“Are you sure it wasn’t there before that day?”
“Quite. I sailed the yacht myself the day before, and I will swear that the jib was spotlessly clean then. So the mark must have been made by Purcell or Varney, because I noticed it the very next day.”
“What was the mark like?”
“It was just a faint wavy line, as if some dirty water had been spilt on the sail and allowed to dry partly before it was washed off.”
“Did you form any opinion as to how the mark might have been caused?”
Phillip struggled—not quite successfully—to suppress a smile. To him there seemed something extremely ludicrous in this solemn interrogation concerning these meaningless trifles. But he answered as gravely as he could: “I could only make a vague guess. I assumed that it was caused in some way by the accident that occurred. You may remember that the jib halyard broke and the sail went overboard and got caught under the yacht’s forefoot. That is when it must have happened. Perhaps the sail may have picked some dirt off the keel. Usually a dirty mark on the jib means mud on the fluke of the anchor, but it wasn’t that. The anchor hadn’t been down since it was scrubbed. The yacht rode at moorings in Sennen Cove. However, there was the mark; how it came there you are as well able to judge as I am.”
“And that is all you know—this mark on the sail and the spunyarn. There was no other cordage missing?”
“No, not so far as I know.”
“And there is nothing else missing? No iron fittings or heavy objects of any kind?”
“Good Lord, no! How should there be? You don’t suspect Purcell of having hooked off with one of the anchors in his pocket, do you?”