We found the decks thronged with people, and the ship's crew were bustling about, getting ready to sail. We stood near the gangway, facing the dock. A man was pacing back and forth in the opening whose figure seemed familiar to me. Presently he came aboard, and as he passed near us I saw it was the omnipresent Mr. Murmurtot.
“I wonder if he is afraid somebody will steal the ship?” I remarked.
“No, he is looking for some person,” said Rayel, divining my thoughts.
“All ashore! Stand away, there!” shouted one of the ship's officers.
The passengers fell back, the gangway was pulled aboard, the great hawsers were loosened, and the ship moved slowly away from the dock. We stood for a long time watching the river craft and the receding lights of the city. The ship was well beyond the Atlantic Highlands when we went to our stateroom and to bed again. We slept until late in the morning, and arose barely in time for a late breakfast with Hester. Rayel seemed cheerful enough and took more than ordinary interest in his surroundings. When we had risen from the table he led me aside and directed my attention to a short, stout man with a bristly growth of close-cropped black hair, a low forehead and shaggy eyebrows, who was leaning lazily against the railing of the stairway.
“Let us avoid him,” he whispered. “I do not like his looks.”
What can this mean? I asked myself, as we all proceeded to the deck. Perhaps he was the man the detective was looking for.
It was a beautiful sunlit afternoon, and the vessel rode steadily in a sea that was growing quiet under the dying impulse that the winds had left behind them. We drew our chairs together on the deck near the stern of the vessel, and had settled down for a quiet chat among ourselves when we were unexpectedly joined by Mr. Murmurtot.
“Delighted, I'm sure!” he exclaimed, with the same inimitable drawl I had noted on the occasion of our first meeting. I soon observed that the artful little gentleman was master of an elaborate system of exclamations by which he encouraged one to talk freely without saying anything himself.
In response to my assertion that we had been exceedingly busy getting ready for the trip he said simply: “Indeed!”
It was a very unusual burst of confidence in which he was moved to express his views with any greater freedom. When the remark which preceded it was evidently expected to meet with Mr. Murmurtot's concurrence, then he would say, “Yes, indeed!”