XVII.

_THOMAS TRAFTON, DETECTIVE._

"Well!" said Dr. Peters, after a night of careful watching of the light-keeper's symptoms. He was a tall, elderly gentleman, with a very smooth, melodious voice, its tones seeming to have been dipped in syrup.

He began again,--

"Well, Mr. Fletcher, I think Mr. Tolman will recover from this. We shall get him through." And when he spoke, Dr. Peters waved his hands as if he had already disposed of this case and now pa.s.sed it out of sight.

"However, Mr. Fletcher, the case will need careful watching, and you had better take charge of it, unless his daughter might come down to relieve you."

"Possibly his granddaughter," thought Dave.

"I don't think we can ever rely on Toby Tolman's resuming his old duties here--might do a little something, you know--and you had better get Thomas Trafton or some trusty man to help you. When will the inspector be here?"

"Our lighthouse inspector, Captain Sinclair, doctor?"

"Yes."

"In about a fortnight, perhaps sooner. The steamer that brings supplies for the lighthouse will soon be here, and Captain Sinclair will come in her, I think."

"The inspector, to look after matters?"

"Yes, sir. Of course I shall report what you say about the keeper to headquarters at once."

"I would. It is very important. And when Captain Sinclair comes, let me know, please."

"I will, sir."

"Of course it is necessary that things should be inspected. I am glad he is coming. Well to be careful."

"What does he mean?" wondered Dave. "Has he got hold of those stories about misappropriation? Well, when Captain Sinclair comes I hope he will sift things to the bottom. I am not afraid of an investigation."

Dave took satisfaction in the consciousness of his integrity; still it was not pleasant to be suspected. It was Toby Tolman's mysterious language, indicating that he too held Dave in some kind of suspicion, which troubled Dave painfully. The day after Dr. Peters's visit the light-keeper again referred to this mystery. He roused himself into a state of seeming consciousness, and then relapsed. Again he awoke. He looked around him and fastened his eyes on the top of a clothes-press in the room.

"What do you want, sir? Anything there that you want to put on?" asked Dave.

The keeper shook his head. Pointing at the top of the press, he said, "Dave, I would put it back."

"What do you mean? I don't understand you."

The keeper, though, was gone again, murmuring about the tide, which he said was very late, and when would it come in? He had been awake long enough to cruelly wound Dave once more.

Bart Trafton had gone home with Dr. Peters, rowing him to town in the same dory that brought him to the light the night before. In two days Bart was down again. As he sat in the kitchen eating some apple-pie offered him by his father, he said, "Father, I found something in our shed."

"What was it, Bart?"

Laying down his lunch, Bart drew out of a package a chronometer.

"Found that in the shed?" asked the surprised father.

"Yes, on a shelf."

"Why, Bart, this has got the letters of our lighthouse on it. Must have come from here. And in our shed! How did it get there? I must show this to Dave," said Thomas Trafton.

"Hush-sh!" exclaimed Dave, when his a.s.sistant entered the room; "Toby is trying to get some sleep."

"See here!" said Thomas, in low tones. "Must show you something."

"I never saw it before," replied Dave, handling the chronometer. "It belongs here, though. There are the initials. Where did you get it?"

A stir among the bedclothes arrested the attention of the two men. Toby Tolman had opened his eyes, and was looking at them. Something he saw must have pleased him, for he smiled.

"That is right, Dave. I am glad you brought it back. I would put it up."

"Where?" asked the astonished Dave, anxious to lay hold of any clue to a serious mystery.

"Up there."

He pointed at the top of the clothes-press. The press was not a tall one. Dave standing on tiptoe could reach to its top, and he now laid the watch there.

"Is that right?" asked Dave.

The keeper nodded his head, and then closed his eyes, his face wearing a satisfied expression foreign to it all through his sickness.

"Is not that queer?" whispered Dave. "Some mystery that is too deep for me."

He beckoned Thomas and Bart out of the room, and then followed them downstairs.

"Now, how do you explain that?" asked Dave, as the three cl.u.s.tered about the stove, whose heat that day was acceptable, for the air was chilly and the wind was a prophet of storm.

"Don't know," said Thomas.

"I'd give this old pocket-book full of silver," declared Dave, "to have that thing cleared up. It takes a load off my mind, I tell you. The old man has been harping on the fact that I took something, and he has been looking toward that old clothes-press in such a strange way. I didn't know anything was up there. Did you see how he acted, smiled about it?"

"Where did you get this pocket-book?" asked Thomas.

"The day that Toby was taken sick I picked it up among the rocks here.

I had been over at your fish-house, and found it when I was coming back.

Been in the water, you see."

"Here are some letters on it--T.W."

"That means Tobias Winkley or--"