They found Ruth standing by the rear window and looking out
toward the sea.
The captain plunged at once into his story. He began by asking
Mrs. Armstrong if her brother had told her of the missing four
hundred dollars. Charles was inclined to be indignant.
"Of course I haven't," he declared. "You asked us all to keep
quiet about it and not to tell a soul, and I supposed you meant
just that."
"Eh? So I did, Charlie, so I did. Beg your pardon, boy. I might
have known you'd keep your hatches closed. Well, here's the yarn,
Mrs. Armstrong. It don't make me out any too everlastin'
brilliant. A grown man that would shove that amount of money into
his overcoat pocket and then go sasshayin' from Wapatomac to Orham
ain't the kind I'd recommend to ship as cow steward on a cattle
boat, to say nothin' of president of a bank. But confessin's good
for the soul, they say, even if it does make a feller feel like a
fool, so here goes. I did just that thing."
He went on to tell of his trip to Wapatomac, his interview with
Sage, his visit to the windmill shop, his discovery that four
hundred of the fourteen hundred had disappeared. Then he told of
his attempts to trace it, of Jed's anxious inquiries from day to
day, and, finally, of the scene he had just passed through.
"So there you are," he concluded. "I wish to mercy you'd tell me
what it all means, for I can't tell myself.
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