She supposed he belonged to one of two ships that had arrived in
harbour the day before. She saw nothing of his face to remember; his
jacket-collar being turned up against the snow, and the flaps of his
fur cap pulled down over his ears."
I asked: "Did the man's chest tell nothing when you came to examine
it?" Melhuish said: "Nothing at all. It was full of new clothes,
and very good clothes; but they had no mark upon them, and, besides
the clothes, there was not so much as a scrap of paper."
He went on: "About two weeks later there called a clerk from the
factory to claim the chest, the firm having acted as Mr. Shand's
agents. He was a foreign-looking man, and older than most of the
clerks employed by Davis and Atchison--which was the firm's name.
He gave his own name as Martin. He had been sent over from Carbonear
about ten days before to teach the factory a new way of treating
seal-pelts by means of chemicals. We learnt afterwards that he
earned good wages. He had brought two hands from the factory to
carry the chest, which we gave up to him as soon as he presented a
letter from Mr. Hughes, the firm's chief agent. He said: 'Is this
all you have?' And we said, 'Yes.' We Kept quiet about the map,
which we had examined, but could not make head nor tail of it.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200