The question was expressed in her countenance, and Tobias nodded. "Naterally!" he mouthed with vigor. "Any sort o’ craft is in danger so near shore. I warrant the boys air watchin’ her down to Lower Trillion. She’s about off their station now. "Come on," he added, putting the glass away in its beckets and starting for the hatchway. "Let’s go below for a spell." He did not want the girl to watch that staggering, gale-buffeted craft out there. "I feel sort o’ famished for a cup o’ something hot. Heppy usually has her teapot on the stove about this time, and she’s gettin’ me purt’ near broke in to liking that old maid’s tipple," and he chuckled. But when they descended to the kitchen Tobias chanced to peer out of the window overlooking the road first of all. He ejaculated: "My soul and body! what’s come to pass now, I want to know?" Lorna ran to look over his shoulder. The big blue limousine belonging to the bank president had just halted before the lighthouse. The shabbily dressed detective was getting out. "Oh!" Lorna cried. "What can he want here again?" "I cal’late he thinks this is a bubblin’ fount of information," grumbled Tobias. "Huh! But maybe we’ll l’arn more than he does, Lorny." They did. The detective entered unsmilingly when the lightkeeper opened the door. "Have you heard anything more of that young Endicott?" he asked Tobias, merely nodding to the young woman. "Wal, nothing that ye might call authoritative," the old man said slowly. "There’s rumors——" "Yes. We’ve run some of them down. He was mixed up in that break at the bank as sure as guns," the detective interposed with much assurance. "Oh!" gasped Lorna, sitting down suddenly. The man flashed a glance at her that seemed questioning; but he continued to address Tobias. "We have learned that he is a pretty shrewd fellow—up to a certain point. All these crooks fall down at some place or another." Again Lorna spoke. "How dare you?" she demanded, but under her breath. The man gave her another swift glance but made her no reply. He went on coolly to Tobias: "He planned his alibi with some smartness. Shipped his trunk to a New Bedford wharf where a fishing schooner called the _Nelly G._ was tied up. Sent it on his ticket. But he slipped off the train and came back to Clinkerport in the evening. This was the night of the robbery, you understand." "How do you know all this?" demanded the young woman, with strong emotion. "Well, the chap that first put me wise to it was a fellow named Degger. Stopping at the hotel in town. Oh, he knows Endicott well," added the detective confidently. "Went to college with him. That’s where the boys show up their real characters oftentimes. They’re away from home and cut loose from mamma’s apron-strings. This Endicott certainly was a cut-up at Cambridge." "So Degger says, eh?" muttered the lightkeeper.