"There is not so much mystery about it as all that," said the captain, "although it isn't quite plain sailing. One of our passengers, a swell doctor, who examined the body with our ship's doctor directly after the discovery, will give you the benefit of his opinion, and I am detaining another passenger, a Mr. Majendie." "Then there is some doubt as to the servant's guilt?" I said. "I don't think so, but you shall hear the whole story." "First, we should like to see the body," said Quarles. "We might be influenced unconsciously by your tale. It is well to come to the heart of the matter with an open mind." The captain sent for the ship's doctor and a stewardess, and with them we went to the cabin, which had been kept locked. The body, which lay in the berth where it had been found, an upper berth with a porthole, had been washed and attended to by the stewardess. The lower berth had been used by the traveler for some of his clothes--they were still there, neatly folded. The dead man's trunk was on a sofa on the opposite side of the cabin, a sofa which could be made into a third berth if necessary. Except that the body had been attended to, the cabin was just as it had been found. "I took the stained sheets away," said the stewardess, "but I thought it would be wiser not to move him from the upper berth." "It is a pity he couldn't have been left just as he was," Quarles answered; "you have no doubt washed away all the evidence." He was a long time examining the wound, a particularly jagged one in the neck, a stab rather than a cut, but with something of both in it. "Has the--the knife been found?" Quarles asked. "No," answered the captain. "You hesitate in your question a little. You are certain it was a knife, I suppose?" "Yes, why do you ask?" "His man says it was a bullet." "A bullet!" and Quarles looked back at the wound. "The servant Bennett does not deny that he killed his master," said the doctor; "but he persists in saying that he had no knife." "Has a revolver been found?" I asked. "No, and no one heard any report," said the captain. "I cannot make this fellow Bennett out. He seems to me rather mad. Besides, there are one or two curious points. Would you like to hear them now?" "Please," said Quarles. With sailor-like directness the story was told in a straightforward narrative, destitute of trimmings of any kind. A steward had gone to Mr. Hardiman's cabin to take him a weak brandy-and-water; he had done the same first thing every morning during the voyage. He saw Hardiman lying with his face toward the cabin, one arm hanging over the side of the berth. There was no sign of a struggle. The clothes were not thrown back, but there was a considerable quantity of blood. Curiously enough, the porthole had been unscrewed and was open. The steward fetched Dr. Williams, the ship's doctor, who said death had probably occurred five or six hours previously, a statement Sir Robert Gibbs corroborated. There was no knife anywhere.