Then he asked permission to borrow one
of my books, and, clinging to my bunk, selected Buchner's Force and
Matter from my shelf, carefully wedging the empty space with the
doubled magazine I use for that purpose.
Still he was loth to depart, and, cudgelling his brains for a
pretext, he set up a rambling discourse on River Plate weather. And
all the time I kept wondering what was behind it all. At last it
came.
"By the way, Mr. Pathurst," he remarked, "do you happen to remember
how many years ago Mr. Mellaire said it was that he was dismasted and
foundered off here?"
I caught his drift on the instant.
"Eight years ago, wasn't it?" I lied.
Mr. Pike let this sink in and slowly digested it, while the Elsinore
was guilty of three huge rolls down to port and back again.
"Now I wonder what ship was sunk off the Plate eight years ago?" he
communed, as if with himself. "I guess I'll have to ask Mr. Mellaire
her name. You can search me for all any I can recollect."
He thanked me with unwonted elaborateness for Force and Matter, of
which I knew he would never read a line, and felt his way to the
door.
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