The False Faces (Vance)/Chapter 6
VI
UNDER SUSPICION
HE SAT at for a long time on the edge of his berth, elbow on knee, chin in hand, unstirring, gaze fixed upon that little cylinder of white paper resting in the hollow of his palm, in profoundest concentration pondering the problems it presented: what it was, what possession of it meant to Michael Lanyard, what safe disposition to make of it pending welcome relief from this unsought and most unwelcome trust.
This last question alone bade fair to confound his utmost ingenuity.
As for what it was, Lanyard was well satisfied that he now held the true focus of this conspiracy, a secret of the first consequence, far too momentous to the designs of England to be entrusted, though couched in the most cryptic cipher ever mind of man devised, even to cables or mails which England herself controlled.
Solely to prevent this communication from reaching America, Lanyard believed, Germany had sown mines broadcast in all the waters which the Assyrian must cross, and had commissioned her U-boats, without fail and at whatever cost, to sink the vessel if by any accident she won safely through the mine-fields.
In the effort to steal this secret, German spies had sailed on the Assyrian knowing well the double risk they ran, of being shot like rats if found out, of being drowned like neutrals if the ship went down through the efforts of their compatriots.
It was the zeal of Potsdam's agents, seeking the bearer of this secret, which had caused the rifling of Miss Brooke's luggage when she fell under suspicion, thanks to her clandestine way of coming aboard; and through the same agency young Thackeray had been all but murdered when suspicion, for whatever reason, shifted to him.
To insure safe transmission of this communication, England had held the Assyrian idle in port, day after day, while her augmented patrols scoured the seas, hunting down ruthlessly every submarine whose periscope dared peer above the surface, and while her trawlers innumerable swept the channels clear of mines.
To prevent its theft, Lieutenant Thackeray had invented the subterfuge of the "wounded" arm, amid whose splints and bandages (Lanyard never doubted) the cylinder had been secreted.
Finally, it was as a special agent, deep in her country's confidence, that this English girl had smuggled herself aboard at the last moment, bringing, no doubt, this very cylinder to be transferred to the keeping of Lieutenant Thackeray or, perhaps, another confrère, should she find reason to think herself suspected, her trust endangered.
Nothing strange in that; women had served their countries in such capacities before; the secret archives of European chancellories are replete with their records. Lanyard himself remembered many such women, brilliant mondaines from many lands domiciled in that Paris of the so-dead yesterday to serve by stealth their respective governments; but never, it was true, a woman of the caste of Cecelia Brooke; unless, indeed, this were an actress of surpassing talent, gifted to hoodwink the most skeptical and least susceptible of men.
And yet. …
Lanyard's train of thought faltered. New doubt of the girl began to shadow his meditations. Contradictory circumstances he had noted intruded, uninvited, to challenge overcredulous conclusions concerning her.
Would any secret agent worth her salt invite suspicion by making such a conspicuously furtive embarkation, by such ostentatious avoidance of her fellow passengers, by surrounding herself with an atmosphere of such palpable mystery? Would such an one confess she had a "secret" to an utter stranger, as she had to Lanyard that first night out? Would she, under any conceivable circumstances, entrust to that same stranger that selfsame secret upon whose inviolate preservation so much depended?
And would she make love-trysts on the decks by night?
Would a brother-agent take her in his arms, then reprove her with every symptom of vexation for her "madness," her "insanity," her "nonsense" that was like to "drive me mad"?—Thackeray's own words!
Vainly Lanyard cudgelled his wits for some plausible reading of this riddle.
Was this Brooke girl possibly (of a sudden he sat bolt upright) a Prussian agent infatuated with this young Englishman and by him beloved in spite of all that forbade their passion?
Did not this explanation reconcile every apparent inconsistency in her conduct, even to the entrusting to a stranger of the stolen secret, the purloined paper she dared not keep about her lest it be found in her possession?
Lanyard's eyes narrowed. Visibly his features hardened. If this surmise of his were any way justified in the outcome, he promised Miss Cecelia Brooke an hour of most painful penitence.
Woman or not, she need not look for mercy from him, who must ever be merciless in his dealings with Ekstrom's crew.
To be made that one's tool!
The very thought was intolerable. …
As for himself, possession of this paper meant that pitfalls were digged for his every step.
