In Which Thorndyke Opens the Attack
As Thorndyke turned the corner at the head of the stairs, he
encountered Phillip Rodney with a kettle in his hand, which he had
apparently been filling at some hidden source of water.
“This is a bit of luck,” said Phillip, holding out his disengaged
hand, “—for me, at least; not, perhaps, for you. I have only just
arrived, and Jack hasn’t come over from the Courts yet. I hope this
isn’t a business call.”
“In a sense it is,” replied Thorndyke, “as I am seeking information.
But I think you can probably tell me all I want to know.”
“That’s all right,” said Phillip. “I’ll just plant Polly on the gas
stove and while she is boiling we can smoke a preparatory pipe and you
can get on with the examination in chief. Go in and take the
presidential chair.”
Thorndyke entered the pleasant, homely room, half office, half
sitting-room and seating himself in the big armchair began to fill his
pipe. In a few moments Phillip entered and sat down on a chair which
commanded a view of the tiny kitchen and of “Polly,” seated on a gas
ring.
“Now,” said he, “fire away. What do you want to know?”
“I want,” replied Thorndyke, “to ask you one or two questions about
your yacht.”
“The deuce you do!” exclaimed Phillip. “Are you thinking of going in
for a yacht yourself?”
“Not at present,” was the reply. “My questions have reference to that
last trip that Purcell made in her and the first one is: When you took
over the yacht after that trip, did you find her in every respect as
she was before? Was there anything missing that you could not account
for, or any change in her condition, or anything about her that was
not quite as you expected it to be?”
Phillip looked at his visitor with undissembled surprise. “Now I
wonder what makes you ask that. Have you any reason to expect that I
should have found any change in her condition?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Thorndyke, “we will leave that question
unanswered for the moment. I would rather not say, just now, what my
object is in seeking this information. We can go into that later.
Meanwhile, do you mind just answering my questions as if you were in
the witness-box?”
A shade of annoyance crossed Phillip’s face. He could not imagine what
possible concern Thorndyke could have with his yacht and he was
inclined to resent the rather cryptic attitude of his questioner.
Nevertheless he answered readily: “Of course I don’t mind. But, in
fact, there is nothing to tell. I don’t remember noticing anything
unusual about the yacht, and there was nothing missing, so far as I
know.”
“No rope, or cordage of any kind, for instance?”
“No—at least nothing to speak of. A new ball of spunyarn had been
broached. I noticed that, and I meant to ask Varney what he used it
for. But there wasn’t a great deal of it gone; and I know of nothing
else. Oh, wait! If I am in the witness-box I must tell the whole
truth, be it never so trivial. There was a mark or stain or dirty
smear of some kind on the jib. Is that any good to you?”
“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?”
Thorndyke smiled indulgently, but persisted in his questions.
“Do you mean that you know there was nothing missing or only that you
are not aware of anything being missing?”
The persistence of the questions impressed Phillip with a sudden
suspicion that Thorndyke had something definite in his mind; that he
had some reason for believing that something had been removed from the
yacht. He ventured to suggest this to Thorndyke, who answered frankly
enough: “You are so far right, Phillip, that I am not asking these
questions at random. I would rather not say more than that just now.”
“Very well,” said Phillip; “I won’t press you for an explanation. But
I may say that we dismantled the yacht in rather a hurry and hadn’t
time to check the inventory, so I can’t really say whether there was
anything missing or not. But you have come at a most opportune time,
for it happens that we had arranged to go over to the place where she
is laid up, at Battersea, to-morrow afternoon for the very purpose of
checking the inventory and generally overhauling the boat and the
gear. If you care to come over with us, or meet us there, we can
settle your questions quite definitely. How will that suit you?”
“It will suit me perfectly,” replied Thorndyke. “If you will give me
the address and fix a time, I will meet you there.”
“It is a disused wharf with some empty workshops,” said Phillip. “I
will write down the directions and if you will be at the gate at three
o’clock to-morrow, we can go through the gear and fittings together.”
