“Who was with you when you found the nails?”
“Nobody, sir.”
“Nobody! Then how do I know that you really found them in the coat? What was to prevent you from putting them in the coat yourself and then bringing it to me, to throw suspicion on Black?”
Poor Henry! For a moment he looked heartbroken. Then he became indignant. “Captain Hardwick,” he cried, “do you think I would do a trick like that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” replied the commander. “The fact that you found two finishing nails in Black’s coat doesn’t prove anything. There may be a dozen other coats on this ship with similar nails in them. Don’t you see that it is one thing to assert something and quite another to prove it? This is likely Black’s coat, though you haven’t proved even that. But it doesn’t follow that Black put the nails in his coat. Somebody else may have done it, even if you didn’t.”
“Captain Hardwick,” protested Henry, “don’t you trust me at all?”
The captain smiled. “It isn’t a matter of trust, Henry. You come to me with something you regard as evidence against Black. I’m glad to have any evidence in the matter that is evidence, but we must be sure that it is, before we use it. Don’t you understand what I am driving at?”
“I see,” said Henry, drawing a breath of relief. “The finding of these nails isn’t proof of anything. I grasp that all right. But it’s—suggestive.”
“Now you are on exactly the right tack. It’s very suggestive. You think that I’ve been a little hard on you, Henry. I want to be fair. Now I’ll say that I think it much more likely that Black would have had nails in his coat than that you would have had them about you. Boys dressed to go visiting don’t ordinarily carry nails with them.”
Henry’s face evidently showed the relief he felt. The captain smiled again. “It was quite right for you to bring me this coat,” he continued. “I shall follow up this suggestion. Meantime I want you to go on about your work and say nothing about the matter.”