XXVII

cA VA BIEN!

Fearful lest, left to herself, Liane Delorme would do an injury to his eardrums as well as to her own vocal chords, Lanyard stepped across the dead bulk of the Apache and planted himself squarely in front of the woman. Seizing her forearms with his two hands, he used force to drag them down to the level of her waist, and purposely made his grasp so strong that his fingers sank deep into the soft flesh. At the same time, staring fixedly into her vacant eyes, he smiled his most winning smile, but with the muscles of his mouth alone, and said quietly:

"Shut up, Liane! Stop making a fool of yourself! Shut up--do you hear?"

The incongruity of his brutal grasp with his smile, added to the incongruity of an ordinary conversational tone with his peremptory and savage phrases had the expected effect.

Sanity began to inform the violet eyes, a shrill, empty scream was cut sharply in two, the woman stared for an instant with a look of confusion; then her lashes drooped, her body relaxed, she fell limply against the part.i.tion and was quiet save for fits of trembling that shook her body from head to foot; still, each successive seizure was sensibly less severe. Lanyard let go her wrists.

"There!" he said--"that's over, Liane. The beast is done for--no more to fear from him. Now forget him--brace up, and realise the debt you owe good Monsieur Phinuit."

With a grin, that gentleman looked up from his efforts to revive Captain Monk.

"I'm a shy, retiring violet," he stated somewhat superfluously, "but if the world will kindly lend its ears, I'll inform it coyly that was _some_ shootin'. Have a look, will you, Lanyard, like a good fellow, and make sure our little friend over there isn't playing 'possum on us.

Seems to me I've heard of his doing something like that before--maybe you remember. And, mademoiselle, if you'll be kind enough to fetch me that carafe of ice water, I'll see if we can't bring the skipper to his senses, such as they are."

His tone was sufficiently urgent to rouse Liane out of the la.s.situde into which reaction from terror had let her slip. She pa.s.sed a hand over still dazed eyes, looked uncertainly about, then with perceptible exertion of will power collected herself, stood away from the part.i.tion and picked up the carafe.

Lanyard adopted the sensible suggestion of Phinuit, dropping on a knee to rest his hand above the heart of Popinot. To his complete satisfaction, if not at all to his surprise, no least flutter of life was to be detected in that barrel-like chest.

A moment longer he lingered, looking the corpse over with inquisitive eyes. No sign that he could see suggested that Popinot had suffered hardship during his two weeks of close sequestration; he seemed to have fared well as to food and drink, and his clothing, if nothing to boast of in respect of cut or cloth, and though wrinkled and stretched with constant wear, was tolerably clean--unstained by bilge, grease, or coal s.m.u.ts, as it must have been had the man been hiding in the hold or bunkers, those traditional refuges of your simon-pure stowaway.

No: Monsieur Popinot had been well taken care of--and Lanyard could name an officer of prestige ponderable enough to secure his quarters, wherein presumably Popinot had lain perdu, against search when the yacht has been "turned inside out," according to its commander.

So this was the source of Mr. Mussey's exact understanding of the business!

As to the question of how the Apache had been smuggled aboard, and when, Lanyard never learned the truth. Circ.u.mstances were to prevent his interrogating Mr. Mussey, and he could only a.s.sume that--since Popinot could hardly have been in the motor car wrecked on the road from Paris--he must have left that pursuit to trusted confreres, and, antic.i.p.ating their possible failure, have hurried on to Cherbourg by another route to make precautionary arrangements with Mr. Mussey.

Ah, well! no fault could be found with the fellow for lack of determination and tenacity. On the point of rising, Lanyard reconsidered and, bending over the body, ran clever hands rapidly through the clothing, turning out every pocket and heaping the miscellany of rubbish thus brought to light upon the floor--with a single exception; Popinot had possessed a pistol, an excellent automatic. Why he hadn't used it to protect himself, Heaven only knew.

Presumably he had been too thoroughly engrossed in the exercise of his favourite sport to think of the weapon up to the time when Phinuit had opened fire on him; and then, thrown into panic, he had been able to entertain one thought only, that of escape.

Lanyard entertained for a moment a vivid imaginary picture of the scene in the saloon when Phinuit had surprised the Apache in the act of strangling Monk; a picture that Phinuit subsequently confirmed substantially in every detail....

One saw the garroter creeping through the blackness of the saloon from his hiding place, forward in the cabin of the chief engineer; stationing himself at the door to Monk's quarters, with his chosen weapon, that deadly handkerchief of his trade, ready for the throat of the Lone Wolf when he should emerge, in accordance with his agreement with Mr. Mussey, the spoils of the captain's safe in his hands. Then one saw Monk, alarmed by the sudden failure of the lights, hurrying out to return to the bridge, the pantherish spring upon the victim's back, the swift, dextrous noosing of the handkerchief about his windpipe, the merciless tightening of it--all abruptly illuminated by the white glare of Phinuit's electric torch. And then the truncated crimson of the first pistol flash, the frantic effort to escape, the hunting of that gross shape of flesh by the beam of light and the bullets as Popinot doubled and twisted round the saloon like a rat in a pit, the last mad plunge for the companionway, the flight up its steps that had by the narrowest margin failed to save him...

