open it at all?”
“We just unfastened it together, sir, to be sure no mistake had been made this time. The man said it was all right, and he strapped it up again and took it away.”
“What was inside? Boots also?”
“No, sir, mostly toilet things, I fancy. I know I saw a tin of bath salts.”
Tommy abandoned that line of research.
“You never saw anyone tampering with anything in your master’s cabin on board ship, I suppose?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Never anything suspicious of any kind?”
“And what do I mean by that, I wonder,” he thought to himself with a trace of amusement. “Anything suspicious—just words!”
But the man in front of him hesitated.
“Now that I remember it—”
“Yes,” said