"Much obliged, Mr. Merton," said he. "We're like a couple of terriers after the same rat, and as long as we get him that's all that matters. You've had your go and now I'm going to have a little go." He laughed genially, but it was clear enough that when he said two terriers, he meant one terrier at a time, and I accepted the situation frankly. "Right you are," I said. "I'll take a breather while you go in and finish him off. Only of course if you want me to lend a hand, here I am, with nothing else to do." He seemed distinctly relieved by this declaration and grew more friendly than ever. "Well now to come to business," he said. "I must tell you frankly in the first place, Mr. Merton, that there were some things in your story last time you were here that I didn't know just how much to believe in. The most truthful people sometimes imagine the queerest things. If you'd had my experience, Mr. Merton, you'd feel just the same about a tale like yours. But now I know you and know what's been happening here, and particularly what's happened yesterday, it's a different story. Do you mind just telling me in your own words about what you saw last time and anything you've noticed this trip?" My opinion of Mr. Bolton's shrewdness continued to rise as I noticed his close attention to my tale and how much to the point his questions were. Every now and then he stopped me while he made a jotting in a fat little brown leather pocket book, and at the end he observed. "Well, Mr. Merton, it's a queer case but I daresay I may be able to throw a bit of light on things before I've done." I wondered very much, and from the look on his face I do not believe for a moment that he saw a single blink of light at that time. "And now," said he, "coming to this explosion, I don't want to hear anything more about the flames and smoke and such like. All that is for the Navy people. It doesn't come under the head of my department, Mr. Merton; but this buying of stuff ashore and taking parcels aboard the ship, that does come under it. In fact that's what I'm up here to investigate, for it's pretty clear even to a man like me that knows nothing of ships that any one on this island couldn't swim out and hold a match to a ship o' war and blow her up that way! If it _was_ done from here, it must have been by one of those parcels." "Obviously," I agreed. "And I also agree that it's for the experts to decide whether a bomb could be slipped into a paper parcel of butter or a large cheese, or anything else they bought; and for you simply to find out exactly what was bought and who sold it." "A paper parcel of butter and a large cheese," he repeated. "Did you happen to see any of those things being sold yourself?" "I happened to pass some blue jackets who had just bought them."