CHAPTER XI

There were no further excitements that night. I had breakfast in

bed and got up late the next morning. Mrs. Blair hailed me as I

came on deck.

“Good-morning, Gipsy girl, sit down here by me. You look as though

you hadn’t slept well.”

“Why do you call me that?” I asked, as I sat down obediently.

“Do you mind? It suits you somehow. I’ve called you that in my own

mind from the beginning. It’s the gipsy element in you that makes

you so different from any one else. I decided in my own mind that

you and Colonel Race were the only two people on board who wouldn’t

bore me to death to talk to.”

“That’s funny,” I said, “I thought the same about you—only it’s

more understandable in your case. You’re—you’re such an exquisitely

finished product.”

“Not badly put,” said Mrs. Blair, nodding her head. “Tell me all

about yourself, Gipsy girl. Why are you going to South Africa?”

I told her something about Papa’s life work.

“So you’re Charles Beddingfeld’s daughter? I thought you weren’t

a mere provincial Miss! Are you going to Broken Hill to grub up

more skulls?”

“I may,” I said cautiously. “I’ve got other plans as well.”

“What a mysterious minx you are. But you do look tired this morning.

Didn’t you sleep well? I can’t keep awake on board a boat. Ten

hours’ sleep for a fool, they say! I could do with twenty!”

She yawned, looking like a sleepy kitten. “An idiot of a steward

woke me up in the middle of the night to return me that roll of

films I dropped yesterday. He did it in the most melodramatic

manner, stuck his arm through the ventilator and dropped them

nearly in the middle of my tummy. I thought it was a bomb for a

moment!”

“Here’s your Colonel,” I said, as the tall soldierly figure of

Colonel Race appeared on the deck.

“He’s not my Colonel particularly. In fact he admires _you_ very

much, Gipsy girl. So don’t run away.”

“I want to tie something round my head. It will be more comfortable

than a hat.”

I slipped quickly away. For some reason or other I was uncomfortable

with Colonel Race. He was one of the few people who were capable

of making me feel shy.

I went down to my cabin and began looking for a broad band of

ribbon, or a motor-veil, with which I could restrain my rebellious

locks. Now I am a tidy person, I like my things always arranged in

a certain way and I keep them so. I had no sooner opened my drawer

than I realized that somebody had been disarranging my things.

Everything had been turned over and scattered. I looked in the

other drawers and the small hanging cupboard. They told me the same

tale. It was as though some one had been making a hurried and

ineffectual search for something.

I sat down on the edge of the bunk with a grave face. Who had been

searching my cabin and what had they been looking for? Was it the

half-sheet of paper with scribbled figures and words? I shook my

head, dissatisfied. Surely that was past history now. But what else

could there be?

I wanted to think. The events of last night, though exciting, had

not really done anything to elucidate matters. Who was the young

man who had burst into my cabin so abruptly? I had not seen him on

board previously, either on deck or in the saloon. Was he one of

the ship’s company or was he a passenger? Who had stabbed him? Why

had they stabbed him? And why, in the name of goodness, should

Cabin No. 17 figure so prominently? It was all a mystery, but there

was no doubt that some very peculiar occurrences were taking place

on the _Kilmorden Castle._

I counted off on my fingers the people on whom it behoved me to

keep a watch.

Setting aside my visitor of the night before, but promising myself

that I would discover him on board before another day had passed,

I selected the following persons as worthy of my notice.

(1) Sir Eustace Pedler. He was the owner of the Mill House and his

presence on the _Kilmorden Castle_ seemed something of a coincidence.

(2) Mr. Pagett, the sinister-looking secretary, whose eagerness to

obtain Cabin 17 had been so very marked. N.B. Find out whether he

had accompanied Sir Eustace to Cannes.

(3) The Rev. Edward Chichester. All I had against him was his

obstinacy over Cabin 17, and that might be entirely due to his own

peculiar temperament. Obstinacy can be an amazing thing.

But a little conversation with Mr. Chichester would not come amiss,

I decided. Hastily tying a handkerchief round my rebellious locks,

I went up on deck again, full of purpose. I was in luck. My quarry

was leaning against the rail, drinking beef tea. I went up to him.

“I hope you’ve forgiven me over Cabin 17,” I said, with my best

smile.

“I consider it unchristian to bear a grudge,” said Mr. Chichester

coldly. “But the purser had distinctly promised me that cabin.”

“Pursers are such busy men, aren’t they?” I said vaguely. “I

suppose they’re bound to forget sometimes.”

Mr. Chichester did not reply.

“Is this your first visit to Africa?” I inquired conversationally.

“To South Africa, yes. But I have worked for the last two years

amongst the cannibal tribes in the interior of East Africa.”

“How thrilling! Have you had many narrow escapes?”

“Escapes?”

“Of being eaten, I mean?”

“You should not treat sacred subjects with levity, Miss Beddingfeld.”

“I didn’t know that cannibalism was a sacred subject,” I retorted,

stung.

As the words left my lips, another idea struck me. If Mr. Chichester

had indeed spent the last two years in the interior of Africa, how

was it that he was not more sunburnt? His skin was as pink and

white as a baby’s. Surely there was something fishy there? Yet his

manner and voice were so absolutely _it._ Too much so perhaps. Was

he—or was he not—just a little like a _stage_ clergyman?

I cast my mind back to the curates I had known at Little Hampsly.

Some of them I had liked, some of them I had not, but certainly

none of them had been quite like Mr. Chichester. They had been

human—he was a glorified type.

I was debating all this when Sir Eustace Pedler passed down the

deck. Just as he was abreast of Mr. Chichester, he stooped and

picked up a piece of paper which he handed to him, remarking

“You’ve dropped something.”

