When she had withdrawn he kneeled down on his 200 sofa and looked out through the port at the sunset sea.
There was a possibility that Scheherazade and her friends might be on board the Volhynia. Who else would be likely to take wax impressions of his keyhole and leave a scented scrap of a handkerchief on his stateroom floor?
That they had kept themselves not only out of sight but off the passenger list merely corroborated suspicion. That’s what they’d be likely to do.
And now there was no question in his mind of leaving the box in his cabin. He’d cling to it like a good woman to alimony. Death alone could separate his box from him.
As he knelt there, sniffing the salt perfume of the sea, his ears on duty detected the sound of a tray in the corridor.
“Leave it on the camp-table outside my door!” he said over his shoulder.
“Very good, sir.”
He was not hungry; he was thinking too hard.
“Confound it,” he thought to himself, “am I to squat here in ambush for the rest of the trip?”
The prospect was not agreeable for a man who loved the sea. All day and most of the starry night the hurricane deck called to him, and his whole anatomy responded. And now to sit hunched up here like a rat in the hold was not to his taste. Suppose he should continue to frequent the deck, carrying with him his box, of course. He might never discover who owned the white serge skirt or who owned the voice which pronounced is as “iss.”