“A pleasant one, I hope,” said Thorne.
Ellery snatched a glance at his friend’s face as he cupped his hands about a cigarette, and he read approval there. If he had struck the right tone, he knew how to act thenceforth. He flipped the match away and turned abruptly to Thorne. Dr. Reinach was studying him in a half-puzzled, half-amused way.
“Where’s the Coronia?”
“Held up in quarantine,” said Thorne. “Somebody’s seriously ill aboard with some disease or other and there’s been difficulty in clearing her passengers. It will take hours, I understand. Suppose we settle down in the waiting-room for a bit.”
They found places in the crowded room, and Ellery set his bag between his feet and disposed himself so that he was in a position to catch every expression on his companions’ faces. There was something in Thome’s repressed excitement, an even more piquing aura enveloping the fat doctor, that violently whipped his curiosity.
“Alice,” said Thorne in a casual tone, as if Ellery knew who Alice was, “is probably becoming impatient. But that’s a family trait with the Mayhews, from the little I saw of old Sylvester. Eh, Doctor? It’s trying, though, to come all the way from England only to be held up on the threshold.”
So they were to meet an Alice Mayhew, thought Ellery, arriving from England on the Coronia. Good old Thorne! He almost chuckled aloud. “Sylvester” was obviously a senior Mayhew, some relative of Alice’s.
Dr. Reinach fixed his little eyes on Ellery’s bag and rumbled politely. “Are you going away somewhere, Mr. Queen?”
Then Reinach did not know Ellery was to accompany them — wherever they were bound for.
Thorne stirred in the depths of his greatcoat, rustling like a sack of desiccated bones. “Queen’s coming back with me, Dr. Reinach.” There was something brittle and hostile in his voice.