CHAPTER XVII

NAN PUZZLES OVER HER SECRET

"I wonder if your hunchback is the mysterious passenger everyone is talking about," Laura said thoughtfully, when she was convinced that Nan was not going to speak.

"I never thought of that!" This from Rhoda. "But it all fits together perfectly. They say he never appears at the table for his meals and that he has his own servants to take care of him."

"Yes," Bess contributed, "a steward told the stewardess and the stewardess told me that no one of the ship's crew has been in that cabin since the boat left dock."

"It must have been the same stewardess," Laura picked up the story, "who told me that nothing has gone right in this end of the ship since he came in. She says there has been trouble, trouble all the while. She's a superstitious old soul. She thinks he has cast a spell over everything around here." Laura's voice was a half whisper as she imparted her information.

"Well, you'd think so too, if you had seen him," Grace whispered too. "I don't see why in the world they ever let him get a passport and get on the ship."

"Oh, I heard somebody say today," Amelia supplied, as Grace's statement recalled the conversation to her mind, "that he came up the gang-plank in New York behind the queerest looking outfit he'd ever seen in all the times he has crossed the ocean.

"He said the man was all swathed up to the eyes in an overcoat and a heavy scarf of Scotch plaid. His collar was turned up and his cap pulled down so that none of his face was visible. He said nothing to anyone, refused to let a porter take a small black valise he was carrying, and went directly to his cabin.

"The man who was telling the story said his stateroom is close by, but that he has never once met him in the halls. However, he did say, that from time to time he has heard someone in that cabin speak in a strong Scotch burr, ordering a servant around in no uncertain terms."

"Did the man that you heard," she looked at Grace, "speak like that?"

"Amelia, I didn't notice what kind of an accent he used!" Grace sounded almost impatient. "I was too frightened to notice anything like that. I only know what I've told you already."

"Did the man who came looking for me that first day we came on the boat speak like that?" Nan hardly dared to ask the question. She wanted information, but she didn't want to give any.

For a moment the girls sat thinking. Then Laura spoke up. "You would think that we would have noticed that," she said, "but I can't honestly say I did. It was all such a surprise and we were so excited anyway that I only noticed what he looked like."

"Well, he didn't say very much," Rhoda added. "Remember. He spent most of his time looking around the room and at us as though he wanted to be sure to remember us always. Ooh, I don't like to think about it."

"Nor I either," Bess was most emphatic. "I haven't seen him at all, and still I don't like to think about it. It's perfectly horrid to have him bothering us at all, and if he ever follows me, I'm going to scream so loud that everybody on this boat will come running. He has no business at all annoying us this way. We haven't done anything to him.

"Nan didn't want his old baggage. It wasn't her fault that it was brought to our cabin. Why, I'll bet he did it himself or ordered that servant of his to do it. What for, I don't know, but if he's queer, there is no accounting for what he does. I wish they would lock him up or dump him overboard or something. We just get rid of Linda and then he comes here to annoy us. Why can't people leave us alone?" Bess was thoroughly incensed. "We only have a couple of more days on boat--"

"Oh, come let's forget it all," Nan interrupted. She was more than anxious to put the problem aside for the time being. "Let's talk of something else. Or even better than that, let's go upstairs and see the pictures the ship's photographer has been taking."

"What photographer? What pictures?" Amelia looked puzzled.

"You mean to say you haven't seen the photographer at all!" Bess was incredulous. "Why, he's always around with that camera of his. It's almost impossible to sit or stand any place on deck without his taking your picture!"

"Old Procrastination Boggs," Laura teased, "has been so busy trying to figure out the time so as to keep her clocks straight that she hasn't known what was going on around her. Have you decided yet," she asked, "whether you set the clock ahead or back when you are traveling east?

"I went into Amelia's cabin last night," she explained to the others, "and there she was sitting on the floor with her clocks all around her. She looked just as she did the night we first saw her in her room at Lakeview. This time, however, she had a pencil and paper in her hand. At first, I thought she had lost her mind, for there were little marks like chicken scratches on the paper."

"Oh, it didn't look like that at all," Amelia protested. "You just don't recognize a good sketch when you see one. That round mark was the sun. The long straight one was the path it takes as it moves from the east to the west."

"But the sun doesn't move," Rhoda interrupted. "The earth does."

"Well, anyway," Laura continued her teasing, "there she was on the floor with her clocks. Each one was set at a different time and Amelia was drawing pictures. I heard her muttering to herself, 'Now, if the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the ship travels east, then we lose no, we gain time. No, we lose time.' She couldn't make up her mind, so she began all over again, 'if the sun rises in the west, I mean the east, and we travel west, no east'--Say, which way are we traveling?" Laura had confused herself.

"East." Nan laughed. "And don't go any further or you'll have us all confused. Upstairs, near the Purser's window, there's a blackboard. On it, it says, 'Ship's passengers please note: set your watches ahead 40 minutes each night at 9, if you wish them to agree with ship's time.'"

"I know that now," Amelia laughed, ruefully. "I saw it the morning after I'd had such a time. And you needn't act so superior," she looked at Laura, "because you sat down on the floor with me and tried to figure it out too!"

The picture that this brought to mind caused all the girls to laugh.

"Let's go up and see those photographs, right now," Laura changed the subject.

"Yes, let's," Amelia agreed. So, walking and talking the six friends left the cabin and went to an upper deck.

"Bess Harley," Nan exclaimed as they stood around the pictures. "How did you ever manage to get yours taken so many times?"

Bess blushed. She had contrived to have her picture taken more than anyone else. Now, as she thought of the number of times she had purposely posed, hoping that the photographer would see her, she felt guilty. There were pictures of her in the deck chair, posed against a life preserver, and standing at the rail. There was one of her in a bathing suit on the morning she had gone swimming, another of her in slacks when she was headed for the ship's gymnasium, and another in leather jacket and skirt when the wind was blowing so hard that her hair was standing on end.

"Anyhow, they are all cute," Nan comforted, "and I'm as jealous as anything, because there aren't any of me."

"Oh, yes, there is, Nan. Look!" Rhoda pointed her finger to a picture of Nan posted right in the center of the board. The photographer had caught her when she was totally unaware of the rest of the world. He had made a silhouette of her on the ship's rail, in the place she called her balcony, looking out over the sea.

"Oh, how nice!" Nan herself was pleased. "I'll have to send one home to Momsy." Then a sad look flashed across her face. She was lonesome sometimes amid all the new strange things for her mother, her father, and the little cottage on Amity street. There were times when she wished most earnestly that she could consult with her father or have the bright hopefulness of her mother's comfort to encourage her.

Her thoughts flashed back to her father's warning and then to the letter she had received at Lakeview Hall, the letter she had concealed from Bess. Was this hunchback who seemed to be watching her connected in any way with either of the two? Was he the one her father was warning her against? Had he had anything to do with the letter? Nan resolved to get it from the purser with whom she had left her valuables, look at it again, and see whether it contained any undiscovered clues.

"What's the matter, Nan," Bess brought her thoughts back to the present. "Your mind seems miles away. We've all ordered our pictures, and you haven't had a word to say for the last ten minutes."

Nan started guiltily, laughed with them at her own absent-mindedness, bought photographs of herself and her friends for her memory book, and then, with them, went into the ship's store to buy souvenirs for friends back home.

So, in spite of Grace's frightening experience, the morning was a gay one for the Lakeview Hall crowd and the afternoon brought a surprise that even Bess, in her wildest dreams of the nice things that might happen to them on the boat, had never imagined.