He opened the brown envelope and glanced at the small sheet that it contained. “The London officer will meet us at Liverpool,” he said, as he crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. “We land at the other place first, don’t we—Fishhawk, or whatever its name is?”
“Fishguard,” Bronston told him. “Or rather, we stop off Fishguard, and tenders come out to meet us and to take off mail and passengers. Then the ship goes on to Liverpool.”
“Good enough,” said Keller. “You and me will stay right here in this stateroom until we get to Liverpool; that’ll be some time to-morrow, won’t it?”
“To-morrow afternoon, probably,” said Bronston. He went back to his writing, whistling a little tune to himself.
The precaution of the overcareful Keller proved unnecessary, because in the morning word was brought by the bathroom steward that a notice had just been posted in the gangway opposite the purser’s desk announcing that because of the roughness of the channel the liner would proceed straight to Liverpool without stopping off Fishguard at all. Nevertheless, the detective kept the stateroom door [444] locked. With land in sight he was taking no chances at all.
Since their stateroom was on the port side and the hills of Wales stood up out of the sea upon the other side, they saw nothing of Fishguard as the Mesopotamia steamed on up the choppy channel. Mainly they both were silent; each was busy with his own thoughts and speculations. Hampered in their movements by the narrow confines of their quarters they packed their large bags and their small ones, packing them with care and circumspection, the better to kill the time that hung upon their hands. Finally Bronston, becoming dissatisfied with his own bestowal of his belongings, called in the handy Lawrence to do the job all over again for him.
As the shifting view through their porthole presently told them, they left the broad channel for the twistywise river. The lightships which dot the Mersey above its mouth, like street-lamps along a street, were sliding by when Lawrence knocked upon the door to ask if the luggage was ready for shore. He was told to return in a few minutes; but instead of going away he waited outside in the little corridor.
“Well,” said Keller, “I guess we’d better be getting up on deck, hadn’t we?” He glanced sidewise at the shiny steel cuffs, which he had fished out from an ulster pocket and which lay upon the rumpled covers of his bed. Alongside them was the key of the door.
[445]
“I suppose so,” said Bronston indifferently; “I’ll be with you in a minute.” With his back half turned to Keller he was adjusting the seemingly refractory buckle of a strap which belonged about one of the valises. He had found it necessary to remove the strap from the bag.
“Hello, what’s this?” he said suddenly. The surprise in his tone made Keller look. Bronston had leaned across the foot of his bed and from a wall pocket low down against the wainscoting had extracted something.