The False Faces (Vance)/Chapter 7
VII
IN STATEROOM 29
IN SPITE of his own anger, something far from being either assumed or inconsiderable, Lanyard was fain to pause, a few paces from the deck-house, and laugh quietly at a vast and incoherent booming which was resounding in the room he had just quitted—Captain Osborne trying to do justice to the emotions inspired in his virtuous bosom by the cheek of this damned gaol-bird.
But suddenly, reminded of the grim reason for all this wretched brawling, Lanyard shrugged off his amusement. Beneath his very feet, almost a man lay dead, another perhaps dying, while the beast who had wrought that devilishness remained at large.
He comprehended in a wondering regard that wide, star-blazoned arch of skies, that broad, dark, restful mystery of waters, that still, sweet world of peace through which the Assyrian forged, muttering contentedly at her toil … while Murder with foul hands and slavering chops skulked somewhere in the darkened fabric of her, somewhere beyond that black mouth of the deck-port yawning at Lanyard's elbow.
From that same portal a man came abruptly but quietly, saw Lanyard standing there, gave him a staring look and grudging nod, and strode forward to the captain's quarters: Mr. Warde, the first officer.
Lanyard recollected himself, and went below.
Still the sailor guarded the door in that port alleyway; but now it stood wide, and Cecelia Brooke was on its threshold, conversing guardedly with the surgeon. Even as Lanyard caught sight of them, the latter bowed and turned aft, while the girl retreated and refastened the door on its hook.
Thus reminded of Crane's shrewd questions, Lanyard was speculating rather foggily concerning the reason therefor as he turned down the passage to his own quarters. What had the American noticed, or been told, to make him surmise covert sympathy between the girl and the lieutenant?
He caught himself yawning. Drowsiness buzzed in his brain. He had an incoherent feeling that he would now sleep long and heavily. Entering his stateroom, he put a shoulder against the door, pushing it to as he fumbled for the switch. The circumstance that the lights were no longer burning as he had left them failed to impress him as noteworthy in view of his belief that, by the captain's orders, Mr. Warde had been ransacking his effects in his absence.
But when no more than a click responded to a turn of the switch, the room remaining quite dark, Lanyard uttered an imprecation, abruptly very wide awake indeed.
Before he could move he stiffened to positive immobility: the cool, hard nose of a pistol had come into contact with his skull, just behind the ear.
Simultaneously a softly-modulated voice advised him in purest German: "Be quite still, Herr Lanyard, and hold up your hands—so! Also, see that you utter no sound till I give you leave. … Karl, the handkerchief."
Lanyard stood motionless, hands well elevated, while a heavy silk blindfold was whipped over his eyes and knotted tight at the back of his head.
"Now your paws, Herr Lone Wolf—put them together behind your back, prudently making no attempt to reach a pocket."
Obediently Lanyard permitted his wrists to be caught together with a second silk handkerchief. He could feel a slight sensation of heat upon his hands, and guessed that this was caused by the light of a flash-lamp held close to the flesh. None the less he took the chance of clenching his fists and tensing the muscles of his wrists.
"Tightly, Karl."
The bonds were made painfully fast. Still it did not seem to occur to his captors to oblige their prisoner to open his hands and relax his wrists. Lanyard perceived a glimmer of hope in this oversight: the enemy was normally stupid.
"Now the lights again."
After a little wait, during which he could hear the bulbs being pressed back into their sockets, the switch clicked once more.
"And now, swine-dog!"—the pistol tapped his skull significantly—"if you value your life, speak, and speak quickly. Where is that document?"
"Document?" Lanyard repeated in a tone of wonder.
"Unless you are eager to explore the hereafter, tell us where we may find it without delay."
"Upon my word, I don't know what you're talking about."
"You lie!" the German snapped. "Face about!"
Somebody grasped his shoulders roughly and swung him round to the light, the nose of the pistol shifting to press against his abdomen.
"Search him, Karl."
Unseen hands investigated his pockets cunningly. As they finished, the man who answered to the name of Karl became articulate for the first time, following a grunt of disappointment:
"Nothing—he has it not upon him."
"Look more thoroughly. Did you think him idiot enough to carry it where you'd find it at the first dip? Imbecile!"
For the purpose of this second search Lanyard's garments were ripped open, and the enemy made sure that he carried nothing next his skin more incriminating than a money-belt, which was forcibly removed.
"His shoes—see to his shoes!" the first speaker insisted irritably. "Sit down, Lanyard!"
A petulant push sent the adventurer reeling across the cabin to fall upon the lounge seat beneath the port. With some effort he assumed a sitting position, while Karl, kneeling, hastily unlaced and tore off his shoes and socks.
"Nothing, captain," was the report.
"Damnation! … Continue to search his luggage. Leave nothing unexamined. In particular look into every hole and corner where none but a fool would attempt to hide anything. This fine gentleman imagines we value his intelligence too highly to believe he would leave the paper in plain sight."
To an accompaniment of sounds indicating that Karl was obeying his superior, this last resumed in a tone of lofty contempt:
"How is it you have abandoned the habit of going armed, Herr Lone Wolf? That is not like you. Is it that you grow unwary through drug-using? But that matters nothing. We have more important business to speak over, you and I. You will be very, very docile, and answer promptly, also in a low voice, if you would avoid getting hurt. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Lanyard replied, furtively working at the bonds on his wrists.
"Good. We speak together like good friends, yes?"
"Naturally," said Lanyard. "It is so conducive to chumminess to be caressed with an automatic pistol—you've no idea!"
"Oblige by speaking German. Our ears are sick with all this bastard English. Also, more quietly speak. Do not put me to the regrettable necessity of shooting you."
