“And Dan had the other key, maybe,” continued Tom.
“Yes, I think so,” said Nelson. “By Jove, Tommy, you’re right! Perhaps Dan has gone off with her!”
“Nonsense!” said Bob. “He wouldn’t know how to start her, to say nothing of running her after she was started!”
“I’m not so sure,” answered Nelson. “He’s watched things pretty carefully lots of times, come to think of it. Besides, it wouldn’t make much difference to him whether he knew how or not. If he wanted to do it he would, and he’s a lucky beggar.”
“But could he have got back as early as this?” asked Bob.
“Let’s go over to the station and find out,” suggested Tom.
“You and Bob go,” Nelson said, “and I’ll see if I can find anyone around here who saw the _Vagabond_ go out.” At the station Bob consulted the ticket agent.
“First train leaves New York at 4.54,” said the agent, “and arrives here at 9.45.”
“He wouldn’t take that,” said Bob to Tom. “He’d have to get up at four o’clock. Besides, we were at the wharf at a quarter to ten. What’s the next one?”
“Eight o’clock from New York, arriving here 10.45,” answered the agent. “Another at 10.00, arriving 12.45, another at 10.02, arriving——”
“Thanks,” interrupted Bob. “Those would be too late. There’s no train, then, except the 4.54 which gets here before 9.45?”
Their informant shook his head impatiently and they moved aside.
“That disposes of Dan,” said Bob. “It isn’t the least bit likely that he’d get up at four o’clock to take a slow train when he could wait until eight and get one reaching here only an hour later. And if he has taken the eight o’clock he won’t be here for nearly three quarters of an hour. So it looks as though some one had deliberately run off with the boat.”
“Gee!” said Tom. “Won’t we be in a fix? Do you suppose we’ll ever find it and get it back?”
“I don’t know,” replied Bob. “I should think, though, that a thirty-six-foot launch would be a pretty hard thing to hide.”
“But the fellow who took it could paint out the name and fix her up a little differently and no one could tell she was stolen.”
“Yes, if we gave him time. But what we’ve got to do now is to get busy. There’s Nel over there.”
Nelson’s report was not comforting. No one had seen the launch that morning, and one old fellow who had rowed across the river at seven o’clock and whose skiff was now tied at the end of the wharf declared that the launch had not been there when he arrived.