Lloyd's agents.' An ingenious insinuation, which, at the time it was
made, had caused me to contemplate a new and much more commonplace
solution of our enigma than had ever occurred to us; but it was only
a passing doubt, and I dismissed it altogether now.

The fact was, it either explained everything or nothing. As long as
we held to our fundamental assumption--that Davies had been decoyed
into a death-trap in September--it explained nothing. It was too
fantastic to suppose that the exigencies of a commercial speculation
would lead to such extremities as that. We were not in the South Sea
Islands; nor were we the puppets of a romance. We were in Europe,
dealing not only with a Dollmann, but with an officer of the German
Imperial Navy, who would scarcely be connected with a commercial
enterprise which could conceivably be reduced to forwarding its
objects in such a fashion. It was shocking enough to find him in
relations with such a scoundrel at all, but it was explicable if the
motive were imperial--not so if it were financial. No; to accept the
suggestion we must declare the whole quest a mare's nest from
beginning to end; the attempt on Davies a delusion of his own fancy,
the whole structure we had built on it, baseless.

'Well,' I can hear the reader saying, 'why not? You, at any rate,
were always a little sceptical.'

Granted; yet I can truthfully say I scarcely faltered for a moment.
Much had happened since Schlei Fiord. I had seen the mechanism of the
death-trap; I had lived with Davies for a stormy fortnight, every
hour of which had increased my reliance on his seamanship, and also,
therefore, on his account of an event which depended largely for its
correct interpretation on a balanced nautical judgement. Finally, I