“You seem to think this business funny,” suggested Staff, not at all approvingly.
“I do,” laughed the little man—“I do, indeed. It’s a grand young joke—clutch it from me, my friend.”
“In what respect, particularly, do you find it so vastly entertaining?”
“Oh ... isn’t that ass Manvers enough?”
Further than this, Mr. Iff declined to be interviewed. He clambered briskly into his berth and chuckled himself to sleep. Staff considered his behaviour highly annoying.
But it was on the following day—the last of the voyage—that he found reason to consider the affair astonishing because of the lack of interest displayed by those personally involved. He made no doubt but that the captain was keeping his word to the extent of conducting a secret investigation, though no signs of any such proceeding appeared on the surface of the ship’s life. But Alison he could not understand; she seemed to have cast care to the winds. She appeared at breakfast in the gayest of spirits, spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon on deck, the centre of an animated group shepherded by the indefatigable Mrs. Ilkington, dressed herself radiantly for the grand final dinner, flirted with the assiduously attentive Arkroyd until she had reduced Staff to the last stages of corroded jealousy, and in general (as Staff found a chance to tell her) seemed to be having the time of her life.
“And why not?” she countered. “Spilt milk!”
“Judged by your conduct,” observed Staff, “one would be justified in thinking the Cadogan collar an article de Paris.”
“One might think any number of foolish things, dear boy. If the collar’s gone, it’s gone, and not all the moping and glooming imaginable will bring it back to me. If I do get it back—why, that’ll be simply good luck; and I’ve never found it profitable yet to court Fortune with a doleful mouth.”
“You certainly practise your theory,” he said. “I swear I believe I’m more concerned about your loss than you are.”