CHAPTER XXXIDISCOVERY—AND AN ESCAPE.
Jim wondered, when he awoke in the morning, if they would really let him go ashore. He thought it unlikely, and yet, he decided, Barrows might well hesitate at showing his hand, which an effort to detain him against his will would surely require. Personally, Jim was not disposed to put up much of a fight against staying on board theMarina, for the present, at least, because he was decidedly anxious to learn everything there was to learn about the plot that menaced the success of Yale in the coming race. This was different from a baseball game, because the direct responsibility was not on his shoulders, and yet Jim felt that, so long as he had the chance, he was quite as much charged with the duty of bringing the victory to Yale as was Murchison or any other man on the crew.
He knew, too, that, even if Barrows had not recognized him, he could not be sure of escaping detection indefinitely. Anything he accomplished would have to be done quickly. If they found he was Jim Phillips, his chance of making a discovery would be gone, and, in addition, he was pretty certain to be detained securely until the race was over.
Harding might come back, though that seemed unlikely. But he knew that Barnes, who, of course, knew his face perfectly, was in New London, and would probably visit theMarina. Moreover, a good many newspapers had printed pictures of the famous Yale pitcher, and Jim, while he took little stock in such fame, realized that there must be some one on board able to recognize him as a result of these pictures, some of which had been excellent likenesses.
Barrows came to his room while it was still early, and brought with him Jim’s clothes, dried now, and ready for use, except for his coat, which was lost, of course, with his shoes. But the gambler offered a jersey as a substitute for the coat, and had found some canvas shoes, which Jim found were a sufficiently good fit, so that he was able to go on deck soon after the sun was up, and look around with genuine pleasure at the lovely sight. Two yachts, glistening white in the rays of the early sun, were steaming slowly in between the points, and the soft haze of the summer morning seemed to transfigure the whole scene.
Svenson, heavy-eyed, with the traces of a debauch the night before still plain on his face, greeted Jim with a surly nod, and the Yale man found that the three of them had the deck to themselves. The three small motor boats had gone from the deck, but one of them was still lying close to theMarina, and Jim, looking at her idly, and with pretended indifference, saw that the great coil he and Dick had seen was still there. But its position had been changed, and it was attached now, by delicate wires, to what looked like a big electric battery.
That gave Jim the shadow of a clew at once. He was no engineer, but he could see that the coil was part of a powerful electromagnet, and wondered why they had not guessed that the night before. That fitted in perfectly, too, with a theory that he and Bill Brady had evolved, which was, actually, though they did not know it, one of those on which Dick Merriwell had been basing his ideas.
“We’re not very shipshape,” said Barrows, “as you can see. But, the fact is, we’re very short-handed, and we weren’t expecting any visitor. So you’ll have to excuse all this mess about the decks. We’re not going to take theMarinaup for the race. Svenson and I will go up in a small boat, and take our view that way. We couldn’t make the lane of yachts look any more picturesque, I’m afraid, and we can see just as well from a small boat. Now, we’d better have some breakfast. I’m afraid you’ll have to accept our hospitality until later in the day. But we’ll get a chance to put you ashore then.”
That was no more than Jim had expected. He had passed the first ordeal with flying colors. In the clear morning light, neither Barrows nor Svenson had recognized him, and he breathed a sigh of relief as they went below.
At the table, where they had an excellent breakfast, served by a Japanese steward, who had, it seemed, also cooked the meal, a good deal of constraint was noticeable. Jim was, naturally, somewhat nervous. He wanted to find out all he could, but he was also anxious to get away, and he wondered how he should manage it, if, after he had found out all he could, Barrows tried to keep him there. Svenson was surly and ungracious, eating like an animal, and taking no part in what conversation there was, and Barrows was the only one of the three who was completely at his ease.
“You can put me ashore after breakfast?” suggested Jim finally.
“Surely,” said Barrows. “But I can’t say just how soon. I hope you won’t mind the delay. It’s too bad to hold you up this way, but the fact is, this isn’t exactly a pleasure trip, as you can guess by looking at this craft. We’re doing some advertising work—going to distribute circulars during the race, and, soon afterward, to the yachts and among the crowds. So our boats are all away just now, and I’m not sure of what time they’ll return.”
