Mr. Brown followed behind him.  He saw the other man was about to land at a deserted beach a short distance to the left of the Belleview Hotel pier.  Mr. Brown did not make for the same shore immediately.  He waited until the man was on land and striding out of sight; then the artist jumped from his own boat and went after the other man.  Not many yards away was the side lawn of the hotel.  It was a warm summer night, and a number of guests were strolling about under the trees.  Mr. Brown put his hand on the arm of the fellow whom he had been following.

The boy leaped forward in an effort to wrench himself away.  At this moment he recognized the artist and knew he had been overtaken.  Mr. Brown kept a firm hold on his arm.

“What do you want with me?” demanded the lad, trying to appear at his ease.  “Aren’t you the fellow who came alongside of me in the boat?”

“I am,” was the curt reply, “and I don’t wish to ask a great favor of you.  I simply wish you to come over to the hotel with me to see some friends of mine.  We would like to ask you a few questions.  Of course, if you can answer them satisfactorily, I shall let you go with my best apologies.  I would advise you not to make any resistance here.  You will attract the attention of the people on the lawn.”

Mrs. Curtis and her guests were rather surprised when a hotel boy came up to her sitting room to say that Mr. Theodore Brown and some one else would like to speak to Mr. Tom Curtis for a few minutes, if that were possible.

Tom came back to his mother a little later, his eyes flashing.  He related a part of Mr. Brown’s story.

“If you don’t mind, Mother, I think we had better have the fellow up here for the girls to see.  I know he is the man who took the sailboat from Madge and me, and Mr. Brown says he is the fellow who attempted to rob the houseboat; but whether he has set it afire and nearly been the death of Mollie, we have no way of finding out.  He vows he has not been near the houseboat since the day he promised never to return.  If we cross-examine him up here, perhaps we can get at the truth.”

Eleanor had slipped out of the room to find her coat and hat as soon as she learned of the accident to Mollie.  The other young women were trembling with sympathy and alarm, but they waited to see the boy brought upstairs.

The girls were not long in agreeing to the identity of the prisoner as the evil genius of their past experiences.  But there was no way of proving that he had actually set fire to the houseboat, for he still absolutely denied all knowledge of it.

Eleanor came back to the sitting-room.  “Aren’t you ready to leave, girls?” she demanded.  “Miss Jenny Ann and Mollie need us.”

Eleanor sniffed the air daintily.  “What is that curious odor of kerosene, Mrs. Curtis?” she inquired curiously.  “Do you think any of the lamps could be leaking?”