In a very thoughtful mood he returned to the main staircase, where Johnny Kent was hopefully peering in the direction of the dining-saloon.
“There’s something doin’ down there,” announced the engineer. “The doors were shut and bolted from the inside a few minutes ago. Maybe they’ll open again pretty soon and the bell will ring for grub.”
“Forget that awful appetite and listen to me,” exclaimed O’Shea. “The professor has vanished entirely.”
“Committed suicide, you suppose? If he really fell in love with the school-teacher, it’s not unlikely, Cap’n Mike. It takes ’em that way sometimes. I’ve felt like it myself once or twice.”
“If he jumped overboard, he took his baggage with him. And he had a couple of hand-bags when he came on board, for I saw them. ’Tis more likely the divil flew away with him. Here’s his spectacles. He left them behind. I tell ye, Johnny Kent, and you may laugh at me all ye like, for you are a much older man than me, and you ought to be wiser, which you are not—that chemical gentleman was not as mild and nice as he made out. His eye was bad. And he has brought trouble to this ship. Where is he now? Can ye answer that?”
“One of those revolver bullets may have perforated him while he was strollin’ on deck and figurin’ out some new problems in chemistry.”
“Your language is a clean waste of words,” admonished O’Shea. “’Tis me rash intention to interview the school-teacher, Miss Jenness. She knows more about the professor than the rest of us. This is no joke of a predicament we are in, ye can take my word for it.”
Miss Jenness was to be discerned, at a casual glance, as a young woman with a mind of her own. The bold O’Shea approached her timidly, his courage oozing. Her black eyes surveyed him coldly and critically and made him feel as though his feet were several sizes too large.
“I beg pardon,” he stammered, “but have ye heard that the professor is missing?”
Surprise and alarm drove the color from her face. Evidently the tidings came as a shock to her. Her perturbation failed wholly to convince O’Shea that she could furnish no clew to the mystery. One question should have leaped swiftly to her lips. It was the one question to ask. Was it supposed that Professor Vonderholtz had committed suicide by leaping overboard? Captain O’Shea waited for her to say something of the sort. She sat pale and silent. The dark, handsome, matured young woman baffled him. He felt that he was no match for her.