Fay jerked a door open and helped the girl inside. She sank back on shiny leather cushions and breathed a long sigh of relief. She was glancing at herself in a mirror when the guard came along for the tickets. Fay asked him concerning the boat which met the
train. It would be there, the guard explained with many gestures, but its first port of call was Christiansand instead of Stavanger.
Fay nodded his head. The guard closed the door. The trip, with Saidee Isaacs huddled into one corner of the compartment, her eyes closed and her hat down over her face, was made without accident. Now and then Fay peered out at the landscape. It was mostly lowland and dykes and the ever-prevailing windmills which seemed so characteristic of Holland.
Delfzijl was reached just before dawn, and this allowed ample time to connect with the boat. Fay purchased clean linen and gloves for the girl and himself. They went up the gangplank of the Romsdal—a North Sea and Skagerrack boat with impossible cuisine and soiled cabins.
Hurtled northward, the passage took all the day and the better portion of the following night. The few passengers were totally uninteresting. Fay spoke to all of them. He had difficulty in making himself understood. One, only, a commercial traveler out of England, named Fairhold, showed interest in the cracksman’s questions.
He boxed the events since the signing of peace like a mariner going over the compass points. He showed the trend of affairs commercial. He dwelt, in his heavy, drawling voice, on traffic and trafficking—on the silent embargo against all things German—on the bitter needs of the North Countries in cotton and rubber and wool.
Fay led to the dye question and received a blank
stare. The man, who proved to be from Nottingham, did not handle print-goods or calicos or hosiery. Not handling them, he knew nothing about them. He explained confidentially that he was interested solely in brass hair-pins and wire-goods. Fay saw no reason at all for keeping this a deep secret.
“That hair-pin drummer,� he told Saidee Isaacs as he knocked on the door of her cabin and was admitted, “says there’s a train to Stavanger which goes at daylight. He also declares that the big boats leave Arendal for the States. What shall we do? Perhaps we’ll find Harry Raymond at Arendal instead of Stavanger.�
“Can we try both?� she asked.