Читать книгу The Clue at Skeleton Rocks - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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Three times the light made its arc, and three times did Denis Keen and Hal watch with tense expectancy as the man dropped forward in his boat and out of its searching glare. But as the light swept round again, they saw that the boatman had quickly and skilfully maneuvered his small craft out of its direct range and was approaching the wrecked schooner from the far end of the reef.

“He doesn’t want to be seen, Unk!” Hal murmured at last.

Irrelevantly, Denis Keen remarked, “The breeze put that mist to flight. It’s dissipated in the little time we’ve been standing here. Thank goodness, well hear no more of that horn.”

“Unk, what do you suppose that bird wants at that wreck, and at this time of night?” Hal asked. And catching his uncle’s studied expression, he added: “Does the fact that the mist has passed really interest you so much or did you just mention it so’s you could think a little longer about the bird in the boat?”

“Hal, you’re positively uncanny the way you read my mind and guess my motives! Of course I’m thinking of the man in the boat. And look! The chap is dropping anchor right at the Sister Ann!”

“What do you make of it, Unk?” Hal asked hoarsely.

“Sh! Don’t arouse anyone, Hal, for heaven’s sake! I’d like to observe this thing alone—for a while at least.”

Hal nodded and drew his windbreaker up about his neck. There was a sting in the wind and it whistled eerily up and down the deck. The first mate, deep in his book, seemed oblivious of what was going on outside the pilot house. And after all, it was his privilege to forget such things while the ship was riding at anchor.

“Flood tide,” Hal murmured more to himself than to his uncle.

Denis was about to say something when they both became aware of a light moving over the wreck. It was only for a few seconds, however, for the piercing shaft of light from the Rocks came sweeping across the wreck and after it was gone, the Sister Ann once more seemed dark and silent.

“That bird had a flashlight, Unk.”

“Of course.”

The words were so terse that for a few seconds Hal felt squelched. There was nothing to do but wait for the light from the Rocks each time it swung over the wrecked schooner. Even at those moments he could see nothing save the anchored row-boat rocking to and fro under the Sister Ann’s prow.

“Where do you suppose he’s gone?” Hal ventured to ask after what seemed to him an eternity of waiting.

“He disappeared around the pilot house,” came the succinct reply. “It’s obvious that he knows where he’s going and what he wants to do.”

“Maybe a thief, huh?”

Denis Keen shrugged his shoulders.

“He could be most anything,” he answered, at length.

The light from the Rocks continued to make its sweeping journey over the black water and not for an instant did the watchers fail to follow it as it swept across the wreck. In point of fact, Hal found by his radium-dial watch that the mysterious boatman had been gone below decks just ten minutes before the gleam of his flashlight was visible again.

Denis Keen moved closer to his nephew but said nothing. The light moved also, back around the pilot house, Hal imagined. It was a tense moment for him, somehow. He was puzzled by the man’s stealthy activities and awed by the dark sea murmuring constantly about them. Instinctively, he looked toward the lighthouse tower and saw, not without a profound thrill, the light shoot out of the window and over the water.

His uncle tugged at his coat sleeve attracting his attention to the wrecked Sister Ann. The light at that moment was sweeping across it, illumining the short, stocky figure of the boatman who was already standing in his rocking little craft, weighing anchor.

Just then a swell caused the boat to rise with it and in a flash, capsized it. The man was flung like a feather into the water.

Two seconds passed in which the reef was shrouded in darkness.