“Nothing like it,” said the mild physician. “It was this,” he took out of his pocket an envelope, from which he extracted a document that he handed to Harwood.
It was an order for four hundred pounds, payable by a certain bank in England, and granted by the Sydney branch of the Australasian Banking Company to one Mr. Oswin Markham.
“Ah, I see; he is a gentleman,” said Harwood, returning the order. It had evidently suffered a sea-change, but it had been carefully dried by the doctor.
“Yes, he is a gentleman,” said the doctor. “That is what I remarked when I found this in a flask in one of his pockets. Sharp thing to do, to keep a paper free from damp and yet to have it in a buoyant case. Devilish sharp thing!”
“And the man's name is this—Oswin Markham?” said the major.
“No doubt about it,” said the doctor.
“None whatever; unless he stole the order from the rightful owner, and meant to get it cashed at his leisure,” remarked Harwood.
“Then he must have stolen the shirt, the collar, and the socks of Oswin Markham,” snarled the doctor. “All these things of his are marked as plain as red silk can do it.”
“Any man who would steal an order for four hundred pounds would not hesitate about a few toilet necessaries.”
“Maybe you'll suggest to the skipper the need to put him in irons as soon as he is sufficiently recovered to be conscious of an insult,” cried the doctor in an acrid way that received a sympathetic chuckle from the major. “Young man, you've got your brain too full of fancies—a devilish deal, sir; they do well enough retailed for the readers of the Dominant Trumpeter, but sensible people don't want to hear them.”