"You see, we want to meet the doctor before he has a chance to change his watch," said Mr. Conne more soberly. "If he set that thing a little after nine last night (and he couldn't have set it before), he was probably too busy thinking of getting off the ship to think of much else. And he ought to be just coming out of his stateroom by now. We must see him before he sees a clock. You get me?"
"Yes, sir," said Tom, a little anxious; "but I might be wrong, after all."
"Maybe," said Mr. Conne. "There are three things we'll have to judge by: There's his trying to get off the ship last night, and there's the question of how his watch stands, and there's the question of how he acts when we talk with him--see?"
"Since you're a detective, remember this," Mr. Conne added good-humoredly: "it's part of the A B C of the business. Three middle-sized clues are better than one big one--if they hang together. Six little ones aren't as good as three middle-sized ones, because sometimes they seem to hang together when they don't really--see?"
"Where'd you ever get your eyes and ears, anyway?" said Mr. Conne abruptly.
"You learn to be observant when--you're a scout," said Tom.
Mr. Conne moved briskly along the deck, and Tom kept beside him with his rather clumsy gait. Here and there little groups of passengers stood chatting as they waited for breakfast. Among them were a few men in khaki whom Tom understood to be army surgeons and engineers--the forerunners of the legions who would "come across" later.
"Which would you rather be," queried Mr. Conne, "a detective or a wireless operator?"
"I'd rather be a regular soldier," said Tom; "I made up my mind to it. I'm only waiting till I'm eighteen."
Mr. Conne gave him a shrewd sideways glance, his cigar pointing upward like a piece of field artillery.
"But I hope I can work on this ship when she's a regular transport, and keep working on her till I'm eighteen."
"I don't know which I'd rather be," said Tom.
At the after-companionway he picked up a deck steward and asked him to point out Dr. Curry, if he was about.
"What do you suppose became of the other operator?" Tom asked, a little anxiously.
"I don't know," said Mr. Conne. "We'll have to find some one who does know," he added significantly, and Tom wondered what he meant.