“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.

“Hasn’t been home all night,” panted Mrs. Kingdom, joining them.  “I don’t know what to think.”

They formed an excited little group round the steward’s door, and Mr. Wilks, with an instinctive feeling that the matter was one to be discussed in private, led the way indoors.  He began to apologize for the disordered condition of the room, but Jack Nugent, interrupting him brusquely, began to relate his own adventures of the past few hours.

Mrs. Kingdom listened to the narrative with unexpected calmness.  She knew the cause of her nephew’s discomfiture.  It was the glass of whisky acting on a system unaccustomed to alcohol, and she gave a vivid and moving account of the effects of a stiff glass of hot rum which she had once taken for a cold.  It was quite clear to her that the captain had put his son to bed; the thing to discover now was where he had put himself.

“Sam knows something about it,” said her nephew, darkly; “there’s something wrong.”