doodling with a pencil on the cover of his log.
âWhat about this man Tim Baird? Did he tell you anything elseâthe name of the other man, or where they went or what they were looking for?â
âNo. I guess he didnât know much about it. Iâve told you all I know.â He shook his head, frowning down at the pattern he was tracing. âDamâ queer him not telling you anything about it, and the thing an obsession with him.â
âThat was because of my mother,â I said. âI think she must have made him promise. She didnât want me involved. I think she hated Labrador,â I added, remembering the scene on the platform as the train was about to leave. And here I was in Labrador.
My mind switched back to the questions my father had asked and I picked up the report again. I was thinking of the map above the transmitter, the name Lake of the Lion pencilled on it. âDid you ask Laroche about Lake of the Lion?â
âNo. I never had the chance.â And then Ledder had stopped doodling and was looking up at me. âYou know, it wasnât so much the strangeness of his questions that made me think him crazy. It was this obsession with an old storyââ
âMy father wasnât crazy,â I said sharply. I was still wondering why he should have been so interested in Larocheâs reaction.
âNo, I guess he wasnât.â Ledderâs voice was slow, almost reluctant. âIf Iâd known his name was James Finlay Ferguson it would have made some sense.â He was excusing himself again. But then, after a pause, he said, âBut even so, if he wasnât crazy â¦â He left the sentence unfinished, staring down at the desk and fiddling with the morse key. âDid he keep a log?â he asked at length.
âYes, of course,â I said. And I gave him the sheet of notes, glad that Iâd isolated them from the actual books. âThose are all the entries that concern Briffe, right from the time my father first picked up your transmissions until that final message.â I tried to explain to him again that writing had been difficult for him and that my father usually just jotted down a note to remind him of the substance of each transmission, but he didnât seem to be listening. He was going carefully through the notes, sucking at a pencil and occasionally nodding his head as though at some recollection.
Finally he pushed the sheet away and leaned back, tilting his chair against the wall and staring across the room. âQueer,â he murmured. âThey make sense, and then again in places they donât make sense.â And after a moment he leaned forward again. âTake this, for instance.â He pulled the sheet towards him again and pointed to the entry for September 18 which read: LAROCHE. No, it canât be. I must be mad . âWhatâs he meanâdo you know?â
I shook my head.
âAnd this on the twenty-sixth, the day after Laroche reached MenihekâL-L-L-L-LâIMPOSSIBLE.â He looked up at me as he read it aloud, but there was nothing I could tell him. âWas he much alone?â he asked.
âThere was my mother.â I knew what he was getting at.
âBut that room you described and the hours he spent there every day with his radio. He was alone there?â And when I nodded, he said, âWe get men like that up here. The emptiness and the lonelinessâthey get obsessions. Bushed we call it.â And then he asked me whether Iâd brought the log books with me.
It was a request I had been dreading. One glance at them and heâd begin thinking my father was crazy again. But if I were to get him to help me heâd a right to see them. âTheyâre in my suitcase,â I said.
He nodded. âCould I see them please?â He was reading through the notes again, tapping at the paper with his pencil, his lips pursed, absorbed in his