“’Tis not a case of suicide, Miss Jenness,” said he.
“Then what is it, may I ask?” she replied in even tones.
O’Shea sat down beside her and spoke in the caressing, blarneying way which he had used to advantage in his time.
“As the most charming girl in the ship, ’twas quite natural for the professor to be nice to you, Miss Jenness. He is a man of taste and intelligence. Now ’tis apparent that something most extraordinary has happened aboard this liner. She is being navigated to parts unknown, and we are helpless to prevent it. ’Tis a wholesale abduction, as ye might say. Professor Vonderholtz disappears at the same time, bag and baggage, leaving his gold spectacles as a souvenir. What do you know about him, if you please? Did he drop any hints to you?”
The girl bit her lip and strove to hide an agitation which made her hands tremble so that she locked them in her lap.
“What should I know about him?” she demanded with a sudden blaze of anger, as if resenting the questions as grossly impertinent. “Why do you come to me? As a travelling acquaintance, Professor Vonderholtz did not take me into his confidence. Are you sure he is not in the steamer?”
“I am quite sure he is still in the steamer, Miss Jenness. For my part, I wish he was overboard,” grimly answered O’Shea.
“Then why all this commotion about him?” she asked.
“Are you sure he gave you no impression that he was not a university professor at all, but another kind of man entirely?” stubbornly pursued O’Shea.
“I did not discuss his profession. Chemistry does not interest me,” was her icily dignified answer. “If you must know, we talked about books we had read and places we had visited. Professor Vonderholtz is delightfully cosmopolitan and knows how to make himself interesting.”