At the same time, my cousin’s arguments were absolutely sound and I saw perfectly that it would have been both foolish and ungenerous to play Hobhouse with the man. So I went back and picked up a novel and tried to dismiss the whole business from my mind in the meantime.
For the next twenty-four hours the island was full of gruesome stories and the wildest rumours, but for most of the time Mr. Hobhouse stayed at home and finished his novel. It was on the evening of the day after the tragedy, when the doctor and he were sitting over the smoking room fire, lighting their pipes after tea, that the bell rang. “Hallo, who’s that at this hour?” said the doctor.
I heard a heavy footstep in the passage, and guessed, but the only announcement was that a gentleman wished to see Dr. Rendall. He was out of the room for a long time, nearly an hour by the clock, and when he came back his manner was serious and a little apologetic.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hobhouse,” said he, “and I assure you there is nothing to worry about, but the fact is a detective is here and wants to have a word with you.”
“A detective!” exclaimed Mr. Hobhouse nervously. “You don’t say so? Dear me, what can he want me for!”
“He’s a man Bolton,” said the doctor, “the very man who came up about six months ago under the name of Thompson and gave himself out as a cattle dealer. By Jove, I can see now what he came for! But anyhow it’s about the Uruguay business this time and he is interviewing everybody, and if you don’t mind, he’d like a few words with you.”
I went into the dining room and saw for the first time my rival. He was a big, sturdy, red-faced man, with a plain bluff manner, an ideal dealer; but his eyes were shrewd and keen. In fact once I had looked into them I put him down as a better man than I had fancied. We exchanged a conventional word on either side, and then both of us instinctively glanced at the door.
“Better speak quietly, Mr. Merton,” said he.
I nodded and said with a smile: “So you are not here as a dealer this time, Mr. Bolton?”
“No,” said he, “I want to get straight to business, and there’s too much humbug and waste of time if one has to talk cattle for half an hour first. Besides, after what has just happened they’d be quite sharp enough here to tumble to the game. Anyhow, the people I want to get at would be, and there’s no point in humbugging the others.”
“Well,” I said, “you know what I’m here for, and though I’m sorry to say I haven’t been able to pick up much so far, anything I have picked up is at your service.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Merton,” said he. “We’re like a couple of terriers after the same rat, and as long as we get him that’s all that matters. You’ve had your go and now I’m going to have a little go.”
He laughed genially, but it was clear enough that when he said two terriers, he meant one terrier at a time, and I accepted the situation frankly.
“Right you are,” I said. “I’ll take a breather while you go in and finish him off. Only of course if you want me to lend a hand, here I am, with nothing else to do.”
He seemed distinctly relieved by this declaration and grew more friendly than ever.
“Well now to come to business,” he said. “I must tell you frankly in the first place, Mr. Merton, that there were some things in your story last time you were here that I didn’t know just how much to believe in. The most truthful people sometimes imagine the queerest things. If you’d had my experience, Mr. Merton, you’d feel just the same about a tale like yours. But now I know you and know what’s been happening here, and particularly what’s happened yesterday, it’s a different story. Do you mind just telling me in your own words about what you saw last time and anything you’ve noticed this trip?”
My opinion of Mr. Bolton’s shrewdness continued to rise as I noticed his close attention to my tale and how much to the point his questions were. Every now and then he stopped me while he made a jotting in a fat little brown leather pocket book, and at the end he observed.
“Well, Mr. Merton, it’s a queer case but I daresay I may be able to throw a bit of light on things before I’ve done.”
I wondered very much, and from the look on his face I do not believe for a moment that he saw a single blink of light at that time.
“And now,” said he, “coming to this explosion, I don’t want to hear anything more about the flames and smoke and suchlike. All that is for the Navy people. It doesn’t come under the head of my department, Mr. Merton; but this buying of stuff ashore and taking parcels aboard the ship, that does come under it. In fact that’s what I’m up here to investigate, for it’s pretty clear even to a man like me that knows nothing of ships that anyone on this island couldn’t swim out and hold a match to a ship o’ war and blow her up that way! If it was done from here, it must have been by one of those parcels.”
“Obviously,” I agreed. “And I also agree that it’s for the experts to decide whether a bomb could be slipped into
