Hope does not readily desert the human breast. After the first numbing impact of any shock, we most of us have a tendency to try to persuade ourselves that things may not be so bad as they seem. Some explanation, we feel, will be forthcoming shortly, putting the whole matter in a different light. And so, after a few moments during which he stood petrified, muttering some of the comments which on the face of it the situation seemed to demand, Soapy cheered up a little. He had had, he reflected, no opportunity of private speech with his host this morning. If Mr. Carmody had decided to change his plans and deposit the suitcase in some other hiding place he might have done so in quite good faith without Soapy's knowledge. For all he knew, in mentally labelling Mr. Carmody as a fat, pop-eyed, crooked, swindling, pie-faced, double-crossing Judas, he might be doing him an injustice. Feeling calmer, though still anxious, he left the house and started toward the moat. Half-way down the garden, he encountered Sturgis, returning with an empty tray. "You must have misunderstood Mr. Carmody, sir," said the butler, genially, as one rabbit fancier to another. "He says he did not ask for any drink. But he came ashore and had it. If you're looking for him, you will find him in the boathouse." And in the boathouse Mr. Carmody was, lolling at his ease on the cushions of the punt, sipping the contents of a long glass. "Hullo," said Mr. Carmody. "There you are." Soapy descended the steps. What he had to say was not the kind of thing a prudent man shouts at long range. "Say!" said Soapy in a cautious undertone. "I've been trying to get a word with you all the morning. But that darned policeman was around all the time." "Something on your mind?" said Mr. Carmody affably. "I've caught two perch, a bream, and a grayling," he added, finishing the contents of his glass with a good deal of relish. Such was the condition of Soapy's nervous system that he very nearly damned the perch, the bream, and the grayling, in the order named. But he checked himself in time. If ever, he felt, there was a moment when diplomacy was needed, this was it. "Listen," he said, "I've been thinking." "Yes?" "I've been wondering if, after all, that closet you were going to put the stuff in is a safe place. Somebody might be apt to take a look in it. Maybe," said Soapy, tensely, "that occurred to you?" "What makes you think that?" "It just crossed my mind." "Oh? I thought perhaps you might have been having a look in that cupboard yourself." Soapy moistened his lips, which had become uncomfortably dry. "But you locked it, surely?" he said. "Yes, I locked it," said Mr. Carmody. "But it struck me that after you had got the butler out of the way by telling him to bring me a drink, you might have thought of breaking the door open."