The Motor Boat Club off Long Island: or, A Daring Marine Game at Racing Speed

“That’s right,” nodded Tom. “No matter if you take the finest care possible of a gasoline motor, if the engine is pushed too hard and some little thing goes wrong, the average owner is likely to think he has an incompetent engineer.”

“That wasn’t the way, though, with Mr. Prescott,” argued Joe. “Nor with Mr. Dunstan, either. They both trusted everything about the boats to us. They’d sooner blame the boat or engine-builders than blame us.”

“From all indications,” pursued Captain Tom, “Mr. Delavan is likely to prove the most indulgent owner of all. Say, I wonder what Mr. Delavan would look like, worried?”

“It would be easier to guess what Mr. Moddridge would look like,” laughed Joe.

“‘Speaking of angels – ’” quoted Captain Tom, dryly. Joe wheeled about to look up beyond the shore end of the pier. Eben Moddridge was coming toward them on a nervous, jerky run. He reached the pier and boarded the boat, all out of breath.

“Is Mr. Delavan aboard?” he demanded, pantingly.

“Mr. Delavan took the small boat from the port davits and went for a row, sir, at about six this morning,” reported Captain Tom.

“And hasn’t returned?” asked Mr. Moddridge, eyes and mouth opening wide at the same time. “Which way did he go?”

“Out toward the inlet, sir,” Joe answered, pointing southward.

“And the fog rolling in there now!” exclaimed Moddridge, looking more nervous every instant. “Then what are you doing here? Why aren’t you out yonder trying to find your employer?”

“We will start, if you wish,” Captain Tom agreed.

“Wish?” echoed the nervous one, “I command it!”

Eben Moddridge, not being the owner, could issue no order that the young skipper was bound to obey. But Halstead himself thought it would be wholly wise to go out in search of his employer. The “Rocket’s” bow and stern hawsers were quickly cast off by Jed, while Joe gave the wheel a few vigorous turns in the engine room. The craft fell off from the pier, then, at slow speed, nosed straight out for the inlet.

“Jed, take a forward watch, at port side,” called the young skipper. “Mr. Moddridge, do you mind keeping a lookout at starboard?”

The nervous one stationed himself on the side indicated, not far from the young helmsman.

“Something has happened to Frank! I know it, I know it!” muttered Eben Moddridge, in deep agitation. “Oh, why did I sleep so late? Why didn’t I keep an eye open to watch that reckless fellow? But he’ll never consent to be governed by me.”

Tom, though he said nothing, smiled a bit grimly, at thought of what it would be like for one to be ruled by Eben Moddridge.

At first, despite the growing fog, the searchers could see for a few hundred feet to either side of them. This gradually narrowed down to two hundred feet, or so, at the inlet. A little further out they could make nothing out distinctly at a distance greater than sixty feet Captain Halstead sounded the whistle frequently, now.

“Stop the boat!” yelled Eben Moddridge, frantically, after a while, as he peered ahead at starboard. “Don’t you see it? Don’t you see that?”

He was pointing, jumping up and down, staring wildly. Tom caught sight of the object, too. He did not stop the boat, but slackened her speed down to little more than bare headway, throwing the helm hard over and bringing the boat’s nose sharply around to starboard.

“Jed, a boat-hook!” shouted the young skipper. “Be ready to make fast as soon as we get alongside.”

Joe Dawson sprang up from the engine room for a brief look. No wonder he started, for the “Rocket” was slowly, cumbrously, describing a circle around an object that proved to be the port boat, bobbing up and down on the light waves. The small boat was keel up. Eben Moddridge, as he stared at it, became speechless from dread and terror.

Jed, at the right moment, made fast with the boat-hook, drawing the small craft in alongside. While he was doing so Joe suddenly cried:

“And say! Look there!”

Coming in on the start of the flood tide, floated a straw hat and a coat – beyond a doubt those lately worn by Francis Delavan.

“Now, what do you say to that?” gasped Eben Moddridge, turning deathly pale and looking as though he must sink to the deck.

A great fear was tugging at the heart of Captain Tom Halstead, though he managed to reply, calmly enough:

“I don’t know just what it means, Mr. Moddridge, but it’s surely the sign of mischief of some sort.”

CHAPTER VII

WORKING OUT THE PUZZLE

JED, amid all the excitement, deftly captured with the boat-hook the painter of the small boat, then towed that little craft astern, making it fast.

Captain Tom now manœuvred the “Rocket” alongside of the floating coat. The straw hat was also recovered and pulled aboard.

