“Irina!” cried Marion as the lights came back on, “That was splendid. Thank you.”
Irina stood and bowed. “Could we have a hand for the players?”
The Humanova troupe stepped out from behind the sailcloth. The wedding guests clapped.
Isaac Bell shook the actors’ hands, pressing into each a ten-dollar gold piece. “Thank you for a memorable performance.”
“Would that we could have rehearsed longer,” one sighed, “but Mademoiselle Viorets kept changing the dialogue.”
The wedding party trooped down Mauretania’s grand staircase to the dining saloon. Bell and Marion made the rounds of the tables, thanking guests for coming and fielding questions.
“To the beautiful bride!” shouted a red-faced Chimney Baron, draining his glass and waving for a refill. “Und to you, Mr. Bell, as ve say in Germany, Da hast du Glück gehabt!”
“Which means,” Herr Wagner translated, “Did you get lucky!”
“Danke schön!” Bell grinned back.
They were making their way back to their own table when Clyde Lynds hurried up, his face pale, his expression grave. “Mr. Bell!”
“Are you all right, Clyde?”
“I can’t find the Professor anywhere. He’s not in his cabin, he’s not on deck, he’s not here, and he’s not in the Second Class dining room.”
“When did he leave the party?”
“Before the ceremony. He said he felt seasick again.” Lynds lowered his voice and whispered, “I had a feeling he was heading down to the baggage rooms. I went down there. I didn’t see him. I checked both of them, back in the stern and up in the bow. He wasn’t in, either.”
“Why would he go there?”
Clyde Lynds shrugged. “To check on our things, I guess.”
“What things?” Bell asked. “Luggage?” The Professor and his protégé had danced repeatedly around the subject of the actual “secret invention.” Was it aboard the ship? Was it in their heads? Was it on another ship? Did it consist only of drawings? Bell had no idea, but now it sounded as if the invention was physically on the Mauretania. It was be ironical if whatever the machine was, it was riding in the same luggage room as a Van Dorn Detective Agency prisoner.
“What’s in his luggage, Clyde?”
Lynds hesitated. Then he ducked his head and said, “The Professor had some crates.”
“Go sit with Mademoiselle Viorets. I’ll have a look.”
“Don’t you want me to come with you?”
“No.”
8
“Marion, i’m afraid i’m going to have to excuse myself. Beiderbecke has disappeared. Clyde is worried, and so am I.”
“I’ll hold the fort.”
Bell walked Marion to her chair and nodded to Archie. The two men left the party separately and joined up in Bell’s stateroom, where Bell slipped a pocket pistol into his trousers and tossed Archie another. “Beiderbecke’s gone missing. Clyde thought he went down to the baggage rooms, but he couldn’t find him there.”
“We’ve got our Protective Services boy in the forward one.”
“Let’s see what he has to tell us.”
They bounded down the grand staircase faster than the elevator would take them, past promenade deck, shelter deck, upper, main, and lower, and hurried forward to the front of the ship, following a route they knew well from visits to their prisoner, the swindler, and his bored and lonely guard. Archie was soon breathing hard, but insisted on matching Bell’s pace. Bell grabbed him suddenly and stopped him in his tracks. “Watch it.”
He scooped Professor Beiderbecke’s pince-nez spectacles off the deck. They examined them in the light of a ceiling bulb. One of the lenses had cracked. “His all right, pink tint to the glass, like he wore.”