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.