Thorndyke made a note of the whereabouts of the wharf, and having thus
dispatched the business on which he had come, he took an early
opportunity to depart, not having any great desire to meet John Rodney
and be subjected to the inevitable cross-examination. He could see
that Phillip was, naturally enough, extremely curious as to the object
of his inquiries, and he preferred to leave the two brothers to
discuss the matter. On the morrow his actions would be guided by the
results, if any, of the survey of the yacht.
Three o’clock on the following afternoon found him waiting at a large
wooden gate in a narrow thoroughfare close to the river. On the
pavement by his side stood the green canvas-covered “research-case”
which was his constant companion whenever he went abroad on
professional business. It contained a very complete outfit of such
reagents and apparatus as he might require in a preliminary
investigation; but on the present occasion its usual contents had been
reinforced by two large bottles, to obtain which Polton had that
morning made a special visit to a wholesale chemist’s in the Borough.
A church clock somewhere across the river struck the hour; and almost
at the same moment John and Phillip Rodney emerged from a tributary
alley and advanced towards the gate.
“You are here first, then,” said Phillip, “but we are not late. I
heard a clock strike a moment ago.”
He produced a key from his pocket with which he unlocked a wicket in
the gate, and, having pushed it open, invited Thorndyke to enter. The
latter passed through and the two brothers followed, locking the
wicket after them, and conducted Thorndyke across a large yard to a
desolate-looking wharf beyond which was a stretch of unreclaimed
shore. Here, drawn up well above high-water mark, a small,
sharp-sterned yacht stood on chocks under a tarpaulin cover.
“This is the yacht,” said Phillip, “but there is nothing on board of
her. All the stores and gear and loose fittings are in the workshop
behind us. Which will you see first?”
“Let us look at the gear,” replied Thorndyke; and they accordingly
turned towards a large disused workshop at the rear of the wharf.
“Phil was telling me about your visit last night,” said Rodney, with
an inquisitive eye on the research-case, “and we are both fairly
flummoxed. He gathered that these inquiries of yours are in some way
connected with Purcell.”
“Yes, that is so. I want to ascertain whether, when you resumed
possession of the yacht after Purcell left her, you found her in the
same condition as before and whether her stores, gear and fittings
were intact.”
“Did you suppose that Purcell might have taken some of them away with
him?”
“I thought it not impossible,” Thorndyke replied.
“Now I wonder why on earth you should think that,” said Rodney, “and
what concern it should be of yours if he had.”
Thorndyke smiled evasively. “Everything is my concern,” he replied. “I
am an Autolycus of the Law, a collector of miscellaneous trifles of
evidence and unclassifiable scraps of information.”
“Well,” said Rodney with a somewhat sour smile, “I have no experience
of legal curiosity shops and oddment repositories. But I don’t know
what you mean by ‘evidence.’ Evidence of what?”
“Of whatever it may chance to prove,” Thorndyke replied, blandly.
“What did you suppose Purcell might have taken with him?” Rodney asked
with a trace of irritability in his tone.
“I had thought it possible that there might be some cordage missing
and perhaps some iron fittings or other heavy objects. But of course
that is mere surmise. My object is, as I have said, to ascertain
whether the yacht was in all respects in the same condition when
Purcell left her as when he came on board.”
Rodney gave a grunt of impatience; but at this moment Phillip, who had
been wrestling with a slightly rusty lock, threw open the door of the
workshop and they all entered. Thorndyke looked curiously about the
long, narrow interior with its prosaic contents, so little suggestive
of the tragedy which his thoughts associated with them. Overhead the
yacht’s spars rested on the tie-beams, from which hung bunches of
blocks; on the floor reposed a long row of neatly-painted half-hundred
weights, a pile of chain cable, two anchors, a stove and other
oddments such as water-breakers, buckets, mops, etc.; and on the long
benches at the side, folded sails, locker-cushions, side-light
lanterns, the binnacle, the cabin lamp and other more delicate
fittings. After a long look round, in the course of which his eye
travelled along the row of ballast-weights, Thorndyke deposited his
case on a bench and asked: “Have you still got the broken jib-halyard
that Phillip was telling me about last night?”
