David stood up. His chair fell over with a crash. He held on to the table to steady himself. Even Bulmer, white with rage, could not fail to see that he was stunned.

But d.i.c.key was not minded to spare him on that account.

"Answer me, you scoundrel!" he shouted, thrusting the paper almost into David's face. "You are glib enough when it suits your purpose. Were _you_ in this? Is this the reason you didn't tell me Iris was on board till I forced the truth out of you last night?"

The managing clerk came in. Behind him, a couple of juniors and the office boy supplied reenforcements. They all had the settled conviction that their employer was a rogue, but he paid them in no n.i.g.g.ardly fashion, and they would not suffer anyone to attack him.

This incursion from the external world had a restorative effect on Verity. Being what is termed a self-made man, he had a fine sense of his own importance, and his subordinates' lack of respect forthwith overcame every other consideration.

"Get out!" he growled, waving a hand toward the door.

"But, sir--please, gentlemen----" stuttered the senior clerk.

"Get out, I tell you! D--n yer eyes, 'oo sent for any of you?"

Undoubtedly David was recovering. The discomfited clerks retired.

Even d.i.c.key Bulmer was quieted a little. But he still shook the newspaper under David's nose.

"Now!" he cried. "Let's have it. No more of your flamin' made-up tales. Wot took you to shove the _Andromeda_ into a rat-trap of this sort?"

David staggered away from the table. He seemed to be laboring for breath.

"'Arf a mo'. No need to yowl at me like that," he protested.

He fumbled with the lock of a corner cupboard, opened it, and drew forth a decanter and some gla.s.ses. A tumbler crashed to the floor, and the slight accident was another factor in clearing his wits. He swore volubly.

"Same thing 'appened that Sunday afternoon," he said, apparently obvious of the other men's presence. "My poor la.s.s upset one, she did.

Wish she'd ha' flung it at my 'ed. . . . Did it say 'went down with all 'ands,' mister?" he demanded suddenly of the reporter.

"Yes, Mr. Verity."

"Is it true?"

"I trust not, but Lloyd's agent--well, I needn't tell you that Lloyd's is reliable. Was your niece on board? Is she the lady mentioned in the cablegram?"

Then Bulmer woke up to the fact that there was a stranger present.

"'Ello!" he cried angrily. "Wot are you doin' ere? 'Oo are you? Be off, instantly."

"I am not going until Mr. Verity hears what I have to ask him, and answers, or not, as he feels disposed," was the firm reply.

"Leave 'im alone, d.i.c.key. It's all right. Wot does it matter now 'oo knows all there is to know? Just gimme a minnit."

Verity poured out some brandy. Man is but a creature of habit, and the hospitable Lancastrian does not drink alone when there is company.

"'Ave a tiddly?" he inquired blandly.

Both Bulmer and the journalist believed that David was losing his faculties. Never did shipowner behave more queerly when faced by a disaster of like magnitude, involving, as did the _Andromeda's_ loss, not only political issues of prime importance, but also the death of a near relative. They refused the proffered refreshment, not without some show of indignation. Verity swallowed a large dose of neat spirit. He thought it would revive him, so, of course, the effect was instantaneous. The same quant.i.ty of prussic acid could not have killed him more rapidly than the brandy rallied his scattered forces, and, not being a physiologist, he gave the brandy all the credit.

"Ah!" he said, smacking his lips with some of the old-time relish, "that puts new life into one. An' now, let's get on with the knittin'.

I was a bit rattled when this young party steers in an' whacks 'is c.o.c.k-an'-bull yarn into me 'and. 'Oo ever 'eard of a respectable British ship mixin' 'erself up with a South American revolution? The story is all moonshine on the face of it."

"I think otherwise, Mr. Verity, and Mr. Bulmer, I take it, agrees with me," said the reporter.

