-room stewards, that I was playing bridge from four until
after six."

"Ah, yes," put in the purser sweetly, "but you yourself have just
demonstrated conclusively that the robbery couldn't have taken place at
the hour mentioned."

Iff grinned appreciatively. "You're improving," he said. "I guess that
doesn't get you even with me for the rest of your life--what?"

"Moreover," Manvers went on doggedly, "Ismay always could prove a
copper-riveted alibi."

"That's one of the best little things he does," admitted Iff cheerfully.

"You don't deny you're Ismay?" This from the captain, aggressive and
domineering.

"I don't have to, dear sir; I just ain't--that's the answer."

"You've been recognised," insisted the captain. "You were on this ship
the time of the Burden Hamman robbery. Mr. Manvers knows you by sight;
I, too, recognise you."

"Sorry," murmured Iff--"_so_ sorry, but you're wrong. Case of mistaken
identity, I give you my word."

"Your word!" snapped the captain contemptuously.

"My word," retorted Iff in a crisp voice; "and more than that, I don't
ask you to take it. I've proofs of my identity which I think will
satisfy even you."

"Produce them."

"In my own good time." Iff put his back against the wall and lounged
negligently, surveying the circle of unfriendly faces with his odd,
supercilious eyes, half veiled by their hairless lids. "Since you've
done me the honour to impute to me guilty knowledge of this--ah--crime,
I don't mind admitting that I was a passenger on the Autocratic when
Mrs. Burden Hamman lost her jewels; and it wasn't a coincidence, either.
I was with you for a purpose--to look out for those jewels. I shared a
room with Ismay, and when, after the robbery, you mistook me for him, he
naturally didn't object, and I didn't because it left me all the freer
to prosecute my investigation. In fact, it was due to my efforts that
Ismay found things getting too hot for him over in London and arranged
to return the jewelry to Mrs. Hamman for an insignificant ransom--not a
tithe of their value. But he was hard pressed; if he'd delayed another
day, I'd 've had him with the goods on.... That," said Iff pensively,
"was when I was in the Pinkerton service."

"Ah, it was?" said the captain with much irony. "And what, pray, do you
claim to be now?"

"Just a plain, ordinary, everyday sleuth in the employ of the United
States Secret Service, detailed to work with the Customs Office to
prevent smuggl