I was pacing the deck, musing into a sheer muddle this singular business of the Maharajah of Ratnagiri’s gift to the Queen of England, with all sorts of dim, unformed suspicions floating loose in my brains round the central fancy of the fifteen thousand pound stone there, when the captain returned. He was alone. He stepped up to me hastily, and said—
“He swears the diamond has been stolen. He showed me the empty case.”
“Was there ever a stone in it at all?” said I.
“I don’t think that,” he answered quickly; “there’s no motive under Heaven to be imagined if the whole thing’s a fabrication.”
“What then, sir?”
“The case is empty, but I’ve not made up my mind yet that the stone’s missing.”
“The man’s an officer and a gentleman.”
“I know, I know!” he interrupted, “but still, in my opinion, the stone’s not missing. The long and short of it is,” he said, after a very short pause, with a careful glance at the skylight and companion hatch, “his behaviour isn’t convincing enough. Something’s wanting in his passion and his vexation.”
“Sincerity!”
“Ah! I don’t intend that this business shall trouble me. He angrily required me to search the ship for stowaways. Bosh! The second mate and steward have repeatedly overhauled the lazarette: there’s nobody there.”