"Accident or design?"
"God knows! Perhaps no one else ever will. It may have merely been the ammunition. As you know, that has happened before now. But it's a very curious coincidence that it should have happened off Ransay, knowing what we know. I hear a lot of the men were ashore buying things. I wonder what they brought aboard with them!"
"I can tell you what one lot brought: eggs, poultry, cheeses, and a large parcel in newspaper which I took to be butter. But that was only one party I happened to see. They were all over the island."
He thought in silence for a few moments, and then he glanced at his watch.
"Look here, old chap," he said, "I'm afraid I must be getting off again now. Walk back with me as far as it's safe and I'll tell you something that you must know. We can discuss the evidence later, when a little more has been collected. The point that concerns you is that Bolton has been sent for again."
"The devil he has! Do I retire then?"
"Not at all. You see nobody in these parts is in the Hobhouse secret, so they sent for Bolton at once to make his own kind of enquiries while we make ours. You of course go on making yours in your own way just the same. All the same I think it would be tactful to stand aside—with your eyes open of course—while Bolton is on the job."
"Tactful," I agreed, "but a little annoying."
"Well, Roger, it can't be helped, I'm afraid. I'm not the boss here and the man is on his way now as fast as he can travel. And now what about telling him who you really are? I've been thinking it over, and if you are agreeable I think I ought to."
I saw that this meant that he had decided he was going to, so I merely said: