“We have no chain except the cable. Our only ballast is in the form of half-hundred weights. They are handier to stow than odd stuff.”
“How many half-hundred weights have you?”
“Twenty-four,” replied Rodney.
“There are only twenty-three in that row,” said Thorndyke. “I counted them as we came in and noted the odd number.”
The two brothers simultaneously checked Thorndyke’s statement and confirmed it. Then they glanced about the floor of the workshop under the benches and by the walls; but the missing weight was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any place in which an object of this size could have got hidden.
“It is very extraordinary,” said Phillip. “There is certainly one weight missing. And no one has handled them but Jack and I. We hired a barrow and brought up all the gear ourselves.”
“There is just the chance,” said Thorndyke, “that one of them may have been overlooked and left in the yacht’s hold.”
“It is very unlikely,” replied Phillip, “seeing that we took out the floor-boards so that you can see the whole of the bilges from end to end. But I will run down and make sure.”
He ran out, literally, and, crossing the wharf, disappeared over the edge. In a couple of minutes he was back, breathing fast and evidently not a little excited. “It isn’t there,” he said. “Of course it couldn’t be. But the question is, what has become of it? It is a most mysterious affair.”
“It is,” agreed Rodney. “And what is still more mysterious is that Thorndyke seemed to suspect that it was missing, even before he came here. Now, didn’t you, Thorndyke?”