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Updated: May 23, 2025
lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt-end of a green cheque-book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself delighted.
All he could do was to utter one word, "Brandy." It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging the boom as it once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft and down the companion-stairs into the cabin. It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the lock-fast places had been broken open in quest of the chart.
At this moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned.
So they stepped together into the parlour, which was a very fine room, papered and hung with prints, and furnished with a rocking-chair, and a table and a sofa in the European style. There was a shelf of books besides, and a family Bible in the midst of the table, and the lock-fast writing desk against the wall; so that anyone could see it was the house of a man of substance.
Scattered about here and there were other things that brought her memory painfully back to him; that hurt him with their familiarity; that caused him to lift them up and hold them with a sort of despairing wonder: her guitar, her worn, lock-fast desk; the old gilt photograph album he remembered so well. He sat down at the table and buried his face in his hands. What a fool he had been!
For it seems he had observed the place where Kalamake kept his treasure, which was a lock-fast desk against the parlour wall, under the print of Kamehameha the Fifth, and a photograph of Queen Victoria with her crown; and it seems again that, no later than the night before, he found occasion to look in, and behold! the bag lay there empty.
But the man who enters a sale-room with the knowledge that he can have everything he wishes by the signing of a cheque feels none of these emotions. It seems to me that money has lost more than half its value since cheques became common. When men kept their gold in iron coffers, lock-fast cupboards, or a pot buried in an orchard, there was something tangible in wealth.
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