Jim admired such cleverness. In case he suspected anything was wrong from the presence of the extra supply of tenders, here was a plausible explanation. He was ready to admit that Barrows was clever—he was only afraid that he might be so clever that, in spite of the information already obtained, and the confirmation of their suspicions, he might succeed in causing the defeat of Yale by unfair means and the loss of a great deal of money by Yale men.
Barrows made several excuses to keep Jim below after breakfast, and seemed inclined to stay with him. But Jim was greatly relieved, finally, to hear Svenson’s roaring voice calling his host on deck. And, as soon as he was alone, Jim began to explore the cabin.
The first thing he found was a government chart of the Thames. Red markers showed the buoying of the course for the Harvard-Yale boat race, with the flags marked every half mile, all the way up the river. And, as Jim studied the map, certain blue crosses also attracted his attention. There were three of these—one about a mile from the start, another at the navy yard, where the river bends slightly, and the third almost opposite Red Top, under the western shore of the Thames, and at a point where the Central Vermont Railway and the observation train pass for a few hundred feet out of sight of the racing shells.
Jim puzzled long over this map, trying to make out the significance of the three blue crosses. That they were important he was quite sure, and he lost no time in fixing their locations in his head, so that he could point to the spots marked in case the need for doing so arose. He was afraid to take the map, although he would have had no conscientious scruples against doing so, because he was afraid that he might be searched, and he wanted to maintain his pose of complete innocence and ignorance until he was off the boat.
He stole to the ladder that led to the deck and listened to see if Barrows were returning. But he heard the gambler’s voice lifted in loud conversation with Svenson, and, returning to the cabin, found that he could still hear their voices so plainly that he would have warning, from the cessation of the talk, of any impending return to the cabin.
Then, feeling that he was free, for the moment, to pursue his search, he went on. And in a few minutes he made a discovery that laid the whole secret bare to him. Accidentaly moving a sofa cushion, he found that it concealed the model of a racing shell, and he fell to studying the model closely. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, apparently made to scale, so that it was a perfect reproduction, in a small compass, of the boats in which Harvard and Yale would test each other’s mettle the next day.
Jim held the model attentively in his hand, admiring its beauty and the clever workmanship. But for the life of him he could not see what its use had been to these men. Suddenly, as he was running his hand again over the slender, delicately made keel, it came away in his hand, and he saw a cunningly contrived groove, filled with iron.
He almost shouted in his surprise and exultation. Here was the key to the mystery, and, with the key, the means of defeating it.
But he had to get away first. And, as he moved toward the ladder again, he heard a new voice, that made him realize that one of his fears had been realized. It was Barnes who was talking.
“That’s just what Harding was afraid of,” Barnes was saying. “He knew you’d mess the thing up. This chap you picked up was, undoubtedly, one of Merriwell’s gang. You did the right thing when you snaked him in, but why did you let him bluff you? You ought to have tied him up and kept him from snooping around. The chances are, if it’s Merriwell himself or Phillips, that he knows the whole game by this time.”
Jim could not hear what Barrows said in reply; but there was a growling curse from Svenson.
“We’ve made Mr. Harding and his crowd respect us, anyhow,” said Jim, to himself, with a grin. “They didn’t take us so seriously at first. However—this isn’t any joke. I think that fellow Svenson would just as soon drop me overboard with a weight tied to my feet as not, if he thought he could get away with it. He’s an ugly customer.”
He debated with himself as to what he should do. To go on deck was to court instant recognition by Barnes, and he knew that, if that happened, he would never be allowed to escape in time to tell Dick Merriwell what he had discovered before the race. Then some knowledge he had picked up in a Gloucester fishing-schooner trip some time before came to his help.
He turned away from the deck, and, two minutes later, he was safely hidden, between the lower deck and the ship’s bottom, highly uncomfortable, but reasonably safe from detection. The trick worked, too, for as he lay there, he could hear the searchers passing right over his head, and their lurid language when they discovered that the bird had flown.