postulations when Jimmy laid a hand on his arm and clutched it savagely, then shouted, “Nothing serious, officer. Just an accident. That's all. We took a turning too abruptly—all my fault. Here, I'll hand you an oar so you can give us a tow down to the first landing.”
“This is too much! What will any policeman say of me with such an excuse as that?” growled Tomaso, but was silenced by his passenger.
“We can tell him I was learning to row. Shut up! I'll pay well if you keep quiet.”
Thus admonished the gondolier fell to a sulky silence but, by the time the officer above had caught the end of the oar and dragged the overturned gondola and its two living burdens along a convenient landing, had recovered his tongue and was as volubly lying as even Jimmy could have wished. A gold coin slipped into the official hand turned the policeman into a messenger to find another gondola and bring it to the scene, and Captain Jimmy and his gondolier sat on the edge of the landing and dumped the water from their shoes.
“Tomaso, did you recognize who it was ran into us?” Jimmy asked thoughtfully.
“I did and—I didn't, signor. The man's face was in blackness, but—that was a familiar voice and once I hear it again—my ear is good. He shall pay for it!” The veteran left no doubt of what he would do to that enemy once identification was certain.
“But mightn't it have been an accident?”
“Accident! I smile, signor! Here in the darkness I smile! No man who ever stood on the running board of a gondola and handled an oar like that man ever rammed another boat in Venice by accident. That man was born to the water, the same as myself.”
“But suppose I don't want you to get him? Suppose I'd rather get him in my own way?”
Jimmy saw the old gondolier stop, bend forward and look at him as if to make certain that this was not a jest, and then turn, whistle softly through his teeth, and give an odd chuckle.
“Ah. The signor heard as I did, that there was a woman in that gondola! Now I begin to understand. The signor wishes, for reasons of his own, to hush this matter up.”
“Exactly,” the captain replied. “No one must know. Not even the gondolier whom the policeman is now bringing around the bend down there. Listen, Tomaso, I was learning to row a gondola. I got flustered and banged her against a corner. That is all. And now listen still closer. I pay you to keep this between ourselves and I'm going to hire you and your boat from now on until I get this matter straightened out. You are to be at my service night and day. Understand?”
The gondolier, who in his forty or fifty years of life on the canals had known of, and perhaps participated in, many strange affairs, chuckled wisely and said, “I am the signor's man. And he may leave it to me to keep any one from knowing anything. But I can't tell until I can get my boat out of water how badly she was rammed. Those metal prows driven by two oars can cut like a knife, sometimes. I think I had better have this man tow me into a little quiet basin over on the other side of the Grand Canal behind the Chiesa della Salute where, when dawn comes, I can hide her if need be until I can repair her.”
“Good. If necessary get a man to help you who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. Come to the Hotel Danieli to-morrow at noon and ask for Mr. Ware. I shall leave you now and find another gondola. If I cut through this passage where will it take me?”
“Out onto the canal near the Rialto Bridge, signor, and there is a gondola station close by.”
The oncoming gondola drew up alongside, the captain bade the officer and the gondoliers good night, and trudged away through a narrow alleyway, leaving a trail of water behind him. An hour later he surprised the watch on the Adventure by coming aboard and going below to his cabin, from which, later, and well clad, he returned to the shore. Swinging a light stick and appearing as if he had but returned from a most placid evening he entered the hotel and the lounge to find the young lady Tommie engrossed in conversation with that earnest young gentleman Pietro. They looked up as he said, “Good evening,” and he wondered if it were a trick of his imagination, or a fact, that they appeared to exchange glances of relief or surprise even as they responded to his salute. And was he mistaken in wondering if there was a dry irony in Pietro's question:
