the boat the day after her
arrival at Cap Martin.

She had pictured a large and commodious yacht; she found a reasonably
sized motor-launch with a whale-deck cabin. The description in the
agent's catalogue that the _Jungle Queen_ would "sleep four" was
probably based on the experience of a party of young roisterers who had
once hired the vessel. Supposing that the "four" were reasonably drunk
or heavily drugged, it was possible for them to sleep on board the
_Jungle Queen_. Normally two persons would have found it difficult,
though by lying diagonally across the "cabin" one small-sized man could
have slumbered without discomfort.

The _Jungle Queen_ had been a disappointment to Jean also. Her busy
brain had conceived an excellent way of solving her principal problem,
but a glance at the _Jungle Queen_ told her that the money she had spent
on hiring the launch--and it was little better--was wasted. She herself
hated the sea and had so little faith in the utility of the boat, that
she had even dismissed the youth who attended to its well-worn engines.

Mr. Marcus Stepney, who was mildly interested in motor-boating, and
considerably interested in any form of amusement which he could get at
somebody else's expense, had so far been the sole patron of the _Jungle
Queen_. It was his practice to take the boat out every morning for a two
hours' sail, generally alone, though sometimes he would take somebody
whose acquaintance he had made, and who was destined to be a source of
profit to him in the future.

Jean's talk of the cave-man method of wooing had made a big impression
upon him, emphasised as it had been, and still was, by the two angry red
scars across the back of his hand. Things were not going well with him;
the supply of rich and trusting youths had suddenly dried up. The little
games in his private sitting-room had dwindled to feeble proportions. He
was still able to eke out a living, but his success at his private
seances had been counter-balanced by heavy losses at the public tables.

It is a known fact that people who live outside the law keep to their
own plane. The swindler very rarely commits acts of violence. The
burglar who practises card-sharping as a side-line, is virtually
unknown.

Mr. Stepney lived on a plausible tongue and a pair of highly dexterous
hands. It had never occurred to him to go beyond his own sphere, and
indeed violence was as repugnant to him as it was vulgar.

Yet the cave-man sug