Phinuit and Liane Delorme were too busy to heed; quietly Lanyard slipped the pistol into a pocket and got to his feet. Then Swain came charging down the steps to find out what all the row was about, and to report--which he did as soon as Monk was sufficiently recovered to understand--those outrageous and darkly mysterious a.s.saults upon the helmsman and Mr. Collison. Both men, he stated, were unfit for further duty that night, though neither (Lanyard was happy to learn) had suffered any permanent injury.

But what--in the name of insanity!--could have inspired such a meaningless atrocity? What could its perpetrator have hoped to gain?

What--!

Monk, stretched out upon a leather couch in his sitting-room, levelled eyebrows of suspicion at Lanyard, who countered with a guilelessness so perfect as to make it appear that he did not even comprehend the insinuation.

"If I may offer a suggestion..." he said with becoming diffidence.

"Well?" Monk demanded with a snap, despite his languors. "What's on your mind?"

"It would seem to a benevolent neutral like myself... You understand I was in my deck-chair by the taffrail throughout all this affair. The men at the sounding machine nearby can tell you I did not move before the shots in the saloon----"

"How the devil could they know that in the dark?"

"I was smoking, monsieur; they must, if they looked, have seen the fire of my cigarette... As I was about to suggest: It would seem to me that there must be some obscure but not necessarily unfathomable connection between the three events; else how should they synchronise so perfectly? How did Popinot know the lights would go out a few minutes after five bells? He was prepared, he lost no time. How did the other miscreant, whoever he was, know it would be safe to commit that wickedness, whatever its purpose, upon the bridge at precisely that time? For plainly he, too, was prepared to act upon the instant--that is, if I understand Mr. Swain's report correctly. And how did it happen that the dynamo went out of commission just then? What _did_ happen in the engine-room? Does anybody know? I think, messieurs, if you find out the answer to that last question you will have gone some way toward solving your mystery."

Captain Monk addressed Mr. Swain curtly: "It's the chief's watch in the engine-room?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll have a talk with him presently, and go further into this affair.

In the meantime, how does she stand?"

"Under steerage way only"--Mr. Swain consulted the tell-tale compa.s.s affixed to the deck-beam overhead--"sou'west-by-south, sir."

"Must've swung off during that cursed dark spell. When I came below, two or three minutes before, we were heading into The Race, west-nor'west, having left Cerberus Shoal whistling buoy to port about fifteen minutes earlier. Get her back on that course, if you please, Mr. Swain, and proceed at half-speed. Don't neglect your soundings.

I'll join you as soon as I feel fit."

"Very good, sir."

Mr. Swain withdrew. Captain Monk let his head sink back on its pillows and shut his eyes. Liane Delorme solicitously stroked his forehead. The captain opened his eyes long enough to register adoration with the able a.s.sistance of the eyebrows. Liane smiled down upon him divinely.

Lanyard thought that affection was a beautiful thing, but preserved a duly concerned countenance.

"I could do with a whiskey and soda," Monk confessed feebly. "No, not you, please"--as Liane offered to withdraw the compa.s.sionate hand--"Phin isn't busy."

Mr. Phinuit hastened to make himself useful.

A muted echo of the engine-room telegraph was audible then, and the engines took up again their tireless chant. Lanyard c.o.c.ked a sly eye at the tell-tale; it designated their course as west-by-north a quarter west. He was cheered to think that his labours at the binnacle were bearing fruit, and grateful that Monk was so busy being an invalid waited upon and pitied by a beautiful volunteer nurse that he was willing to trust the navigation to Mr. Swain and had no time to observe by the tell-tale whether or not the course he had prescribed was being followed.

Liane's exquisite and tender arm supported the suffering head of Captain Monk as he absorbed the nourishment served by Phinuit. The eyebrows made an affectingly faint try at a gesture of grat.i.tude. The eyes closed, once more Monk's head reposed upon the pillow. He sighed like a weary child.

From the saloon came sounds of shuffling feet and mumbling voices as seamen carried away all that was mortal of Monsieur Popinot.

Between roars of the fog signal, six bells vibrated on the air. Phinuit c.o.c.ked his head intelligently to one side, ransacked his memory, and looked brightly to Lanyard.

"Ar-har!" he murmured--"the fatal hour!"

Lanyard gave him a gracious smile.

In attenuated accents Captain Monk, without opening his eyes or stirring under the caresses of that lovely hand, enquired:

"What say, Phin?"

"I was just reminding Monsieur Lanyard the fatal hour has struck, old thing."

The eyebrows knitted in painful effort to understand. When one has narrowly escaped death by strangulation one may be pardoned some slight mental haziness. Besides, it makes to retain sympathy, not to be too confoundedly clear-headed.

"Fatal hour?"

"The dear man promised to turn in his answer to our unselfish little proposition at six bells to-night and not later."