“No, Bob, not a one. I watched that room built and I know. That’s the deepest mystery of all.”
“Well, we’ll pass that for the time being. But tell me—were you out around your cabin, just before you were attacked, carrying a bag of potatoes which you had to set down every now and then because it was too heavy? Were you?”
“A bag of potatoes? No!” exclaimed Hiram, wonderingly.
“Did anybody bring you a sack of potatoes, or did you sell any one a sack, which they carried away?” went on the lad. “There are marks of a potato sack having been set down in the soft ground near the side of your cabin where the chimney of the fireplace in your strong room is built. Somebody had a sack of potatoes.”
“No potatoes!” cried Mr. Beegle. “I didn’t carry any, and no one brought me any. It must be something else, my boy. But no potatoes!”
He looked at the young detective earnestly. Then some sort of doubt, or suspicion seemed to enter his mind, for he said:
“Look here, Bob, my boy! You aren’t stringing me, are you?”
“Stringing you, Mr. Beegle? No, of course not! Why do you ask that?”
“Because of this potato business. I thought maybe you were trying to play a joke. Lots of people think they can joke with a sailor.”
“No,” replied the lad, “I’m in dead seriousness. I want to find out all I can about this matter. If you say there weren’t any potatoes that ends my theory in that direction.”