"That is mere casuistry," I replied, "but, if it pleases you to call all your things mine, of course, you will continue doing so. Whosever it is, we must do our best to recover it."
At dinner Miss May whispered to me that the stewardess had made a diligent search, but without effect. The meal passed rather dully. Miss May was pale and distraught. I sympathized with her, though the value of the lost article was not great. I wished I had some of the intuition of a Monsieur Lecoq that I might place the offence on the right person and relieve the strain I could not help feeling.
It must be one of the stewards, who were continually in and out of the adjacent rooms, or a fellow passenger. In either case something of the ease and comfort of the voyage was lost. A mosquito who enters your room at night is not as large as a lion nor on the whole quite as dangerous; but he can, if he chooses, banish sleep from your eyes.
That confounded ring made a lot of trouble. I began to suspect everybody on board. The stewardess promised to say nothing of the occurrence, and I at first followed the same course. The only one I did tell, and that the next day, was Mr. Wesson, and the contribution he made to the case was merely a depressed shake of the head and a long-drawn sigh.
CHAPTER XII.
A LITTLE GAME OF CARDS.
The reader will doubtless have come to the conclusion that I was by this time tired of my bargain and wished Miss Marjorie May had never come across my path. On the contrary I was well satisfied with the way things were going, in the main. The ocean has a charm for me that nothing else can equal. The bracing effect of the sea air was being felt in every fibre of my frame. Miss May's coolness was not of a kind to annoy me seriously, and much better than the opposite extreme would have been. There was nothing like a breach between us. She was merely allowing me to get the full benefit of my voyage.
I had never, at any time, feared that I would experience trouble in passing my time while on shipboard. My dread was of the days to be spent ashore, and for these she would be with me to divert my mind. The matter of the stolen ring was a mere incident of travel, and might have happened anywhere. The intrinsic value of the article was small. It would not be hard to replace it.
Miss May asked me the day after the ring was missed if I knew anything about her roommate. She said it in a way that showed suspicion and set me to thinking. "Miss Howes" had plenty of jewelry of her own, and was hardly likely to purloin the turquoise; but I knew her to be rather "off color," and more open to suspicion than a woman of different character. I asked Capt. Fraser, the commander of the boat, what the record of the stewardess was, without leading him to guess my object, and when he told me I dismissed all thoughts against her.