THE doctor saw that there was much to be said for the view Mr. Norris had taken of Dick’s disappearance, and he went into the Castle feeling it a very difficult task to try to be cheerful and hopeful. None of them were sorry when dinner was over. They all tried to avoid the subject uppermost in their thoughts, but no one cared to talk of anything else, and the meal was taken almost in silence.
‘What a nice girl Doris Somerville is!’ said Mrs. Sinclair, after there had been a long pause in the conversation. ‘She has been with me all the morning, and I really don’t know what I should have done without her. We’ve known her such a short time really, and yet I feel quite to lean on her. You don’t often come across a girl like that, do you?’
‘No,’ said Forester; ‘not often.’
This he said aloud, but in his innermost heart he gave another answer: ‘Never, no, never will you find one like her.’
When dinner was over the doctor sat with Mr. Sinclair for a little time on the seat in the Castle courtyard, and they consulted together about their next movements. Forester had made up his mind that, if Dick did not appear before the afternoon, he would tell Mr. Sinclair about the blood they had seen under the oak tree, and would also hint at his suspicions with regard to Dan and the two men who had left on Saturday. But Mr. Norris’ suggestion had impressed him very much. He began to see that a more simple, though not less tragic, solution of the mystery was possible, and that being the case, he did not think that the time had arrived to put the police upon the scent, or to call in detectives from Scotland Yard. He, like old Mr. Norris, would wait for the incoming tide.
If nothing was revealed then, or when the tide returned again the following morning, he would once more consider the advisability of communicating his suspicions to Dick’s father. He therefore now merely suggested that the coastguards should be interviewed, and questioned as to whether they had seen anything of Dick whilst on their morning beat; and that the search party should call at every cottage in the village, to find out whether any of the Hildick people had been on the shore early; and that they should also ask their assistance in the search, and thus get together a large band of helpers.
Mr. Sinclair seemed relieved to be at work again; so they hurried down the hill, and, on meeting with the others, they divided the village between them, each of them taking a certain number of houses in which to make inquiries, after which, and in about an hour’s time, they arranged to meet on the shingle, that they might make known to each other any information they had obtained.
At four o’clock, the appointed time, they all collected at the place in which they had agreed to meet. Doris, Mab, and Dolly were there when they arrived, all anxious to hear the result of their inquiries.
The doctor was the first to speak. He reported that the coastguards could give him no information whatever. They had walked along the shore in both directions during the night. One had skirted Hildick Bay, the other had gone round the promontory, but neither of them had come across anything extraordinary. They had met no one, and had heard no sound but the waves beating on the rocks. However, Forester found when he questioned them that they had returned to the station about three o’clock, and before daylight had begun to appear. He had found them very kind and interested, and they had promised to let him know if anything came under their observation which might throw light upon the mystery.
He went next to the house of the old sailor who owned the only boat in Hildick Bay. His was the boat that Forester was watching that first morning, when he sat by Mr. Somerville on the shore and shared his newspaper.
Old Treverton’s seagoing days were over; he sometimes did a little fishing when the herrings came into the bay; and when the visitors were in Hildick, provided that the day was fine and the sea perfectly calm, he would row them about slowly and carefully in the quiet water; but his working days were almost done, for he was more than eighty years of age.
Old Treverton was always glad of a chat with anyone whom he could persuade to stop to talk to him, and was ready to spin as long a yarn as the time of the passerby would allow. He was therefore highly gratified by a call from the doctor, and invited him into his little parlor.
‘Well, could he tell you anything?’ asked Mr. Sinclair.
‘No, he knew nothing about Dick, he had never seen him since yesterday morning. The old man has a good memory, and seems to know us all by name; he said at once, “Oh, that’s the young gentleman with black curly hair and rosy cheeks.”’
‘Then that was a failure too,’ said Mr. Sinclair in a disappointed voice, for he had hoped from the doctor’s manner that he had something to tell them.
‘I went on,’ Forester continued, ‘to question him as to whether he had seen anything unusual on the shore, and then he told me rather a queer thing. You know where he keeps his boat, on the rocks, well out of the reach of the tide. It was an extraordinarily high tide this morning, still, it came nowhere near the place where the boat was moored. But when Treverton went to look at the boat this morning, it was gone.’
‘Gone!’
‘Yes, it had been taken out by someone; he is sure of that. The tide had not been near it; all the rocks round were dry, but the boat was gone. The old man has been in an awful way about it all day; he has been hunting for his boat, just as we have been hunting for Dick.’
