Late in the day an officer whose beat included the ferry landing at Hoboken said he had seen the three. Everything had looked all right to him. It was the motherly face of the one and the benign countenance of the other that had blinded him.
At midnight Jones, haggard and with the air of one beaten, returned home.
"No wireless yet?" asked Norton.
"The George Washington of the North German Lloyd does not answer. Something has happened to her wires; tampered with, possibly."
"So long as we know they are at sea, we can remedy the evil. They will not be able to land at a single port. I have sent ten cables. They can't get away from the wire. If I could only get hold of the names of those damnable doctors who signed that document! Twenty years."
Jones bent his head in his hands, and Norton tramped the floor till the sound of his footsteps threatened to drive the moaning Susan into hysterics.
"It is only a matter of a few days."
"But can the child stand the terrors?" questioned Jones. "Who knows that they may not really drive her insane?"
On board the George Washington every one felt extremely sorry for this beautiful girl. It was a frightful misfortune to be so stricken at her age.
"She is certainly insane," said one of the passengers, who had known Hargreave slightly through some banking business. "Hargreave wasn't married. He lived alone."