"Well, I'm jiggered!" he said, when the list was concluded. "I could
have sworn that the cargo was right according to the manifest. Well,
Captain, all I can say is, if that 'ere list be correct, the best
thing you can do is to send me adrift as a blind fool. I have kept my
tallies as correct as I could, and I thought I had marked down every
package that has left the ship, and here they must have been passing
out pretty nigh in cart-loads under my very eyes, and I knew nothing
about it."
"I don't blame you, John, more than I blame myself. I am generally
about on deck, and had no more idea that the cargo was being meddled
with than you had. I have been wrong in letting matters go on so long
without taking stock of them and seeing that it was all right; but I
never saw the need for it. This is what comes of taking to a trade
you know nothing about; we have just been like two children, thinking
that it was all plain and above board, and that we had nothing to do
but to sell our goods and to fill up again when the hold got empty.
Well, it is of no use talking over that part of the business. What we
have got to do is to find out this leak and stop it. We are pretty
well agreed, Cyril and me, that the things don't go out of the shop
by daylight. The question is, how do they go out at night?"
"I always lock up the hatches according to orders, Captain."
"Yes, I have no doubt you do, John; but maybe the fastenings have
been tampered with. The only way in which we see it can have been
managed is that someone has been in the habit of getting over the
wall between the yard and the lane, and then getting into the
warehouse somehow.
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