I suggested that he might have hidden it somewhere else.
"Not he," said Roger.
"Would Kipping steal from Captain Falk?"
"From Captain Falk!" Roger exclaimed. "If his mother were starving, he'd steal her last crust. How about the bunk?"
We took the bunk apart and ripped open the mattress. We sounded the woodwork above and below. With knives we slit the cushion of Captain Whidden's great arm-chair, and pulled out the curled hair that stuffed it. We ransacked box, bag, cuddy, and stove; we forced our way into every corner of the cabin and the staterooms. But we found no trace of the lost money.
It seemed like sacrilege to disturb little things that once had belonged to that upright gentleman, Captain Joseph Whidden. His pipe, his memorandum-book, and his pearl-handled penknife recalled him to my mind as I had seen him so many times of old, sitting in my father's drawing-room, with his hands folded on his knee and his firm mouth bent in a whimsical smile. I thought of my parents, of my sister and Roger, of all the old far-away life of Salem; I must have stood dreaming thus a long time when my eyes fell on Nathan Falk's blue coat, which he had thrown carelessly on the cabin table and had left there, and with a burst of anger I came back to affairs of the moment.
"They've got it away, Benny," said Roger, soberly. "How or when I don't know, but there's no question that it's gone from the cabin. Come, let's clear away the disorder."
As well as we could we put back the numerous things we had thrown about, and such litter as we could not replace we swept up. But wisps of hair still lay on the tables and the chairs, and feathers floated in the air like thistle-down. We had little time for housewifery.
We found the others gathered round the galley, eating a hearty meal of salt beef, ship's bread, and coffee, at which we were right glad to join them. Roger had a way with the men that kept them from taking liberties, yet that enabled him to mingle with them on terms far more familiar than those of a ship's officer. I watched him as he sat down by Davie Paine, and grinned at the cook, and asked Neddie Benson how his courage was and laughed heartily at Blodgett who had spilled a cup of coffee down his shirt-front—yet in such a way that Blodgett was pleased by his friendliness rather than offended by his amusement. I suppose it was what we call "personality." Certainly Roger was a born leader. After our many difficulties we felt so jolly and so much at home,—all, that is, except the man from Boston, who sat apart from the rest and stared soberly across the long, slow seas,— that our little party on deck was merrier by far than many a Salem merrymaking before or since.
I knew that Roger was deeply troubled by the loss of the money and I marveled at his self-control.