There was dismay in her eyes. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Mr. Mason, let’s go up on deck. Please stay with me.”
Mason opened the-stateroom door. They started down the corridor and were nearing the stairs when Della Street swung around the corner and almost ran into them. A cloak over her shoulders dripped rivulets of water. Beneath the edge of a beret, tendrils of hair were plastered to the sides of her head.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Chief,” she said.
“I was up on deck,” he told her, “but a man fell overboard and I came...”
“I know,” she interrupted. “Good Lord, I was frightened! You said you’d be up on the promenade deck, and I couldn’t find you. I suppose you dashed down to Mrs. Newberry?”
“Yes,” he said.
She raised her eyes to his significantly. “I wanted to see you first, Chief.”
An officer came running along the corridor. “Will the passengers kindly go to their cabins at once,” he called out, “and stay there until you’re summoned. A man’s overboard. We’re doing everything that can be done. Passengers will simply be in the way. The purser is making a roll call, to find out who’s missing.”