If ever the British found cause to suspect him, his certain portion would be to face a firing squad in dusk of early day.
If, on the other hand, these Prussian agents on board the Assyrian ever got wind of the fact that the cylinder was in his care, his fate was apt to be a knife between his ribs the first time he was caught alone and—with his back to the assassin.
Two courses, then, were open to him: the most sensible and obvious, to go straightway to the captain of the Assyrian, report all that he knew or surmised, and turn over the paper for safekeeping; one alternative, to hide the cylinder so absolutely that the most drastic search would overlook it, yet so handily that he could rid himself of it at an instant's notice.
But the first course involved denunciation of the Brooke girl. And what if she were innocent? What if, after all, these doubts of her were the specious spawn of facts misinterpreted, misconstrued? What if she proved to be all she seemed? Could he, even though what he had warned her he might be, the greatest rogue unhung, be false to a trust reposed in him by such a woman?
As to that, there was no question in his mind; he would never betray her, lacking irrefutable conviction that she was an employee of the Prussian spy system.
Then how to hide the paper?
Kneeling, Lanyard drew from beneath the berth his bellows-bag, selected from its contents a black japanned tin case containing a rather elaborate though compact trench medicine kit, the idle purchase of an empty afternoon in London. Extracting from its fittings a small leather-covered case, he replaced the kit, relocked and shoved the bag back beneath the berth.
Then, standing over the hand-basin, he opened the leather-covered case. Its velvet-lined compartments held a hypodermic syringe and needle, and a glass phial of twenty-four one-thirtieth grain morphia tablets.
Uncorking the phial, he shook out all the tablets, replaced three, then slid the paper cylinder into the tube; it fitted precisely, concealed by the label of the manufacturing chemist, leaving room for six more tablets. Lanyard inserted four on top of the cylinder, moistening the lowermost slightly to make it stick, recorked the phial, and returned it to its compartment.
Next he dissolved three morphia tablets in a little water in the bottom of a glass, filled the syringe with the strong solution, fitted on the needle, squirted most of the contents down the waste-pipe, and consigned the remaining tablets to the same innocuous fate.
Finally he replaced needle and syringe in the case, let the glass which had held the solution stand without rinsing, and put the open case upon the shelf above the basin.
A light tapping sounded on the panels of his door.
"Well? Who's there?"
"Your steward, sir. Captain Osborne's compliments, an' 'e'd like to see you in 'is room as soon as convenient, sir."
"You may say I will come at once."
"’Nk you, sir."
A summons to have been expected as a sequel to the surgeon's report after attending Lieutenant Thackeray; none the less, Lanyard had not expected it so soon.
Authority, he reflected, ran true to form afloat as well as ashore; it was prompt enough when required to apply a pound or so of cure. Surely the officers, at least the captain, must have been advised why this voyage was apt to prove exceptionally hazardous; and surely in the light of such information it had been wiser to set armed watches on every deck by night, rather than permit the lives of passengers to be imperilled through the possible activities of Prussian agents among them incogniti.
And now that he was reminded of it, was not this, perhaps, but a device of the enemy's to decoy him from the comparative safety of his stateroom?
It was with a hand in his jacket pocket, grasping Thackeray's automatic, that he presently left the room.
The alleyway, however, was deserted except for his steward; who, as he appeared, turned and led the way up to the boat-deck.
Rounding the foot of the companionway, Lanyard contrived a hasty glance down the port alleyway. The door to Stateroom 30 was on the hook; a light burned within. Outside a guard was stationed, a sailor with a cutlass: the first application of the pound of cure!
At the heels of his guide, he approached a door in the deck-house, devoted to officers' accommodations, beneath the bridge. Here the steward knocked discreetly. A heavy voice grumbling within was stilled for a moment, then barked a sharp invitation to enter. The steward turned the knob, announced dispassionately "Monseer Duchemin," and stood aside. Lanyard entered a well-lighted room, simply but comfortably furnished as the captain's office and sitting room; sleeping quarters adjoined, the head of a berth with a battered pillow showing through a door a foot or so ajar.
Four persons were present; the notion entered Lanyard's head that a fifth possibly lurked in the room beyond, spying, eavesdropping: not a bad scheme if Thackeray had an associate on board whose identity it was desirable to keep under cover.
