back of a chair which stood near him and looked out of the window to the lighted street in front of the house. While he stood silent Mr. Shaw arose to a sitting position on the couch and asked:
“Why the description, Mr. Nestor? Why the positive statement about the time at least one of the men entered the house?”
Every eye in the room was now fixed on Nestor’s face. Even Lieutenant Gordon seemed inclined to think that some huge joke was being pulled off.
“The man who came in at six,” Ned replied, “came in out of the rain, and left marks showing the height and breadth of his shoulders on a wall against which he leaned. These marks show a man tall and slender. He entered the house dripping with water, moving about like a street sprinkler and leaving signs of his presence in the places he visited. He seems to be a person of rather refined tastes, inclined to be neat in personal appearance, for he went to Frank’s bathroom to clean up. There he used the washbowl and the toilet articles, leaving black hair turning gray in the comb.”
“This is uncanny,” shouted Frank. “You couldn’t have observed all this during the minute you were in the bathroom,” he added.
Mr. Shaw considered the question gravely, his eyes fixed on those of the boy.
“He sprinkled the closet floor, did he?” he asked, presently.
“Yes, sir; and stood back against the closet wall, and used Frank’s comb and brush.”
“Did he come to this room, also?”
“Yes, sir; the little round spots on the delicate covering of this little table were made by dripping water. You see, sir, he was in here before the water dripped off his clothes in the closet, probably soon after he entered the house.”
“But how did he get into the house? How did he get into this locked room?”
“I should say that he was assisted by some one belonging in the house,” was the quiet reply. “After he left this room he mounted the staircase and hid in Frank’s closet, evidently waiting for you to return home, or for Frank to come. Perhaps he hoped that one of you might bring home the thing, or the things, he had been unable to find in your rooms.”
“The papers concerning the Gatun plot, for instance,” said the lieutenant.
The editor glanced at the officer with a slight frown on his brow, but made no reply to the remark. It was plain that he was unwilling to take up that phase of the case.
“It is a wonder the fellow didn’t jimmy Frank’s safe and get the emerald necklace, without waiting so long for the safe to be opened,” he said, in a moment.
Thus insisting on his previously expressed opinion that the sole purpose of the thieves had been to secure the emerald necklace, further disclaiming any belief that the alleged plot against the government had figured in the matter at all, the editor smiled provokingly at the officer.
Nestor looked from the lieutenant to the newspaper owner and smiled quietly.
“I wish I knew,” he said, “whether the papers we hear so much about really reveal the details of an alleged plot against the government.”
Mr. Shaw did not reply.
“If they do not,” continued the boy, “do they connect some man, or some group of men, with a plot which may be forming?”
The editor glanced approvingly at Ned, as if rather pleased with his cleverness, but did not speak.
“I have known newspaper men,” Ned went on, “to make mistakes in such matters. However, I have no doubt that you have good reasons for the course you are taking,” he continued, “and therefore I have no fault to find with you.”
“You’re a fine fellow, Mr. Nestor,” the editor exclaimed. “Some day, when you see the matter in the right light, I’ll tell you all about it. I can’t do so now, for no end of trouble might come from it.”
“Very well,” replied Ned. “There is one more question I want to ask you. Will you answer it?”
“If I can consistently do so, yes.”
“If the men who searched this house to-night were after the necklace, and that alone, why should they extend their operations to your offices in the newspaper building?”
“Did they do that?” asked the editor calmly. “Then I shall have to go down there and look things over. Will you kindly accompany me?”
But the search at the offices was barren of clues.
CHAPTER V.
AT THE GREAT GATUN DAM
“Over there is the oldest country on this side of the world,” said Peter Fenton, pointing over the rail of the vessel and across the smooth waters of the Caribbean sea. “We are now on the famous Spanish Main,” he continued, “where adventurers from the Windward Islands laid in wait for the galleons of Spain. Just ahead, rising out of the sea, is the Isthmus of Panama. Down there to the left is the continent of South America, where there were cathedrals and palaces when Manhattan Island was still populated by native Indians.”
The minds of the Boy Scouts were filled with splendid dreams as they followed with their eyes the directions indicated by the pointing hand. It was all a fairyland to them. Peter talked for some time on the causes which had brought the scum of the seven seas to the Isthmus, and then Ned Nestor interrupted the talk by inviting them all to the stateroom he occupied in common with Frank Shaw.
When all were seated on chairs and bunks Ned opened the door and looked out on the passage which ran along in front of the apartment. When he turned back into the room there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.
“His Nobbs is in sight,” he said.
“The same party?” asked Frank.
“The same dusky gentleman who has followed us since the night of the theft of the emerald necklace,” Ned replied.
“He ought to receive a Carnegie medal for always being on the spot,” Frank said.
“We ought to turn the hose on him,” Jimmie corrected.
“We should feel lost without him,” laughed George Tolford. “When I first saw him in the newspaper building, while you were investigating the chaos of papers in Mr. Shaw’s rooms,” he went on, “I had a hunch that we shouldn’t be able to lose him.”
“Well, we haven’t been able to lose him,” Peter Fenton said. “He reminds me, the way he floats about, of the ghost of some pirate who sailed about the Spanish Main four hundred years ago in a long, low, rakish craft adorned with a black flag.”
“I saw him in the newspaper building that night,” Jimmie said, “an’ he looked glad because we got no clues there.”
“Why didn’t Ned have him arrested in New York?” asked Jack Bosworth.
“What for?” demanded Jimmie.
“For making a nuisance of himself. Then he couldn’t have followed us on board the ship. Also, he might have been able to get a little sleep nights.”
“I reckon we have kept him going,” Frank observed, with a laugh.
Ever since the night of the robbery the man called “His Nobbs” for want of a better name had kept Ned Nestor in sight most of the time. He had followed him home after the profitless visit to the newspaper office on the night of the theft, had chased about after him while the details of the trip to Panama were arranged the next day, and had turned up on the ship after she was under way.
The fellow did not seem to be overly anxious to keep his watchfulness a secret. He acted like any first cabin passenger on the ship. But, somehow, he managed to keep Ned in view most of the time. Now and then he was caught watching the door of Ned’s stateroom. He never spoke to the boy, and never even looked at him when the two passed one another.
Taking advantage of this preference for Ned’s company, the boys had put up all sorts of jobs on the fellow, and some of their pranks had kept him watching Ned’s odd moves all night. It was a