There was a noise outside. Bess jumped nervously. She was scared, too. Then Laura spoke, and Nan gave up all thought of revealing, at the present at least, what little she knew about the things that were happening.
CHAPTER XVII
NAN PUZZLES OVER HER SECRET
“I wonder if your hunchback is the mysterious passenger everyone is talking about,” Laura said thoughtfully, when she was convinced that Nan was not going to speak.
“I never thought of that!” This from Rhoda. “But it all fits together perfectly. They say he never appears at the table for his meals and that he has his own servants to take care of him.”
“Yes,” Bess contributed, “a steward told the stewardess and the stewardess told me that no one of the ship’s crew has been in that cabin since the boat left dock.”
“It must have been the same stewardess,” Laura picked up the story, “who told me that nothing has gone right in this end of the ship since he came in. She says there has been trouble, trouble all the while. She’s a superstitious old soul. She thinks he has cast a spell over everything around here.” Laura’s voice was a half whisper as she imparted her information.
“Well, you’d think so too, if you had seen him,” Grace whispered too. “I don’t see why in the world they ever let him get a passport and get on the ship.”
“Oh, I heard somebody say today,” Amelia supplied, as Grace’s statement recalled the conversation to her mind, “that he came up the gang-plank in New York behind the queerest looking outfit he’d ever seen in all the times he has crossed the ocean.