“They’re his – both the hat and the coat!” cried Moddridge, in shaking accents. “See, here are even letters belonging to Delavan in this pocket!”

The nervous one never looked nearer to swooning than he did at that moment. He tried to rise, but would have tottered backward had not Joe Dawson caught him and steadied him.

“Easy, sir. You’ll best keep your wits now, all of ’em,” counseled Joe, quietly. “If there’s any work to be done, you’ll have to direct it, you know.”

With Joe’s aid Eben Moddridge reached the rail. Then Joe brought a chair and Mr. Moddridge sat down.

“You can’t see the – the – poor Delavan?” fluttered Moddridge, in the greatest agitation, as he stared out over the waters.

“We haven’t sighted Mr. Delavan as yet,” Captain Tom replied. “But you may be sure, sir, we’re going to make a most thorough search.”

“Prentiss, help me below,” begged Moddridge, his face still ashen white and his teeth chattering. “I – I can’t stand any more of this.”

Indeed, the poor fellow’s looks fully bore out his words as Jed helped him below.

“Put him in a berth,” Tom murmured after them. “Better stay with him for the present, Jed.”

Then the “Rocket” was started on a very slow cruise over all the waters nearby. After a few minutes Captain Halstead began to feel that further search, especially in the fog, would be useless. Yet he continued the hunt for more than an hour. No further traces, however, were found of the boat’s owner – or late owner. Which?

Every few minutes Jed was sent up to deck to ask uselessly for news.

“How’s Mr. Moddridge getting along?” queried Captain Tom, at last.

“If he does any worse,” confided Jed, “he won’t live to reach the pier. I never saw a man more unstrung. He keeps insisting that he knows Mr. Delavan is dead – drowned.”

“And I’m almost equally positive that nothing of the sort has happened to Mr. Delavan,” Tom Halstead retorted.

“You – ?” gasped Jed, wonderingly, but could go no further, his astonishment was so intense.

“I’m of the same opinion as Tom,” Joe Dawson added, quietly.

“You two have been talking it over, then?” Jed queried.

“Not very much,” Joe replied. “But there are some things about this case that look mighty queer for a drowning.”

“But it looks,” protested Jed, “as though Mr. Delavan had accidentally tipped the boat and gone overboard.”

“When you once begin to think,” retorted Joe, stubbornly, “it looks like nothing of the sort.”

Jed Prentiss looked wonderingly from one to the other, but Tom cut in with:

“Take the wheel, Joe, and keep the whistle sounding, for the fog is still thicker than I like to see it. I’m going below to talk with Mr. Delavan’s friend. Jed, you’ll be more useful on deck, at present.”

Moddridge was lying in a berth in the cabin, moaning and holding a handkerchief over his eyes.

“I’ve come to ask you what I’m to do, sir?” Tom called briskly, thinking thus to rouse the nervous one to action.

The only response was another moan.

“Come, rouse yourself, please, and think what’s to be done in your friend’s interests,” urged the young skipper.

There was another moan, before Moddridge answered, in a sepulchral voice:

“Don’t ask me, Halstead.”

“Right! I guess I won’t,” Tom rejoined, thoughtfully. “You’re so utterly upset that I guess I can furnish better instructions myself.”

“Oh, yes, please,” begged the other, helplessly. “And leave me alone, Halstead, or else keep quiet.”

“But I’ve got to ask some questions, sir, and you’ll have to answer them,” Tom went on. “So, sir, it seems to me that you will do best to come on deck, into the open air.”

“Do you – you – really think so?” faltered the stricken one.

“It will be much better for you to be in the air, Mr. Moddridge.”

“I’d go if I could, but I feel that I simply haven’t the strength to get there,” mumbled the nervous man.

“I’ll show you how,” responded Captain Tom, briskly, almost cheerily. “Steady, now, sir. There; it’s as easy as can be.”

Tom Halstead lifted the little man bodily out of the berth, getting a good hold on him and carrying him out to the after deck, where he deposited the collapsed burden in one of the wicker arm-chairs.

“Now, in the first place, Mr. Moddridge,” began Tom, “try to get it fixed in your mind that your friend isn’t drowned – that there isn’t the least probability of any such fate having overtaken him.”

“Nonsense!” declared Eben Moddridge, feebly.

“Perhaps you think Mr. Delavan stood up in the boat, and it tipped and let him over,” argued Tom. “But that was next-door to impossible.”

“How impossible?” demanded Moddridge, taking notice sufficiently to sit up a little more.

