As they talked, a customer with a nautical gait, and somewhat the worse for drink, rolled in and sat down. The communicative host served him, and then whispered to Fred that he thought the man was a deserter from the French ship, who had been keeping pretty quiet till his vessel left port, and was now taking advantage of his stolen freedom.
The man was a tough-looking customer, unmistakably a seaman, in spite of his ill-fitting shore clothes; and as Fred sat watching him from across the room an idea sprang up and gradually developed in his mind. If this man was the deserter whom the officer had told him of, he might possibly have run away as a result of Renard's visit to the ship, if Renard was the stranger who had gone aboard. Therefore he might know Renard; he might even know where Renard lived—perhaps Renard was giving him shelter! Fred grew very much excited as these thoughts flashed through his mind, and determined to follow the man and see where he went. The latter, however, seemed to be in no haste to give the young detective a chance to pursue his investigations. He sat in the café until nearly six o'clock. Then he paid his reckoning and tacked up the street to the elevated railroad station. Fred boarded the same train, and followed his man down to South Ferry, where they both went aboard a Staten Island boat, and on reaching St. George took a train and rode for a short distance toward South Beach.
It was easy for Fred to follow the sailor when they left the train, for darkness had come on an hour ago. The Frenchman led the way through the village, and tramped for half a mile or more along a lonely road that led inland, over a hill and across country, until they came to a two-story cottage with a picket fence around it. The sailor staggered through the gate and up the steps, and opened the door and went in, slamming it behind him, and Fred was left outside in the darkness alone. He sat down by the way-side to think over the situation, watching the house as he did so; but no sound came to his ears, and as the shades were drawn at the windows of the one room in which a light shone, he saw nothing. When he had come to the conclusion that there was little to be gained by sitting out in the dampness staring at a blank wall, he trudged back to the village, to make inquiries of the station agent and the town watchman.
"There's somethin' queer about them folks, I guess," the watchman said. "There was another man askin' me about 'em—'bout a week ago."
Fred feared this other inquirer might have been a Star reporter on the same errand, and so he laid awake almost all night forming plans for the conduct of his future investigations. It was now the day before Thanksgiving, and Fred reluctantly made up his mind he would have to forego the pleasure of a trip up the Hudson. He wrote to his mother that she should not expect him, as an important assignment detained him in town. Then he started off for Staten Island, stopping on the way to the ferry to hire a bicycle for the day. He followed the same route he had taken the night before, and shortly after noon he was coasting down the dusty hill-side in plain view of the two-story cottage. He saw a woman moving about in the yard, and this pleased him greatly, for he felt she would materially assist him in his plans. He apparently paid no attention to her, however, but bent over the handle-bars as if he were scorching along at full speed; and when he came to within a hundred feet of the house he deliberately ran into a stone by the way-side and took a header into the soft road. For a moment he lay perfectly still, with one eye fastened on the woman (for his fall was purely theatrical), and when he saw that she had witnessed the "accident" he put his hand to his head and groaned. Then, with much labor and difficulty, he picked himself up and crawled toward the gate and asked if he might go into the house, and requested the woman to get him a glass of water. She did not act very hospitably about Fred's entering the house, but he begged so persistently that she reluctantly consented at last. She left him on a chair in the front room and went back for the water, and Fred was wondering how he was going to prolong his stay after her return, when he heard loud and violent talking in a neighboring room, apparently the kitchen. Two men were soundly berating the woman for having admitted a stranger to the house. Finally one of the men snarled that he would take the water and see that the bicyclist got out much more rapidly than he had come in. Heavy footsteps sounded along the hall, and a man entered the open door. Fred glanced up with an expression of studied misery, which immediately changed into one of amazement when he recognized the man in front of him as one of the patrons of "Zum Groben Michel." The man evidently recognized Fred, too, for he said fiercely,
"What are you doing here?" He spoke with a German accent.
"I fell off my bicycle," began Fred.
"Your bicycle!" retorted the other. "Bah! I have seen you before. At 'Zum Groben Michel,' eh? You have been there?"
Fred admitted that he had.
"Well, what you do there?" continued the man, getting angrier as he spoke. "What you do there? You have no business there! You are a reporter!"