Conversation at breakfast was confined to the topic. No halfpenny
paper, however many times its circulation might exceed that of any
penny morning paper, ever propounded so fascinating and puzzling a
breakfast-table problem. It was the utter impossibility of detecting
the culprits that appealed to the schools. They had swooped down like
hawks out of the night, and disappeared like eels into mud, leaving no
traces.

Jimmy Silver, of course, had no doubts.

"It was those Kay's men," he said. "What does it matter about
evidence? You've only got to look at 'em. That's all the evidence you
want. The only thing that makes it at all puzzling is that they did
nothing worse. You'd naturally expect them to slay the sentry, at any
rate."

But the rest of the camp, lacking that intimate knowledge of the
Kayite which he possessed, did not turn the eye of suspicion towards
the Eckleton lines. The affair remained a mystery. Kennedy, who never
gave up a problem when everybody else did, continued to revolve the
mystery in his mind.

"I shouldn't wonder," he said to Silver, two days later, "if you were
right."

Silver, who had not made any remark for the last five minutes, with
the exception of abusive comments on the toughness of the meat which
he was trying to carve with a blunt knife for the tent, asked for an
explanation. "I mean about that row the other night."