The captain dismissed them all with a disgusted wave of his hand and turned to the girls.
"You see how worse than useless it is to try and find out anything from such sources! I knew it would be so, but I didn't want to discourage you. Now you just leave me to myself for half an hour to smoke in peace and do a little thinking. Go and look at them unloading, or roam around and amuse yourselves in any way you like. Perhaps, if I rack my brains hard, something will occur to me."
They left him pacing up and down on the deck, puffing at his cigar, while they went to explore the great ship all over again. But the occupation, though fascinating, failed to keep their thoughts from the latest phase of the queer mystery that surrounded Cecily Marlowe.
"Do you know," said Marcia, as they stood looking down into the well of the vast engine-room, "it seems simply impossible to me to connect lovely, dainty, English Cecily with anything so oriental as China. I can't understand it. I can't imagine any connection. Can you?"
"No, I can't," admitted Janet. "And, more than that, where does Miss Benedict come in on this Chinese proposition? Nothing could be less connected with it than she! I believe she'd have a fit if she ever saw that awful-looking crowd of Chinese sailors your father had there a while ago. Did you ever see such a rascally looking lot? And poor little Cecily would be horrified!"
"I liked Lee Ching, though. He's so grave and serious and dignified. And isn't his English fascinating? I just love to hear him talk. But oh, I wish Father hadn't sent us away for half an hour! I can hardly wait for the time to pass! Let's go and look at those men on the dock unloading. Why do they make such a racket? You'd think there was a fire or something!"
So they whiled away the time, and at last, promptly on the minute, raced back to Captain Brett.
"Well?" demanded Marcia, breathless. "What now?"
"Just had a happy thought!" The captain threw the stump of his finished cigar over the rail. "I've been trying to think whom I could remember meeting in China during the past years—some responsible person who might know these people or be able to track them down. Suddenly recalled old Major Goodrich. He was an English military attaché stationed at Hong-Kong for a while, and I got to know him rather well. He was retired some years ago, and the last I heard of him he was living in this country, somewhere in Pennsylvania, with his only daughter, who happened to have married an American. If anybody were likely to know anything about this business it would be he, for he knew everybody and everything worth knowing about in Amoy at the time. I'll look up his address and write to him to-night. Now I hope that satisfies you both!"