He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold to wait, went down on his knees to rummage in the locker beneath the berth.
"I've got a couple o' pair av thim things in here, somewhere, and maybe the key to 'em will fit yours," he went on, adding: "What's become av Mose?"
"The last I saw of him he was making a run for it up the levee, with one of the plain-clothes men chasing him."
M'Grath found his handcuffs and tried the key in those upon Griswold's wrists. It fitted.
"Now ye're fut- and hand-loose, I'll say to ye what I wouldn't say to a cripple. If ye've been telling me the truth, 'tis only the half av it. What have ye been doing, Gavitt?"
Griswold smiled. "Toting cargo on the _Belle Julie_, since you've known me. You'd swear to that, wouldn't you?"
"Loafing around New Orleans for a month or two."
The big mate pushed him to a seat on the after berth and sat down opposite.
"Because ye fished me out o' the river whin ye had good cause to lave me be, I'll tell ye a thing or two for the good av yer soul. Thing number wan is that ye're not Gavitt; ye're no more like him than I am. Let that go, an' come to thing number two; ye've been up to some deviltry. How do I know? Because, at the last landing below this a little man comes aboard an' spots you. Is that all? It is not. Whin the _Belle Julie_ swings in, he's the first man off, making a clane jump av a good tin feet from the engine-room guards. I saw 'im."
Griswold nodded and said, "I was wondering how they came to place me so easily. This fellow knew I would be one of the two to carry out the spring line?"
"Meaning nothing but wanting to be rid av the bothering little man. He said he was a friend av yours, and didn't care to be speaking to ye while ye was mixing with the naygurs. But that's all over and gone. What'll ye be doing next?"
Griswold took a leaf out of the past. Safety in a former peril had grown out of a breakfast deliberately eaten in a café next door to the Bayou State Security.
"What would I do but finish my job on the _Julie_?" he said, pushing the theory to its logical conclusion.
The mate shook his head. "Ye needn't do that; the cops might be coming down here and running you in again. How much pay have ye drawn?"