And then there began for me a time of irritating suspense. Not a sign of Jim did I see for the whole of that day and the following night. His cabin door had been locked since I went in before breakfast, and I didn’t even know whether he was inside or not. All I did know was that something was doing, and there are few things more annoying than being out of a game that you know is being played. Afterward I realized that it was unavoidable; but at the time I cursed inwardly and often.
And the strange thing is that when the thing did occur it came with almost as much of a shock to me as if I had had no previous suspicions. It was the suddenness of it, I think—the suddenness and the absolute absence of any fuss or shouting. Naturally I didn’t see the thing in its entirety; my outlook was limited to what happened to me and in my own vicinity.
I suppose it was about half-past eleven, and I was strolling up and down the deck. Midday had been the time mentioned, and I was feeling excited and restless. Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter were seated in their usual place, and I stopped and spoke a few words to them. Usually Mrs. Armstrong was the talker of the two—a big, gaunt woman with yellow spectacles, but pleasant and homely. This morning, however, the daughter answered—and her mother, who had put on a veil in addition to the spectacles, sat silently beside her.
“Poor mother has such a headache from the glare that she has had to put on a veil,” she said. “I hope Mr. Maitland is better.”
I murmured that he was about the same, just as two of the parsons strolled past and I wondered why the girl gave a little laugh. Then suddenly she sat up, with a cry of admiration.
“Oh, look at that lovely yacht!”
I swung around quickly, and there, sure enough, about a hundred yards from us and just coming into sight around the awning, was a small steam yacht, presumably the one from which Ferdinand was to wave. And at that moment the shorter of the two parsons put a revolver within an inch of my face, while the other one ran his hands over my pockets. It was so unexpected that I gaped at him foolishly, and even when I saw my Colt flung overboard I hardly realized that the big holdup had begun.
Then there came a heavy thud from just above us, and I saw Jenkins, the wireless man, pitch forward on his face half in and half out of his cabin door. He lay there sprawling, while another of the parsons proceeded to wreck his instruments with the iron bar which he had used to stun the operator. Just then, with a squawk of terror like an anguished hen, Mrs. Armstrong rose to her feet, and with her pink parasol in one hand and her rug in the other fled toward the bow of the ship. She looked so irresistibly funny—this large, hysterical woman—that I couldn’t help it, I laughed. And even the two determined-looking parsons smiled, though not for long.