"Is that all?" he asked, without disguising his disappointment.
They sat looking at the diagram in silence. Van Ingen, as was his peculiarity, scribbled mechanically on the blotting pad before him.
He drew flowers, and men's heads, and impossible structures of all kinds; he made inaccurate tracings of maps, of columns, pediments, squares, and triangles. Then, in the same absent way, he made a rough copy of the diagram.
Then his pencil stopped and he sat bolt upright.
"Whew!" whistled Van Ingen. "Have you got an atlas, Smith?"
Van Ingen turned the leaves, looked long and earnestly at something he saw, closed the book, and turned a little white, but his eyes were blazing.
He took up his pencil and quickly sketched the diagram:
[Illustration: Van Ingen's first diagram]
"Look," he said, and added a few letters:
[Illustration: Van Ingen's second diagram]
"Longitude, nought; latitude nought--L. o, L. o!" whispered the detective. "You've hit it, Van Ingen! By Jove! Why, that is off the African coast." He looked again at the map.
"It is where the Greenwich meridian crosses the Equator," he said. "It's 'nowhere'! The only 'nowhere' in the world!"
Under an awning on the quarter-deck of the _Maria Braganza_, George T. Baggin was stretched out in the easiest of easy-chairs in an attitude of luxurious comfort.
Admiral Lombrosa, passing on his way to his cabin, smacked him familiarly upon the shoulder--an attitude which epitomised the changed relationships of the pair.
The _Maria Braganza_ was steaming slowly eastward, and, since it was the hour of siesta, the deck was strewn with the recumbent forms of men.
"Where is Poltavo?" he asked, and the other laughed.
"He sleeps, Señor Presidente," said the "Admiral."--There had been some curious promotions on board the _Maria Braganza_.--"He is amusing, your count."
Baggin wriggled uncomfortably in his chair, but made no answer, and the other man eyed him keenly.
Baggin must have felt rather than observed the scrutiny, for suddenly he looked up and caught the sailor's eye.
"Eh?" he asked, as though to some unspoken question. Then, "Where is Grayson?"
Again the smile on the swart face of the Brazilian.
"He is here," he said, as a stout figure in white ducks shuffled awkwardly along the canting deck.