The False Faces Part 13

"You'd been deuced gallant up to that time. I presume it didn't occur to you that the young woman might need further protection?"

Lanyard shrugged. "It did not occur to me to refuse her request, monsieur."

"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 d.u.c.h.emin very agreeable, monsieur le capitaine."

"I daresay," Captain Osborne sneered. He hesitated, glowering in the difficulty of thinking. "See here, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin--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?"

"n.o.body is accused," Crane cut in hastily.

"You have found no clues--?"

"Nary clue."

"What I want to say to you, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin, is this: the stolen property has got to be recovered before this s.h.i.+p 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--d.u.c.h.emin."

"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 d.u.c.h.emin, that is--a valuable paper has been stolen, an exceedingly valuable doc.u.ment. 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 _a.s.syrian_ 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."