He passed on without stopping, and so probably did not notice Mr.

Chichester’s agitation. I did. Whatever it was he had dropped, its

recovery agitated him considerably. He turned a sickly green, and

crumpled up the sheet of paper into a ball. My suspicions were

accentuated a hundred-fold.

He caught my eye, and hurried into explanations.

“A—a—fragment of a sermon I was composing,” he said with a sickly

smile.

“Indeed?” I rejoined politely.

A fragment of a sermon, indeed! No, Mr. Chichester—too weak for

words!

He soon left me with a muttered excuse. I wished, oh, how I wished,

that I had been the one to pick up that paper and not Sir Eustace

Pedler! One thing was clear, Mr. Chichester could not be exempted

from my list of suspects. I was inclined to put him top of the

three.

After lunch, when I came up to the lounge for coffee, I noticed

Sir Eustace and Pagett sitting with Mrs. Blair and Colonel Race.

Mrs. Blair welcomed me with a smile, so I went over and joined

them. They were talking about Italy.

“But it _is_ misleading,” Mrs. Blair insisted. _“Aqua calda_

certainly _ought_ to be cold water—not hot.”

“You’re not a Latin scholar,” said Sir Eustace, smiling.

“Men are so superior about their Latin,” said Mrs. Blair. “But all

the same I notice that when you ask them to translate inscriptions

in old churches they can never do it! They hem and haw, and get

out of it somehow.”

“Quite right,” said Colonel Race. “I always do.”

“But I love the Italians,” continued Mrs. Blair. “They’re so

obliging—though even that has its embarrassing side. You ask them

the way somewhere, and instead of saying ‘first to the right,

second to the left’ or something that one could follow, they pour

out a flood of well-meaning directions, and when you look bewildered

they take you kindly by the arm and walk all the way there with

you.”

“Is that your experience in Florence, Pagett?” asked Sir Eustace,

turning with a smile to his secretary.

For some reason the question seemed to disconcert Mr. Pagett. He

stammered and flushed.

“Oh, quite so, yes—er quite so.”

Then with a murmured excuse, he rose and left the table.

“I am beginning to suspect Guy Pagett of having committed some dark

deed in Florence,” remarked Sir Eustace, gazing after his

secretary’s retreating figure. “Whenever Florence or Italy is

mentioned, he changes the subject, or bolts precipitately.”

“Perhaps he murdered some one there,” said Mrs. Blair hopefully.

“He looks—I hope I’m not hurting your feelings, Sir Eustace—but he

does look as though he might murder some one.”

“Yes, pure Cinquecento! It amuses me sometimes—especially when one

knows as well as I do how essentially law-abiding and respectable

the poor fellow really is.”

“He’s been with you some time, hasn’t he, Sir Eustace?” asked

Colonel Race.

“Six years,” said Sir Eustace, with a deep sigh.

“He must be quite invaluable to you,” said Mrs. Blair.

“Oh, invaluable! Yes, quite invaluable.” The poor man sounded even

more depressed, as though the invaluableness of Mr. Pagett was a

secret grief to him. Then he added more briskly: “But his face

should really inspire you with confidence, my dear lady. No

self-respecting murderer would ever consent to look like one.

Crippen, now, I believe, was one of the pleasantest fellows

imaginable.”

“He was caught on a liner, wasn’t he?” murmured Mrs. Blair.

There was a slight rattle behind us. I turned quickly. Mr.

Chichester had dropped his coffee-cup.

Our party soon broke up; Mrs. Blair went below to sleep and I went

out on deck. Colonel Race followed me.

“You’re very elusive, Miss Beddingfeld. I looked for you everywhere

last night at the dance.”

“I went to bed early,” I explained.

“Are you going to run away to-night too? Or are you going to dance

with me?”

“I shall be very pleased to dance with you,” I murmured shyly. “But

Mrs. Blair——”

“Our friend, Mrs. Blair, doesn’t care for dancing.”

“And you do?”

“I care for dancing with you.”

“Oh!” I said nervously.

I was a little afraid of Colonel Race. Nevertheless I was enjoying

myself. This was better than discussing fossilized skulls with

stuffy old professors! Colonel Race was really just my ideal of a

stern silent Rhodesian. Possibly I might marry him! I hadn’t been

asked, it is true, but, as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared! And

all women, without in the least meaning it, consider every man they

meet as a possible husband for themselves or for their best friend.

I danced several times with him that evening. He danced well. When

the dancing was over, and I was thinking of going to bed, he

suggested a turn round the deck. We walked round three times and

finally subsided into two deck-chairs. There was nobody else in

sight. We made desultory conversation for some time.

“Do you know, Miss Beddingfeld, I think that I once met your

father? A very interesting man—on his own subject, and it’s a

subject that has a special fascination for me. In my humble way,

I’ve done a bit in that line myself. Why, when I was in the Dordogne

region——”

Our talk became technical. Colonel Race’s boast was not an idle

one. He knew a great deal. At the same time, he made one or two

curious mistakes—slips of the tongue, I might almost have thought

them. But he was quick to take his cue from me and to cover them

up. Once he spoke of the Mousterian period as succeeding the

Aurignacian—an absurd mistake for one who knew anything of the

subject.

It was twelve o’clock when I went to my cabin. I was still puzzling

over those queer discrepancies. Was it possible that he had “got

the whole subject up” for the occasion—that really he knew nothing

of archaeology? I shook my head, vaguely dissatisfied with that

solution.

Just as I was dropping off to sleep, I sat up with a sudden start

as another idea flashed into my head. Had _he_ been pumping _me?_

Were those slight inaccuracies just tests—to see whether I really

knew what I was talking about? In other words, he suspected me of

not being genuinely Anne Beddingfeld.

Why?