“You don’t need a lot of explanation, do you?”

“It was just a guess,” I admitted. “But I’m still not sure I want to know anything Tweed Jacket is trying to find out. I don’t like that efficient look of his.”

“You won’t have to know,” she said. “At least, not until we’re ready to go. I’m just offering you a job.”

“Before we go any further,” I said, “what kind of jam is he in? Not the police?”

“No. You’ve seen two of them. They didn’t look like police, did they?”

“Hardly,” I said. “But what does he want with me?”

“He needs help. Specifically, a diver.”

I took a puff on the cigarette and looked out through the moss-hung dimness of the trees. “The world is full of divers. They run into each other nowadays spearing fish.”

“A diver is not quite all,” she said. “Remember—”

I began to get it then, all the questions about boats and offshore sailing and navigation. He needed several people, actually, but in a thing like this the fewer you told, the better.

“So that’s why the gun business?” I said.

She nodded. “I’ll admit it was rather theatrical, but you understand, don’t you? When I read that story about you in the paper I thought you were just the man we were looking for, but I had to be sure. Not only that you could handle the job, but also just what kind of man you were. There are a couple of reasons why a mistake could be absolutely fatal. That seemed like a good way to do it. It would give me most of the day to size you up, and in a place where we wouldn’t be seen together. Unfortunately, I was wrong about that. I knew I was being followed, but I thought I’d gotten away from them. However—” She blushed slightly and looked away from me in confusion. “I don’t think there was too much harm done, since he took it for something else—”

I was ill at ease myself. Tweed Jacket hadn’t been the only one.

“What is it you want me to do?” I asked. “Don’t forget, I’m merely an employee of a salvage company. Any job negotiations are supposed to be handled by the owner—” She shook her head emphatically. “No. That’s out. We don’t want a corporation, or a committee, or an expedition. It has to be one man, and one man only, and it has to be one who’ll keep his mouth shut for the rest of his life. If you do it, you’ll have to quit your present job, giving some other reason, of course—”

“It doesn’t involve breaking any laws?”

“No,” she said.