Even with their thick layer of synthetic materials, these quarters were sumptuous by any standards. They represented the sort of luxury and privilege which very few mortals can ever attain. How he must have reveled in it. Ah, and to look at all those fine evening clothes. Black velvet dinner jackets as well as the more familiar style, and even an opera cape, he had indulged himself in that as well. There were shiny shoes galore on the floor of the closet, and a great wealth of expensive liquor exposed upon the bar.

Did he lure the women here for cocktails as he took his little drink?

I looked at the large stretch of glass wall, quite visible on account of the seam of light at the top and bottom edges of the draperies. Only now did I realize that this room was facing the southeast.

David squeezed my arm. Wasn’t it safe now to go?

We left the Signal Deck immediately without encountering the steward again. David had the key in his inside pocket.

Down we went now to Five Deck, which was the very last deck of cabins, though not of the ship itself, and we found the little inside stateroom of Mr. Eric Sampson, who did not exist, and where another trunk was waiting to be occupied by that body upstairs when it once again belonged to me.

Nice small, windowless chamber. Of course it had the regular lock, but what of the others, which Jake had brought aboard at our request?

They were entirely too cumbersome for our purposes. But I saw that the door could be made quite impassable if I pushed the trunk against it. That would keep out any troublesome steward, or James if he managed to be prowling about after the switch. He could not possibly move the door back. Indeed, if I wedged the trunk between the door and the end of the bunk, no one could move it. Excellent. So that part of the plan was complete.

Now to plot a route from the Queen Victoria Suite to this deck. As diagrams of the ship were hung in every small lobby and foyer, this was not difficult at all.

I quickly realized that Stairway A was the best interior route. Indeed it was perhaps the only stairway which went directly from the deck below ours all the way to Five Deck without a break. As soon as we reached the foot of this stairway, I knew that it would be nothing for me to drop from the very top of it, down through the well of turning railings to this very spot. Now, I must climb it to the Sports Deck, and see how to reach it from our deck above.

“Ah, you can do that, my dear young fellow,” said David. “I’m taking the elevator up those eight flights.”

By the time we met again in the quiet sunlight of the Queens Grill Lounge, I had plotted every step. We ordered a couple of gin and tonics—a drink that I found fairly tolerable—and went over the entire scheme in final detail.