“Yes,” answered Rodney, “it is here under the bench.”
He drew out a coil of rope, and, flinging it on the floor began to
uncoil it, when it separated into two lengths.
“Which are the broken ends?” asked Thorndyke.
“It broke near the middle,” replied Rodney, “where it chafed on the
cleat when the sail was hoisted. This is the one end, you see, frayed
out like a brush in breaking, and the other—” He picked up the second
half, and passing it rapidly through his hands, held up the end. He
did not finish the sentence, but stood, with a frown of surprise,
staring at the rope in his hand.
“This is queer,” he said, after a pause. “The broken end has been cut
off. Did you cut it off, Phil?”
“No,” replied Phillip; “it is just as I took it from the locker,
where, I suppose you or Varney stowed it.”
“I wonder,” said Thorndyke, “how much has been cut off. Do you know
what the original length of the rope was?”
“Yes,” replied Rodney. “Forty-two feet. It is down in the inventory,
but I remember working it out. Let us see how much there is here.”
He laid the two lengths of rope along the floor, and with Thorndyke’s
spring tape carefully measured them. The combined length was exactly
thirty-one feet.
“So,” said Thorndyke, “there are eleven feet missing, without allowing
for the lengthening of the rope by stretching.”
The two brothers glanced at one another and both looked at Thorndyke
with very evident surprise. “Well,” said Phillip, “you seem to be
right about the cordage. But what made you go for the jib-halyard in
particular?”
“Because, if any cordage had been cut off it would naturally be taken
from a broken rope in preference to a whole one.”
“Yes, of course. But I can’t understand how you came to suspect that
any rope was missing at all.”
“We will talk about that presently,” said Thorndyke. “The next
question is as to the iron fittings, chain and so forth.”
“It don’t think any of those can be missing,” said Rodney. “You can’t
very well cut a length of chain off with your pocketknife.”
“No,” agreed Thorndyke, “but I thought you might have some odd pieces
of chain among the ballast.”
“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?”
“I suspected that some heavy object was missing, as I mentioned,” was
the reply; “and a ballast-weight was a likely object. By the way, can
you fix a date on which you know that all the ballast-weights were in
place?”
“Yes, I think I can,” replied Phillip. “A few days before Purcell went
to Penzance we beached the yacht to give her a scrape. Of course we
had to take out the ballast, and when we launched her again I helped
to put it back. I am certain that all the weights were there then
because I counted them after they were stowed in their places.”
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “it is virtually certain that they were all on
board when Purcell and Varney started from Sennen.”
“I should say it is absolutely certain,” said Phillip.
Thorndyke nodded gravely and appeared to reflect a while. But his
reflections were broken in upon by John Rodney.
“Look here, Thorndyke, we have answered your questions and given you
facilities for verifying certain opinions that you held and now it is
time that you were a little less reserved with us. You evidently
connected the disappearance of this rope and this weight in some way
with Purcell. Now we are all interested in Purcell. You have got
something up your sleeve and we should like to know what that
something is. It is perfectly obvious that you don’t imagine that
Purcell, when he went up the pier ladder at Penzance, had a couple of
fathoms of rope and a half-hundred weight concealed about his person.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Thorndyke, “I don’t imagine that Purcell
ever went up the ladder at Penzance at all.”
“But Varney saw him go up,” protested Phillip.
“Varney says he saw him go up,” Thorndyke corrected. “I do not accept
Mr. Varney’s statement.”
“Then what on earth do you suggest?” demanded Phillip. “And why should
Varney say what isn’t true?”
