“Oh, but I say!” A ghastly thought had struck me. “When they get on the boat and find she isn’t there, won’t they come buzzing back?”

“I anticipated that possibility, sir. At my suggestion, Miss Wardour informed the young gentlemen that she proposed to travel overland to Madeira and join the vessel there.”

“And where do they touch after Madeira?”

“Nowhere, sir.”

For a moment I just lay back, letting the idea of the thing soak in. There seemed to me to be only one flaw.

“The only pity is,” I said, “that on a large boat like that they will be able to avoid each other. I mean, I should have liked to feel that Claude was having a good deal of Eustace’s society and vice versa.”