“As for instance—?”
“Well, say I swipe the Cadogan collar.”
“Then I’d stand just so much the better chance of catching you red-handed.”
“Swell notion you’ve got of the cunning of the Twentieth Century criminal, I must say. D’ you for an instant suppose my work’s so coarse that you could detect grits in it?”
“Then you are Ismay?”
“My son,” said the other solemnly, “your pertinacity shan’t go unrewarded: I will be frank with you. You shall know all. I am Iff—the eternal question.”
“Oh, go to thunder!” said Staff indignantly.
But as he slipped off to sleep he could hear the man overhead chuckling quietly, beneath his breath....
The next few days would have provided him with ample opportunity in which to ponder the question of his roommate’s identity, had Staff chosen so to occupy his time. As it happened, Heaven was kind to the young man, and sent a gale of sorts, which, breaking upon the Autocratic the following morning, buffeted her for three days and relegated to their berths all the poor sailors aboard, including the lady with the pink soul and underthings. Of Mrs. Thataker, indeed, Staff saw nothing more until just before the vessel docked in New York. He wasn’t heartless by any manner of means; he was, as a matter of fact, frankly sorry for the other poor passengers; but he couldn’t help feeling there was a lot of truth in the old saw about an ill wind....
Otherwise the bad weather proved annoying enough in several ways. To begin with, Alison Landis herself was anything but a good sailor, and even Miss Searle, though she missed no meals, didn’t pretend to enjoy the merciless hammering which the elements were administering to the ship. Alison retired to her suite immediately after the first breakfast and stuck religiously therein until the weather moderated, thus affording Staff no chance to talk with her about the number of immediately interesting things on his mind. While Miss Searle stayed almost as steadily in her quarters, keeping out of harm’s way and reading, she told Staff when they met at meals. Mrs. Ilkington, of course, disappeared as promptly as Mrs. Thataker. In consequence of all of which, Staff found himself thrown back for companionship on Bangs, who bored him to the point of extinction, Arkroyd, whom he didn’t like, and Iff, who kept rather out of the way, dividing his time between his two passions and merely leering at the younger man, a leer of infinite cunning and derision, when chance threw them together.