Part 14 (2/2)
”You mean you hope I'm not going to take you in.”
”Either way--or both: please yourself.”
”Ah!” said the little man appreciatively--”I am a deep one, ain't I?”
He laid a finger alongside his nose and looked unutterably enigmatic.
At this point they were interrupted: a man burst into the smoking-room from the deck and pulled up breathing heavily, as if he had been running, while he raked the room with quick, enquiring glances. Staff recognised Mr. Manvers, the purser, betraying every evidence of a disturbed mind. At the same moment, Manvers caught sight of the pair in the corner and made for them.
”Mr. Ismay--” he began, halting before their table and glaring gloomily at Staff's companion.
”I beg your pardon,” said the person addressed, icily; ”my name is Iff.”
Manvers made an impatient movement with one hand. ”Iff or Ismay--it's all one to me--to you too, I fancy--”
”One moment!” snapped Iff, rising. ”If you were an older man,” he said stiffly, ”and a smaller, I'd pull your impertinent nose, sir! As things stand, I'd probably get my head punched if I did.”
”That's sound logic,” returned Manvers with a sneer.
”Well, then, sir? What do you want with me?”
Manvers changed his att.i.tude to one of sardonic civility. ”The captain sent me to ask you if you would be kind enough to step up to his cabin,”
he said stiltedly. ”May I hope you will be good enough to humour him?”
”Most a.s.suredly,” Iff picked up his steamer-cap and set it jauntily upon his head. ”Might one enquire the cause of all this-here fl.u.s.ter?”
”I daresay the captain--”
”Oh, very well. If you won't talk, my dear purser, I'll hazard a shrewd guess--by your leave.”
The purser stared. ”What's that?”
”I was about to say,” pursued Iff serenely, ”that I'll lay two to one that the Cadogan collar has disappeared.”
Manvers continued to stare, his eyes blank with amazement. ”You've got your nerve with you, I must say,” he growled.
”Or guilty knowledge? Which, Mr. Manvers?”
A reply seemed to tremble on Manvers' lips, but to be withheld at discretion. ”I'm not the captain,” he said after a slight pause; ”go and cheek him as far as you like. And we're keeping him waiting, if I may be permitted to mention it.”
Iff turned to Staff, with an engaging smile. ”Rejecting the guilty knowledge hypothesis, for the sake of the argument,” said he: ”you'll admit I'm the only suspicious personage known to be aboard; so it's not such a wild guess--that the collar has vanished--when I'm sent for by the captain at this unearthly hour.... Lead on, Mr. Manvers,” he wound up with a dramatic gesture.
The purser nodded and turned toward the door. Staff jumped up and followed the pair.
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