"This paper is the kind they use for printing money on!"
We stared at him, but he volunteered nothing further, having again bent over his search. For several minutes we watched in silence. Then he sat up with a snap, as a steel spring might be released.
"The man who made this bomb made my counterfeit bank note," he cried.
"Just so," he continued eagerly. "The bomb is a hurried affair, impromptu, constructed of materials happening to be at hand when needed. That necessity, we assume, arose within the last few hours, since we have been in these waters but shortly. Here is a piece of the wrapper. You make nothing of it, yet to my experienced knowledge I see the identical paper on which my money is printed. The counterfeiter, possessing a good resisting paper and suddenly desiring to make a bomb, employs it. So much for so much! Now we have him a bomb-maker and a counterfeiter;--then we shall eliminate the anarchist!"
"Because a counterfeiter of such skill--and this engraving is the work of a master--implies long and intense application; therefore a secluded life rather than one of following the red flag. Moreover, an anarchist would be tempted into this risk, such as tried upon us, only to destroy someone of great importance--which I may conclude no one of us is. And irrespective of these reasons counterfeiters do not sympathize with anarchy. The psychology of each must be diametric, for if there is no government to make money there is no money to counterfeit. So the anarchist in our case lacks motive, but the other finds it if he suspects us of knowing his secret. So much for so much. Do we know any counterfeiter's secret? No. Then a final theory: the placer of this bomb has mistaken us for an enemy--he thinks we are whom we are not!"
"But he does suspect us of knowing it," Tommy exclaimed, "or why did he tell the waiter Jack was a detective?"
The professor, obviously disappointed, turned again to the bomb that was fast reaching a state of _déshabille_--if bombs can be said to reach that state.
"You assume this to be the work of people on that yacht," he said, with a touch of annoyance. "Can you sustain that theory?"
"But the voice," I challenged. "Don't you suppose I recognized it?"