vial. "On condition you join me at dinner. They
make good curries here."

"I've had curry," said Captain Jessop, heavily, "in Colombo and
Hong-Kong frequent, but Hokar's curries are the best."

"Ah!" said Hurd in a friendly curious way, "so you know this shanty?"

Jessop looked at him with contempt. "Know this shanty," said he, with a
grin, "why, in coorse, I do. I've been swinging my hammock here time in
and out for the last thirty year."

"You'll be a Christchurch man, then?"

"Not me, mate. I'm Buckinghamshire. Stowley born."

Hurd with difficulty suppressed a start. Stowley was the place where the
all-important brooch had been pawned by a nautical man, and here was the
man in question. "I should have thought you'd lived near the sea," he
said cautiously, "say Southampton."

"Oh, I used t'go there for my ship," said the captain, draining his
glass, "but I don't go there no more."

"Retired, eh?"

Jessop nodded and looked at his friend--as he considered Hurd, since the
invitation to dinner--with a blood-shot pair of eyes. "Come storm, come
calm," he growled, "I've sailed the ocean for forty years. Yes, sir,
you bet. I was a slip of a fifteen cabin-boy on my first cruise, and
then I got on to being skipper. Lord," Jessop smacked his knee, "the
things I've seen!"

"We'll have them to-night after dinner," said Hurd, nodding; "but now, I
suppose, you've made your fortune."

"No," said the captain, gloomily, "not what you'd call money. I've got a
stand-by, though," and he winked.

"Ah! Married to a rich wife?"

"Not me. I've had enough of marriage, having been the skipper of a
mermaid with a tongue. No, sir," he roared out another line of some song
floating in his muzzy head, "a saucy bachelor am I," then changed to
gruff talk, "and I intends being one all my days. Stand-by, I
have--t'ain't a wife, but I can draw the money regular, and no questions
asked." Again he winked and drank another glass.

Hurd reflected that perhaps Jessop had killed Aaron Norman for Mrs.
Krill, and she was paying him blood-money. But he did not dare to press
the question, as Jessop was coming perilously near what the Irish call
"the cross drop." He therefore proposed an adjournment to the
sitting-room. Jessop agreed quite unsuspectingly, not guessing he was
being trapped. The man was so large and uncouth that Hurd felt behind
his waist to see that his revolver was loose and could be used should
occasion arise.

Miss Junk broug