The Royal Mail Company's boats start on Wednesdays; the North German Lloyd's on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Those were the only likely vessels I could discover.

Either, then, I concluded, Hilda meant to sail on Saturday by the Castle line for South Africa, or else on Sunday by North German Lloyd for some part of America.
How I longed for one hour of Hilda to help me out with her almost infallible instinct.

I realised how feeble and fallacious was my own groping in the dark.

Her knowledge of temperament would have revealed to her at once what I was trying to discover, like the police she despised, by the clumsy "clues" which so roused her sarcasm.
However, I went to bed and slept on it.

Next morning I determined to set out for Southampton on a tour of inquiry to all the steamboat agencies.
If that failed, I could go on to Plymouth.
But, as chance would have it, the morning post brought me an unexpected letter, which helped me not a little in unravelling the problem.