Morgan reflected. "That wireless message—" he said, and stopped. "Look here, you said you read it aloud, And it was only a very short time afterwards that the chap tried to burgle this cabin. It seems too much to be a coincidence… Was there anybody who might have overheard you?"
The other made scoffing noises. In the pure absorption of the debate he had absent-mindedly fished out a bottle of whisky from one of his suit-cases. "Bunk!" said Warren. "Suppose there were a crook of some description aboard. What would that cock-eyed message mean to him? It took some time for me to figure it out."
"All right. All right, then! It's got to mean this. The thief was somebody who already knew about the film; that is, that there had been one made… That's possible, isn't it?"
Warren hesitated, knocking his knuckles against his turbaned forehead.
"Ye-es, I suppose it is," he admitted. "There were all sorts of rumours afloat next day; you know how it is. But we were in the library with the door locked, and naturally it can't be any of the people who were in the game… I told you there was a reception downstairs, but how anybody down there could have known—"
"Well, evidently somebody did know," Morgan argued. "And it's at a crush of a reception like that, at the home of some big pot, where you'd expect to find a specimen of the gentry we're looking for… Put it this way, just for a starter." He meditated, pulling at his ear-lobe. "The thief — we'll call him, say, Film-Flam — gets wind of your important document. But he thinks it's been destroyed and abandons any idea of pinching it. Still, he is travelling abroad on the Queen Victoria—"
"Why?" inquired Miss Glenn practically.
"How should I know?" Morgan demanded, with some asperity. His imagination had been working on opulent ballrooms full of tiaras and red shirt-ribbons; and sinister whiskery strangers smoking cigarettes round the corners of pillars. "Maybe it was accident, maybe Film-Flam is a professional diplomatic crook who dashes about from capital to capital and hopes for the best. Anyway, you've got to admit it was somebody who'd been in Washington and heard all about the indiscretion… Righto, then. He's abandoned the idea, but all the same he happens to be travelling aboard the same boat as Curt. If you looked at the passenger-list, Curt, would you recognise the name of anybody who'd been at your uncle's house that night?"
Warren shook his head.
"There were millions of 'em and I didn't know anybody. No, that won't work… But you mean this. You mean that this bird (after abandoning the idea) overhears that cable in the wireless-room, tumbles to it before I do, and takes a long chance on stealing it before I've got time to realise what I'm carrying?"
"He'd have to work fast, man. Otherwise, as soon as you knew you'd chuck it overboard. And here's another thing," crowed Morgan, stabbing his finger into his palm as the idea grew on him. "The field of search isn't as wide as you'd think at first. Again this is only a theory, but look here! — isn't this chap pretty sure to be somebody who has scraped an acquaintance with you already? I mean, if I were an international crook, even though I didn't think you were carrying that roll of film, I'm jolly certain I'd try to get into your good graces. As Uncle Warpus's favourite nephew, you'd be a valuable person to make friends with… Doesn't that sound reasonable?"
By this time they were all eagerly engrossed, in the business, floundering as they tried to stand or sit in the creaking cabin, and each playing with theories. Warren, who had produced paper cups and was pouring out drinks, stopped. He handed a cup carefully to Peggy Glenn before he spoke. Then he said:
"It's a funny thing you should say that…
"Well?"
"Aside from yourselves, I know very few people aboard this tub. The weather's been too bad, for one thing. But it's funny." He blew into a folding paper cup savagely to open it; then he looked up. "There were — let's see — there were five people in the wireless-room at the time my cable came through, aside from the operator and myself. There was
Captain Whistler, who was having some kind of whispered row with the operator; he walked out in a turkey-cock rage. There was a girl I hadn't seen before. Wash out the captain and that girl, and there were three men. One of 'em I didn't know; didn't notice him at all… But the last two are the only other people I do know. One was that fellow Woodcock, the travelling salesman for the bug-powder firm; and the other was Dr. Kyle, who sits at our table."
There was a hoot of derision from Peggy Glenn at the mention of the latter name. Even Morgan, whose profession of necessity made him doubly suspicious of any respectable person, inclined to agree with her. They had both heard of Dr. Kyle. He was one of the more resounding names in Harley Street — a noted brain specialist who had figured as alienist in several murder trials. Morgan remembered him at the table — a tall, lean, rather sardonic Scot, slovenly except for his well-brushed hair, with shrewd eyes under ragged brows whisking upwards at the outer corner, and two deep furrows running down his cheeks. To imagine this distinguished loony-doctor in the role of Film-Flam strained even Morgan's credulity. If he were given a choice in crooks, he would have preferred to fasten on the bouncing Mr. Charles Woodcock, commercial traveller for "Swat," the instant eradicator of insects. But, distinctly, Dr. Kyle must be counted out.
However, when he pointed out this difficulty to Warren, it seemed to make the American all the more certain Dr. Kyle was the culprit.
"Absolutely!" said Warren excitedly. "It's always people like that. Besides — suppose somebody's impersonating him? There's an idea for you! What better disguise would there be for an international crook than as the respectable head of a bughouse? Say, if we were to tax him with it— jump on him suddenly, you see—"
"You want to be shoved in the psychopathic ward?" demanded Morgan. "No, we can't do that; not with Kyle. Besides, it's nonsense! We've got to rule out Kyle, and get a good working plan… "
Captain Valvick shifted from one foot to the other.
"Excuse me," he suggested, with a sort of thunderous timidity, and beamed on them. "Ay got a idea, ay half."
"H'm!" said Morgan dubiously.
"Ay tell you," pursued the captain, peering round to be sure they were not overheard, "dis feller dat bat you one, he hass got only half de film, eh? Well, den, ay tell you what. He got only half de film; den maybe he iss going to come back, eh? So we stand watch and when he come back we say, 'Hey—!' "
"Yes, I know," interrupted Warren, with a gloomy air. "I'd thought of that, too, but it won't work. That's what always happens in the stories; but you can bet your last shirt this bird is too cagy for that. He knows I'm wise to him, he knows I'll take good care of that film; if I don't pitch the rest of it overboard right away. No, no. He won't take any risk like that."
For some time Peggy Glenn had been sitting silent, her chin cupped in her hands, studying the matter. Her glossy hair was tousled across her forehead, and now she suddenly looked up with such an expression of diabolical brightness and practicality that she almost crowed.
"You men," she said, rather scornfully—"you men— just messing about, that's all! Now you let me tell you what to do, and you'll have your film back to-night. Yes, I mean it. I fancy I've got an idea" — she struggled to conceal the pleasure that was making her tilt up her chin and grow as excited as Warren—"and it's a ripping idea! Whee! Listen. In a way, Captain Valvick is right. We've got to trap this chap into coming back for the rest of the film… "