"It was on the lee side of the cabin," objected Dr. Farnsworth, "and while it might have been blown flat to the deck, in spite of its protected position, it would scarcely have been picked up by the wind again and wafted over the port bulwarks."
"If you was to ask me," said Cap'n Abernethy, who had joined in the discussion, "I'd give it as MY opinion it's a good riddance of bad rubbish."
"Rubbish?" said Miss Pringle. "Rubbish, indeed! I am confident that that box contained my plum preserves!"
"It has been stolen!" cried Cleggett, with conviction. "Fool that I was, not to have taken it into the cabin!"
"But, if you had, you know," said Lady Agatha, "one would scarcely have cared to stay in there with it."
"Loge has outgeneraled me," murmured Cleggett, well-nigh frantic with self-reproach. "While he made the attack in front, he sent some of his men to the rear of the vessel and it was quietly made off with while we were fighting." Had the disappearance of the box concerned himself alone Cleggett's sense of disaster might have been less poignant. But the thought that his own carelessness had enabled the enemy to get possession of a thing likely to involve Lady Agatha in further trouble was nearly insupportable. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands in impotent rage.
"No doubt Loge caught sight of it during the early part of the skirmish, by a flash of lightning," said Dr. Farnsworth, "and acted as you suggest, Mr. Cleggett. But does he believe it to be the box which contains the evidence against him? Or can he, by any chance, be aware of its real contents?"
"No matter which," groaned Cleggett, "no matter which! For when he opens it, he will learn what is in it. Don't you see that he has us now? If he offers to trade it back to us for the other oblong box, how can I refuse? If we have his secret, Loge has ours!"
But Dr. Farnsworth was not listening. He had suddenly leaned over the port rail and was staring down the canal. The others followed his gaze.
The house boat Annabel Lee, they perceived, had got under weigh, and was slowly approaching the Jasper B. in the moonlight. They watched her gradual approach in silence. She stopped within a few yards of the Jasper B., and a voice which Cleggett recognized as that of Wilton Barnstable, the great detective, sang out: