We trooped down, Prince and all, and it was as the purser had said. The safes were untouched. Barraclough elevated his eyebrows.
"The fools!" he commented.
"Well, it doesn't seem to me quite that," said I slowly. "It only looks as if Holgate was certain."
"What do you mean?" he asked, and they all looked at me.
"Why, if he did not take the trouble to touch this, he cannot be in a hurry. I never came upon a man with a cooler head. He's not in a hurry, that's a fact. It's been deliberate all through, from the very moment we left the Thames."
We looked at each other now. "Jerusalem!" said Lane. "What a savage! He's made sure of us, then."
"He can wait his time," I said. "He has waited, and can wait longer. The ship's in his hands."
"You take a gloomy view, sir," observed the Prince with a frown.
"Well, Mr. Morland," I replied drily. "I don't think we're here to glaze matters over. We've got to face things, and one of these things is that Holgate hasn't worried us since he got possession. How are you going to account for that, save on my hypothesis?"
"They shall be hanged—every one," he exclaimed angrily, the German accent emerging roughly now.