The Dark Star

His steward, being questioned on the first day out, had told him that

this stateroom was occupied by an invalid gentleman travelling alone,

who preferred to remain there instead of trusting to his crutches on

a temperamental deck.

Neeland, passing the closed and curtained door, wondered whether the

invalid had made a hit, or whether he had a relative aboard who wore a

white serge skirt, white stockings and shoes, and was further endowed

with agreeable ankles.

He fitted his key to his door, turned it, withdrew the key to pocket

it; and immediately became aware that the end of the key was sticky.

He entered the stateroom, however, and bolted the door, then he sat

down on his sofa and examined his fingers and his door key

attentively. There was wax sticking to both.

When he had fully digested this fact he wiped and pocketed his key and

cast a rather vacant look around the little stateroom. And immediately

his eye was arrested by a white object lying on the carpet between the

bed and the sofa--a woman's handkerchief, without crest or initials,

but faintly scented.

After he became tired of alternately examining it and sniffing it, he

put it in his pocket and began an uneasy tour of his room.

If it had been entered and ransacked, everything had been replaced

exactly as he had left it, as well as he could remember. Nothing

excepting this handkerchief and the wax on the key indicated

intrusion; nothing, apparently, had been disturbed; and yet there was

the handkerchief; and there was the wax on the end of his door key.

"Here's a fine business!" he muttered to himself; and rang for his

steward.

The man came--a cockney, dense as his native fog--who maintained that

nobody could have entered the stateroom without his knowledge or the

knowledge of the stewardess.

"Do you think she's been in my cabin?"

"No, sir."

"Call her."

The stewardess, an alert, intelligent little woman with a trace of

West Indian blood in her, denied entering his stateroom. Shown the

handkerchief and invited to sniff it, she professed utter ignorance

concerning it, assured him that no lady in her section used that

perfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of other sections

on the chance of their identifying the perfume or the handkerchief.

"All right," said Neeland; "take it. But bring it back. And here's a

sovereign. And--one thing more. If anybody pays you to deceive me,

come to me and I'll outbid them. Is that a bargain?"

"Yes, sir," she said unblushingly.

When she had gone away with the handkerchief, Neeland closed the door

again and said to the steward: "Keep an eye on my door. I am positive that somebody has taken a wax

impression of the keyhole. What I said to that stewardess also holds

good with you. I'll outbid anybody who bribes you."