“What is this?” he asked.
Katharine stared at it with wide-open eyes.
“I have never seen it before,” she declared.
There was another painful, significant silence. Crawshay bent forward and examined the seals through his glass.
“This,” he announced presently, “is the official seal of a neutral Embassy. You see how the packet is addressed?”
“I see,” the detective admitted, “but, considering the way in which we have found it, you are not suggesting, I hope, that we should not open it?”
“Opened it certainly must be,” Crawshay admitted, “but not by us in this manner. When you have finished your search, I should be glad if you will bring both packets with you to the captain’s room.”
Brightman silently resumed his labours. Nothing further, however, was found. The two men stood up together.
“Miss Beverley,” Brightman began gravely, —
Crawshay laid his hand upon the man’s arm.
“Wait for a moment,” he begged. “I wish to have a few words with you outside. We shall be back before long, Miss Beverley.”
The two men disappeared. Katharine, with a sinking of the heart, heard the key turn on the outside of her stateroom. She watched the lock slip into its place with an indescribable sense of humiliation. She had been guilty — of what?
She lost count of time, but it was certain that only a few minutes could have passed before a strange thing happened. The sight of that lock, which seemed somehow to shut her off from the world of reasonable, honest men and women, had fascinated her. She was sitting watching it, her chin resting upon her hands, something of the horror still in her eyes, when without sound, or any visible explanation, she saw it glide back to its place. The door was opened and closed. Jocelyn Thew was standing in her stateroom.
“You?” she exclaimed.
“I am not disappointed in you, I am sure,” he said softly. “You will keep still. You will not say a word. I have risked the whole success of a great enterprise to come and say these few words to you. I am ashamed and sorry for what you are suffering, but I want to tell you this. Nothing serious will happen — nothing serious can happen to you. Everything is not as it seems. Will you believe that? Look at me. Will you believe that?”
She raised her eyes. Once more there was that change in his face which had seemed so wonderful to her. The blue of his eyes was soft, his mouth almost tremulous. She answered him almost as though mesmerised.
“I will believe it,” she promised.
As silently and mysteriously as he had come, he turned and left her. She watched the latch. She saw the lock creep silently once more into its place. She heard no movement outside, but Jocelyn Thew had gone.
During the few remaining minutes of her solitude, Katharine felt a curious change in the atmosphere of the little disordered stateroom, in her own dazed and bruised feelings. She seemed somehow to be playing a part in a little drama which had nothing to do with real life. All her fears had vanished. She rose from her place, smoothed her disordered hair carefully, bathed her temples with eau-de-cologne, adjusted her hat and veil, and, turning on the reading lamp, opened a novel. She actually managed to read a couple of pages before there was a knock at the door and the two men reappeared. She laid down her book and greeted them quite coolly.
“Well, have you come to pronounce sentence upon me?” she asked.
“Our authority scarcely goes so far,” Brightman replied. “I am going on shore now, Miss Beverley, to fetch the consul of the country to which this packet is addressed. It will be opened in his presence. In the meantime, Mr. Crawshay has given his parole for you. You will therefore be free of the ship, but it will be, I am afraid, my duty to ask you to come with me to the police station for a further examination, on my return.”
“I am sure I shall like to come very much,” she said sweetly, “but if you go on asking me questions forever, I am afraid you won’t come any nearer solving the problem of how that box got into my trunk, or how those bills got changed into those queer-looking little slips of papers. However, that of course is your affair.”
The detective departed with a stiff bow. Crawshay, however, lingered.
“Aren’t you going with your friend?” she asked him.
He ignored the question.
“Miss Beverley,” he said, “you will forgive me saying that I find the present position exceedingly painful.”
“Why?” she demanded. “I don’t see how you are suffering by it.”
“It was at my instigation,” he went on, “that suspicion was first directed against your travelling companions. I am convinced that the first idea was to get these documents off the ship upon the person of Phillips, if alive, or in his coffin if dead. The instigators of this abominable conspiracy have taken fright and have made you their victim. Certainly,” he went on, “it was a shrewd idea. I myself suggested to Brightman that your things might remain undisturbed. But for the finding of that envelope, your trunk would certainly not have been opened. You see the position I have placed myself in. I am driven to ask you a question. Did you know of the presence of those papers and dispatch box amongst your belongings?”
“I had no idea of it,” she answered fervently.
He drew a little breath of relief.
“You realise, of course,” he went on, “that there is only one man who could have placed them there?”
“And who is that?” she enquired.
“Jocelyn Thew.”
“And why do you single him out?”
“Because,” Crawshay told her patiently, “we had evidence in America to show that he was working with our enemies. It is true that he has not been associated to any extent with the German espionage system in America, but he has been well-known always as a reckless adventurer, ready to sell his life in any doubtful cause, so long as it promised excitement and profit. It was known to us that he had come into touch with a certain man in Washington who has been looking after the interests of his country in America. It was to shadow Jocelyn Thew that I came on this steamer. His friends cleverly fooled Hobson and me, and landed us in Chicago too late, as they thought, to catch the boat. That is why I made that somewhat melodramatic journey after you on the seaplane. Do please consider this matter reasonably, Miss Beverley. It was perfectly easy for him to slip across and place these things in your luggage as soon as he found that his original scheme was likely to go wrong. You were the one person on the steamer whom he reckoned would be safe from suspicion. You were part of his plot from the very first, and no more than that.”
“I cannot believe this,” she said slowly.
Crawshay’s face darkened.
“It is no business of mine, Miss Beverley,” he declared, “but if you will forgive my saying so, you must be infatuated by this man. The evidence is perfectly clear. You are a prominent citizeness of a great country, and you have been made an accessory to an act of treason against that country. Yet, with plain facts in my hands, it seems impossible for me to shake your faith in this person. What is the reason of it? What hold had he upon you that he should have induced you to leave your work and your home and betray your country?”
“He has no hold upon me at all,” she replied indignantly. “Since you are so persistent, I will tell you the truth. I once saw him do a splendid thing, a deed which saved me from great unhappiness.”