‘And he hasn’t found it yet?’
‘No, and the worst of it is that now he seems to think Dick has taken it out, and he is sure he would not be able to manage it. Old Treverton thinks no one can row that boat but himself. Still, it does seem a possible solution of the mystery. Dick may have gone out in the boat, and have been carried out by the receding tide farther than he bargained for. If so, we shall probably hear of him soon; so many ships pass the entrance to the bay that he could be in no great danger on a day like this, for the sea has been fairly calm, and that old tub would not easily be overturned.’
‘I don’t believe for a moment that Dick would take the boat,’ said Val.
‘Well, we shall see; to my mind it is a hopeful view of the matter,’ said Forester.
He was glad to dismiss old Mr. Norris’ suggestion from his mind. He had seen one very great difficulty in accepting the theory that Dick had jumped off the rocks and been drowned, for, if this had been the case, surely his clothes would have been found. Still, on the other hand, he had remembered that Dick might have bathed before high tide; and in that case, inasmuch as the tide was unusually high, his clothes, which he had probably left not far from the sea, might have been carried away by the waves. Now the idea that Dick had gone out to sea in old Treverton’s boat was a far less painful one to entertain, for in that case he might possibly be alive and well, and the doctor breathed much more freely than before.
None of the others had anything special to report except Jack. He had been to the myrtle-covered cottage which was famous on account of John Wesley’s visit to it. He and the old woman who lived there had become great friends during his stay in Hildick, and, as a special mark of her favour, she always dusted John Wesley’s chair with her apron and put it by the fire for him to sit on.
Jack had told her the trouble they were in, and in her own homely way she had expressed her sorrow and her sympathy. Then he had asked her whether she or her husband had been on the shore early that morning, or had seen anything or anyone about. She had told him that she was up very early, for her husband had to go on business to a farm on the Llantrug road. He had returned not long ago, and was just washing himself in the backyard.
Jack had asked if he might speak to him, and the old woman had called to her husband to come in. He said that he had set off about five o’clock, and had driven across the marsh to the Llantrug road. No one was about in the village when he started, and when he got up the hill and looked back on the bay he saw no one on the shore. Jack asked him whether any boat was in sight, and he told him that he had not noticed one. He was sorry to hear that old Treverton had lost his boat, but he had seen nothing of it in the bay, and he felt sure had it been there he would have noticed it.
‘Was that all?’ asked the doctor.
‘Well, yes, all that seemed to have anything bearing on Dick’s disappearance. He had rather a curious experience farther along the road, but you won’t care to hear about that; we must not lose time, must we?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Forester; ‘all evidence is worth having, whether at first sight it seems to help us or not. Would you mind telling us what his funny experience was?’
‘Well, he was driving his cart along the Llantrug road, when he came to the place where a road runs into it. I think it comes from that village on the top of the hill. It isn’t much of a road, I believe, more like a lane. However, just at the corner where it comes into the main road, old Lloyd came upon an upset!’
‘What kind of upset?’
‘It was a dogcart that had come to grief. It had evidently been coming down the lane at a great pace, and just at the turning the horse had stumbled and fallen. It was lying on the ground when Lloyd came up.
‘Well, what was there queer about that?’ asked Don.
‘Oh, nothing about that, of course; but what struck him was the peculiar appearance of the people in the cart.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Only two.’
‘Men?’
‘No, very stout old females, dressed quite in the old-fashioned style, short full skirts and long cloaks. One had a hat on, and a thick woolen veil, the other had a large bonnet, and grey curls in front. They were trying to get the horse up when he got near, and he stopped his cart and went to give them a hand. He could not imagine who they were. He knows all the Garroch people well, but they told him they had come from some village ten miles inland, and that they were going to see a daughter of the old woman who lived in a farm near Llantrug, and who was very dangerously ill.’
‘What was remarkable in that?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Jack; ‘but as old Lloyd was helping them with the horse he happened to look inside the cart.’
‘What did he see there?’
‘He saw something covered with a rug—a long bundle of some kind, and the rug was tucked tightly over it. “What have you got there?” he asked them, for you know old Lloyd does not mind asking anything he wants to know.’
‘And what did they say?’
‘They said they had been pig-killing at home, and had not had time to salt the pig, so had brought it with them to the daughter’s, that they might do it there. Old Lloyd thought this was a very queer story, and I agree with him. If the daughter was dangerously ill, why should they take a big job like that into a sick house?’
