“It’s the steering gear,” Mrs. Maurier explained at the breakfast table. “Some—”

“I know,” Mrs. Wiseman exclaimed immediately above the grapefruit, “German spies!”

Mrs. Maurier stared at her with patient astonishment. She said, How cute. “It worked perfectly yesterday. The captain said it worked perfectly yesterday. But this morning, when the storm came up . . . anyway, we’re aground, and they are sending some one to get a tug to pull us off. They are trying to find the trouble this morning, but I don’t know . . .”

Mrs. Wiseman leaned toward her and patted her fumbling ringed hand. “There, there, don’t you feel badly about it: it wasn’t your fault. They’ll get us off soon, and we can have just as much fun here as we would sailing around. More, perhaps: motion seems to have had a bad effect on the party. I wonder . . .” Fairchild and his people had not yet arrived: before each vacant place its grapefruit, innocent and profound. Surely just the prospect of more grapefruit couldn’t have driven them . . . Mrs. Maurier followed her gaze.

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” she murmured.

“Anyway, I’ve always wanted to be shipwrecked,” Mrs. Wiseman went on. “What do they call it? scuttled the ship, isn’t it? But surely Dawson and Julius couldn’t have thought of this, though” Mrs. Maurier, brooding above her plate, raised her eyes, cringing. “No, no,” the other answered herself hastily, “of course not: that’s silly. It just happened, as things do. But let this be a lesson to you children, never to lay yourselves open to suspicion,” she added looking from the niece to the nephew. The steward appeared with coffee and Mrs. Maurier directed him to leave the gentlemen’s grapefruit until it suited their pleasure to come for it.

“They couldn’t have done it if they’d wanted to,” the niece replied. “They don’t know anything about machinery. Josh could have done it. He knows all about automobile motors. I bet you could fix it for ’em if you wanted to, couldn’t you, Gus?”

He didn’t seem to have heard her at all. He finished his breakfast, eating with a steady and complete preoccupation, then thrusting his chair back he asked generally for a cigarette. His sister produced a package from somewhere. It bore yet faint traces of pinkish scented powder, and Miss Jameson said sharply:

“I wondered who took my cigarettes. It was you, was it?”

“I thought you’d forgot ’em, so I brought ’em up with me.” She and her brother took one each, and she slid the package across the table. Miss Jameson picked it up, stared into it a moment, then put it in her handbag. The nephew had a patent lighter. They all watched with interest, and after a while Mr. Talliaferro with facetious intent offered him a match. But it took fire finally, and he lit his cigarette and snapped the cap down. “Gimme a light too, Gus,” his sister said quickly, and from the pocket of his shirt he took two matches, laid them beside her plate. He rose.

He whistled four bars of “Sleepytime Gal” monotonously, ending on a prolonged excruciating note, and from the bed clothing at the foot of his bunk he got the steel rod and stood squinting his eyes against the smoke of his cigarette, examining it. One end of it was kind of blackened, and pinching the cloth of his trouserleg about it, he shuttled it swiftly back and forth. Then he examined it again. It was still kind of black. The smoke of his cigarette was making his eyes water, so he spat it and ground his heel on it.

After a time he found a toothbrush and crossing the passage to a lavatory he scrubbed the rod. A little of the black came off, onto the brush, and he dried the rod on his shirt and scrubbed the brush against the screen in a port, then against a redleaded water pipe, and then against the back of his hand. He sniffed at it . . . a kind of machinery smell yet, but you won’t notice it with toothpaste on it. He returned and replaced the brush among Mr. Talliaferro’s things.

He whistled four bars of “Sleepytime Gal” monotonously. The engine room was deserted. But he was making no effort toward concealment, anyway. He found the wrenches again and went to the battery room and restored the rod without haste, whistling with monotonous preoccupation. He replaced the wrenches and stood for a while examining the slumbering engine with rapture. Then still without haste he quitted the room.

The captain, the steward and the deckhand sat at breakfast in the saloon. He paused in the door.

“Broke down, have we?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the captain answered shortly. They went on with their breakfast.

“What’s the trouble?” No reply, and after a time he suggested: “Engine play out?”

“Steering gear,” the captain answered shortly.

“You ought to be able to fix that. . . . Where is the steering gear?”

“Engine room,” the captain replied. The nephew turned away.

“Well, I haven’t touched anything in the engine room.”

The captain bent above his plate, chewing. Then his jaws ceased and he raised his head sharply, staring after the nephew retreating down the passage.