“That’s the most elementary logic, Mr. Priam. Now will you tell us what happened?”
Nothing in Priam stirred, not even the hairs of his beard.
“Then I’ll have to tell you. In 1927, you and Hill appeared in Los Angeles and set up a wholesale jewelry business. What did you know about the jewelry business? We know all about you and Hill now, Mr. Priam, from the time you were born until you signed on the Beagle for its one and only voyage. You both went to sea as boys. There was nothing in either of your backgrounds that remotely touched jewels or jewelry. And, like most sailors, you were poor men. Still, two years later, here you both were, starting a fabulous business in precious stones. Was that what you couldn’t have concealed had you come back as Adam’s crew? Because the authorities would have said, Where did these two poor seamen get all this money ― or all these jewels? And that’s one question, Mr. Priam, you didn’t want asked ― either you or Hill.
“So it’s reasonable to conjecture, Mr. Priam,” said Ellery, smiling, “that the Beagle didn’t go down in a hurricane after all. That the Beagle reached its destination, perhaps an uninhabited island, and that in exploring for the fauna and flora that interested him as a naturalist, Adam ran across something far afield from his legitimate interests. Like an old treasure chest, Mr. Priam, buried by one of the pirate swarms who used to infest those waters. You can find descendants of those pirates, Mr. Priam, living in the Bahamas today... An old treasure chest, Mr. Priam, filled with precious stones. And you and Hill, poor sailors, attacked Adam, took the Beagle into blue water, sank her, and got away in her dinghy.
“And there you were, with a pirate’s fortune in jewels, and how were you to live to enjoy it? The whole thing was fantastic. It was fantastic to find it, it was fantastic to own it, and it was fantastic to think that you couldn’t do anything with it. But one of you got a brilliant idea, and about that idea there was nothing fantastic at all.
Bury all trace of your old selves, come back as entirely different men ― and go into the jewelry business.
“And that’s what you and Hill did, Mr. Priam. For two years you studied the jewelers’ trade ― exactly where, we haven’t learned. When you felt you had enough knowledge and experience, you set up shop in Los Angeles... and your stock was the chest of precious stones Adam had found on his island, for undisputed possession of which you’d murdered him. And now you could dispose of them. Openly. Legitimately. And get rich on them.”
Priam’s beard was askew on his chest. His eyes were shut, as if he were asleep... or gathering his strength.
“But Adam didn’t die,” said Ellery gently. “You and Hill bungled. He survived. Only he knows how he nursed himself back to health, what he lived on, how he got back to civilization, and where, and where he’s been since. But by his own testimony, in the note, he dedicated the rest of his life to tracking you and Hill down. For over twenty years he kept searching for the two sailors who had left him for dead ― for his two murderers, Mr. Priam. Adam didn’t want the fortune ― he had his own fortune; and, anyway, he was never very interested in money. What he wanted, Mr. Priam, was revenge. As his note says.
“And then he found you.”