On the way he talked steadily and with sprightly bounce of other matters, laughing heartily, amid many jocose references. The white-panelled writing-room was deserted. He led them to an embrasure of full-glass windows, where the morning sun was muffled by thick curtains, and quiet was broken only by the pounding of the engines. Here, when they were seated, he ran a hand through his bristly hair, fidgeted, and suddenly shot into action.
"Now, I want to help you, old man," he explained, still confidentially, "but you see, it's a case of mutual benefits, you see? You're young, and you don't understand these things. But when you get older and have a wife and family, ah!" said Mr. Woodcock. He made an impressive gesture. "Then you'll understand that business isn't only a matter of favours. All right! Now, frankly, you're sort of in a jam, aren't you?"
"Shoot," said Warren briefly.
"Well then. I don't know what went on on the boat last night, that everybody's talking about; I don't want to know. It's none of my business, see? But I do know what happened yesterday afternoon. A roll of film was stolen from your cabin, wasn't it? No, no, don't answer, and don't interrupt.
"I'm going to show you," continued Mr. Woodcock, after a pause in which he demonstrated himself an admirable showman—"'m going to show you," he went on, rather sharply, "a little moving-picture of my own as to what might have happened. I don't say it did happen, y'unnastand. You wouldn't expect me to pin myself down to that, would you? I say it might have happened. All right! Now here's my little moving-picture. I'm coming along the gangway down on C deck, see? about ha'-past four yesterday afternoon, and I've just been up sending off a radio to my firm, and there's nothing on my mind. All of a sudden I hear a noise behind me when I'm passing one of those little offshoots of the gangway, and I turn around in time to see a guy ducking out of it, and across the gangway into the wash-room. All right! And I see this bozo's got a whole mess of movie film that he's trying to stuff under his coat—
"U-uh, now!" said Mr. Woodcock warningly, "don't interrupt! Well, suppose I see this guy's face so that if I haven't seen it before I'd know it again wherever I saw it; just-suppose that. I wonder what it is, but I figure it's none of my business. Still, I think there may be a angle to it, see, so I sort of go down and take a peek. But all I can see is a door sort of open and a lot of film and film-boxes scattered around on the floor; and I see a guy — maybe yourself — sort of getting up from the floor with his hands to his head.
"And I think 'Whu-o, Charley! You'd better get out of this, and not be mixed up in any trouble,' see? Besides, the guy was coming round and didn't need any help, or I'd have stopped. But then I get to thinking—"
"You mean," said Warren, rather hoarsely, "you saw who—?"
"Now go easy, old man, go easy. Let me show my picture now!"
His picture, they discovered, exhibited a sort of strange interlude in which Mr. Woodcock's memory spoke to him. Apparently he was a great hand at reading die tabloids and scandal sheets, explaining also that he was a subscriber to the magazine True Sex-Life Stories. One of the papers, it appeared, had recently published a red-hot, zippy item straight from the capital city. It was couched in the form of innuendo, inquiring what Big Shot had a nephew who could always get a job turning a camera crank in Hollywood; furthermore, was it possible that the afore-mentioned Big Shot, in a sportive mood, had been indiscreet before a camera; and, if this were within the limits of possibility, who was the woman in the case?