“Suspicions!” Jocelyn repeated sarcastically. “Well, present my compliments to the wonderful Mr. Crawshay! I presume that I am at liberty now to take my bath?”
“In one moment, Mr. Thew. Even though you do not choose to answer them, there are certain questions I intend to ask. The first is, are you prepared to produce the Marconigram which you received last evening?”
“How do you know that I received one?”
“The fact has come to my knowledge,” the captain said drily.
“You had better ask the operator about it.”
“The operator is at the present moment under arrest,” was the terse reply. If the news were a shock to Thew, he showed it in none of the ordinary ways. His face seemed to fall for a moment into harder lines. His mouth tightened and his eyes flashed.
“Under arrest?” he repeated. “More of Crawshay’s tomfoolery, I suppose?”
“More of Mr. Crawshay’s tomfoolery,” the captain acknowledged. “Robins is accused of having received a Marconigram of which he took no note, and which he handed to a passenger. He is also accused of attempting to communicate with an enemy raider.”
A peculiar smile parted Jocelyn’s lips.
“You seem to wish to make this steamer of yours the mise-en-scene of a dime novel, Captain,” he observed. “I accept the part of villain with resignation — but I should like to have my bath.”
“You don’t propose to tell me, then,” his questioner persisted, “the contents of that message?”
“I have no recollection of having received one,” Jocelyn replied coolly. “You are making me very late for breakfast.”
They left him with a brusque word of farewell, to which he did not reply. Jocelyn, in a dark-green silk dressing gown, with a huge sponge and various silver-topped bottles, departed for the bathroom. The captain and the purser strolled up on deck.
“What do you make of that fellow, Dix?” the former asked.
The purser coughed.
“If you ask me, sir,” he replied, “I think that Mr. Crawshay has got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”
.
CHAPTER XI
Katharine came on deck that morning in a somewhat disturbed frame of mind. It was beginning to dawn upon her that her position as sick nurse to Mr. Phillips was meant to be a sinecure. She was allowed to sit by the sick man’s side sometimes whilst the doctor took a promenade or ate a meal in the saloon, but apart from that, the usual exercise of her duties was not required from her. She was forced to admit that there was something mysterious about the little stateroom, the suffering man, and the doctor who watched him speechlessly night and day.
She was conscious presently that Crawshay, who had been walking up and down the deck, had stopped before the chair on which she lay extended. She greeted him without enthusiasm.
“Are you taking one of your health constitutionals, Mr. Crawshay?” she enquired.
“Not altogether,” he replied. “May I sit down for a moment?”
“Of course! I don’t think any one sits in that chair.”
He took his place by her side, deliberately removed his muffler and unfastened his overcoat. It struck her, from the first moment she heard his voice, that his manner was somehow altered. She was altogether unprepared, however, for the almost stern directness of his first question. “Miss Beverley,” he began, “will you allow me to ask you how long you have known Mr. Jocelyn Thew?”
She turned her head towards him and remained speechless for a moment. It seemed to her that she was looking into the face of a stranger. The little droop of the mouth had gone. The half-vacuous, half-bored expression had given place to something altogether new. The lines of his face had all tightened up, his eyes were hard and bright. She found herself quite unable to answer him in the manner she had intended.
“Are you asking me that question seriously, Mr. Crawshay?”
“I am,” he assured her. “I have grave reasons for asking it.”
“I am afraid that I do not understand you,” she replied stiffly.
“You must change your attitude, if you please, Miss Beverley,” Crawshay persisted. “Believe me, I am not trying to be impertinent. I am asking a question the necessity for which I am in a position to justify.”
“You bewilder me!” she exclaimed.
“That is simply because you looked upon me as a different sort of person. To tell you the truth, I should very much have preferred that you continued to look upon me as a different sort of person during this voyage, but I cannot see my way clear to keep silence on this one point. I wish to inform you, if you do not know it already, that Mr. Jocelyn Thew is a dangerous person for you to know, or for you to be associated with in any shape or form.” She would have risen to her feet but he stopped her.
“Please look at me,” he begged.
She obeyed, half against her will.
“I want you to ask yourself,” he went on, “whether you do not believe that I am your well-wisher. What I am saying to you, I am saying to save you from a position which later on you might bitterly regret.”
She was conscious of a quality in his tone and manner entirely strange to her, and she found any form of answer exceedingly difficult. The anger which she would have preferred to have affected seemed, in the face of his earnestness, out of place.
“It seems to me,” she said, “that you are assuming something which does not exist. I am not on specially intimate terms with Mr. Jocelyn Thew. I have not talked to him any more than to any other casual passenger.”
“Is that quite honest?” he asked quietly. “Isn’t it true that Jocelyn Thew is interested in your mysterious patient?”
She started.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say,” he replied. “I happen also to have very grave suspicions concerning the presence on this ship of Mr. Phillips and his doctor.”
Her fingers gripped the side of her deck chair. She leaned a little towards him.
“What concern is all this of yours?” she demanded.
“Never mind,” he answered. “I am risking more than I should like to say in telling you as much as I have told you. I cannot believe that you would consciously associate yourself with a disgraceful and unpatriotic conspiracy. That is why I have chosen to risk a great deal in speaking to you in this way. Tell me what possible consideration was brought to bear upon you to induce you to accept your present situation?”
Katharine sat quite still. The thoughts were chasing one another through her brain. Then she was conscious of a strange thing. Her companion’s whole expression seemed suddenly to have changed. Without her noticing any movement, his monocle was in his left eye, his lip had fallen a little. He was looking querulously out seaward.
“I don’t believe,” he declared, “that the captain has any idea about the weather prospects. Look at those clouds coming up. I don’t know how you are feeling, Miss Beverley, but I am conscious of a distinct chill.”
Jocelyn Thew had come to a standstill before them. He was wearing no overcoat and was bare-headed.
“I guess that chill is somewhere in your imagination, Mr. Crawshay,” he observed. “You are pretty strong in that line, aren’t you?”
Crawshay struggled to his feet.
“I have some ideas,” he confessed modestly. “I spend my idle moments, even here, weaving a little fiction.”
“And recounting it, I dare say,” Jocelyn ventured.
“I am like all artists,” Crawshay sighed. “I love an audience. I must express myself to something. I will wish you good evening, Miss Beverley. I feel inclined to take a little walk, in case it becomes too rough later on.”
He shuffled away, once more the perfect prototype of the malade imaginaire. Jocelyn Thew watched him in silence until he had disappeared. Then he turned and seated himself by the girl’s side.