"Didn't it strike you as odd she should wish to be left alone with
Lieutenant Thackeray?"
"It was not my affair, monsieur. It was her wish."
"Excuse me, cap'n." Crane sat up. "I'd like to ask Mr. Lanyard a question."
But Lanyard had prepared himself against that, and acknowledged the touch
with a quiet smile and the hint of a bow.
"Monsieur Crane...."
"U.S. Secret Service," Crane informed him with a grin. "Velasco spotted
you--had seen you years ago in Paruss--tipped me off."
"So one inferred. And these gentlemen?" Lanyard indicated the captain and
third officer.
"I wised them up--had to, when this happened."
"Naturally, monsieur. Proceed...."
"I only wanted to ask if you noticed anything to make you think perhaps
there was an understanding between Miss Brooke and the lieutenant?"
"Why should I?"
"I ain't curious why you should. What I want to know is, did you?"
"No, monsieur," Lanyard lied blandly.
"The little lady didn't seem to take on more'n she naturally would if the
lieutenant'd been a stranger, eh?" "How to judge, when one has never seen
mademoiselle distressed on behalf of another?"
Crane abandoned his effort, resuming contemplation of his cigar.
"Now we come to the point. Monsieur Lanyard, or whatever your name is."
"I have found Duchemin very agreeable, monsieur le capitaine."
"I daresay," Captain Osborne sneered. He hesitated, glowering in the
difficulty of thinking. "See here, Monsieur Duchemin--since you prefer that
style--I'm not going to beat about the bush with you. I'm a plain man,
plain-spoken. They tell me you reformed. I don't know anything about that.
It's my conviction, once a thief, always a thief. I may be wrong."
"Right or wrong, monsieur might easily be less offensive."
The captain's dark countenance became still more darkly congested.
Implacable prejudice glinted in his small eyes. Nor was his temper softened
by the effrontery of this offender in giving back look for look with a calm
poise that overshadowed his arrogance of an honest, law-abiding man.
He made a vague gesture of impatience.
"The point is," he said, "this crime was accompanied by robbery."
"Am I to understand I am accused?"
"Nobody is accused," Crane cut in hastily.
"You have found no clues--?"
"Nary clue."
"What I want to say to you, Monsieur Duchemin, is this: the stolen property
has got to be recovered before this ship makes her dock in New York.
It means the loss of my command if it isn't. It means more than that,
according to my information; it means a disastrous calamity to the Allied
cause. And you're a Frenchman, Monsieur--Duchemin."
"And a thief. Monsieur le capitaine must not forget his pet conviction."
"As to that, a man can't always be particular about the tools he employs. I
believe the old saying, set a thief to catch a thief, holds good."
"Do I understand," Lanyard suggested sweetly, "you are about to honour me
by utilizing my reputed talents, by commissioning a thief to catch this
thief of to-night?"
"Precisely. You know more of this matter than any of us here. You were at
hand-grips with the murderer--and let him get away."
"To my deep regret. But I have told you how that happened."
"Seems a bit strange you made no real effort to find out what the scoundrel
looked like."
"It was dark in that alleyway, monsieur."
The captain made an inarticulate noise, apparently meant to convey an
effect of ironic incredulity. More intelligible comment was interrupted by
a ring of the telephone. He swung around, clapped receiver to ear, snapped
an impatient "Well?" and listened with evident exasperation.
Lanyard's eyes narrowed. This business of telephoning was conceivably
well-timed; not improbably the captain was receiving the report of somebody
who had been sent to search Stateroom 29 in Lanyard's absence. He wondered
and, wondering, glanced at Crane, to find that gentleman watching him with
a whimsical glimmer which he was quick to extinguish when the captain said
curtly, "Very good, Mr. Warde," and turned back from the telephone, his
manner more than ever truculent.
"Mr. Lanyard," he said--"Monsieur Duchemin, that is--a valuable paper has
been stolen, an exceedingly valuable document. I don't know which carried
it, Lieutenant Thackeray or Mr. Bartholomew. But I do know such a paper was
in their possession. And to the best of my knowledge, we three were the
only ones on board that did know it. And it has disappeared. Now, sir, you
may or may not be deeper in this affair than you have admitted. If you are,
I'd advise you to own up."
"Monsieur le capitaine implies my complicity in this dastardly crime!"
Osborne shook his head doggedly. "I imply nothing. I only say this: if you
know anything you haven't told us, my advice is to make a clean breast of
it."
"I have nothing to tell you, monsieur, beyond the fact that I find you,
your tone, your manner, and your choice of words, intolerably insolent."
"Then you know nothing--?"
"Monsieur!" Lanyard cried sharply.
"Very good," the captain persisted. "I'll take your word for it--and give
you till we take on our pilot to find the real criminal and make him give
up that paper."
"And if I fail?"
"Not a soul on board leaves the _Assyrian_ till the murderer and thief are
found--if they are not one."
"But that is a general threat; whereas monsieur has honoured me by
making this a personal matter. What punishment have you prepared for
me specifically, if I fail to accomplish this task which baffles
your--shrewdness?"
"I'll at least inform the port authorities in New York, tell them who you
are, and have you barred out of the country."
"I want to say, Lanyard," Crane interposed, "this isn't my notion of how to
deal with you, or in any way by my advice."
"Thank you, monsieur," the adventurer replied icily, without removing his
attention from the captain. "What else, Captain Osborne?"
"That is all I have to say to you to-night, sir. Good-night."
"But I have something more to say to you, monsieur le capitaine. First, I
desire to give over to you this article which it will doubtless please you
to consider stolen property." Lanyard placed the automatic pistol on the
desk. "One of Lieutenant Thackeray's," he explained; "at Miss Brooke's
suggestion, I borrowed it as a life-preserver, in event of another brush
with this homicidal maniac."
"She told us about that," Osborne said heavily, fumbling with the weapon.
"What else, sir?"
"Only this, monsieur le capitaine: I shall use my best endeavour to uncover
the author of these crimes. If I succeed, be sure I shall denounce him. If
I succeed only in securing this valuable paper you speak of, be equally
sure you will never see it; for it shall leave my hands only to pass into
those which I consider entirely trustworthy."
"The devil!" Captain Osborne leaped from his chair quaking with fury. "You
dare accuse me of disloyalty--!"
"Now you mention it...." Lanyard cocked his head to one side with a
maddening effect of deliberation. "No," he concluded--"no; I wouldn't
accuse you of intentional treason, monsieur; for that would involve an
imputation of intelligence...."
He opened the door and nodded pleasantly to Crane and the third officer.
"Good-night, gentlemen," he said silkily. "Oh, and you, too, Captain
Osborne--good-night, I'm sure."