"Gosh!" ejaculated Timothy, round-eyed.
She left the room and went downstairs to find Jim.
He was just coming out of the drawing room as she reached the hall, and said: "Oh, there you are! I was coming to look for you. Do you feel like going out?"
"No, not a bit. I want you to come up to Timothy's room, if you don't mind."
"But I do mind. I haven't the least desire to see Timothy, and I have got a most burning desire to have you to myself for a bit."
"Don't be vindictive, Jim. It's mean."
"I'm not. I haven't done a thing to him."
"Yes, you are. You know perfectly well he thinks the world of you. I think he's rather upset by what you said to him. So do make it up with him. Besides, I want you to listen to his story carefully, because I think he's speaking the truth. Do come, Jim!"
"All right, but why have I got to listen to his story all over again?" he asked, allowing himself to be led upstairs.
"Never mind. I'll tell you why when you're heard it. You haven't really listened to him yet, you know."
Timothy was still sitting up in bed when they reached his room. His manner towards his stepbrother would not have led the uninitiated to suspect that he desired a reconciliation. He said: "You needn't think I wanted her to fetch you, because I didn't. I've told you I was sorry about half a million times already, and if you don't want to listen, you jolly well needn't!"
"If you give me any lip I'll wring your neck," said Jim. "You meddlesome, cocksure little beast."
Mr. Harte's countenance lightened at this form of address. "Oh, Jim, honestly I'm most frightfully sorry about it!" he said thickly.
"All right, put a sock in it. Pat says I've got to listen to your utterly unconvincing narrative," replied Jim, sitting down on the side of the bed.
"Well, I wish you would," said Timothy; "because when Mr. Roberts says I ran on the rocks, he simply doesn't know what he's talking about! I didn't."
"What did you do, then?"
"Tell him exactly what you told me, Timothy!" commanded Miss Allison. "And do listen with an open mind, Jim! It's important."
"I can't for the life of me see why, but carry on!" said Jim.
Timothy drew his knees up, and hugged them, and repeated the story he had told Miss Allison. Jim heard him out in silence but at the end said: "Look here, my child, you may think you didn't hit anything, but a boat doesn't go down in thirty seconds for no reason. You must obviously have ripped one of the bottom strokes clean off her. I don't say you crashed bang into a rock, but, according to you, you were going all-out. At that speed it would be enough if you merely grazed a rock."
"Jim, if I'd done that, wouldn't I have felt it?"
"I should have thought so. Never having piled her up myself I can't say for certain."
"Give me a piece of paper and a pencil!" ordered Timothy. "I'll draw you a diagram."
"What on earth does it matter? The thing's done now. Forget it!"
"No, let him show you!" said Patricia.
Jim sighed, and produced a pencil from his pocket, and handed it over. Timothy directed Miss Allison to give him the notebook that lay on his dressing table, licked the pencil, and began to sketch. "Well, that's the bay, roughly. Here is Portlaw, and here is the landing stage below our cliff. Now the Pin rocks run like this, don't they?"
"More or less," agreed Jim, watching the pencil's progress.
"Right!" Well, this is the course I steered. If anything, I was drawing away from the rocks. It must have been just about here that the Seamew went down. Anyway, I'll swear it wasn't within a quarter of a mile of the rocks. Now what about it?"
Jim shook his head. "It's beyond me. Without wishing to be offensive, I should imagine that, while that was the course you meant to steer, you actually were much nearer the shore."
"Oh gosh!" said Timothy, disgusted. "You must think I'm a pretty average ass!"
"I do," replied Jim promptly.
"When you let me handle the Seamew before, did I do all right or not?"
"You did. But I was with you."
"Look here!" interposed Patricia; "will you for the sake of argument assume that Timothy's right, and he wasn't near the rocks?"
"Certainly ma'am! So what?"
"He couldn't have sunk the boat like that through doing something wrong with the engine, could he?"
"No."
"Could one of the bottom boards—or whatever you call them—have been loose from the start?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Didn't we have her out this morning?"
"Well, are you sure you didn't graze her on something?"
"God give me strength!" gasped Jim. "Talk about adding insult to injury! Are you two beauties trying to make out I sank the boat?"
"No, but are you sure?"
"I am!" said Jim emphatically.
"Then if Timothy didn't run her on the rocks, and there was nothing wrong with her this morning, why did she sink?" demanded Patricia.
"She didn't. What I mean is, she wouldn't have if—" He stepped and glanced quickly from Patricia's face to Timothy's "Good Lord! You don't think someone tampered with her, do you?" he exclaimed.
"Yes," replied Patricia. "I do."
Chapter Eleven
For a moment Jim stared at Patricia, then he put his arm round her and drew her close to him. "Of all the lurid ideas! Darling, I'm sorry to have to say it, but you're definitely batty."
"No, she isn't," said Timothy. "Everyone knows you've entered for the race next week, and I should think a whole lot of people knew you were going to try the Seamew out tomorrow."
"Do try and pull yourself together," begged Jim. "I was out in her this morning! Who on earth could have had a chance to monkey about with her between the time I came in and the time you went out?"
"Anybody!" replied Timothy promptly. "It was a safe bet you wouldn't go out again today. You brought her in just after Mum arrived, which must have been just after eleven, and I didn't go down to the landing stage till three o'clock. There was loads of time."
"But, my good lad, nobody would dare tamper with my boat in broad daylight!"
Patricia sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. "I don't see why not. Nobody ever comes along this side of the bay. There's no sand to attract the Portlaw gang. Besides, you know what those mud flats are like between us and Portlaw if you walk round the bay at low tide. Supposing someone did something or other to the Seamew between one o'clock and two o'clock? None of us would have been on the shore, because we were having lunch. I call it a pretty good time."
"Well, I don't," said Jim. "If I were going to put someone else's boat out of action, I should choose a nice dark night for the job."
"No, you wouldn't, because you couldn't see to do it," said Timothy instantly. "You'd have to have a lantern, and that might attract attention. Golly, I bet Pat's right, and someone is trying to do you in!"
"You needn't sound so darned pleased about it, viper!"
"I'm not, but I do think it's jolly exciting."
Jim grinned his appreciation of this point of view but said: "I suppose I should be unpopular if I suggested that the bottom might have been ripped off the Seamew by a floating spar or something of that nature?"
Patricia gave a little shiver. "I've got a feeling—" she began, and then stopped and laughed.
Jim looked at her with deep foreboding. "Are you also—whatever else you may be—honest with yourself, darling?"
"Shut up!" said Patricia. "This isn't a joke."
"My error," murmured Jim.
"Jim, Mr. Roberts warned you only yesterday you might be the next victim."