"Never."

"Was he acquainted with any of the other passengers?"

"Only as he had been with me--through the circumstance of casual
meeting as fellow shipmates."

"Er--was he, in your opinion, Miss Strong, a man who drank to
excess?"

"I do not know that he drank at all--he certainly had not been
drinking up to half an hour before I saw that body fall overboard,"
she answered, "for I was with him on deck up to that time."

"It is very strange," said the captain. "He did not look to me
like a man who was subject to fainting spells, or anything of that
sort. And even had he been it is scarcely credible that he should
have fallen completely over the rail had he been taken with an
attack while leaning upon it--he would rather have fallen inside,
upon the deck. If he is not on board, Miss Strong, he was thrown
overboard--and the fact that you heard no outcry would lead to the
assumption that he was dead before he left the ship's deck--murdered."

The girl shuddered.

It was a full hour later that the first officer returned to report
the outcome of the search.

"Mr. Caldwell is not on board, sir," he said.