,” said Abbie. Ideas of one syllable are as hard to grasp as words of many. “I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at a tall.”