“Why, the port boat, Mr. Moddridge, on account of her heavy keel, her comparatively broad beam and other peculiarities, belongs to a class of what are called ‘self-righting’ boats. It would take a deliberate effort, by a very strong man, to capsize such a boat. She’s towing astern now. After a good deal of effort we righted her.”

For a moment Eben Moddridge looked hopeful. Then he sank back once more, all but collapsing.

“Nonsense,” he remonstrated. “Any little boat of that size can be easily tipped over.”

“The boat can’t be capsized easily, I assure you,” Tom argued. “I know the type of boat, and understand what I am talking about. Now, we found the boat capsized. It probably took more than one man to do it. Mr. Delavan could hardly have done it alone. If it took others to help in capsizing the boat, what is more likely than that others have seized him, and then upset the boat in order to make it appear that he had fallen overboard and been drowned? Mr. Moddridge, are there, or are there not, men who would be glad to seize Mr. Delavan for a while, for the benefit of what information they might expect to frighten or torment out of him?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the nervous man, firing up for the instant and rising to his feet full of new, brief energy. Then he sank back into the chair.

“But I don’t believe that happened,” he went on, brokenly. “I am quite convinced that my friend was drowned by the capsizing of the small boat.”

“Wait a few moments, Mr. Moddridge, and we’ll show you, then,” proposed Captain Tom, turning and making a signal to Joe Dawson. “Jed, keep the bridge deck, and sound the whistle regularly.”

Captain and engineer disappeared below, going to their room. They were quickly back, clad only in their bathing suits.

“Now, you keep your eyes on us, Mr. Moddridge,” young Halstead requested. “Mr. Delavan is a heavy man, but Joe and I, together, are much heavier than he. We’ll show you how hard it is to upset a boat of this type.”

Though the boat’s own oars had not been recovered, there was another pair aboard that would serve. Joe brought these, while Halstead brought the port boat alongside of the barely moving motor boat. Both boys stepped down into the smaller craft. Joe applied himself at the oars. A slight lifting of the fog now made objects visible for a radius of some two hundred feet.

“Watch us,” called Tom, when the port boat was some forty feet away from the “Rocket.”

Both boys stood up, each resting a foot on the same gunwale of that little port boat. They bent far forward. The boat heeled; they even forced it to take in some water from the gently rolling sea. Then, as they stepped back, the little craft quickly righted itself.

“Now, come on, Joe,” proposed the young skipper. “We’ll both stand with our backs to the gunwale. We’ll tip the boat, and then fall backward into the water, just as though it were a real accident.”

Wholly at home on or in the water, the two chums went through the manœuvre with reckless abandon. Once more they succeeded in making the little craft heel over and take in some water.

“Now!” shouted Halstead.

Both boys lurched heavily backward, striking the water and causing the port boat to heel more than it had done. Both splashed and disappeared under the water, but the boat righted itself as soon as relieved of the weight of their bodies.

Clutching the port rail of the “Rocket,” Eben Moddridge looked on in almost a trance of fascination. A slight gasp left his lips as he saw the young captain and engineer vanish under the waves; but they quickly reappeared, swimming for the port boat, and climbing on board after recovering the oars.

“Now, you ought to be convinced that this boat couldn’t have been capsized and left floating keel-up by any accident to Mr. Delavan,” hailed Tom Halstead, as Joe rowed in alongside.

“I – I am convinced —almost,” chattered Moddridge, excitedly.

“Then please take our word for whatever you can’t quite realize,” begged the young skipper, as he clambered aboard the “Rocket.” “Come on, Joe, we’ll get into dry clothes. Mr. Moddridge, be sure of one thing: if any accident happened to Mr. Delavan, there were others present when it happened.”

With that parting assurance Halstead and his chum vanished below. Almost incredibly soon they were once more on deck, appareled in dry clothing. Jed then went to bale out the port boat, which was next hoisted to her proper davits.

As Captain Tom, still thinking fast and hard, took his place at the wheel, Eben Moddridge, even though he moved somewhat shakily, managed to climb the steps from the after deck and take the chair nearest to the young skipper.

“Halstead,” he queried, hoarsely, “you even went so – so – far as to declare that you d-d-don’t believe Frank Delavan to be drowned.”

“I don’t believe it in the least,” Captain Tom declared, stoutly. “Now, Mr. Moddridge, if we’re to be of real help to you, you must answer some questions, and you must answer them fully and clearly. Will you do so?”

“I – I’ll try.”

