you, though I protest strongly at your manner; but I don't tell my
affairs to prying strangers because we are cooped up on the same boat."

"H'm. If I were you I would keep my temper." He regarded me
thoughtfully, and then with rapier-like rapidity shot two questions
at my head. "I say, Mr. Bayne, you're positive about your parents not
having German blood, are you? And you are quite sure you were born in
Paris, not in--well, Prussia, suppose we say?"

"What the--" I opportunely remembered the presence of Miss Esme
Falconer. "What do you mean?" I substituted less sulphurously, but with
a glare.

He bent forward, tapping his forefinger against the desk, and his eyes
were like gimlets boring into mine.

"I mean," he enlightened me, his voice very hard of a sudden, "that a
German agent is due to sail on this line, about this time, with certain
papers, and that from one or two indications I'm not at all sure you are
not the man."

With sudden perspicacity, I realized that he took me for an emissary of
the great Blenheim. Exasperation overwhelmed me; would these farcical
complications never cease?

"Good heavens, man," I exclaimed with conviction, "you are crazy! Look
at me! Use your common-sense! What on earth is there about me to suggest
a spy?"

"In a good spy there never is anything suggestive."