Measures so extraordinary were generally held to indicate an incentive more extraordinary still.
"You can't get away from it," he heard Crane declare: "there's some sort of funny business going on, or liable to go on, aboard this ship. She wasn't held up for a solid week out of pure cussedness. Neither did they come aboard to-night to give us another once-over through sheer voluptuousness. There's a reason."
"And what," a satiric English voice enquired, "do you assume that reason to be?"
"Search me. 'Sfar's I'm concerned the processes of the British Intelligence
Office are a long sight past finding out."
"It is simple enough," one of Crane's compatriots suggested: "the Assyrian is suspected of entertaining a devil unawares."
"Monsieur means—?" the Swiss enquired.
"I mean, the authorities may have been led to believe some one of us a questionable character."
"German spy?"
"Possibly."
"Or an English traitor?"