Chapter 2

It was eight o'clock and a crisp, clear morning. A stewardess was offering tea and toast to Mrs. Patterson, the frail little lady whom Anne had observed in a wheel-chair the afternoon before. Seen closely, her face had a pathetic prettiness. With the delicate color in her soft cheeks, she looked like a fading tea rose. Yet one knew at a glance that she and bird-like Miss Sarah Drayton were sisters. There was the same oval face--this hollowed and that plump; the same soft brown hair--this wavy and that sleek; the same wide-open hazel eyes--these soft and sombre, those bright as beads.

"If you drink a few spoonfuls, dear, you may feel more like eating," Miss Drayton's cheery voice was saying. "And do taste the toast. If it's as good as it looks, you'll devour the last morsel."

Mrs. Patterson sipped the tea and nibbled a piece of toast. "It lacks only one thing--an appetite," she announced, smiling at her sister as she pushed aside the tray. "Did you hear that? I thought I heard--is it a child crying?"

The stewardess started. "Gracious! I forgot her! A little girl's just across from you, ma'am--an orphant, I guess. She's travelling alone with her uncle. And he charged me express when he came on board to look after her. Of course I forgot. My hands are that full my head won't hold it. It's 'Vaughan here' and it's 'Vaughan there,' regular as clockwork. Why ain't he called on me again?"

She trotted out and tapped on the door of the stateroom opposite. There was a brief silence. Vaughan was about to knock again when the door opened slowly. There stood a slim little girl struggling for self-control, but her fright and misery were too much for her, and in spite of herself tears trickled down her cheeks.

"She's an ugly little lady," thought Vaughan to herself.

Vaughan was wrong. The child had a piquant face, full of charm, and her head and chin had the poise of a princess. She had fair straight hair, almond-shaped hazel eyes under pencilled brows, and a nose "tip-tilted like a flower." Peggy Callahan, whose acquaintance you will make later, said she guessed it was because Anne's nose was so cute and darling that her eyebrows and her eyes and her mouth all pointed at it. But now the little face was dismal and splotched with tears, the tawny hair was tousled, and the white frock and white hair-ribbons were crumpled.

"Were you knocking at my door?" Anne asked in a voice made steady with difficulty.

"Yes, miss. I thought you might be sick. We heard you crying."

"Oh!" The pale face reddened. "I didn't know any one could hear. The walls of these rooms aren't very thick, are they?"

"No, miss." In spite of herself, Vaughan smiled at the quaint dignity of the child. "Don't you want me to change your frock? Dear me! I ought not to have forgot you last night! And breakfast? You haven't had breakfast, have you?"

"No. Are you the--the--" Anne drew her brows together, in an earnest search for a forgotten word.

"I'm the stewardess, miss."

"Oh, yes!--the stewardess. Uncle said you'd take care of me. Where is he? I want Uncle Carey."

"Have you seen him this morning, miss?" asked Vaughan.

"No. Not since a long time ago. Yesterday just before the boat sailed. When Roger was handing him a piece of yellow paper. I waited on deck for him hours and hours. Where is he now?"

"In his stateroom, maybe--or the smoking-room--or on deck. Maybe he's waiting this minute for you to go to breakfast. We'll have you ready in a jiffy."

Anne's face brightened. "I can bathe myself--almost. You may scrub the corners of my ears, if you please. And I can't quite part my hair straight. Will you find Uncle Carey? and see if he is ready for me?"

"Oh, yes, miss. If you'll tell me his name."

"Uncle Carey? He's Mr. Mayo. Mr. Carey Mayo of New York."

"Yes, miss. I'll find him. Just you wait a minute. I forget your name, miss."

"Anne. Anne Lewis."

The good-natured stewardess bustled about in a vain effort to find Mr. Carey Mayo. He was not in his stateroom, nor in the saloon, nor in the smoking-room, nor on deck. In her perplexity, she addressed the captain whom she met at the dining-room door.

"Beg pardon, sir; I'm looking for a Mr. Mayo, sir, and I can't find him anywheres."

"Well?" Captain Wards was gnawing the ends of his mustache.

"It's for his niece, sir, a little girl. She ain't seen him since yesterday, sir. Been crying till she's 'most sick."

"My word!" exclaimed Captain Wards. "I had forgotten there was a child. She's not the only one that wants him. I've had a wireless from New York--the chief of police," the captain explained to a gentleman at his elbow. "This Mayo is one of the bunch down in that Stuyvesant Trust Company. They've been examining the books, but his tracks were so cleverly covered that he was not even suspected at first. Yesterday they found out. But their bird had flown. He's on our register all right,--self and niece,--but we can't find him anywhere else."

They looked again and again in the tidy, empty little stateroom, as if it must give some sign, some clew to the missing man. There were his travelling bags strapped and piled where the porter had dumped them. The steward who had shown Mr. Mayo his stateroom remembered that he had come on board early, more than an hour before sailing time. Oh, yes, the man had taken good notice of Mr. Mayo. Could tell just how he looked. Slender youngish gentleman. Good clothes, light gray, well put on. Clean shaven. Face not round, not long. Blue eyes--or gray--perhaps brown. Darkish hair--it might be some gray. Nothing remarkable about his nose. Nor his complexion--not fair--not dark. Anyway, the steward would know him easy, and was sure he wasn't aboard.

A deck steward said he had looked for Mr. Mayo not long before the vessel sailed. A boy had brought a telegram for him. But a first-cabin lady had called the steward to move her chair.

The chap said he was Mr. Mayo's office boy and could find him if he were on the _Caronia_.

No one had seen Mr. Mayo after the boy brought this telegram. Evidently, some one had warned him that his guilt was discovered and he had hurried away to avoid arrest. Where was he now? And what was to become of his little niece?