The door closed gently behind him as he stood politely bowing, conscious that the four faces turned his way were distinguished by a singular variety of expression.
Miss Cecelia Brooke was nearest him, beside a chair from which she had evidently just risen, her pretty young face rather pale and set, a scared look in her candid eyes.
Beyond her, the captain sat with his back to a desk: a broad-beamed, vigorous body, intensely masculine, choleric by habit, and just now in an extraordinarily grim temper, his iron-gray hair bristling from his pillow, and his stout person visibly suffering the discomfort of wearing night-clothes beneath his uniform coat and trousers. Bending upon Lanyard the steel-hard regard of small, steel-blue eyes, he drummed the arms of his chair with thick and stubby fingers.
To one side, standing, was the third officer, a Mr. Sherry, a youngish man with a pleasant cast of countenance which temporarily wore a look, rarely British, of ingrained sense of duty at odds with much embarrassment.
Lastly Mr. Crane's lanky person was draped, with its customary effect of carelessness, on one end of the lounge seat. He looked up, nodded shortly but cheerfully to Lanyard, then resumed a somewhat quizzical contemplation of the half-smoked cigar which etiquette obliged him to neglect in the presence of a lady.
"This is the gentleman?" Captain Osborne queried heavily of the girl. Receiving a murmured affirmative, he continued: "Good morning, Monsieur Duchemin. … Thanks, Miss Brooke; we won't keep you up any longer to-night."
He rose, bowed stiffly as Mr. Sherry opened the door for the girl, and when she was gone threw himself back into his chair with a force which made it enter a violent protest.
"Sit down, sir. Daresay you know what we want of you."
"It is not difficult to guess," Lanyard admitted. "A sad business, monsieur."
"Sad!" the captain iterated in a tone of harsh sarcasm. "That's a mild name to give murder."
Even had it not been blurted violently at him, that word was staggering. The adventurer echoed it blankly. "You can't mean Lieutenant Thackeray?"
"Not yet, though doctor says it may come to that; the poor chap's in a bad way—concussion."
"So one feared. But monsieur said 'murder'. …"
Captain Osborne sat forward, steely gaze mercilessly boring into Lanyard's eyes. "Monsieur Duchemin," he said slowly, "Lieutenant Thackeray was not the only passenger to suffer through to-night's villainy. The other died instantly."
"In God's name, monsieur—who?"
"Bartholomew."
"Mr. Bartholomew!" A memory of that brisk little body's ruddy, cheerful, British personality flashed athwart the screen of memory. Lanyard murmured: "Incredible!"
"Murdered," the captain proceeded, "in Stateroom 28. Lieutenant Thackeray and he were friends, shared the suite. Apparently Mr. Bartholomew heard some unusual noise in 30 and left his berth to investigate. He was struck down from behind as he approached the communicating door. The murderer had got in by way of the sitting room, 26."
Mr. Sherry added in an awed voice: "Frightful blow—skull crushed like an eggshell."
There was a pause. Crane thoughtfully relighted his cigar, and wrapped his right cheek round it. The captain glared glassily at Lanyard. Mr. Sherry looked, if possible, more uncomfortable than ever. Lanyard pondered, aghast.
Ekstrom's work, of a certainty! This was his way, the way he imposed upon his creatures. Ekstrom, ever a killer, obsessed by the fallacious notion that dead men tell no tales. …
And Bartholomew had been in this mess with Thackeray, both of them operatives of the British Secret Service!
"Miss Brooke has given her version of the attack on Lieutenant Thackeray," the captain pursued. "Be good enough to let us have yours."
Succinctly Lanyard recounted the happenings between the moment when premonition of evil drew him from his stateroom and the moment when he returned thereto.
He was at pains, however, to omit all mention of the cylinder of paper; that, pending definite knowledge to the contrary, was a sacred trust, a matter of his honour, solely the affair of the Brooke girl.
The captain squared himself toward Lanyard, his face louring, his jaw pugnacious.
"How did you happen to be up and dressed at that late hour, so ready to respond to this—ah—premonition of yours?"
"I sleep not well, monsieur. It was my intention to go on deck and endeavour to walk off my insomnia."
Captain Osborne commented with a snort.
"Why did you leave Miss Brooke alone before she called the doctor?"
"At mademoiselle's request, naturally."
"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 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."