“It is quite simple,” was the reply. “I wanted another forged letter, written in terms dictated by myself—and I got it.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Rodney. And now, for the first time, he began to understand how Thorndyke had got his great reputation.
“You spoke just now,” Rodney continued, “of carrying this investigation to a finish. Haven’t you done so? Is there anything more to investigate?”
“We have not yet completed our examination of the yacht,” replied Thorndyke. “The facts that we have elicited enable us to make certain inferences concerning the circumstances of Purcell’s death—assuming his death to have occurred. We infer, for instance, that he did not fall overboard, nor was he pushed overboard. He met his death on the yacht and it was his dead body which was cast into the sea with the sinker attached to it. That we may fairly infer. But we have, at present, no evidence as to the way in which he came by his death. Possibly a further examination of the yacht may show some traces from which we may form an opinion. By the way, I have been looking at that revolver that is hanging from the beam. Was that on board at the time?”
“Yes,” answered Rodney. “It was hanging on the cabin bulkhead. Be careful,” he added, as Thorndyke lifted it from its hook. “I don’t think it has been unloaded.”
Thorndyke opened the breech of the revolver, and, turning out the cartridges into his hand, peered down the barrel and into each chamber separately. Then he looked at the cartridges in his hand.
“This seems a little odd,” he remarked. “The barrel is quite clean and so is one chamber, but the other five chambers are extremely foul. And I notice that the cartridges are not all alike. There are five Eleys and one Curtis and Harvey. That is quite a suggestive coincidence.”
Phillip looked with a distinctly startled expression at the little heap of cartridges in Thorndyke’s hand, and, picking out the odd one, examined it with knitted brows.
“When did you fire the revolver last, Jack?” he asked, looking up at his brother.
“On the day when we potted at those champagne bottles,” was the reply.