“I thought I gave orders not to say anything about this matter,” said the captain severely, an angry frown wrinkling his forehead.
“I haven’t been talking about it. I merely asked Mr. Belford if the coat was his. I didn’t tell him about the nails.”
“Who was with you when you found the nails?”
“Nobody, sir.”
“Nobody! Then how do I know that you really found them in the coat? What was to prevent you from putting them in the coat yourself and then bringing it to me, to throw suspicion on Black?”
Poor Henry! For a moment he looked heart-broken. Then he became indignant. “Captain Hardwick,” he cried, “do you think I would do a trick like that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” replied the commander. “The fact that you found two finishing nails in Black’s coat doesn’t prove anything. There may be a dozen other coats on this ship with similar nails in them. Don’t you see that it is one thing to assert something and quite another to prove it? This is likely Black’s coat, though you haven’t proved even that. But it doesn’t follow that Black put the nails in his coat. Somebody else may have done it, even if you didn’t.”
