J. S. Fletcher

“ CHAPTER XI THE FISH BAG For all my recent experiences, I was not yet up to the subtle workings of the detective mind, and when Cherry said this I turned and stared at him in blank wonder.
“The boat?” I exclaimed. “Why, what of it? And which boat, Mr. Cherry?”
“There’s only one boat in question, my lad!” he answered. “The boat that Tom Scripture says he saw drawn up on the beach at Fliman’s End. ”

“ Who?”
“Tom Scripture said nothing about seeing any man in the boat, or about it,” said I. “If there’d been a man in charge of it——”
“Scripture mayn’t have seen him—evidently didn’t see him,” he interrupted. “The man may have been sitting in the boat, waiting until Krevin went down to him—he even may have been lying down in the boat, asleep. But that’s how I figure it, Ben—somebody took a boat to Fliman’s End that morning to meet Uncle Joseph and took Uncle Joseph away from Fliman’s End in that boat, and that somebody must have been a somebody belonging to these parts! ”

“ Cherry was collecting the shavings as he talked, and presently, having put the fish-bag in a drawer, we went downstairs, and after a word or two with Keziah, who was still in a state of high indignation at Uncle Joseph’s temerity in using her best bedroom as a receptacle for stolen goods, we went out and up to the village, Cherry being intent on finding out if they knew anything at the post office of the handwriting on the envelope which we had found in the lodgings at Calthorpe Street. ”