‘Did they tell him anything else?’
‘Nothing else; they jumped into the dogcart as quickly as possible, and drove off at a tearing pace towards Llantrug. Lloyd said he quite expected that the horse would be down again.’
‘Well, I don’t see what all that has to do with us,’ said Mr. Sinclair; ‘unless you want to suggest that those two old dames were taking poor Dick away in a cart. Don’t you think we ought at once to scatter and continue our search?’
The doctor and Don had been together all day, and they agreed to keep together now. They undertook to go over the old ground still more carefully, whilst the others sought farther afield.
Forester was anxious to be on the shore, that he might watch the incoming tide. It was now five o’clock and the sea was coming in apace. By this time many of the cottagers had come out to help in the search, and as the doctor and Don went down towards the rocks they saw the searchers scattering in all directions—in the fields, upon the sandhills, and amongst the woods round the bay.
Arrived at the shore, they found old Treverton still on the lookout for his boat. The poor old man was as mournful as if he had lost a child.
‘I’ve had her thirty years, sir,’ he said; ‘and I thought she would last my time.’
‘Well,’ said Forester, ‘perhaps you haven’t lost her. Don’t despair yet; she may turn up somewhere.’
‘Any word of the young gentleman, sir?’
‘No, not yet; but we haven’t given up hope.’
‘Well, sir, I may be wrong, but it strikes me that the lad and the boat are together. I’m very much afraid they are—very much afraid.’
And now they walk on together to the farthest point they can reach on the rocks, and watch the advancing tide. Steadily, slowly, but surely, it is coming on. As they stand there they can watch the water rising. Now it has covered that little island far out at sea: now it has swept over that stretch of seaweed-covered shore; now it is creeping round that high rock; now it is coming up to the breakwater by the church. Like a relentless force it is coming on, and still on.
What is it bearing on its swelling waters? What is coming in with the tide? Who can tell what those busy waves may be carrying? Wreckage from ships lost years ago on some distant ocean; shells and seaweed brought from the fairy caverns below; corks that have floated the fishermen’s nets on some foreign shore; bottles with messages from shipwrecked men, pieces of rope, lengths of sugar cane, wisps of straw that have been carried backwards and forwards by many a tide—which of these are the waves bringing in tonight?
The three men stand silently watching, gazing far out to sea. The old sailor has brought his small telescope with him, and is looking through it at the waves.
‘What is that?’ he says at length; ‘what do I see driving in towards the other side of the bay?’
He hands his glass to the doctor. ‘Your eyes are younger than mine, sir,’ he says; ‘tell me what you see there.’
‘I see nothing yet.’
‘Look again, sir.’
‘I am looking again. Yes, now I do see something; it looks like a black speck on the water.’
‘It must be more than a speck for us to see it here, sir, three miles or more away.’
‘Look, Don,’ says the doctor; ‘take the glass.’
Don sees it too. ‘Seaweed,’ he suggests; ‘or perhaps a log of wood.’
‘It may be, or it may not be,’ Treverton says in an excited voice. ‘I shall go across the bay and watch it come in.’
‘We will come with you; but we must hurry up,’ says Forester, ‘or we shall be too late.’
He and Don run on ahead, and the old man follows them. It is not easy to go quickly, for the tide now covers the hard sand, and the shore above high water-mark is covered with heavy and loose shingle, which makes it difficult to keep up any great pace. They are astonished afterwards to remember in how short a time they had crossed the bay.
They do not stop to take off their boots and socks when they come to the stream, but run quickly through the water. On, and still on they hasten, and now the speck has become a large dark object on the crest of the waves. They need no glass to see it clearly now; each advancing wave brings it nearer; it is making straight for the shore of the bay in which they had had that pleasant picnic only the wee, before. How different it all seems now! What a gloom has fallen over the happy party that had met together there!
But they must hasten on. Now the point is turned —now the bay is reached—now the busy waves have nearly finished their work. The dark object on the water is coming to land. They can see it distinctly now; as they run to meet it in the water they can almost touch it; there is no room now for speculation or doubt. A high wave is rising; this one will bring it within reach. Old Treverton is turning the corner now, he is running along the bay; but long before he reaches the spot, they have caught it—they have rescued it from a receding wave—they are bringing it ashore.
It is old Treverton’s boat, and it is coming in bottom upwards.