"To-morrow, at five in the afternoon."
"Could you make an excuse to go on board in the morning alone?"
"Yes. Celestine has taken most of our things on to-day, and put them away for us. We are not supposed to leave the hotel till three o'clock. But I could say I had lost something, and hoped that I'd left it on the Bella Cuba. Or perhaps I could slip on board without saying anything until afterward. But what good would it do me? The door isn't likely to be unlocked; and I can see nothing through the keyhole. I tried this afternoon."
"I will get you a key which, if there isn't one already on the inside, will open the door."
In the night Kate Gardiner had strange dreams of the locked cabin. Twenty times in her sleep she was on the point of finding out the secret, but always woke before she had made it her own. She was up early in the morning, and went out, saying, as if carelessly, to Celestine, that she must buy a few last things which she had forgotten. In the town she met Loria, as they had arranged over-night, and he put into her hand something in a sealed envelope.
"You are sure this will do it?" she asked.
"Sure," returned the Italian.
Then they parted; Kate took a small boat and was rowed out to the Bella Cuba, which lay anchored not far from shore.
"I have come on board to look for a diamond ring which I think I dropped in my cabin yesterday," she remarked to the captain.
He turned away, all unsuspicious and Kate hurried to the saloon off which the cabins opened. Already she had broken the seal on the envelope, and taken out a small, peculiarly shaped steel implement. With a quick glance over her shoulder and a loud beating of the heart, she thrust the master-key into the lock of the closed door.