“Let us sit down on this bench,” said Thorndyke, “and thrash the
matter out. I will put my case to you and you can give me your
criticisms on it. I will begin by stating that some months ago I came
to the conclusion that Purcell was dead.”
Both the brothers started and gazed at Thorndyke in utter
astonishment. Then Rodney said: “You say ‘some months ago.’ You must
mean within the last three months.”
“No,” replied Thorndyke. “I decided that he died on the 23rd of last
June, before the yacht reached Penzance.”
An exclamation burst simultaneously from both of his hearers and
Rodney protested impatiently: “But this is sheer nonsense, if you will
pardon me for saying so. Have you forgotten that two persons have
received letters from him less than four months ago?”
“I suggest that we waive those letters and consider the other
evidence.”
“But you can’t waive them,” exclaimed Rodney. “They are material
evidence of the most conclusive kind.”
“I may say that I have ascertained that both those letters were
forgeries. The evidence can be produced, if necessary, as both the
letters are in existence, but I don’t propose to produce it now. I ask
you to accept my statement for the time being and to leave the letters
out of the discussion.”
“It is leaving out a good deal,” said Rodney. “I find it very
difficult to believe that they were forgeries or to imagine who on
earth could have forged them. However, we won’t contest the matter
now. When did you come to this extraordinary conclusion?”
“A little over four months ago,” replied Thorndyke.
“And you never said anything to any of us on the subject,” said
Rodney, “and what is more astonishing, you actually put in an
advertisement, addressed to a man whom you believed to be dead.”
“And got an answer from him,” added Phillip, with a derisive smile.
“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “It was an experiment and it was justified
by the result. But let us get back to the matter that we have been
investigating. I came to the conclusion, as I have said, that Purcell
met his death during that voyage from Sennen to Penzance and that
Varney, for some reason, had thought it necessary to conceal the
occurrence, but I decided that the evidence in my possession would not
be convincing in a Court of Law.”
“I have no doubt that you were perfectly right in that,” Rodney
remarked drily.
“I further considered it very unlikely that any fresh evidence would
ever be forthcoming and that, since the death could not be proved, it
was, for many reasons, undesirable that the question should ever be
raised. Accordingly I never communicated my belief to anybody.”
“Then,” said Rodney, “are we to understand that some new evidence has
come to light, after all?”
“Yes. It came to light the other day at the College of Surgeons. I
dare say Phillip told you about it.”
“He told me that, by an extraordinary coincidence, that quaint button
of Purcell’s had turned up and that some sort of sea-worm had built a
tube on it. But if that is what you mean, I don’t see the bearing of
it as evidence.”
“Neither do I,” said Phillip.
“You remember that Varney distinctly stated that when Purcell went up
the ladder at Penzance he was wearing his oilskin coat and that the
button was then on it?”
“Yes. But I don’t see anything in that. Purcell went ashore, it is
true, and he went away from Cornwall. But he seems to have gone by
sea; and as I suggested the other day, he probably got a fresh button
when he went on board the steamer and chucked this cork one
overboard.”
“I remember your making that suggestion,” said Thorndyke; “and very
much astonished I was to hear you make it. I may say that I have
ascertained that Purcell was never on board that steamer—”
“Well, he might have thrown it into the sea somewhere else. There is
no particular mystery about its having got into the sea. But what was
there about my suggestion that astonished you so much?”
“It was,” replied Thorndyke, “that you completely overlooked a most
impressive fact which was staring you in the face and shouting aloud
for recognition.”
“Indeed,” said Phillip. “What fact was it that I overlooked?”
“Just consider,” replied Thorndyke, “what it was that Professor D’Arcy
showed us. It was a cork button with a Terebella tube on it. Now an
ordinary cork, if immersed long enough, will soak up water until it is
waterlogged and then sink to the bottom. But this one was impregnated
with paraffin wax. It could not get waterlogged and it could not sink.
It would float forever.”
“Well?” queried Phillip.