"Wot," blazed David, into whose mind had darted a notion that dazzled him by its daring, "d'ye mean to insiniwate that I lent my ship to this 'ere Dom Wot's-'is-name? D'ye sit there an' tell me that Jimmie c.o.ke, a skipper who's bin in my employ for sixteen year, would carry on that sort of fool's business behind 'is owner's back? Go into my clerk's office, young man, an' ax Andrews to show up a copy of the ship's manifest. See w'en an 'ow she was insured. Jot down the names of the freighters for this run, and skip round to their offices to verify.

An' if that don't fill the bill, well, just interview yourself, an' say if you'd allow your niece, a bonnie la.s.s like my Iris, to take a trip that might end in 'er bein' blown to bits. It's crool, that's wot it is, reel crool."

David was not simulating this contemptuous wrath. He actually felt it.

His harsh voice cracked when he spoke of Iris, and the excited words gushed out in a torrent.

The reporter glanced at Bulmer, who was watching Verity with a tense expectancy that was not to be easily accounted for, since his manner and speech on entering the room had been so distinctly hostile.

"The lady referred to was Miss Iris Yorke, then?"

"'Oo else? I've on'y one niece. My trouble is that she went without my permission, in a way of speakin'. 'Ere, you'd better 'ave the fax.

She was engaged to my friend, Mr. Bulmer, but, bein' a slip of a girl, an' fond o' romancin', she just put herself aboard the Andromeeda without sayin' 'with your leave' or 'by your leave.' She wrote me a letter, w'ich sort of explains the affair. D'you want to see it?"

"If I may."

"No," said Bulmer.

"Yes," bl.u.s.tered Verity, fully alive now to the immense possibilities underlying the appearance in print of Iris's references to her forthcoming marriage.

"An' I say 'no,' an' mean it," said the older man. "Go slow, David, go slow. I was not comin 'ere as your enemy when I found this paper bein'

cried in the streets. It med me mad for a while. But I believe wot you've said, an' I'm not the man to want my business, or my future wife's I 'ope, to be chewed over by every d.i.c.k, Tom, an' 'Arry in Liverpool."

The reincarnation of David was a wonderful spectacle, the most impressive incident the journalist had ever witnessed, did he but know its genesis. The metamorphosis was physical as well as mental. Verity burgeoned before his very eyes.

"Of course, that makes a h-- a tremenjous difference," said the shipowner. "You 'ave my word for it, an' that is enough for most men.

Mr. Andrews 'll give you all the information you want. I'll cable now to Rio an' Pernambewco, an' see if I can get any straight news from the shippin' 'ouses there. I'll let you know if I 'ear anything, an' you might do the same by me."

The reporter gave this promise readily. He scented a possible scandal, and meant to keep in touch with Verity. Meanwhile, he was in need of the facts which the managing clerk could supply, so he took himself off.

Bulmer went to the window and looked out. A drizzle of sleet was falling from a gray sky. The atmosphere was heavy. It was a day singularly appropriate to the evil tidings that had shocked him into a fury against the man who had so willfully deceived him. David picked up the proof slips and reread them. He compared them with the paragraphs in the newspaper brought by Bulmer, and thrown by him on the table after his first outburst of helpless wrath. They were identical in wording, of course, but, somehow, their meaning was clearer in the printed page: and David, despite his uncouth diction, was a clever man.

He wrinkled his forehead now in a.n.a.lysis of each line. Soon he hit on something that puzzled him.

"d.i.c.key," he said.

There was no answer. The old man peering through the window seemed to have bent and whitened even since he came into the room.

"Look 'ere, d.i.c.key," went on David, "this dashed fairy-tale won't hold water. _You_ know c.o.ke. Is 'e the kind o' man to go b.u.mpin' round like a stage 'ero, an' hoisting Union Jacks as the ship sinks? I ax you, is 'e? It's nonsense, stuff an' nonsense. An', if the Andromeeda was sc.r.a.pped at Fernando Noronha, 'oo were the freebooters that collared the island, an' 'ow did this 'ere De Sylva get to Maceio? Are you listenin'?"

"Yes," said Bulmer, turning at last, and devouring Verity with his deep-set eyes.

"Well, wot d'ye think of it?"

"Did you send the ship to Fernando Noronha?"