“On your honor as a man, sir, do you know of any reason why Mr. Delavan should want to disappear, leaving behind the impression that he had been drowned?”

“G-g-good heavens, no!” shuddered the nervous one. “Want to disappear? Why Frank Delavan has every reason in the world for wanting to keep in close touch with New York, and with me, his associate in some present big deals.”

“Then, if he has disappeared, as seems evident, it must have been through the compulsion of some other parties?”

“Yes – most absolutely, yes!”

“Mr. Moddridge,” pursued the “Rocket’s” young skipper, impressively, “have you any idea who those other persons are?”

Moddridge’s face worked peculiarly for a few seconds, before he replied, slowly, hesitatingly:

“I might suspect any one of a score of men – perhaps almost the same score that Frank Delavan might name under the same conditions. But I pledge you my word, Halstead, that I do not know enough to suspect any one man above all others. It would be all guess-work.”

Hesitatingly as this response had been delivered, Tom, watching his man, felt certain that Eben Moddridge was trying to speak the truth.

“Then,” said the young skipper, at last, very deliberately, “since it’s a pretty sure thing, in our minds, that Mr. Delavan wasn’t drowned through accident, there can’t be much sense in trying further to find his body. Instead, our search must be after those who may be holding him, against his will, aboard some craft in these waters.”

Joe, listening nearby, nodded his approval of this decision.

“We can’t do much, though, until this confounded fog lifts,” groaned young Halstead.

Just as he was reaching to sound the whistle once more Captain Tom’s hand was arrested by a sound that made Joe and Jed also start slightly.

Then out of the fog, three hundred feet away, going at fifteen miles an hour, or more, glided swiftly the same long, narrow racing craft they had encountered the day before.

That strange craft crossed the “Rocket’s” bow, at least a hundred and fifty feet away.

“Racer ahoy!” bawled the youthful skipper, in his loudest voice.

But the swift craft vanished into the fog on the other side.

Was it fancy, or were all three of the young motor boat boys dreaming when they believed that back from that swift-moving racer came a sound of mocking laughter?

“Get into the engine room, Joe,” shouted Captain Tom. “Jed, up forward, on lookout!”

With that the young skipper swung around his speed control. The “Rocket,” obeying the impulse, leaped forward, then gradually settled down into a steady gait, while the young skipper strenuously threw his steering wheel over.

“What are you going to do, Halstead?” demanded Eben Moddridge, leaping to his feet as he caught the infection of this new excitement.

“Do?” uttered Captain Tom. “That’s the same craft that hung about us yesterday, plainly trying to nose into our secrets. The same craft that afterwards tried to play a trick on us to make us reach East Hampton late. And just now the fellows aboard the stranger laughed at us. What am I going to do? Why, sir, we’re going after her, going to overhaul her, if there’s the speed in the ‘Rocket.’ We’ll even try to board that stranger, Mr. Moddridge, and see whether Francis Delavan is aboard against his own will!”

CHAPTER VIII

THE DASHING STERN CHASE

NOT a single objection did the man of nerves offer. Ordinarily he might have jumped with fear at the proposal to go at fast speed through the fog. Though the mist was already lifting a good deal, as it had done on the day before, there was still enough of a curtain ahead to make it more than just risky to go rushing along.

In the white bank ahead the racing boat was already lost to sight. Captain Tom raised his hand to pull the cord of the auto whistle.

“If I show ’em where I am, though,” he thought, at once, “the man handling that other craft will know enough to swing off onto another course. He can leave me behind easily enough.”

The auto whistle, therefore, did not sound. Captain Tom understood fully the risk he was taking in “going it blind” – and fast, too – right on this pathway of Long Island navigation. But he made up his mind that he would very soon begin to sound his whistle, whether he sighted the other craft or not.

“If they haven’t changed their course I’ll soon be in sight of them,” the young skipper reflected, anxiously. “Oh, that this fog lifts soon!”

Having guessed the other boat’s course, Tom could follow it only by compass, as any other method would be sure to lead him astray.

Both boats’ engines were equipped with the silent exhaust. While not absolutely noiseless, these exhausts run so quietly that a boat’s presence at any considerable distance cannot be detected through them.

One thing was certain. At present the fog was lifting rapidly. All would soon be well if another deep bank of mist did not roll in off the sea.

Jed, watching the gradual going of the fog, was straining his eyes for all he was worth for the first glimpse of that racing craft. Engineer Joe had not further increased the “Rocket’s” speed, for Tom, if he was getting somewhat off the course of the other boat, did not want to be too far away when the lifting of the white curtain should show him the enemy.

