CHAPTER XXVIIIPICKING UP THE TRAIL.
That night, after the oarsmen had returned, Dick Merriwell made an inspection of the whole course of the race. In theElihu Yalewith him were the two assistants, Benton and Hargreaves, and Jim Phillips and Bill Brady. Dick, after a little debate, had told the two baseball players, now become juniors, of what had happened, and of his suspicions, vague as yet, but well fixed in his mind.
“I don’t know what we’re looking for,” he said, as they started out, “and, frankly, I hardly expect to find it to-night. But sometimes, if you go over ground that is likely to contain a clew, even if you have no notion of what that clew may be, you will hit upon something helpful—get into the spirit of your search, so to speak. That’s why I suggested this trip.”
First the launch ran swiftly down the river to the railroad bridge. There Dick, who was at the wheel, started to spin around to go over the course slowly, but Bill Brady called on them to listen.
“Something doing on one of those yachts,” he said. “Funny sort of a crowd to be here.”
The pop of corks and the sound of voices raised in song came over the water. It was a strange affair for that place and on that night. There were family parties, for the most part, on the yachts, and, even though one of them were made up of men alone, Dick thought it unlikely that any men from either Harvard or Yale were likely to disturb the peace of their neighbors in such a fashion.
“Suppose we run down and see what vessel it is that’s making all the trouble,” he said quietly. “It may seem like eavesdropping, but if they’re all right, there’ll be no harm done, and we can sheer off again.”
There was no protest against this suggestion. A sudden tense feeling had come over all the men in the swift power launch. They felt that they might be in a fair way to stumble thus by accident on some hint that would help to clear up the mystery that was oppressing them all.
Sounds carry far over water, especially at night, when quiet reigns. In New London there are a number of saloons and low drinking places near the waterside, and from some of these there came noises that were a good deal like those that had already attracted the attention of those in the launch. For a moment, indeed, after they shot through the arches of the bridge and hung on the black water—for there was no moon—Dick thought that they might have been mistaken. But then there came again, and unmistakably this time from the water, a burst of revelry, and the motor was started again. It took a few minutes to locate the vessel, which was explained, when, as they stole up to within a cable’s length of her, by the fact that she showed only anchor lights.
It was theMarinafrom which the noise came. Once they were near her, there could be no mistake about that. But, probably with the idea of making it hard for any one who became interested in the din to locate it, her cabin lights were masked by tightly drawn curtains, and she looked, as she lay there, swinging easily with the tide, as if her whole complement, passengers and crew, had turned in. Which was far from being the case.
On board theMarinathere was a sharp division. One party, with Svenson—whose tremendous capacity to punish wine and liquor would have served to explain one reason why so competent a navigator had had to lower himself to mix up with those whose plans were, to say the least of it, shady—at its head, filled the cabin, drinking, singing, laughing, and generally enjoying itself. Prominent, too, in this choice company, was Dennison, whose money was being used for the wagers on which his associates expected to clear such a handsome profit.
But on the deck, entirely sober, and very thoughtful, were two men who had other things to do than befuddle their minds with drink. One was Harding, the notorious gambler who had so often tried to ruin Dick Merriwell and his friends; the other was the one whose brains were responsible for the present enterprise: Barrows, who had lost his chief means of livelihood with the closing of the race tracks around New York, after gambling was forbidden by law.
“I don’t see why you don’t come in on this deal, Bill,” said Barrows, almost pleadingly. “It’s a sure thing. It simply can’t fail. And the pickings are immense. Those Yale men think they’ve got the race won already. They’re just counting the money they’re going to have to spend when the bets are settled, and we got down a thousand this afternoon at the Iroquois at four to one. It’s as safe as a government bond.”
“Keep it all to yourself, old top,” said Harding, with a sneer. “I know the man you’re bucking better than you do. He’s a tough nut, and you need to be almighty slick to put anything over on him. You’re all right yourself. I wouldn’t want a better partner. But that gang you’ve picked up is the other side of the limit. Take Dennison, for instance—a weak-minded, white-livered sneak, who would turn on you and quit the first time there was a sign of danger. Svenson’s all right—if he’s sober. The rest don’t count. They’ll do what they’re told, or you wouldn’t have picked them out for this job. Mind, I’m not criticizing you. You’re doing the best you can, and in nine cases out of every ten, I’d expect your scheme to work out according to your own schedule. But listen to them now—letting the whole harbor know there’s something off color about this boat. That’s where you take your big chance.”
In the launch that was hovering near, protected from ready sight from theMarina’sdeck by the shadow of a great steam yacht in which it lay, nothing that was said aboard the schooner could be heard. But the murmur of voices from her deck was plain enough to the trained ear of Dick Merriwell, well used to letting nothing escape his hearing when there was a chance that it might prove well for him to hear it. And the fact that he was almost sure that he recognized the voice—of one of those who were doing the murmuring—as that of Bill Harding, quite dispelled any feeling Dick might have had against listening.
