regretted. "Any complaints you feel it right to make can be addressed
to the company's agents in Liverpool. At present I must proceed with
what I conceive to be my duty. Do you care to hand Mr. Dix your keys?"

"I will see Mr. Dix damned first!" Jocelyn assured him.

The captain shrugged his shoulders, called to the steward, who was
waiting outside, and the search commenced. They opened drawers, they
turned up the carpet. They invited Jocelyn Thew to sit upon the couch
whilst they ripped open the bed, and they invited him to return to the
bed whilst they ripped up the couch. His personal belongings, his
dressing-case and his steamer trunk were gone through with painstaking
care. His trunk, which was then dragged in, was ransacked from top to
bottom. In due course the search was concluded, and except that his
wearing apparel seemed chosen with extraordinary care and taste,
nothing in any way suspicious was discovered. The captain made haste
to acknowledge the fact.

"Well, Mr. Thew," he announced, "I have done my duty and you are out
of it with a clean sheet. Have you any objection to answering a few
questions?" "Every objection in the world," Jocelyn Thew replied.

The purser ventured to intervene.

"Come, Mr. Thew," he said, "you're an Englishman, aren't you?"

A light flashed in Thew's eyes.

"I shall break the promise I made to the captain just now," he
declared, "and answer that one question, at any rate. I thank God I