She hung up the receiver. Had Alan found Uncle Benny? He had found, apparently, someone whose semblance to the picture she had showed him was marked enough to make him believe that person might be Benjamin Corvet; or he had heard of some one who, from the account he had received, he thought might be. She read again the words of the telegram ... "even if greatly changed!" and she felt startling and terrifying warning in that phrase.
CHAPTER XV
OLD BURR OF THE FERRY
It was in late November and while the coal carrier Pontiac, on which he was serving as lookout, was in Lake Superior that Alan first heard of Jim Burr. The name spoken among some other names in casual conversation by a member of the crew, stirred and excited him; the name James Burr, occurring on Benjamin Corvet's list, had borne opposite it the legend "All disappeared; no trace," and Alan, whose investigations had accounted for all others whom the list contained, had been able regarding Burr only to verify the fact that at the address given no one of this name was to be found.
He questioned the oiler who had mentioned Burr. The man had met Burr one night in Manitowoc with other men, and something about the old man had impressed both his name and image on him; he knew no more than that. At Manitowoc!—the place from which Captain Stafford's watch had been sent to Constance Sherrill and where Alan had sought for, but had failed to find, the sender! Had Alan stumbled by chance upon the one whom Benjamin Corvet had been unable to trace? Had Corvet, after his disappearance, found Burr? Had Burr been the sender, under Corvet's direction, of those things? Alan speculated upon this. The man might well, of course, be some other Jim Burr; there were probably many men by that name. Yet the James Burr of Corvet's list must have been such a one as the oiler described—a white haired old man.
Alan could not leave the Pontiac and go at once to Manitowoc to seek for Burr; for he was needed where he was. The season of navigation on Lake Superior was near its close. In Duluth skippers were clamoring for cargoes; ships were lading in haste for a last trip before ice closed the lake's outlet at the Soo against all ships. It was fully a week later and after the Pontiac had been laden again and had repassed the length of Lake Superior that Alan left the vessel at Sault Ste. Marie and took the train for Manitowoc.
The little lake port of Manitowoc, which he reached in the late afternoon, was turbulent with the lake season's approaching close. Long lines of bulk freighters, loaded and tied up to wait for spring, filled the river; their released crews rioted through the town. Alan inquired for the seamen's drinking place, where his informant had met Jim Burr; following the directions he received he made his way along the river bank until he found it. The place was neat, immaculate; a score of lakemen sat talking at little tables or leaned against the bar. Alan inquired of the proprietor for Jim Burr.
The proprietor knew old Jim Burr—yes. Burr was a wheelsman on Carferry Number 25. He was a lakeman, experienced and capable; that fact, some months before, had served as introduction for him to the frequenters of this place. When the ferry was in harbor and his duties left him idle, Burr came up and waited there, occupying always the same chair. He never drank; he never spoke to others unless they spoke first to him, but then he talked freely about old days on the lakes, about ships which had been lost and about men long dead.
Alan decided that there could be no better place to interview old Burr than here; he waited therefore, and in the early evening the old man came in.