“The rest,” said Ellery, squarely to Priam, “is up to you.”
“You bet it’s up to me!”
“I mean whether you tell us the truth or we try to figure it out, Mr. Priam.”
“You’re doing the figuring, Mister.”
“You still won’t talk?”
“You’re doing the talking,” said Priam.
“We don’t have much to go on, as you know very well,” said Ellery, nodding as if he had expected nothing else, “but perhaps what we have is enough. You’re here, twenty-five years later; and up to recently Leander Hill was here, too. And according to the author of the note that was left in the beagle’s collar, Charles Lyell Adam was left for dead twenty-five years ago, under circumstances which justified him ― in his own judgment, at any rate ― in using the word ‘murder,’ Mr. Priam... except that he didn’t die and he’s here.
“Did you and Hill scuttle the Beagle, Mr. Priam, when you were Adam’s crew and the Beagle was somewhere in West Indian waters?
Attack Adam, leave him for dead, scuttle the Beagle, and escape in a dinghy, Mr. Priam? The Haitians sail six hundred miles in cockleshells as a matter of course, and you and Hill were good enough seamen for Adam to have hired in the first place.
“But seamen don’t attempt murder and scuttle good ships for no reason, Mr. Priam. What was the reason? If it had been a personal matter, or mutiny, or shipwreck as a result of incompetence or negligence, or any of the usual reasons, you and Hill could always have made your way back to the nearest port and reported what you pleased to explain the disappearance of Adam and his vessel. But you and Hill didn’t do that, Mr. Priam. You and Hill chose to vanish along with Adam ― to vanish in your sailor personalities, that is, leading the world to believe that Adam’s crew had died with him. You went to a great deal of trouble to bury yourselves, Mr. Priam. You spent a couple of years doing it, preparing new names and personalities for your resurrection. Why? Because you had something to conceal ― something you couldn’t have concealed had you come back as Adam’s crew.