And still there was no sign of either keyhole or opening.
"Strike me pink!" grumbled Runnells. "It looks like it was sticking to us to-night! This is what I calls rotten luck!"
"And I was thinking that it was excellent—even beyond expectations, Runnells," said Captain Francis Newcombe smoothly. "The old man has done his work so well that it is certain no one would stumble on it. Therefore, when we get away, we do so with the absolute knowledge that an empty hiding place will never be discovered. You follow that, don't you, Runnells? No one except you and I will know that the money was ever found—or taken."
"Yes," said Runnells gruffly; "but we ain't got it yet. And we must have been at it a good hour already—and the tide's coming back in now."
"Quite so!" said Captain Francis Newcombe evenly. "But if we don't get it to-night, there is to-morrow night—and the night after that again. There are always the woods, and your ability as a thief guarantees us plenty to eat. Meanwhile, we'll stick to this side here fronting the sea—it's the logical place—one couldn't be seen even from under the verandah back there. Go over every bit of the iron work now."
Another quarter of an hour passed in silence—save for the lap of the water that, with the tide on the turn now, had crept up almost to the base of the pier. The flashlight moved slowly up and down and to right and left as the two men crouched there, bent forward, their fingers, augmenting the sense of sight, feeling over the surface of the cement and iron that here was barnacle-coated, and there covered with festoons of the green slime.
"It's no good!" said Runnells pessimistically at last. "Let's try around on another side, and get out of the water—I'm standing in it now."
"It's here—and nowhere else," said Captain Francis Newcombe doggedly. "And, furthermore, I'm certain it's one of these squares inside the intersecting pieces of iron. It would be just big enough to allow a man to crawl in and out—and not too big or too heavy for one man to handle alone. It can't be anything else. Whatever's here the old man made himself—no one helped him, understand, Runnells? His secret wouldn't be worth anything in that case. Go on—hunt!"
But Runnells, instead, had suddenly straightened up.
"I thought I heard something out there like—like a low splashing," he said tensely.