Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet's coat was not a trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore.

There was, the purser said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth.
The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke bad German.

He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage.

His name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail.
"Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes--" "That will do," said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he identified the man.
"You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter pass without acting--" said the purser.
"It would serve no purpose, and might do harm.

I will take the responsibility." And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook: "_Zmai_--; _travels as Peter Ludovic_." Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet's coat pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the _King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact.
The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers--some half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk's clear hand in black ink.