“Going out to the Imparada!” he said authoritatively.
The sailor hitched his trousers, turned, squinted through the sea mists, then swung the gate.
“You’ll have to hurry,” he said. “The quarantine boat is casting off her shore lines.”
Wrapped in the cloak of gray vapor, the three men crouched forward of the wheelhouse and stared out across the Narrows to where a great ship glided like a glow-worm in a garden.
They heard the quarantine boat’s bells as it maneuvered beneath the towering overhang of the giant passenger ship. They mounted a pilot’s ladder which had been lowered for the quarantine officers.
Fay whispered into an officer’s ear after he sprang over the rail. He motioned aft. Rake and Yeader, with the kit-bag, followed closely.
The two British bankers were seated at the taffrail. To them Fay told his mission, and his object of substituting himself and party, in order to discover who had slain Stephney. The bankers had already been informed of the murder. They were noncommittal. They rose from steamer chairs, studied Fay’s credentials, stared keenly at Yeader and Rake, then consulted in whispers.
“All right,” they said finally. “Come to our staterooms.”
The transformation which was made while the ship glided to her dock was thorough and startling. Fay upended Yeader’s kit-bag and sorted out its contents. He changed his appearance before the eyes of the silent Britishers. He put on goggles and borrowed a more pronounced checked cap than the one he had worn to the ship.