The captain's face clearly showed the worry on his mind. The ship's physician, who had been told all about the affair, immediately after Joe's discovery of, and battle with, the mysterious stranger, appeared equally anxious.
"A man is discovered at night in the battery room of the wireless department of this ship, clearly upon an unfriendly mission," said the captain, half to himself and half for the benefit of the others, summing up the evidence thus far known to them. "He gives battle to the man who discovers him, and finally succeeds in knocking that man out and escaping. But he leaves behind him a portable wireless instrument, and a German iron cross, with two bits of the chain attached.
"A few hours later that same night he returns to the battery room and succeeds in recovering the portable instrument.
"To-day Lieutenant Mackinson, while pursuing an investigation of the affair, is shoved into a closet and only escapes death from suffocation by making himself heard as he telegraphs for help over a steam-pipe.
"It must have been while we were rescuing the lieutenant that the same man again enters the wireless room and leaves there this chain, which had been attached to the iron cross, and also this note of warning.
"The impudent effrontery and the cunning treachery of this man constitute him a menace to every other person aboard this ship. We are not safe while he is free.
"This German spy must and shall be found."