"How regrettable? You didn't stick at braining those others"
"Hardly the same thing. You are not like those English swine. You are French; and Germany has no hatred for France, but only pity that it so fatuously opposes manifest destiny. In truth, you are not even French, but a great thief; and criminals have no patriotism, nor loyalty to any State but their own, the state of moral turpitude."
The speaker interrupted himself to relish his wit with a thick chuckle. And Lanyard's jaws ached with the strain of self-control. He continued to pluck at the folds of silk while concentrating in effort to memorise the voice, which he failed utterly to place. Undoubtedly this animal was a shipboard acquaintance, one who knew him well; but those detestable German gutturals disguised his accents quite beyond identification.
"For all that, you are not wise so to try my patience. I permit you five minutes by my watch in which to make up your mind to surrender that document."
"How often must I tell you," Lanyard enquired, "all this talk of documents is Greek to me?"
"Then you have five minutes to brush up your classical education, and translate into terms suited to your intelligence. I will have that document from you or—in four more minutes—shoot you dead."
To this Lanyard said nothing. But his patient attentions to the handkerchief round his wrists were beginning perceptibly to be rewarded.
"Moreover, Herr Lanyard, you will do yourself a very good turn by confessing—entirely aside from saving your life."
"How is that?"
"Providing you persuade me of your good faith, I am empowered to offer you employment in our service."
Lanyard's breath passed hardly through a throat swollen with rage, chagrin, and hatred, all hopelessly impotent. But he succeeded in preserving an unruffled countenance, as his captor's next words demonstrated.
"You are surprised, yes? You are thinking it over? Take your time—you have three minutes more. Or perhaps you are sulky, resenting that our cleverness has found you out? Be reasonable, my good man. Think: you cannot be insensible to the honour my offer does you."
"What do you want of me?"
"First, that paper—thereafter to use your surpassing talents to the glory of God and Fatherland. In addition, you will be greatly rewarded."
"Now you do begin to interest me," Lanyard said coolly. … Surely he could contrive some way to slay this beast with his naked hands! He must play for time. … "How rewarded?"
"As I say, with a place in the Prussian Secret Service, its protection, freedom to ply your trade unhindered in America, even countenanced, till that country becomes a German province under German laws."
"But do I hear you offer this to a Frenchman?"
"Undeceive yourself. Men of all nations to-day, recognising that the star of Germany is in the ascendant, that soon all nations will be German, are hastening to make their peace beforehand by rendering Germany good service."
"Something in that, perhaps," Lanyard admitted thoughtfully.
"Think well, my friend. … Yes, Karl?"
The voice of the other spy responded sullenly: "Nothing—absolutely nothing."
"Two minutes, Herr Lanyard."
Of a sudden Lanyard's face was violently distorted in a grimace of terror. He lurched his shoulders forward, openly struggling with his bonds.
"But—good God!" he protested in a voice of terror, "you can't possibly be so unreasonable! I tell you, I haven't got your damned paper!"
A loop of the handkerchief slipped over one hand.
"Be still! Cease your struggles. And not so loud, my friend!" The peremptory voice dropped into mockery as Lanyard, pale and exhausted, sat back trembling—and a second loop of silk dropped over the other hand. "So you begin to appreciate that we mean business, yes? One minute and thirty seconds!"
"Have mercy!" the adventurer whined desperately—and licked his lips as if he found them dry with fear. Now both hands were all but wholly free. True: he remained blindfolded and covered by a deadly weapon. "Give me a chance. I'll do anything you wish! But I can't give you what I haven't got."
"Be silent! Here, Karl."
There was a sound of unintelligible murmuring as the two spies conferred together. Lanyard writhed in apparent extremity of terror. His hands were free. He sought hopelessly for inspiration. What to do without arms?
"Be grateful to Karl. He urges that perhaps you know nothing of the document."
"Don't you think I'd tell if I did know?"
"Then you have one minute—no, forty seconds—in which to pledge yourself to the Prussian Secret Service."
"You want me to swear?"
"Certainly."
"Then hear me," said Lanyard earnestly: "You damned canaille!" And in one movement he tore the bandage from his eyes and launched himself head foremost at the man who stood over him.
He caught part of an oath drowned out by the splitting report of a pistol that went off within an inch of his ear. Then his head took the man full in the belly, and both went sprawling to the deck, Lanyard fighting like a maniac.
Sheer luck had guided clawing fingers to the right wrist of his antagonist, round which they shut like jaws of a trap. At the same time he wrenched the other's arm high above his head.
Momentarily expecting the shock of a bullet from the pistol of the second spy, he found time to wonder that it was so long deferred, and even in the fury of his struggles, out of the corner of one eye caught a fugitive glimpse of a tallish man, masked, standing back to the forward partition in a pose of singular indecision, pistol poised in his grasp.
Then the efforts of his immediate adversary threw him into a position in which he was unable to see the other.
Of a sudden the stateroom was filled with the thunder of an automatic, its seven cartridges discharged in one brisk, rippling crash.
It was as if a white-hot iron had been laid across Lanyard's shoulder. Beneath him the man started convulsively, with such force as almost to throw him off bodily, then relaxed altogether and lay limp and still, pinning one of Lanyard's arms under him.
Its visor displaced, the face of Baron von Harden was revealed, features distorted, eyes glaring, a frozen mask of hate and terror.
His arm free, the adventurer rolled away from the corpse in time to see the open window-port blocked by the body of the other spy.
Gathering himself together, he snatched up the pistol that dropped from the inert grasp of the dead man, and levelled it at the port.
But now that space was empty.
He rose and paused for an instant, his glance instinctively seeking the ledge above the hand-basin.
The hypodermic outfit was there, but minus the phial.
In the alleyway rose a confusion of running feet and shouting tongues. A heavy banging rang on the door to Stateroom 29. Crane's nasal accents called upon Lanyard to open.