“But it _had_ sunk. It had been lying at the bottom of the sea for
months; long enough for a Terebella to build a tube on it. Then, at
last, it had broken loose, risen to the surface and drifted ashore.”
“You are taking the worm-tube as evidence,” said John Rodney, “that
the button had sunk to the bottom. Is it impossible—I am no
naturalist—but is it impossible that the worm could have built its
tube while the button was floating about in the sea?”
“It is quite impossible,” replied Thorndyke, “in the case of this
particular worm, since the tube is built up of particles of rock
gathered by the worm from the sea-bottom. You will bear me out in
that, Phillip?”
“Oh, certainly,” replied Phillip. “There is no doubt that the button
has been at the bottom for a good many months. The question is how the
deuce it can have got there, and what was holding it down.”
“You are not overlooking the fact that it _is_ a button,” said
Thorndyke. “I mean that it was attached to a garment.”
Both men looked at Thorndyke a little uncomfortably. Then Rodney
replied:
“Your suggestion obviously is that the button was attached to a
garment and that the garment contained a body. I am disposed to
concede the garment, since I can think of no other means by which the
button could have been held down; but I see no reason for assuming the
body. I admit that I do not quite understand how Purcell’s oilskin
coat could have got to the bottom of the sea, but still less can I
imagine how Purcell’s body could have got to the bottom of the sea.
What do you say, Phil?”
“I agree with you,” answered Phillip. “Something must have held the
button down, and I can think of nothing but the coat, to which it was
attached. But as to the body, it seems a gratuitous assumption—to say
nothing of the various reasons for believing that Purcell is still
alive. There is nothing wildly improbable in the supposition that the
coat might have blown overboard and been sunk by something heavy in
the pocket. As a matter of fact, it would have sunk by itself as soon
as it got thoroughly soaked. You must admit, Thorndyke, that that is
so.”
But Thorndyke shook his head. “We are not dealing with general
probabilities,” said he. “We are dealing with a specific case. An
empty oilskin coat, even if sunk by some object in the pocket, would
have been comparatively light, and, like all moderately light bodies,
would have drifted about the sea-bottom, impelled by currents and
tide-streams. But that is not the condition in the present case. There
is evidence that this button was moored immovably to some very heavy
object.”
“What evidence is there of that?” demanded Rodney.
“There is the conclusive fact that it has been all these months lying
continuously in one place.”
“Indeed!” said Rodney with hardly concealed scepticism. “That seems a
bold thing to say. But if you know that it has been lying all the time
in one place, perhaps you can point out the spot where it has been
lying.”
“As a matter of fact, I can,” said Thorndyke. “That button, Rodney,
has been lying all these months on the sea-bottom at the base of the
Wolf Rock.”
The two brothers started very perceptibly. They stared at Thorndyke,
then looked at one another and then Rodney challenged the statement.
“You make this assertion very confidently,” he said. “Can you produce
any evidence to support it?”
“I can produce perfectly convincing and conclusive evidence,” replied
Thorndyke. “A very singular conjunction of circumstances enables us to
fix with absolute certainty the place where that button has been
lying. Do you happen to be acquainted with the peculiar resonant
volcanic rock known as phonolite or clink-stone?”
Rodney shook his head a little impatiently. “No,” he answered, “I have
never heard of it before.”
“It is not a very rare rock,” said Thorndyke, “but in the
neighbourhood of the British Isles it occurs in only two places. One
is inland in the north and may be disregarded. The other is the Wolf
Rock.”
