"Oh, it's all theory, of course, but we've got to grope in the dark
before we fetch the light, doctor. Kyles is a sailor, and those men
who captured Armour are sailors. Very good then; the case stands
something in this way. Sir Simon's only daughter and heiress is
engaged, against the will of her father, to Kyles, and Sir Simon is
unexpectedly murdered. Beforehand, evidently expecting to be killed,
he wrote a secret letter to someone on board a boat called the
'Tarabacca,' disinheriting his daughter. Tarabacca is, as you think,
an Indian word. Suppose we learn that it is an Indiana word, we've
connected Kyles, who is in the service of the Republic, closer with
the matter. The marked shawl and the secret letter form the connecting
links, don't you see?"
"Humph," assented Browne, somewhat struck by this lucid reasoning, "of
course it's all theory. However," he crossed to the book-case, "the
matter of the name is easily settled. I have an atlas here."
"I doubt if you'll spot it, doctor. However, we can but try."
And the doctor did try. Turning over the pages, until he came to the
map of South America, he searched the portion, coloured yellow, to the
far south of the Continent, which represented the tiny republic of
Indiana. But no name could be found even distantly resembling the one
they were in search of.
"Hold on," said Browne, as Sweetlips shook his head with a
disappointed air, "I'll turn up the index. Often names that are not
set down on the map, are catalogued there." He ran his finger down the
page. "Ta,--Tag,--Tap,--Tar,--here you are, Kind. Tarabacca, Map 45,
Lat. 44, Long. 73° 6 E," again he reverted to the map. "Yes. It's
certainly in Indiana, for here is the Republic in the latitude
referred to. Tarabacca isn't set down here, but as it's in the same
latitude, you may depend that it's a town or a lake or a mountain in
the Indiana Republic, and the yacht's been named after it."
"Which shows that Kyles is connected with the crime."
"Hold on. That woman I saw in the motor car may have done the deed. It
was a woman's shawl, remember, that was used to stifle Armour. She
smoked too, and being light, could have climbed the trellis, so
that----"
"Yes, yes, but there's usually a woman in every case, and where a
woman is a man is certain to be found. Captain Kyles, on the authority
of the word, the shawl, and the cigarette, knows this woman and this
yacht, therefore, he must have something to do with the crime, as she
has. I believe they are accomplices."
"Why not see Captain Kyles, since he is in Tarhaven?
"What, and have him deny everything? Not me, doctor. I'm not
sufficiently sure of my facts, sir. I'll go to Pierside on a selling
excursion, and spy round that yacht. If I can get speech with the
woman of the Lagonda tri-car, I'll shove the shawl under her eyes----"
"The shawl----?"
"I got it from Armour."
"But he had no right to part with it."