The Captain nodded.
“I am coming down to dinner to-night,” he announced, “and shall hope to find you in your places. What the mischief are you hanging about for, Brown?” he asked, turning to the steward, who was standing by with a carpet-sweeper in his hand.
“Room wants cleaning out badly, sir.”
The Captain glanced distastefully at the carpet-sweeper.
“Do it when I am at dinner, then,” he ordered, “and take that damned thing away.”
The steward obeyed promptly. Quest and Harris followed him down the deck.
“Queer-looking fellow, that,” the latter remarked. “Doesn’t seem quite at his ease, does he?”
“Seemed a trifle over-anxious, I thought, when he was showing us round the ship,” Quest agreed.
“M-m,” Harris murmured softly, “as the gentleman who wrote the volume of detective stories I am reading puts it, we’d better keep our eye on Brown.”…
The Captain, who was down to dinner unusually early, rose to welcome Quest’s little party and himself arranged the seats.