"Why not the purser and captain, while he's about it?" Jocelyn said coolly. "Every one on this boat seems to have got the nerves. They searched my stateroom this morning."
"Searched your stateroom?" she repeated. "Do you mean while you were out?"
"Not a bit of it," he replied. "They dragged me up at half-past eight this morning—the captain, purser and a steward—fetched up my trunk and searched all my possessions."
"What for?" she asked, with a sudden chill.
He smiled at her reassuringly. "Something they didn't find! Something," he added, after a slight pause, "which they never will find!"
Towards midday, Jocelyn Thew abandoned a game of shuffleboard, and, leaning against the side of the vessel, gazed steadily up at the wireless operating room. The lightnings had been playing around the mast for the last ten minutes without effect. He turned towards one of the ship's officers who was passing.
"Anything gone wrong with the wireless?" he enquired.
"The operator's ill, sir," was the prompt reply. "We've only one on board, as it happens, so we are rather in a mess."
Jocelyn strolled away aft, considering the situation. He found
Crawshay seated in an elaborate deck chair and immersed in a novel.
"I hear the wireless has gone wrong," he remarked, stopping in front of him.