“You don’t tell me! What’s the idea?”
“Guess he must be making money with his wheezy music,” laughed Bob. “But to get back to this subject, have you any idea what made the funny marks around at the side of your cabin, Mr. Beegle?”
“No, I haven’t, but I’ll go out with you and take a look at them. And say, I wish you wouldn’t call me Mr. Beegle?”
“Isn’t that your name?” asked Bob, thinking perhaps the inheritor of some of the old pirate’s hidden treasure might be masquerading.
“Yes, it’s my name, but all my friends call me Hiram, and since you’re one of my friends—I’m sure you must be or you wouldn’t go to all this work on my account—why can’t you call me Hiram?”
“I will, if you wish it,” answered Bob. “But as for work—I don’t call this work—I mean trying to solve a mystery.”
“You don’t? Well, have it your own way. Now let’s go out and have a look at those marks. Though I’m afraid there aren’t many of them left. We had a shower in the night, and that fellow who calls himself the chief of the Storm Mountain police has been pottering around.”
“Was he here to-day?” asked Bob.
“Yes, just before you came. He didn’t know anything, though, and never will, in my opinion.”
Bob did not subscribe to this, feeling that it was not just exactly ethical, since Mr. Drayton was a sort of fellow practitioner so to speak.