Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/295

Rh and explain to you, in the way your despised Punch has to reason its jokes into the English. Well," she sighed with resignation, "then let me ask you this first. You say that, in any case, no one can suspect you of chloroforming or robbing me?"

"No," Preston replied warmly. "No one. I breathe fervid thanks for that—not even the most reluctant Englishman can suspect that I would really have chloroformed or robbed you."

"So I thought," the girl pressed on triumphantly. "The only way any one dares to make you out the robber is by assuming that I was not really visited, but that I reported that I was only to help you."

"Yes."

"Well, then, as I know I was both robbed and chloroformed night before last, you want me to believe of you what even the most incorrigible Briton balks at. So as I know I was visited as I reported, I know that the robber must be some one else aboard the ship—unless 269