“What do you mean?” asked Keller sharply.
“Well,” said Bronston, “I can’t help but realise that you’ve got a selfish and a personal motive of your own for doing what you’ve just done. You’re bound to know that if the truth about us were to get out the people on this boat probably wouldn’t value your company any higher than they’d value mine—maybe not so highly as they might value mine.”
Keller sat up in bed.
“I don’t get you,” he said. “Just what do you mean by that?”
“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”
“Well, what of it?” demanded Keller. “What’s wrong with my being a private detective?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said Bronston, suddenly grown drowsy. He settled his head down in the pillow and rolled over on his side, turning his back to his roommate. “Let’s go to sleep.”
Instantly he seemed to be off; he began drawing long, heavy breaths. With a snort Keller settled down, uttering grumbled protests in an injured and puzzled tone. Presently he slept, too, with the choky snores of a very weary man.
So far as we know they both slept the sleep of travel-worn men until morning. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was flooding in [422] at the porthole when their bathroom steward knocked upon the outer panels of their door, at first softly, then more briskly. When they had roused and answered him, he told them that their baths were ready and waiting for them; also that the weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was Bronston who went first to the bathroom. He had come back, and was dressing himself when Keller, after clearing his throat several times, reopened a subject which seemingly had laid uppermost in his dormant mind while he slept.
“Say, Bronston,” he began in an aggrieved voice, “what made you say what you said just after we turned in last night—about private detectives, you know?”