Chapter XLIII: On Board the “escorial”

“You cut it rather fine.”

Bill looked round and gripped the hand of Bullott.

“The purser told me he’d had your wire, but we’d given you up. Our stay at Cherbourg was shorter than usual, and you were lucky to make it.”

They went down to the purser’s office together, and Bill received the steamship ticket, which had been ordered by wireless, and was shown to a small cabin on one of the upper decks.

In greater detail than was usual with him, he told the story of La Florette’s visit and his subsequent misadventure.

“You’re sure it was Laffin?”

“Certain,” said Bill emphatically. “I knew him even with his beard on. Once that was off, he made no disguise of his identity. If that blundering idiot of a policeman hadn’t pinched me, I’d have had him under lock and key.”

Bullott looked thoughtfully at the new passenger.

“I don’t think they’ll make any attempt to get the money--which is on board, by the way--until they get to New York. At any rate, the captain and the ship’s officers know that there is some possibility of the strong-room being forced, and they’ve put a couple of armed guards before the purser’s safe.”

“Is it in an inaccessible place?” asked Bill.

“No, as a matter of fact, it is behind the purser’s cabin, and the only possible way in which it can be forced is through that apartment. This, of course, is not the strong-room in which the money would be stored if it were in bullion: there’s a bigger vault down below. But as the payment is made in paper, the purser’s own deposit is considered to be the best possible place for it. Day and night there is somebody on duty; the purser himself sleeps in a berth which covers the door; and in addition, there are two armed quartermasters on duty.”

“There are no suspicious characters amongst the passengers?”

“It is too early to say that,” said Bullott. “With eleven hundred fashionable and semi-fashionable folk in the first and second class, it is quite possible that we shall find a few who wouldn’t be qualified if we were choosing archbishops. There are, for instance, eight known cardsharpers working the line, and probably as many more who are unknown. But the purser and the ship’s police are certain that these men are not in any way dangerous. They specialise in their own graft and have no time for sidelines. Do you know the ship? She’s wonderful!”

“A newspaper man knows everything,” said Bill.