“How do you know?”

“She never runs in here only when she comes to put her goods ashore.”

“Don’t the people over on the mainland know of her business?”

“Well, a few may suspect, but I don’t believe they know; you see she will put in a load of produce, take a regular cargo from here, and the most of the people think she’s an honest coaster.  I’ve known her to get freight from a regular shipping company in New York, and deliver an assorted cargo, simply as a blind.”

“How is it you chanced to run her down to her real business, and get all the points so dead on the crew?”

“My first discovery was accidental, and since then I just investigated a little for my own satisfaction.”

“How long has she been engaged in this traffic?”

“About two years; previous to that the business was broken up and nothing was done for a long time; but about two years ago, the ‘Nancy’ was manned and put under the charge of Denman, who is an old smuggler, and I believe that man could be worth thousands upon thousands, but they say he goes to New York and gambles and sports all his money away; but he must handle a good pile in the course of a year.”

“I see his crew is made up of all nationalities?”

“Yes; but they are mostly West Indians, not natives, but fellows raised down among the Islands.”

“When will she run her cargo ashore?”

“To-night, and she will do it so quickly that you’d hardly know her crew had been at work.”

“It’s a wonder they have never been discovered.”

“I reckon they have been, but Denman practices the old Captain Kidd maxim:  ‘Dead men tell no tales.’”

“Has he dared to kill anybody?”

“Well, men have been missing around here, and later on, they have been found floating in the bay, and the people have always concluded they were cases of drowning while drunk; and I always thought so myself, until about two months ago, when I fell to a suspicion.”

“Did you never tell your suspicion?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I was waiting a chance to verify it.”

“You think it would cost a man his life to be caught by those fellows?”

“That’s my idea.”

The detective had made some important discoveries, and, among others, he had “piped” down to the fact that the crew of the “Nancy” were as desperate and blood-thirsty a set of scoundrels as ever ran in and out of Long Island even with that famous buccaneer, Captain Kidd.

“About how many men have been missing at different time?” asked our hero.

“It’s hard to tell; but the crew of the ‘Nancy’ could tell some fearful tales if they were to open their mouths.”

The detective was destined to go to the bottom of the mystery.

The place selected by the men for their work was one of the most lonely and desolate on the whole coast at that time.