At last Captain Tom sternly ordered Joe Dawson below for a rest. Joe came up on deck again, after a nap of an hour and a half, when it was within an hour of daylight.
“Now, you get below,” begged Dawson. “I feel as strong as a horse, Tom. And go back to your berth in the cabin, at that. You know, I have the electric signal to your berth, if I need you.”
Captain Tom stood for some time, regarding the weather and the running sea. But it seemed to him that they had reached a point where the gale was much less severe, and he was aching in every muscle and sinew.
“I’ll go below for a little while,” he assented. Stopping in the motor room long enough to shed oilskins and headgear, and hearing Ham still snoring luxuriously, the young sailing master trod through the passageway, unlocking the cabin door, then locking it again after him.
Captain Tom drifted off into slumber the instant his head touched the pillow in his berth. Nor did he waken. Joe, glad that his chum might rest at last, fought it out all alone on the bridge deck. Daylight was flooding the cabin from the transom overhead when Captain Halstead was roused by hearing Mrs. Tremaine’s voice. Poking his head sleepily through the berth curtains, Tom beheld both ladies fully dressed, while Oliver Dixon was just coming out from the other stateroom.
“We’re riding in much easier water, now, ladies,” was Dixon’s greeting.
“Yes; I noticed that,” replied Ida Silsbee. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am, either. I tried to be brave last night, but I’ll admit I was worried. I’d have been more alarmed, only I realized what a splendid pair of young sailors were looking after – Why, there’s Captain Halstead, drinking in enough flattery to turn his head,” laughed the girl, catching sight of the young skipper.
“Is Mr. Tremaine rising?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.
“No; sleeping like a log,” replied Dixon.
“Then I’ll go in and arouse him,” declared Mrs. Tremaine. “I noticed from the stateroom port that we are running rather close to shore. We must be near the end of our present voyage.”
Mrs. Tremaine disappeared into the starboard stateroom, but presently looked out again, bewilderment expressed on her face.
“I can’t guess what’s the matter with Henry,” she confessed. “I’ve called to him, and shaken him, but he doesn’t answer me. He’s breathing so heavily that I – I’m alarmed.”
By this time Captain Tom Halstead was presentable enough to join the others. After greeting the three, he followed Mrs. Tremaine and Dixon to the starboard stateroom.
Henry Tremaine surely was breathing heavily – almost with a rattle, in fact. But Tom, pressing past the others, succeeded in making the charter-man open his eyes.
“All right,” he muttered, as though still in a daze. “I’ll get up, right away.”
“I’ll stay and help you dress,” proposed Tom, upon which the other two retreated.
“Gracious! How my head feels!” groaned Tremaine, as he got unsteadily onto his feet. Tom had to clutch at him and hold him.
“I feel as though I had been drugged,” muttered Tremaine, slowly. “I – I can’t half think, and my head aches, and is so dizzy – ”
“You’ll want to get in the air, then,” proposed the young skipper, as Tremaine finished getting on the last of his clothes.
“Where – are we?”
“Why, since Mrs. Tremaine saw land from the port stateroom, I think we must at least be in the mouth of Oyster Bay, sir.”
“Then, if we’re going to land so soon,” proposed Henry Tremaine, “I may as well get my money out. Halstead, be a good fellow. I feel so bad that I don’t dare bend over. Here are my steamer trunk keys. Open the trunk and lift out the small iron box you’ll find there. I have ten thousand dollars in bills there. I’ll deposit the money on shore.”
Halstead readily found the iron box, and placed it on the edge of the berth. Tremaine, still groaning about his head, fitted a key into the box, and raised the strong lid.
“What’s this?” Tremaine almost yelled, as soon as he had the iron box opened.
Tom Halstead looked, then gasped.
“Why, there’s not a dollar – not a sou – in this box!” roared Henry Tremaine. “Yesterday, there was ten thousand dollars in it!”
His excited exclamations brought the other passengers to the doorway.
“What’s the matter, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.
“Why,” exclaimed her husband, bewilderedly, “I appear to be out ten thousand dollars. The money was in this box yesterday afternoon.”
“Robbed?” gasped Mrs. Tremaine.
“So it would seem,” retorted her husband, dryly. “And – Jupiter! From the way my head feels, I’ve been drugged, too! Of course the thief had to drug me, in order to be sure that I wouldn’t wake up when he came in during the night.”
“Who has had access to this cabin while we slept?” demanded Oliver Dixon. “That negro – Ham?”
“No,” rejoined Tom Halstead, promptly. “Ham has been asleep in his berth. I locked the door into the cabin. I’m the only one who had access here.”
“Do you know anything about where the money went to, Halstead?” inquired Mr. Tremaine, looking up at him.
“I?” stammered the young sailing master of the “Restless.” “Certainly not, sir!”
“Then who does?” demanded Oliver Dixon, shooting a suspicious look at the young captain.
As Tom Halstead glanced swiftly from one face to another, something of the awful meaning of the situation flashed over him.
“See here,” he muttered, hoarsely, “I hope none of you think I could do anything like this! I? Rob my own passengers? Why, it would settle my fate as a yacht commander all in an instant! No, no! You surely must all see that I simply couldn’t have done a thing like this!”
CHAPTER IV
“BOAT-CALL FOR THE POLICE”
“WE’D certainly hate to believe anything of the sort,” said Oliver Dixon, slowly, in a half-purring tone, though reluctant suspicion sounded in his voice.
“I wouldn’t believe that– not if anyone swore himself as an eye-witness,” declared Ida Silsbee, promptly.
Skipper Tom thanked her with a swift, eloquent glance.
“It would seem absurd,” declared Mrs. Tremaine, though there was the briefest touch of hesitation in her tone.
“Confound my buzzing head! I don’t know what to say yet,” grumbled Henry Tremaine.
“I want this matter investigated to the very bottom,” protested Halstead, his voice shaking as no terror of the hurricane could have made it shake.
“Oh, well, the money must be somewhere on board, unless the one who took it threw it into the sea,” replied Henry Tremaine, pulling himself to his feet.
“And we won’t let anyone off this yacht, either, until the search has been made to the very end,” declared Tom Halstead. “Everybody and every nook and corner must stand search.”
“For that matter,” smiled Oliver Dixon, dully, “there must be countless little nooks and crannies on this boat where anyone knowing the craft could tuck away a small bundle of banknotes.”
“I’ll show every nook and cranny I know,” retorted Tom, turning almost fiercely on Dixon. “So will Joe Dawson. And, to prove our good faith, we’ll let the police authorities bring on board as many men as they like whose knowledge