A vision of that white dead face recurred to me. It was a face very handsome, but to my remembrance I had never seen it before. The mystery of the woman's concealment there was altogether extraordinary. Yet it scarcely seemed possible that she should have remained in hiding so long without a soul on board, save Keppel, being aware of her presence. She had been fed, of course, and most probably the steward knew of her presence in that gilded deck-house. But she was dead—murdered by an inoffensive old gentleman, who was the very last person in the would I should have suspected of having taken human life.
And why had he stroked her dead face so caressingly? Who, indeed, was she?
My wet clothes clung to me coldly and clammily. I now exchanged them for a warm wrap, entered my berth, and tried to rest. Sleep was, however, impossible in that doomed ship, amid the wild roaring of the tempest and the thunder of the waves breaking over the deck above. Once it occurred to me to go straight to Ulrica and tell her all I had seen and heard, but on reflection I resolved to keep my own counsel, and narrowly watch the course of events.
The mystery of the hidden man's identity grew upon me, until I suddenly resolved to make a further endeavour to discover him. The voice was deep and low, but the roaring of the wind and hissing of escaping steam had prevented me hearing it sufficiently well to recognise whether it was that of one of our fellow-guests. I slipped on a mackintosh, returned to the deck, and crept towards the cabin, wherein reposed the remains of the mysterious woman in white. But soon I saw that the light had been switched off. All was in darkness. The guilty pair had gone below to their own berths.
Through the whole night the storm continued, but the morning broke brightly, and the tempest, as is so frequently the case in the Mediterranean, was succeeded by a dead calm, so that when we sat down to breakfast we were steaming in comparatively smooth water.
"Have you heard?" said Ulrica to me, after we had been exchanging our sleepless experiences. "Mr. Keppel has altered our course. He has some pressing business to attend to, so we are going into Leghorn."
"Leghorn!" exclaimed Lord Eldersfield at my elbow. "Horrid place! I was there once. Narrow streets, dirty people, primitive sanitation, and a sorry attempt at a promenade."
"Well, we don't stay there long; that's one comfort," said Ulrica. "Mr. Keppel is going ashore and he'll rejoin us at Naples."
I looked down the table and saw that the face of the old millionaire was pale, without its usual composure. He was pretending to be busily occupied with his porridge.
"Are we going on straight to Naples, Keppel?" inquired Eldersfield.