Neither of his hearers made any comment on this statement, though it
was evident that both were deeply impressed, and he continued:
“This Wolf Rock is a very remarkable structure. It is what is called a
‘volcanic neck’; that is, it is a mass of altered lava that once
filled the funnel of a volcano. The volcano has disappeared, but this
cast of the funnel remains standing up from the bottom of the sea like
a great column. It is a single mass of phonolite, and thus entirely
different in composition from the sea bed around or anywhere near
these islands. But, of course, immediately at its base, the sea-bottom
must be covered with decomposed fragments which have fallen from its
sides; and it is with these fragments that our Terebella has built its
tube. You remember, Phillip, my pointing out to you as we walked home
from the College, that the worm-tube appeared to be built of fragments
that were all alike. Now that was a very striking and significant
fact. It furnished _prima facie_ evidence that the button had been
moored in one place and that it had therefore been attached to some
very heavy object. That night I made an exhaustive examination of the
material of the tube, and then the further fact emerged that the
material was phonolite. This, as I have said, fixed the locality with
exactness and certainty. And I may add that, in view of the importance
of the matter in an evidential sense, I submitted the fragments
yesterday to one of the greatest living authorities on petrology, who
recognized them at once as phonolite.”
For some time after Thorndyke had finished speaking, the two brothers
sat wrapped in silent reflection. Both were deeply impressed, but each
in a markedly different way. To John Rodney, the lawyer, accustomed to
sworn testimony and documentary evidence, this scientific
demonstration appeared amazingly ingenious, but somewhat fantastic and
unconvincing. In the case of Phillip, the doctor, it was quite
otherwise. Accustomed to acting on inferences from facts of his own
observing, he gave full weight to each item of evidence and his
thoughts were already stretching out to the, as yet unstated,
corollaries.
John Rodney was the first to speak. “What inference,” he asked, “do
you wish us to draw from this very ingenious theory of yours?”
“It is rather more than a theory,” said Thorndyke, “but we will let
that pass. The inference I leave to you; but perhaps it would help you
if I were to recapitulate the facts.”
“Perhaps it would,” said Rodney.
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “I will take them in their order. This is the
case of a man who was seen to start on a voyage for a given
destination in company with one other man. His start out to sea was
witnessed by a number of persons. From that moment he was never seen
again by any person excepting his one companion. He is said to have
reached his destination, but his arrival there rests upon the
unsupported verbal testimony of one person, the said companion.
Thereafter he vanished utterly, and since then has made no sign of
being alive; he has drawn no cheques, though he has a considerable
balance at his bank, he has communicated with no one and he has never
been seen by anybody who could recognize him.”
“Is that quite correct?” interposed Phillip. “He is said to have been
seen at Falmouth and Ipswich, and then there are those letters.”
“His alleged appearance, embarking at Falmouth and disembarking at
Ipswich,” replied Thorndyke, “rest, like his arrival at Penzance, upon
the unsupported testimony of one person, his sole companion on the
voyage. That statement I can prove to be untrue. He was never seen
either at Falmouth or at Ipswich. As to the letters, I can prove them
both to be forgeries and for the present I ask you to admit them as
such, pending the production of proof. But if we exclude the alleged
appearances and the letters, what I have said is correct; from the
time when this man put out to sea from Sennen, he has never been seen
by any one but Varney and there has never been any corroboration of
Varney’s statement that he landed at Penzance.
“Some eight months later a portion of this man’s clothing is found. It
bears evidence of having been lying at the bottom of the sea for many
months, so that it must have sunk to its resting-place within a very
short time of the man’s disappearance. The place where it has been
lying is one over, or near, which the man must have sailed in the
yacht. It has been moored to the bottom by some very heavy object; and
a very heavy object has disappeared from the yacht. That heavy object
had apparently not disappeared when the yacht started, and it is not
known to have been on the yacht afterwards. The evidence goes to show
that the disappearance of that object coincided in time with the
disappearance of the man; and a quantity of cordage disappeared,
certainly, on that day.
“Those are the facts at present in our possession with regard to the
disappearance of Daniel Purcell; to which we may add that the
disappearance was totally unexpected, that it has never been explained
or accounted for excepting in a letter which is a manifest forgery,
and that even in the latter, apart from the fictitious nature of the
letter, the explanation is utterly inconsistent with all that is known
of the missing man in respect of his character, his habits, his
intentions and his circumstances.”