skippy washed the dishes and cleaned up the cabin, then made some fresh coffee. he put the two cups on a little tin tray and carried it out on deck where his father sat disconsolately puffing a pipe.

“i made this good an’ careful, pop,” he said, handing toby a cup of the steaming beverage. “maybe it’ll make you feel better, it’s so hot.”

toby took the proffered cup and smiled wanly.

“yer think your pop’s a coward, takin’ on this way?” he asked anxiously.

skippy flushed and, to cover his embarrassment, sat down on a stool a little distance away.

“nah, i don’t think that, pop,” he said at length. “i guess i know how kinda crazy an’ different you’d act after seem’ that. gee, it musta been pretty awful to make you act so different.”

52

“i know how yer mean by different, sonny, but i ain’t blamin’ yer. i know it must look funny, but it ain’t. besides i ain’t a coward ’bout it. if i’d told the mate right on the spot, he’d had ter keep me till the police come. then what would happened ter you? even if i give myself up now they’ll hold me on charges an’ the law’s that slow, it’ll be months mebbe ’fore i kin clear myself.”

“but that’d be better’n lettin’ ’em think you was the one that killed mr. flint, wouldn’t it?”

“i thought mebbe we could run somewheres out west or the like, hey skippy? yer don’t know what the law is once yer git in its fist. if they can’t find nobody else they’ll pin it on me no matter what we say—i know it! so we might’s well take our duds an’ beat it now.”

“pop, you’re not talkin’ like yourself. you got sorta crazy on accounta thinkin’ how all this’ll hurt me. gee whiz, forget about me, because you can’t have the cops thinkin’ you did it, when you didn’t! gee, i’ll get along somehow, honest i will, pop. i’ll get along better to know you did what was right an’ told the truth. an’ even the law i bet can see when a man’s tellin’ the truth an’ they’ll let you out quick—so will you go for my sake, pop?”

toby brought a hairy fist down on his bony knees.

53

“it’s fer yer sake that i didn’t want ter go near ’em, skippy,” he said vehemently. “but if yer promise yer pop ter stay good an’ all till they let me out, i don’t care. fer my sake i wanta go!”

“gee, pop, i’m glad!”

toby drank his coffee with a determined gulp, then got up and stalked into the cabin with the empty cup. when he came out, he held out his hands to skippy.

“c’mon, then, sonny,” he said gripping the boy by the shoulders, “we’ll be a-gittin’ back ter the apollyon ’fore too much water slips inter the bay, hey?”

“just what i was thinkin’ of, pop,” skippy answered and averted his head so that his father should not see the tears swimming in his eyes. “and, pop, you’re kinda calm now, ain’t you? calm enough to remember better’n when we were comin’ down?”

toby dare nodded wearily.

“what yer wanta know, skippy?”

“just that you’re good an’ sure that you didn’t hear him make a noise from the time you first seen him till you ran outa the room?”

“sure, i’m sure, sonny. and like i told you, the grin was the same too.”

54

“then he was dead, pop—dead all the time, an’ somebody with an automatic did it because the second mate said he dreamed he heard somebody runnin’ an’ then he heard a muffled kicker shoving off aft like i saw when we come along. whoever had that automatic was in that kicker, pop. i got a hunch about it.”

“i hope the coppers believe you, sonny. but c’mon, we’ll take the chance. anyways, i’ll tell what i know.”

they walked forward together and were just about to descend when they saw a long, dark painted launch shoot alongside of the minnie m. baxter. as skippy and his father leaned over to get a better view they were blinded with the glaring rays of a searchlight.

“coppers, pop!” skippy hissed. “it’s the coppers!”

“coppers, pop!” skippy hissed. “it’s the coppers!” frontispiece

toby gripped his son’s trembling fingers in his own.

“don’t move, dare!” a deep voice commanded from the police launch.

“i’m not,” toby answered hoarsely.

“we’ll be right up. stay right where you are.”

55

“pop an’ i were just comin’,” skippy cried to them, “that is, we were just goin’ back to the yacht—the a—apollyon an’ tell them how it all really happened. pop ran away on accounta me, but after we talked about it he decided to go back an’ tell.... mr. flint was dead before pop got there—he was; honest!”

“oh yeah?” laughed the first officer to reach the deck. “now that’s interestin’. but i’d wait till the rest of the gang gets up, kid, because they all got ears too.”

skippy watched them troop up until the last man set foot on the barge’s worn deck. six men, he thought, with not a little fear. how weak would his father’s story seem to these frowning cops? would they believe him as he had believed him?

his fingers were entwined in his father’s in a tight grip and yet he had the feeling that toby was already snatched away from him. now that the police confronted them he was terribly afraid and in that instant his hopes fled as quickly as the stars in the face of gathering storm clouds overhead.

then toby spoke in his hoarse, broken voice....