“Hist!” The sharp summons caused Tom Halstead quickly to raise his glance from the compass. Jed Prentiss, standing amidships, for he had run back, was pointing over the port bow. Tom could have yelled with delight, for off there, in the edge of the bank, now some eight hundred feet distant, was a low, indistinct line that could hardly be other than the racing boat.

“Ask Joe to kick out just a trifle more speed, not much,” muttered Captain Halstead, as Jed, his eyes shining, moved nearer.

Under the new impulse the “Rocket” stole up on that vague line, which now soon resolved itself into the hull of the racing craft.

By this time the chase was discovered from the other motor boat. There was a splurge ahead; the hull dimmed down to the former indistinct line. After a few moments the racing craft was out of sight again.

“Crowd on every foot of speed you can, Joe,” was the word Jed passed from the young captain. Dawson, crouching beside his motor, was watching every revolution of the engine that he was now spurring.

And now the fog began to lift rapidly. A thousand feet ahead, driving northeast, the racing craft could be made out. She was running a few miles away from the coast and nearly parallel with it.

During the last few minutes Eben Moddridge had been strangely silent, for him. Even now, as he stepped up beside the wheel, he was far less nervous than might have been expected.

“Can you overtake that other boat?” he inquired.

“I’ve got to,” came Captain Tom’s dogged reply, as he kept his gaze sharply ahead.

“She seems like a very fast craft.”

“She’s faster than this boat,” replied Halstead, briefly.

“Good heavens! Then she will show us a clean pair of heels,” quivered Mr. Moddridge.

“That’s not so certain, sir.”

Tom was so sparing of his words, at this crisis in the sea race, that Mr. Delavan’s friend felt himself entitled to further explanation.

“You say she’s faster, but intimate we may catch her,” muttered Mr. Moddridge. “How can that be?”

“Motor engines sometimes go back on a fellow at the worst moment,” Captain Tom explained. “That may happen to the other fellow. He may have to slow down, or even shut off speed altogether.”

“But that might happen to us, too,” objected Mr. Moddridge.

“It might, but there are few engineers on motor boats that I’d back against Joe Dawson,” Halstead continued. “Then again, Mr. Moddridge, the fellow who is steering the boat ahead doesn’t handle his wheel as slickly as he might. By the most careful steering I hope to gain some on him.”

So rapidly was the fog lifting that the skippers of the two boats could now see the ocean for a half mile on either side, ahead or astern. The racing craft, after a few minutes, put on still another burst of speed.

“Ask Joe if he has every bit crowded on?” called Captain Tom. Jed called down into the engine room, then reported back:

“Joe says he may get a little more speed out of the engine, but not much. We’re pretty near up to the mark.”

So Tom Halstead, whitening a bit at the report, setting his teeth harder, devoted his whole energies to trying to steer a straighter course than did the boat ahead.

“There’s some kind of a rumpus on the stranger,” called Jed. “Look at that fellow rushing for the hood forward.”

Plainly there was some excitement out of the usual on board the stranger. Jed, snatching up a pair of marine glasses, swiftly reported:

“Someone is trying to fight his way out of the hood, and the others are trying to force him back. Whee! It looks as though someone had just hurled something out overboard from the hood.”

“Did you see anything strike the water?” demanded Captain Tom.

“It looked so, but it’s a big distance to see a small object, even through the glass.”

“Keep your eye on where you saw that something go overboard,” directed Captain Tom Halstead. “Try to pilot me to that spot. It may be a message – from Mr. Delavan.”

It was a difficult task to scan the water so closely. But Jed did his best, and, after a few moments, called back excitedly:

“Better slow down your speed, captain. I think I see something dancing on the water. It’s bobbing up and down – something.”

Jed Prentiss seemed almost to have his eyes glued to the marine glasses, so intently did he watch.

“Half a point to port, captain,” he shouted, presently. “Headway, only. Joe, can you leave the engine to bring me a hand-net while I keep my eye on that thing bobbing on the water?”

Dawson leaped up from the engine room, going swiftly in search of the desired net.

“Half a point more to port, captain,” called Jed. “Steady – so! Thank you, old fellow” – as Joe handed him the net. Eben Moddridge had now hurried to the port rail as the boat drifted up alongside the thing that Prentiss was watching. It proved to be a leather wallet, floating on the waves. So neatly did Jed pilot that, soon, he was able to lean over the rail, make a deft swoop with the net, and —