Part 47 (1/2)

”Oh, yes, sir----”

”Wait a moment. Has he any friends or relatives on board?”

”Not that I know, sir.”

”Oh, no friends, eh? No ladies who wear white serge skirts and white shoes and stockings?”

”No, sir, not as I knows of.”

”Oh! Suppose you step across to his door, knock, and ask him if he rang. And, if the door is opened, take a quick slant at the room.”

”Very good, sir.”

Neeland, his door at the crack, watched the steward cross the corridor and knock at the door of Mr. Herbert Hawks.

”Well, what iss it?” came a heavy voice from within.

”Mr. 'Awks, sir, did you ring?”

”No, I did not.”

”Oh, beg pardon, sir----”

The steward was starting to return to Neeland, but that young man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the pa.s.sage creak open a little way, then close again, stealthily.

He possessed his soul in patience, believing that Mr. Hawks or his fair friend in the white skirt had merely taken a preliminary survey of the pa.s.sage and perhaps also of his closed door. But the vigil was vain; the door did not reopen; no sound came from the stateroom across the pa.s.sageway.

To make certain that the owner of the white shoes and stockings did not leave that stateroom without his knowledge, he opened his door with many precautions and left it on the crack, stretching a rubber band from k.n.o.b to bolt, so that the wind from the open port in the pa.s.sage should not blow it shut. Then, drawing his curtain, he sat down to wait.

He had a book, one of those s...o...b..ring American novels which serve up falsehood thickly b.u.t.tered with righteousness and are consumed by the morally sterilised.

And, as he smoked he read; and, as he read he listened. One eye always remained on duty; one ear was alert; he meant to see who was the owner of the white shoes if it took the remainder of the voyage to find out.

The book aided him as a commonplace accompaniment aids a soloist--alternately boring and exasperating him.

It was an ”uplift” book, where the heroine receives whacks with patient smiles. Fate boots her from pillar to post and she blesses Fate and is much obliged. That most deadly reproach to degenerate human nature--the accidental fact of s.e.x--had been so skilfully extirpated from those pages that, like chaste amoebae, the characters merely multiplied by immaculate subdivision; and millions of lineal descendants of the American Dodo were made gleeful for $1.50 net.

It was hard work waiting, harder work reading, but between the two and a cigarette now and then Neeland managed to do his sentry go until dinner time approached and the corridors resounded with the trample of the hungry.

The stewardess reappeared a little later and returned to him his handkerchief and the following information:

Mr. Hawks, it appeared, travelled with a trained nurse, whose stateroom was on another deck. That nurse was not in her stateroom, but a similar handkerchief was, scented with similar perfume.

”You're a wonder,” said Neeland, placing some more sovereigns in her palm and closing her fingers over them. ”What is the nurse's name?”

”Miss White.”

”Very suitable name. Has she ever before visited Herr--I mean _Mr._--Hawks in his stateroom?”