“No,” said the captain, watching him intently. “What did he do?”
“He placed the letter somewhere so as they should not find it, knowing full well that they would come and ransack his chambers as soon as his back was turned.”
“Well,” said the captain, impatiently.
“Well, the spies of the police came; and in his absence searched the place in every direction, even trying the legs of the chairs and tables to see if the document was rolled up and plugged in one of them; but they gave up in despair, finding nothing.”
“Where was it hidden, then,” said the captain.
“It was not hidden at all,” said Dutch, smiling. “The owner came back at last, after having been waylaid and searched, even to the linings of his clothes; and then, feeling secure, took the letter from where he had placed it, the French police feeling that it must be in other hands.”
“But where was it?” said the captain again.
“Why, where he left it: in a common envelope, plain for everybody to see, just stuck half behind the looking-glass over the mantel-piece, and had probably been in the searchers’ hands half-a-dozen times.”
“That is just the trick that the Cuban will try with us,” exclaimed the captain.
“I think so,” said Dutch; “otherwise one might look upon that mulatto as a suspicious character.”