No bag, box, portmanteau, or suitcase of any kind or description whatsoever.
II
Hope does not readily desert the human breast. After the first numbing impact of any shock, we most of us have a tendency to try to persuade ourselves that things may not be so bad as they seem. Some explanation, we feel, will be forthcoming shortly, putting the whole matter in a different light. And so, after a few moments during which he stood petrified, muttering some of the comments which on the face of it the situation seemed to demand, Soapy cheered up a little.
He had had, he reflected, no opportunity of private speech with his host this morning. If Mr. Carmody had decided to change his plans and deposit the suitcase in some other hiding place he might have done so in quite good faith without Soapy's knowledge. For all he knew, in mentally labelling Mr. Carmody as a fat, pop-eyed, crooked, swindling, pie-faced, double-crossing Judas, he might be doing him an injustice. Feeling calmer, though still anxious, he left the house and started toward the moat.
Half-way down the garden, he encountered Sturgis, returning with an empty tray.
"You must have misunderstood Mr. Carmody, sir," said the butler, genially, as one rabbit fancier to another. "He says he did not ask for any drink. But he came ashore and had it. If you're looking for him, you will find him in the boathouse."
And in the boathouse Mr. Carmody was, lolling at his ease on the cushions of the punt, sipping the contents of a long glass.
"Hullo," said Mr. Carmody. "There you are."
Soapy descended the steps. What he had to say was not the kind of thing a prudent man shouts at long range.