It was an unfortunate reference. They knew, all of them, what a shipwreck could lead to.

“What do we do with Mr. Fowler?” the first man asked dubiously. “If we bring him in, we’ll have to summon the police. Someone is bound to want to know what’s become of his money.”

“Tow him out to sea. Let him wash ashore somewhere else,” the third man said, scrabbling in the bottom of the skiff for a length of rope. This he proceeded to loop around the dead man’s neck, and then he ordered, “Pick up yon oars. I can’t row and pull at the same time, now can I?”

The first man sat where he was. “We’re towing him nowhere until there’s some understanding here. The money is evenly divided.”

“I saw him first,” the second man ventured. “Finder’s fee.”

“The hell with that,” the third man retorted. “Share and share alike, I say. And then there’s no room for one of us to feel denied and start trouble. We’re all in this together. If one must hang, we’ll all hang.”

“If I walk home today with this much money in my pocket, my wife will ask questions. What do I say, then?” the first man demanded. “She’ll start the trouble, mark my words.”

“Then don’t march home with the money stuffed in your pocket, you fool. Put it by, and use it a little at a time. You don’t go waving it about first thing. Think of your old age, or your daughter’s wedding, when a bit of the ready will come in handy. This poor devil doesn’t need pounds wherever he’s gone to, and it’s a sheer waste to let the sea have it. We’ve done nothing wrong, have we? We didn’t kill him, we didn’t leave him here to be found by a schoolboy looking to fish for his dinner, we just took what he’d got no use for. Simple as that.”

Half persuaded, the first man said, “Still, I’ve never kept a secret from my wife. That’ll take some doing.” He picked up his oar from the bottom of the skiff and put it in the water.