He looked startled at that.  “I have one,” he said; “but I guess I’ll not need it.  The first night or two a skunk hung round; two, in fact—­mother and child—­but I think they’re gone.”

“Would you like some fish?”

“My God, no!”

This is a truthful narrative.  That is exactly what he said.

“I’ll tell you what I do need, ladies,” he went on:  “If you’ve got a spare suit of underwear over there, I could use it.  It’d stretch, probably.  And I’d like a pen and some ink.  I must have lost my fountain pen out of my pocket stooping over the bank to wash my face.”

“Do you know the wireless code?” Tish asked suddenly.

“Wireless?”

“I have every reason to believe,” she said impressively, “that one of the great trees on that island conceals a wireless outfit.”

“I see!” He edged back a little from us both.

“I should think,” Tish said, eyeing him, “that a knowledge of the wireless code would be essential to you in your occupation.”

“We—­we get a smattering of all sorts of things,” he said; but he was uneasy—­you could see that with half an eye.

He accompanied us down to the canoe; but once, when Tish turned suddenly, he ducked back as though he had been struck and changed color.  He thanked us for the tea and corn, and said he wished we had a spare razor—­but, of course, he supposed not.  Then:—­

“I suppose the—­the person in question will stay as long as you do?” he asked, rather nervously.

“It looks like it,” said Tish grimly.  “I’ve no intention of being driven away, if that’s what you mean.  We’ll stay as long as the fishing’s good.”

He groaned under his breath.  “The whole d—­d river is full of fish,” he said.  “They crawled up the bank last night and ate all the crackers I’d saved for to-day.  Oh, I’ll pay somebody out for this, all right!  Good gracious, ladies, your boat’s full of water!”

“It has a hole in it,” Tish replied and upturned it to empty it.

When he saw the hole his eyes stuck out.  “You can’t go out in that leaky canoe!  It’s suicidal!”

“Not at all,” Tish assured him.  “My friend here will sit on the leak.  Get in quick, Lizzie.  It’s filling.”

The last we saw of the detective that night he was standing on the bank, staring after us.  Afterward, when a good many things were cleared up, he said he decided that he’d been asleep and dreamed the whole thing—­the wireless, and my sitting on the hole in the canoe, and the wind tossing it about, and everything—­only, of course, there was the tea and the canned corn!

We did our first fishing the next day.  Hutchins had got the motor boat going, and I put over the spoon I had made from the feather duster.  After going a mile or so slowly I felt a tug, and on drawing my line in I found I had captured a large fish.  I wrapped the line about a part of the engine and Tish put the barrel hoop with the netting underneath it.  The fish was really quite large—­about four feet, I think—­and it broke through the netting.  I wished to hit it with the oar, but Hutchins said that might break the fin and free it.  Unluckily we had not brought Tish’s gun, or we might have shot it.