"But those finger-prints——"
"Were his," concluded Mr. Conne.
Tom was greatly puzzled, but he said nothing. Soon Dr. Curry was pointed out to them. He was pacing up and down the deck, and paused at the rail as they neared so that they were able to get a good look at him. He was tall and thin, with a black mustache and a very aristocratic hooked nose. Perhaps there was the merest suggestion of the foreigner about him, but nothing in particular to suggest the German unless it were a touch of that scornfully superior air which is so familiar in pictures of the Kaiser.
"So that's the Doctor, is it?" Mr. Conne commented, eyeing him with his cigar cocked up sideways. "Looks kind of savage, huh?"
But the doctor's savage mien did not phase Mr. Conne in the least, for he sauntered up to him with a friendly and familiar air, though Tom was trembling all over.
"Excuse me, would you oblige me with the time?" Mr. Conne said pleasantly.
The stranger wheeled about suddenly with a very pronounced military air and looked at his questioner.
"The time? Yes, sir," he said, with brisk formality and taking out his watch. "It is just half-past six."
Mr. Conne drew out his own watch and looked at it for a moment as if perplexed. "Then one of us is about an hour out of the way," he said sociably, while Tom stood by in anxious suspense. "According to the alarm clock down in the store-room, I guess you're right," he added.
"What?" said the passenger, disconcerted.