Stone rose. He wanted to address the spear first. “Thank you, Your Lordship. Captain Beane, have you had occasion to go aboard other yachts at English Harbour?”
“On many occasions,” the officer replied.
“Did any of them have knives aboard?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did all of them have knives aboard?”
“I suppose so.”
“Did any of them have spear guns aboard?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“So knives and spear guns are quite commo
n, if not universal equipment aboard yachts, are they not?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Did you find any specific evidence that the spear or any of the knives aboard the yacht Expansive was used in the commission of a murder?”
“Well, no.”
“No blood on the spear or any of the knives?”
“No.”
“No blood on the decks?”
“Well, blood could have been washed off.”
“Did you find any evidence that blood had been washed off anything?”
“No.”
“Then what made you conclude that a murder had taken place at all?”
“Oh, the diary,” the captain replied. “I found the diary very incriminating.”
“Have you read the diaries of any other men besides Paul Manning?”
“One or two.”
“Were they written in the third person?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Mr. Manning’s diary was written to say, ‘He did or she did,’ not ‘I did,’ is that not so?”
“That is so.”
“So it was written in the third person?”
“Ah, yes, I see. Yes, the third person.”
“Were any of the other diaries you read written in the third person? Or were they written in the first person, where the diarist describes himself as ‘I’?”