I had an inspiration.  “I’m going to leave that to you men,” I said.  “You may throw them overboard, if you wish—­but, if you do, take out the needles and the silk; we may need them.”

There followed a savage but restrained argument among the men.  Jones, from the tent, called out irritably:—­

“Don’t be fools, you fellows.  This happened while Leslie was asleep.  I’ll swear he never moved after he lay down.”

The crew reached a decision shortly after that, and came to me in a body.

“We think,” Oleson said, “that we’ll lock them in the captain’s cabin, with the axe.”

“Very well,” I said.  “Burns has the key around his neck.”

Clarke, I think it was, went into the tent, and came out again directly.

“There’s no key around his neck,” he said gruffly.

“It may have slipped around under his back.”

“It isn’t there at all.”

I ran into the tent, where Jones, having exhausted the resources of the injured man’s clothing, was searching among the blankets on which he lay.  There was no key.  I went out to the men again, bewildered.  The dawn had come, a pink and rosy dawn that promised another stifling day.  It revealed the disarray of the deck—­he basins, the old mahogany amputating-case with its lock plate of bone, the stained and reddened towels; and it showed the brooding and overcast faces of the men.

“Isn’t it there?” I asked.  “Our agreement was for me to carry the key to Singleton’s cabin and Burns the captain’s.”

Miss Lee, by the rail, came forward slowly, and looked up at me.

“Isn’t it possible,” she said, “that, knowing where the key was, some one wished to get it, and so—­” She indicated the tent and Burns.

I knew then.  How dull I had been, and stupid!  The men caught her meaning, too, and we tramped heavily forward, the girl and I leading.

The door into the captain’s room was open, and the axe was gone from the bunk.  The key, with the cord that Burns had worn around his neck, was in the door, the string torn and pulled as if it had been jerked away from the unconscious man.  Later on we verified this by finding, on the back of Bums’s neck an abraded line two inches or so in length.

It was a strong cord—­the kind a sailor pins his faith to, and uses indiscriminately to hold his trousers or his knife.

I ordered a rigid search of the deck, but the axe was gone.  Nor was it ever found.  It had taken its bloody story many fathoms deep into the old Atlantic, and hidden it, where many crimes have been hidden, in the ooze and slime of the sea-bottom.

That day was memorable for more than the attack on Burns.  It marked a complete revolution in my idea of the earlier crimes, and of the criminal.

Two things influenced my change of mental attitude.  The attack on Burns was one.  I did not believe that Turner had strength enough to fell so vigorous a man, even with the capstan bar which we found lying near by.  Nor could he have jerked and broken the amberline.  Mrs. Johns I eliminated for the same reason, of course.  I could imagine her getting the key by subtlety, wheedling the impressionable young sailor into compliance.  But force!