But Dick, at that distance, could not be sure that it was Harding’s voice—much less could he make out the actual words that passed between the two on the schooner. And the mere fact that there were men on her deck was sufficient reason for not venturing any closer.
“That sounds like Harding,” said Jim Phillips, much excited, after they had waited in silence for a few minutes.
“Jove, yes!” said Brady, listening again. “That would sort of justify a few little suspicions, wouldn’t it? It seems to me that whenever Harding comes in sight, it’s a good idea to lie low and keep your eyes and ears open.”
“Some one is going ashore from that boat pretty soon,” said Dick Merriwell. He had made out, bobbing up and down by the gangway of theMarina, a small boat, evidently used by some one who had come out to pay the schooner a visit. “Suppose we just wait here and see who it is.”
They had not long to wait. They heard a shout on theMarina’sdeck, and a few minutes later two figures climbed down the gangway, and got into the small boat Dick had seen, which then began put-putting for the landing stage near the station.
“I want to get an eye on that fellow,” said Dick. “But we can’t get ashore at that landing without his seeing us. I’m going to run in on the other side of the pier—I think a man can jump ashore there. Then, Jim, if you’ll do it, you could easily find out about this fellow who’s been out there. Get a good description of him fixed in your mind if you don’t know him. But I’ve got a hunch myself that it’s Harding.”
Jim agreed to this suggestion, and, two minutes later, leaped nimbly ashore, and ran around to where he could get an unobstructed view of the arrival of the launch, and the disembarkation of her passenger. He was to go on to his hotel after that, leaving the rest of the party to carry out the original plan of an inspection of the course, but he and Dick arranged a code of signals between them. Jim was an expert in imitating the calls of birds and animals, and they agreed that the call of an owl was unlikely to arouse suspicion. If it was not Harding, that was to be the signal. If Dick’s guess turned out to be right, Jim was to give an imitation of the cry of a prowling cat. These details arranged, the launch bore out into the stream again, and lay, quietly, waiting for the signal.
It came, after a delay of perhaps five minutes, which seemed endless to those in the launch. Like the wail of a lost soul was the cat’s howl that Jim emitted, and they all laughed.
“I thought so,” said Dick Merriwell, with a sigh. “Well, Harding has tried to put a number of things over lately, and hasn’t succeeded very well. I don’t know just what his game is this time, but there’s one thing: forewarned is forearmed. I’ll have to get time to talk this over with Neilson. It’s morally certain that some sort of an attempt is being made to tamper with the odds on this race, and there’s no telling what may not be done to interfere with the race itself.”
“They can’t do anything there, I guess,” said Benton. “In the first place, the course is well guarded. In the second, unless they got at some man in one shell or the other, I don’t see what they could hope to accomplish, anyhow.”
“They’ve accomplished something already, with both crews,” said Dick gravely. “That’s proof enough that they’ve got something dangerous up their sleeves. And the mere fact that they’ve done their best to make Harvard’s chances look as poor as possible, looks as if they wanted Harvard to win. The longer the odds, the bigger their winning will be if they bet on Harvard to beat us when every one else wants to bet the other way. I think that’s the nigger in the woodpile just now.”
“I’ll admit that those two practices are rather puzzling,” said Benton, “but I’m by no means sure yet that the whole thing wasn’t accidental. There might have been something wrong with both the crews that would cause a poor showing. They may be a little bit stale and overworked—they usually are, in fact, at this stage of the game. But that doesn’t mean they won’t pick up. In fact, our fellows showed they were all right this morning in that trial.”
The launch was picking its way gently up the river now, and, once past the navy yard, Dick began looking attentively about him.
The race, owing to tidal conditions, was that year to be rowed upstream, at six o’clock in the evening. With that arrangement of the course, the shells get over almost directly under the wooded western shore of the Thames after passing the navy yard, and the finish of the race is almost opposite Gale’s Ferry.
Dick, as they passed along, noted carefully every house or cottage on that side of the river. There were not many, but he had them all mapped in his mind before they had gone very far. He could not rid his head of the notion that there was danger of some outside interference on the day of the race, almost impossible though he knew such interference to be, and he plied Benton and Hargreaves with continuous questions when he himself did not at once recognize a house, or had forgotten who owned it or lived in it.
But, beyond the knowledge that Harding was in New London, and a renewal of his old-time familiarity with the course, Dick accomplished little by his trip that was evident to his companions, who were beginning to get sleepy. He himself, however, was well satisfied. He had seen a number of things, and he had drawn deductions from some of them that would have surprised both Barrows and his own friends and associates.