"Yes," said Elsa. "Why does he want you? And in such a desperate hurry,
too!"

Marvin was re-reading the message.

"It isn't a mere invitation," he said. "There's no
come-right-along-you'll-like-this-place-it's-fine about it. He seems to
look on your company more as a necessity than a luxury. It's a sort of
imperious C.Q.D."

"That's what makes it so strange. We have hardly met for years. Why, he
didn't even know where I was. The cable was sent to the bank and
forwarded on. And I don't know where he is!"

"Which brings us back," said Marvin, "to mysterious Mervo. Let us
reason inductively. If you get to the place by taking a boat from
Marseilles, it can't be far from the French coast. I should say at a
venture that Mervo is an island in the Mediterranean. And a small
island for if it had been a big one we should have heard of it."

"Marvin!" cried Elsa, her face beaming with proud affection. "How
clever you are!"

"A mere gift," he said modestly. "I have been like that from a boy." He
got up from his chair. "Isn't there an encyclopaedia in the library,
Elsa?"

"Yes, but it's an old edition."