“Nonsense!” declared Eben Moddridge, feebly.
“Perhaps you think Mr. Delavan stood up in the boat, and it tipped and let him over,” argued Tom. “But that was next-door to impossible.”
“How impossible?” demanded Moddridge, taking notice sufficiently to sit up a little more.
“Why, the port boat, Mr. Moddridge, on account of her heavy keel, her comparatively broad beam and other peculiarities, belongs to a class of what are called ‘self-righting’ boats. It would take a deliberate effort, by a very strong man, to capsize such a boat. She’s towing astern now. After a good deal of effort we righted her.”
For a moment Eben Moddridge looked hopeful. Then he sank back once more, all but collapsing.
“Nonsense,” he remonstrated. “Any little boat of that size can be easily tipped over.”
“The boat can’t be capsized easily, I assure you,” Tom argued. “I know the type of boat, and understand what I am talking about. Now, we found the boat capsized. It probably took more than one man to do it. Mr. Delavan could hardly have done it alone. If it took others to help in capsizing the boat, what is more likely than that others have seized him, and then upset the boat in order to make it appear that he had fallen overboard and been drowned? Mr. Moddridge, are there, or are there not, men who would be glad to seize Mr. Delavan for a while, for the benefit of what information they might expect to frighten or torment out of him?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the nervous man, firing up for the instant and rising to his feet full of new, brief energy. Then he sank back into the chair.
“But I don’t believe _that_ happened,” he went on, brokenly. “I am quite convinced that my friend was drowned by the capsizing of the small boat.”
“Wait a few moments, Mr. Moddridge, and we’ll show you, then,” proposed Captain Tom, turning and making a signal to Joe Dawson. “Jed, keep the bridge deck, and sound the whistle regularly.”
Captain and engineer disappeared below, going to their room. They were quickly back, clad only in their bathing suits.
“Now, you keep your eyes on us, Mr. Moddridge,” young Halstead requested. “Mr. Delavan is a heavy man, but Joe and I, together, are much heavier than he. We’ll show you how hard it is to upset a boat of this type.”