"Where?" asked Leith.
"On the wharf over there," I answered coldly, nodding toward the structure as I spoke. "It's really nothing important though, and I related it solely for Miss Herndon's amusement."
"But Toni?" he growled, turning toward the two girls.
"Oh, Toni puts forward an alibi," laughed the youngest sister. "He asserts that he was in the boat when the incident happened and he persists in saying that he knows nothing about the matter."
Leith again turned toward me, and his brows straightened as he looked me in the eyes. "Can't you tell the story over again?" he asked.
"I'd rather not," I said, somewhat rudely. "I'm tired of it. It was really only a small happening that I am afraid I expanded a little in an endeavour to thrill Miss Herndon, and the story is now her personal property."
"But the bare facts?" he growled.
"There are no bare facts," I replied. "I covered them with fiction, and I think Miss Herndon is going to copyright the whole."
He took the remark as a direct refusal on my part to give him an outline of the affair to satisfy his curiosity, and I felt elated at noting the sudden glint of anger that appeared in the lustreless eyes.
The two girls stood silent for a moment while Leith and I surveyed each other without speaking, then a Tahitian boy broke the awkward silence by informing me that the captain wished to see me in the cabin, and I hurriedly excused myself to the sisters and went below.