Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/74

Rh I played shovel-board with some pleasant young men. They were extraordinarily nice to me. I felt that life was satisfactory and delightful.

The dressing bugle came as a surprise and I hurried to my new cabin. The stewardess was awaiting me with a troubled face.

"There's a terrible smell in your cabin, miss. What it is, I'm sure I can't think, but I doubt if you'll be able to sleep here. There's a deck cabin up on C deck, I believe. You might move into that—just for the night, anyway."

The smell really was pretty bad—quite nauseating. I told the stewardess I would think over the question of moving whilst I dressed. I hurried over my toilet, sniffing distastefully as I did so.

What was the smell? Dead rat? No, worse than that—and quite different. Yet I knew it! It was something I had smelt before. Something Ah! I had got it. Asafœtida! I had worked in a Hospital dispensary during the war for a short time and had become acquainted with various nauseous drugs.

Asafœtida, that was it. But how

I sank down on the sofa, suddenly realizing the thing. Somebody had put a pinch of asafœtida in my cabin. Why? So that I should vacate it? Why were they so anxious to get me out? I thought of the scene this afternoon from a rather different point of view. What was there about Cabin 17 that made so many people anxious to get hold of it? The other two cabins were better cabins, why had both men insisted on sticking to 17?

17. How the number persisted. It was on the 17th I had sailed from Southampton. It was a 17—I stopped with a sudden gasp. Quickly I unlocked my suit-case, and took my precious paper from its place of concealment in some rolled stockings.

17 1 22—I had taken that for a date, the date of