Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/56

 my work cabin behind the chart house ready for my use?”

“I saw to that, sir, as soon as I got the letter saying that your suite below was to be given to the young lady.”

“That, too, is good,” Jimmy said as he slowly and thoughtfully turned, descended the bridge stairs and walked aft. He did not immediately go below, but stood at the stern, leaning over the rail, watching the last of the Venetian lights grow dim and endeavoring to work out this inexplicable puzzle. Finally abandoning it, he descended to his sumptuous quarters aft and rapped gently upon the panel of the door. It opened almost immediately, but he was aware that it had been locked.

“Come in,” a cold voice bade him and when he entered he saw the girl, now clad in a tailor-made skirt that evidently had been slipped on over the knickers, in fact, the same costume in which she had been garbed in the early hours of that evening when their adventure began. In her hand she held some receipted hotel bills, some currency and a bunch of keys. He saw a different girl than he had known, one who was extremely calm and decidedly cool, but who was palpably angry. It was as if the fighting blood of her clan were afire and she very dangerous. His eyes swept past her and he saw on top of the piano in his miniature salon the golden box, glittering dully, occupying. a place all to itself, as if it malignantly leered upon them and waited for the outcome. His eyes came back to meet hers as she still stood there, quietly, and somewhat sternly waiting.

“Well,” she said, “I am waiting for your explanation!”

“Explanation? Explanation of what, Miss Powell?” he asked.

“Of this,” she said, gesturing toward the suit case and trunk. “And of these receipted bills from my hotel. And of who, and what you are, and what you expect, or hope to accomplish by”

“Good Lord! Tommie! You don't think I had anything to do with all that, do you?” he cried. “I'm as much in the dark about it all as you are. I swear I am!”

There was such unmistakable sincerity in his attitude and such shocked appeal in his voice that she relented ever so slightly and her look of anger gave way to one of astonishment that was yet on guard and doubting.

“If you didn't pay my hotel bill, and write a letter to the hotel management telling them that I was unexpectedly called away, couldn't return, and asking the hotel to have a maid pack my stuff and send it aboard with the keys, who did?” she demanded. “Why, the hotel even returned me two thousand eight hundred and fifty-six lire which they said was in excess of my bill!”

“I don't know anything about it,” Jimmy declared, alarmed and distressed by this peculiar predicament.

“But you brought me here—to this ship,” she insisted. “And you seem to be known here. Can you explain that?”

“Yes,” he said gravely, “I can. I haven't lied to you, but I may have deceived you a little bit. No—not about that baggage, and the hotel, and all that; for of that I am as ignorant as are you.”

“Pfaugh! If you'd deceive me about one thing I can't see why you wouldn't about another!” she exclaimed, snapping her fingers and turning half from him with a gesture of contempt.

“But you'll hear me confess about the—er—in what way I have deceived you, will you not?” he pleaded. “That's only fair play, isn't it?”

“I suppose it is,” she admitted, but in a way which predicated her doubts of anything he might have to offer.

“May I sit down to do it?” he asked, his sense of the absurd and ridiculous coming to his assistance, and also a desire to gain a moment's time to think.

“I don't see why you shouldn't,” she said, with the same contained coldness. “I presume from the photographs I've seen, and your name on the music, and on the fly leaves of books, that you are master here. The place appears to be yours.”

“Thank you,” he said, secretly elated by the knowledge that her curiosity had at least led her to an inspection of his premises, and walked across and sat down in the depths of his favorite easy-chair as if by its comforting associations to find assistance in his hour of trouble. “And you—won't you sit down until we can get this matter straightened out?”

She seated herself on the top of her trunk, as if scorning to use anything but her own property for such a purpose. One of her trim feet was clear of the floor and she could reach it only with the toe of the other