"To someone," replied Harborough. "The case wasn't lost, it was stolen!"
"Stolen?" repeated Jack incredulously.
"Precisely," continued the baronet. "But I'll go into the matter with you later. Now let's interview Messrs. Merridew and Co."
The three ex-officers were considerably surprised when Jack Villiers entered the room where they were waiting, and asked them to "come this way".
"Something good on, old man?" inquired O'Loghlin. "Sure it is if you've got a finger in the pie."
Villiers was non-committal. He did not like the responsibility of advising his former comrades on this particular point.
But in less than five minutes the trio had "signed on", and were told to report at Thalassa Towers at eleven on the following morning.
The next applicant was an R.N.R. officer, Swaine by name, whose chief qualification lay in the fact that he had been employed by a salvage company and was an experienced diver.
"I should think there are plenty of openings for you in England," remarked Harborough.
"So there are, sir," replied Swaine, pulling out a bunch of letters from his pocket. "I've half a dozen jobs to go to in the salvage line, but I've seen enough of the North Sea and the English Channel the last four years. Somewhere in the Pacific would suit me, although you didn't say where, sir. S'long as it's not off Vladivostok, the Behring Straits, or south of the Chloe Archipelago, I'm on it."