Nor could she get up and look for the first officer. While she was gone the man in the motor boat might slip out and escape. Ruth did not propose to put herself a second time in a position where her word might be doubted.
While she remained in her chair the person hiding in the boat would surely not come out. She did not wish to send a message to Mr. Dowd in such a way that her motive for bringing him here would be suspected.
The first officer was not on the bridge; so it was not his watch on duty. Ruth beckoned a deck steward, tipped him, and requested him to bring her a pencil, a sheet of paper, and envelope from the ship’s writing room. She was taking no chances with a verbal message.
The man fulfilled her request. Meanwhile nobody else seemed to notice the man peering out from the canvas cover of the motor boat. Indeed, the fellow had disappeared now and was lying quiet.
Ruth penciled the following sentences on the paper: “There is a stowaway in the small motor boat forward of where I am sitting. I will not move until you can come and investigate. R. F.”
She sealed this in the envelope, doing it all in her lap so that she could not be observed from the boat. Then she wrote Mr. Dowd’s name upon the envelope.
The steward came back and she whispered to him to take the note to Mr. Dowd and deliver it into the first officer’s own hand—to nobody else. As the man started away Ruth for some reason turned her head.
Across the deck stood Irma Lentz. Her black eyes flashed into Ruth’s, and the woman seemed about to start toward her. Then she wheeled and swiftly went forward.
Had she seen the letter Ruth had sent to the chief officer? Did she suspect to whom Ruth had written—and the object of the note? And, above all, did she suspect that Ruth had discovered the man hiding in the motor boat?