VI.

Starbuck abruptly headed for the lounge, motioned Ray to follow. The latter did so, mechanically, too utterly dumfounded for words or coherent thought. The knowledge that Eve Gaylord, reported to have been kidnaped or spirited away from her Philadelphia home, was on board the Raven, was in itself overwhelming!

How she came to be there and whether she had come willingly were other matters. But the look Ray had caught in Starbuck’s eyes and the sudden alertness that had flashed into the girl’s face in the fleeting instant that Ray had looked upon her—these indicated, without question, that something was amiss.

Starbuck’s “Well” had been the involuntary exclamation of a man caught in a jam. But in the few seconds occupied by their progress to the lounge, Ray had no time to sort out the impressions that were crying for recognition.

He felt dumb and stupid. Therefore, he did the sensible thing, followed Starbuck and, when they had seated themselves, waited for his host to speak.

Starbuck was frowning. “Why did you follow me down there?” he asked sharply.

“I didn’t follow you,” Ray told him. “I was looking for my room when you came out.”

“Well, what do you think about it?” the other demanded.

“I don’t know what to think,” Ray admitted, adding: “What do you expect me to think?”

Starbuck sparred yet a moment longer. “You know who the lady is, I suppose.”

“Sure. Eve Gaylord,” Ray answered shortly.

“Just so. And, before you left New York, the papers, no doubt—well, just what was being said?”

“I was too busy with my own affairs to follow the thing closely,” was the reply. “But I gathered that the girl had disappeared, and that she was believed to have been kidnaped. There were reports that a big ransom had been demanded from Wilbur Gaylord.”

Starbuck smiled faintly. “I fancy he could pay a pretty stiff price for anything he wanted badly enough,” he observed.

“There is no doubt about that, but—Holy Moses, you haven’t kidnaped the girl, Mr. Starbuck!”

Starbuck laughed shortly, a disagreeable little chuckle, it was, and turned abruptly to the taboret. He mixed a stiff drink, motioned Ray to help himself, then said, half to himself: “It is too bad that you couldn’t have remained here where you belonged.”

The sudden recollection of that floor plan forced its way into the tide of Folsom’s racing thoughts and the young man paused in the act of pouring a drink to look keenly at his host. Starbuck noted this.

“Now what?” he queried.

Ray set down his glass.

“Hell!” he exclaimed. “Why go on like this? If you think any sort of explanation is coming to me, Mr. Starbuck, I should be pleased to hear it. Otherwise—well, the subject is not pleasant.”

Starbuck pondered this for a moment.

“We’ll drop the matter for the present,” he announced. “Tonight at Cobh, we shall have the British papers and the American prints at Liverpool next day. We’ll just drop it for now. Only—only, I fear I cannot put you ashore at Cobh, nor yet at Liverpool. You have suddenly become a problem, Mr. Folsom.”

“But—but—why, I must get ashore! I have to report on my trip—to report the—the—disappearance of Mrs. Benham!”

“Sorry,” Starbuck told him. “But it can’t be done, you see. I hate to inconvenience you, but there you are. It can’t be done. Damned shame you came along when you did; otherwise I would have had you snugly ashore this evening or first thing in the morning.”

“You’re crazy,” Ray blurted out. “Why, you can’t keep me here. You can’t keep the news of our mishap bottled up like this, you know!”

“Can’t I, though? I fancy I can if I choose. It’s really remarkable what I can do along those lines—what I have done. But we were about to drop the subject until after seeing those papers. It will be tremendously interesting to read the sundry versions of the affair.

“Meanwhile, I will admit that I’m puzzled. There is a lot of thinking to be done. I hope we make Cobh in time to send a boat ashore tonight.” Whereupon the astonishing Starbuck wheeled and walked out of the lounge.

Ray stared after him. He could put but one construction upon what the man had said. That and his refusal to put his guests ashore could signify only—but, why, the thing was impossible!

This yacht, these guests, the estate in the north, Starbuck himself. Was not the man wealthy and of good repute? There had been enough in the papers about him. That he could be a desperate criminal seemed preposterous!

And these people about him—where did they fit in? Rats! It probably was something in the nature of an astounding hoax. Ah, well. He would make the best of the business and see what the newspapers had to say.