Alias the Lone Wolf Part 46

Lanyard shook his head to each question. "Still, it is possible----."

Monk cut him short impatiently. "All gammon--all in her eye! No man bigger than a c.o.c.kroach could have smuggled himself aboard this yacht without my being told. I know my ship, I know my men, I know what I'm talking about."

"Presently," Liane prophesied darkly, "you may be talking about nothing."

At a loss, Monk muttered: "Don't get you...."

"When you find yourself, some fine morning, with your throat cut in your sleep, like poor de Lorgnes--or garroted, as I might have been."

"I'm not going to lose any sleep....." Monk began.

"Lose none before you have the vessel searched," Liane pleaded, with a change of tone. "You know, messieurs, I am not a woman given to hallucinations. I _saw_ ... And I tell you, while that a.s.sa.s.sin is at liberty aboard this yacht, not one of our lives is worth a sou--no, not one!"

"Oh, you shall have your search." Monk gave in as one who indulges a childish whim. "But I can tell you now what we'll find--or won't."

"Then Heaven help us all!" Liane went swiftly to the door of her room, but there hesitated, looking back in appeal to Lanyard. "I am afraid...."

"Let me have a look round first."

And when Lanyard had satisfied himself there was n.o.body concealed in any part of Liane's suite, and had been rewarded with a glance of grat.i.tude--"I shall lock myself in, of course," the woman said from the threshold--"and I have my pistol, too."

"But I a.s.sure you," Monk commented in heavy sarcasm, "our intentions are those of honourable men."

The door slammed, and the sound of the key turning in the lock followed. Monk trained the eyebrows into a look of long-suffering patience.

"A gla.s.s too much... Seein' things!"

"No," Lanyard voiced shortly his belief; "you are wrong. Liane saw something."

"n.o.body questions that," Phinuit yawned. "What one does question is whether she saw a man or a figment of her imagination--some effect of the shadows that momentarily suggested a man."

"Shadows do play queer tricks at night, at sea," Monk agreed. "I remember once--"

"Then let us look the ground over and see if we can make that explanation acceptable to our own intelligences," Lanyard cut in.

"No harm in that."

Phinuit fetched a pocket flash-lamp, and the three reconnoitred exhaustively the quarters of the deck in which the apparition had manifested itself to the woman. By no strain of credulity could the imagination be made to accept the effect of shadows at the designated spot as the shape of somebody standing there. On the other hand, when Phinuit obligingly posed himself between the mouth of the companionway and the skylight, it had to be admitted that the glow from either side provided fairly good cover for one who might wish to linger there, observing and un.o.bserved.

"Still, I don't believe she saw anything," Monk persisted--"a phantom Popinot, if anything."

"But wait. What is it we have here?"

Lanyard, scrutinising the deck with the flashlamp, stooped, picked up something, and offered it on an outspread palm upon which he trained the clear electric beam.

"Cigarette stub?" Monk said, and sniffed. "That's a famous find!"

"A cigarette manufactured by the French Regie."

"And well stepped on, too," Phinuit observed. "Well, what about it?"

"Who that uses this part of the deck would be apt to insult his palate with such a cigarette? No one of us--hardly any one of the officers or stewards."

"Some deck-hand might have sneaked aft for a look-see, expecting to find the quarterdeck deserted at this hour."

"Even ordinary seamen avoid, when they can, what the Regie sells under the name of tobacco. Nor is it likely such a one would risk the consequences of defying Captain Monk's celebrated discipline."

"Then you believe it was Popinot, too?"

"I believe you would do well to make the search you have promised thorough and immediate."

"Plenty of time," Monk replied wearily. "I'll turn this old tub inside out, if you insist, in the morning."

"But why, monsieur, do you remain so obstinately incredulous?"

"Well," Monk drawled, "I've known the pretty lady a number of years, and if you ask me she's quite up to playing little games all her own."

"Pretending, you mean--for private ends?"

The eyebrows offered a gesture urbane and sceptical.

Whether or not sleep brought Monk better counsel, the morning's ransacking of the vessel and the examination of her crew proved more painstaking than Lanyard had expected. And the upshot was precisely as Monk had foretold, precisely negative. He reported drily to this effect at an informal conference in his quarters after luncheon. He himself had supervised the entire search and had made a good part of it in person, he said. No nook or cranny of the yacht had been overlooked.

"I trust mademoiselle is satisfied," he concluded with a mockingly civil movement of eyebrows toward Liane.

His reply was the slightest of shrugs executed by perfect shoulders beneath a gown of cynical transparency. Lanyard was aware that the violet eyes, large with apprehension, flashed transiently his way, as if in hope that he might submit some helpful suggestion. But he had none to offer. If the manner in which the search had been conducted were open to criticism, that would have to be made by a mind better informed than his in respect of things maritime. And he avoided acknowledging that glance by even so much as seeming aware of it. And in point of fact, coldly reviewed in dispa.s.sionate daylight, the thing seemed preposterous to him, to be asked to believe that Popinot had contrived to secrete himself beyond finding on board the Sybarite.

Without his partic.i.p.ation the discussion continued.

He heard Phinuit's voice utter in accents of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt: "Barring, of course, the possibility of connivance on the part of officers or crew."

"Don't be an a.s.s!" Monk snapped.

"Don't be unreasonable: I am simply as G.o.d made me."

"Well, it was a nasty job of work."

"Now, listen." Phinuit rose to leave, as one considering the conference at an end. "If you persist in picking on me, skipper, I'll ravish you of those magnificent eyebrows with a safety razor, some time when you're asleep, and leave you as dumb as a Wop peddler who's lost both arms."

Liane followed him out in silence, but her carriage was that of a queen of tragedy. Lanyard got up in turn, and to his amazement found the eyebrows signalling confidentially to him.

"What the devil!" he exclaimed, in an open stare.

Immediately the eyebrows became conciliatory.

"Well, monsieur, and what is your opinion?"

"Why, to me it would seem there might be something in the suggestion of Monsieur Phinuit."