gone, indeed, whoever may have it. But there's no go in this matter at all," he added, with a short, nervous laugh.
We were talking in this fashion when the Major joined us; his features were now composed. He gazed sternly at the captain and said, loftily:—
"What steps are you prepared to take in this matter?"
"None, sir."
His face darkened. He looked with a bright gleam in his eyes at the captain, then at me: his gaze was piercing with the light in it. Without a word he stepped to the side and, folding his arms, stood motionless.
I glanced at the captain; there was something in the bearing of the Major that gave shape, vague indeed, to a suspicion that had cloudily hovered about my thoughts of the man for some time past. The captain met my glance, but he did not interpret it.
When I was relieved at four o'clock by the second mate, I entered my berth, and presently, hearing the captain go to his cabin, went to him and made a proposal. He reflected, and then answered:—
"Yes; get it done."
"The carpenter went to work."
After some talk I went forward and told the carpenter to step aft and bore a hole in the bulkhead that separated the Major's berth from mine. He took the necessary tools from his chest. and followed me. The captain was the now again on deck, talking with Major; in fact, detaining him in conversation, as had been preconcerted. I went into the Major's berth, and quickly settled upon a spot for an eyehole. The carpenter then went to work in my cabin, and in a few minutes bored an orifice large enough to enable me to command a large portion of the adjacent interior. I swept the sawdust from the deck in the Major's berth, so that no hint should draw his attention to the hole, which was pierced in a corner shadowed by a shelf. I then told the carpenter to manufacture a plug and paint its extremity of the colour of the bulkhead. He brought me this plug in a quarter of an hour. It fitted nicely, and was to be withdrawn and inserted as noiselessly as though greased.
I don't want you to suppose this Peeping-Tom scheme was at all to my taste, albeit my own proposal; but the truth is, the Major's telling us that someone had stolen his diamond made all who lived aft hotly eager to find out whether he spoke the truth or not; for, if he had been really robbed of the stone, then suspicion properly rested upon the officers and the steward, which was an infernal consideration: dishonouring and inflaming enough to drive one to seek a remedy in even a baser device than that of secretly keeping watch on a man in his bedroom. Then, again, the captain told me that the Major, whilst they talked when the carpenter was at work making the hole, had said he would give notice of his loss to the police at Cape Town (at which place we were to touch), and declared he'd take care no man went ashore—from Captain North himself down to the youngest apprentice—till every individual, every sea-chest, every locker, drawer, shelf and box, bunk, bracket and crevice had been searched by qualified rummagers.
On this the day of the theft, nothing more was said about the diamond: that is, after the captain had emphatically informed Major Hood that he meant to take no steps whatever in the matter. I had expected to find the Major sullen and silent at
