“I did my best, sir,” the man answered, “but they seemed to take a particular fancy to that one. I couldn’t get them off it nohow.”
“Did they know,” Mr. Sabin asked carelessly, “that the room opposite was occupied?”
“Yes, sir,” the man answered. “I told them that you were in number twelve, and that you used this as a dressing-room, but they wouldn’t shift. It was very foolish of them, too, for they wanted two, one each; and they could just as well have had them together.”
“Just as well,” Mr. Sabin remarked quietly. “Thank you, John. Don’t let them know I have spoken to you about it.”
“Certainly not, sir.”
Mr. Sabin walked upon deck. As he passed the smoke-room he saw Mr. Watson stretched upon a sofa with a cigar in his mouth. Mr. Sabin smiled to himself, and passed on.
The evening promenade on deck after dinner was quite a social event on board the Calipha. As a rule the captain and Mr. Sabin strolled together, none of the other passengers, notwithstanding Mr. Sabin’s courtesy towards them, having yet attempted in any way to thrust their society upon him. But to-night, as he had half expected, the captain had already a companion. Mrs. Watson, with a very becoming wrap around her head, and a cigarette in her mouth, was walking by his side, chatting gaily most of the time, but listening also with an air of absorbed interest to the personal experiences which her questions provoked. Every now and then, as they passed Mr. Sabin, sometimes walking, sometimes gazing with an absorbed air at the distant chaos of sea and sky, she flashed a glance of invitation upon him, which he as often ignored. Once she half stopped and asked him some slight question, but he answered it briefly standing on one side, and the captain hurried her on. It was a stroke of ill-fortune, he thought to himself, the coming of these two people. He had had a clear start and a fair field; now he was suddenly face to face with a danger, the full extent of which it was hard to estimate. For he could scarcely doubt but that their coming was on his account. They had played their parts well, but they were secret agents of the German police. He smoked his cigar leisurely, the object every few minutes of many side glances and covert smiles from the delicately attired little lady, whose silken skirts, daintily raised from the ground, brushed against him every few minutes as she and her companion passed and repassed. What was their plan of action? he wondered. If it was simply to be assassination, why so elaborate an artifice? and what worse place in the world could there be for anything of the sort than the narrow confines of a small steamer? No, there was evidently something more complex on hand. Was the woman brought as a decoy? he wondered; did they really imagine him capable of being dazzled or fascinated by any woman on the earth? He smiled softly at the thought, and the sight of that smile lingering upon his lips brought her to a standstill. He heard suddenly the swish of her skirt, and her soft voice in his ear. Lower down the deck the captain’s broad shoulders were disappearing, as he passed on the way to the engineers’ room for his nightly visit of inspection.
“You have not made a single effort to rescue me,” she said reproachfully; “you are most unkind.”
Mr. Sabin lifted his cap, and removed the cigar from his teeth.