Many a night, when it was Carew's watch on deck, Baptiste employed himself in rummaging the drawers and lockers of the saloon. For a long time he discovered nothing to his purpose; but he was patient and minute in his investigations, and at last he got on the right scent in the following wise.
He found that the handwriting in the ship's log-book and on the agreements which the captain had drawn out for his crew was not in the least like that in the diary and in the cheque-book, in which entries had been inscribed at a date prior to the yacht's departure from Rotterdam. Thus it seemed highly probable to Baptiste that his captain was not the Mr. Allen whom he professed to be, and whose name was on the ship's papers.
If not Mr. Allen, then, who was he?
Baptiste searched diligently night after night without finding any clue to this; but at last one of those slight circumstances which seem to be arranged by Providence to expose the crimes of the most clever and cautious villains, led the persevering Frenchman to the knowledge he was seeking.
Baptiste was not a good English scholar; but he proceeded with infinite labour little by little to decipher Allen's diary. A few days before reaching Rio he came to the last page but one, and here he read the following entry: "Wrote Carew, asking him to come with me to Holland." On the next page, under the date of August the 8th, was the final entry: "Sail for Holland with Carew."
"It is just possible," said Baptiste to himself, "that this mysterious captain of mine is Mr. Carew. I have no reason to suppose that he is so, but the point is worth testing."
The mate applied the test in the manner that has been described, when, on entering Rio, he casually remarked that he had sailed into that harbour before under an English captain called Carew.
His employer's sudden start and evident perturbation on hearing this name mentioned convinced Baptiste that he had hit the right nail on the head. The deduction from what he had discovered was natural enough. "If this is Carew," he reasoned, "he must have stolen Allen's yacht. He has in all probability committed other crimes; but this is enough for my purpose. I may be altogether wrong in my conjectures, but I think not. I will tax him boldly with this. If I have guessed his secret, I have the game in my own hands. If I prove to have been on the wrong scent, I shall have made an idiot of myself, but no great harm will have been done."
So with a matchless effrontery the Frenchman opened his game under the shade of the great palm trees with the success that has been seen.
Having smoked several cigarettes with an expression of great enjoyment, without speaking, Baptiste turned to Carew and said—