“But nothing of the sort could possibly happen on a steamer like the Alsatian,” protested Mr. Chase. “I mean to say there could be no blood-and-thunder business on an Atlantic liner.”
“A lot of things have happened at sea that were perfectly impossible,” gravely spoke Johnny Kent.
As if the mystery had communicated itself in some subtle, telepathic fashion, the passengers began to appear from their state-rooms at an earlier hour than usual. Unable to go on deck, they congregated in the halls, the library, and the parlor. Rumor spread swiftly and intense uneasiness pervaded the company. For some inscrutable reason they had been made prisoners. This much was evident. The realization inspired a feeling akin to panic. Angry denunciation, with not a solitary member of the ship’s crew discoverable, sounded rather foolish. The men loudest in airing their opinions soon subsided and eyed one another in a mood of glum bewilderment. One or two women laughed hysterically.
Captain O’Shea looked about to find that friendly scientist Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz, who was usually ready with a cordial morning greeting. He was not among the assembled passengers. Presumably he was still in his state-room. A few minutes after this O’Shea found occasion to stroll past the professor’s door, which stood open. The room was empty.
Inexplicably, persistently, the personality of the blond scientist had linked itself with O’Shea’s strange sense of foreboding. He decided to investigate the empty state-room, for he observed at once that the bedding had not been disarranged in either berth.
“Nobody slept in here last night,” said O’Shea to himself.
The room contained no luggage, and no personal effects excepting several articles of discarded clothing. O’Shea picked up a coat and examined it curiously. The pockets were empty, but he made an interesting discovery. The label stitched inside the collar bore the name of a well-known ready-made clothing firm of Broadway, New York.
“And he told us it was his first trip to our wonderful country,” was O’Shea’s comment. “As a liar he has me beaten both ways from the jack.”
He resumed his careful investigation of the room, and was rewarded by discovering a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on the floor beneath the lower berth, where they must have been purposely tossed aside. It was reasonable to conclude that the owner had no more use for them.
“The bird has flown,” soliloquized O’Shea, gazing hard at the spectacles and handling them rather gingerly, as if they might be bewitched. “He couldn’t fly overboard. Anyhow, he didn’t. I’ll bet me head on that. And he has not eloped with the black-eyed school-teacher, for I saw her in the library just now. And where would they elope to? He must be still in the ship.”