“It’s something like this.” Cynthia took the pencil out of her pocket and made a little diagram on a blank page of her note book. “It had an orange moon and a tower, rather medieval, dark blue against it. Then there was a jiggley border of green, in this manner.”
The steward with something in his hand, stood in the doorway. Mr. Carruthers rose and brought in a suitcase, not the black one, but a small, light-tan airplane case. He turned it around so that all might see the Ottawa label, exactly as Cynthia had sketched it.
“We were in Ottawa a few weeks ago,” he explained, “and I remembered this label on our bag. You see,” he turned to Cynthia, “this man is wanted in Canada for jewel stealing. The police of Ottawa had wired the police of New York to watch for him on any boat leaving port within the next few days. I believe he has sailed on this line before, but we have to be awfully sure before we can make an arrest. The publicity, if the man were innocent, would be unpleasant for the steamship company.”
“I’ll go and make the arrest myself.” The Captain departed, taking the purser with him.
Stasia, who had been quiet as a mouse all this time, prodded her father with a finger. “Daddy, tell Cynthia the rest of it.”
“Oh yes ... ah,” Mr. Carruthers cleared his throat. “A hum ... we are extremely grateful to you ladies, Miss Wanstead, and Miss Mitchall. It would have been awkward if he had escaped by our line. Of course you understand that there is a reward for information leading to his arrest. And I think we can say that the reward will be yours if this is Goncourt, as we now fully believe.”
“And to think that it really was Goncourt and that he has been in that cabin all the week,” thrilled Miss Mitchall for the hundredth time.
Cynthia grinned. “And to think of your suggesting the twin business, of your knowing it was a Canadian accent. That was really as important as the sketch. You see he got the scar in Ottawa, when he made a big haul of some jewels, about a year ago, and then he went to Quebec and did the same thing. But then he used the picture of a twin brother on his passport and covered the scar with a muffler when he came on board. I suppose he was afraid to go out of his cabin very much.”
“How like a Wallace novel!”