‘What did he say?’ ‘He told us once not to toboggan down the deck on them,’ put in Emily uncomfortably. ‘Was that all?’ ‘He shouldn’t have talked about drawers,’ said Rachel. ‘Don’t _you_ talk about them, then,’ cried Edward: ‘Smarty!’ ‘Miss Fernandez,’ said the lawyer diffidently, ‘have you anything to add to that?’ ‘What?’ ‘Well ... what we are talking about.’ She looked from one person to another, but said nothing. ‘I don’t want to press you for details,’ he said gently, ‘but did they ever--well, make suggestions to you?’ Emily fixed her glowing eyes on Margaret, catching hers. ‘It’s no good questioning Margaret,’ said the Aunt morosely; ‘but it ought to be perfectly clear to you what has happened.’ ‘Then I am afraid I must,’ said Mr. Mathias. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ Mrs. Thornton had for some while been frowning and pursing her lips, to stop him. ‘Another time would be much better,’ she said: and Mr. Mathias turned the examination back to the capture of the _Clorinda_. But they seemed to have been strangely unobservant of what went on around them, he found. v When the others had all gone, Mathias offered Thornton, whom he liked, a cigar: and the two sat together for a while over the fire. ‘Well,’ said Thornton, ‘did the interview go as you had expected?’ ‘Pretty much.’ ‘I noticed you questioned them chiefly about the _Clorinda_. But you have got all the information you need on that score, surely?’ ‘Naturally I did. Anything they affirmed I could check exactly by Marpole’s detailed affidavit. I wanted to test their reliability.’ ‘And you found?’ ‘What I have always known. That I would rather have to extract information from the devil himself than from a child.’ ‘But what information, exactly, do you want?’ ‘Everything. The whole story.’ ‘You know it.’ Mathias spoke with a dash of exasperation: ‘Do you realise, Thornton, that without considerable help from them we may even fail to get a conviction?’ ‘What is the difficulty?’ asked Thornton in a peculiar, restrained tone. ‘We could get a conviction for piracy, of course. But since ’37, piracy has ceased to be a hanging offence unless it is accompanied by murder.’ ‘And is the killing of one small boy insufficient to count as murder?’ asked Thornton in the same cold voice. Mathias looked at him curiously. ‘We can guess at the probabilities of what happened,’ he said. ‘The boy was undoubtedly taken onto the schooner; and now he can’t be found. But, strictly speaking, we have no proof that he is dead.’ ‘He may, of course, have swum across the Gulf of Mexico and landed at New Orleans.’ Thornton’s cigar, as he finished speaking, snapped in two. ‘I know this is ...’ began Mathias with professional gentleness, then had the sense to check himself. ‘I am afraid there is no doubt that we can personally entertain that the lad is dead: but there is a legal doubt: and where there is a legal doubt a jury might well refuse to convict.’