“Your head wants cooling, I should think,” said the young man, returning him the towel.  “What’s it all about?”

Mr. Wilks hesitated; a bright thought occurred to him, and murmuring something about a dry towel he sped up the narrow stairs to his bedroom.  The captain was not there.  He pushed open the small lattice window and peered out into the alley; no sign of either the captain or the ingenious Mr. Nathan Smith.  With a heavy heart he descended the stairs again.

[Illustration:  “He pushed open the small lattice window and peered out into the alley.”]

“Now,” said Mr. Nugent, who was sitting down with his hands in his pockets, “perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain what all this means.”

“You were ’ere last night,” said Mr. Wilks, “you and the cap’n.”

“I know that,” said Nugent.  “How is it I didn’t go home?  I didn’t understand that it was an all-night invitation.  Where is my father?”

The steward shook his head helplessly.  “He was ’ere when I went out last night,” he said, slowly.  “When I came back the room was empty and I was told as ’e was upstairs in my bed.”

“Told he was in your bed?” repeated the other.  “Who told you?”

He pushed open the small lattice window and peered out into the alley.

Mr. Wilks caught his breath.  “I mean I told myself ’e was in my bed,” he stammered, “because when I came in I see these bed-clothes on the floor, an’ I thought as the cap’n ’ad put them there for me and taken my bed ’imself.”

Mr. Nugent regarded the litter of bed-clothes as though hoping that they would throw a little light on the affair, and then shot a puzzled glance at Mr. Wilks.

“Why should you think my father wanted your bed?” he inquired.

“I don’t know,” was the reply.  “I thought p’r’aps ’e’d maybe taken a little more than ’e ought to have taken.  But it’s all a myst’ry to me.  I’m more astonished than wot you are.”

“Well, I can’t make head or tail of it,” said Nugent, rising and pacing the room.  “I came here to meet my father.  So far as I remember I had one drink of whisky—­your whisky—­and then I woke up in your bedroom with a splitting headache and a tongue like a piece of leather.  Can you account for it?”

Mr. Wilks shook his head again.  “I wasn’t here,” he said, plucking up courage.  “Why not go an’ see your father?  Seems to me ’e is the one that would know most about it.”

Mr. Nugent stood for a minute considering, and then raising the latch of the door opened it slowly and inhaled the cold morning air.  A subtle and delicate aroma of coffee and herrings which had escaped from neighbouring breakfast-tables invaded the room and reminded him of an appetite.  He turned to go, but had barely quitted the step before he saw Mrs. Kingdom and his sister enter the alley.

Mr. Wilks saw them too, and, turning if anything a shade paler, supported himself by the door-pest.  Kate Nugent quickened her pace as she saw them, and, after a surprised greeting to her brother, breathlessly informed him that the captain was missing.