Chapter 16

Spacious, furnished in a way of rich sobriety, tasteful in every appointment, the captain's quarters were quite as sybaritic as the saloon of the Sybarite. A bedroom and private bath adjoined, and the open door enabled one to perceive that this rude old sea dog slept in a real bed of massive brass. His sitting-room, or private office, had a studious atmosphere. Its built-in-bookcases were stocked with handsome bindings. The panels were, like those in the saloon, sea-scapes from the hands of modern masters: Lanyard knew good painting when he saw it. The captain's desk was a substantial affair in mahogany. Most of the chairs were of the overstuffed lounge sort. The rug was a Persian of rare lustre.

Monk was following with a twinkle the journeys of Lanyard's observant eye.

"Do myself pretty well, don't you think?" he observed quietly, in a break in Liane's dramatic narrative; perforce the lady must now and again pause for breath.

Lanyard smiled in return. "I can't see you've much to complain of."

The captain nodded, but permitted a shade of gravity to become visible in his expression. He sighed a philosophic sigh:

"But man is never satisfied..."

Liane had got her second wind and was playing variations on the theme of the famous six bottles of champagne. Lanyard lounged in his easy chair and let his bored thoughts wander. He was weary of being talked about, wanted one thing only, fulfillment of the promise that had been implicit in Phinuit's manner. He was aware of Phinuit's sympathetic eye.

The woman sent the grey car crashing again into the tree, repeated Lanyard's quaint report of the business, and launched into a vein of panegyric.

"Regard him, then, sitting there, making nothing of it all--!"

"Sheer swank," Phinuit commented. "He's just letting on; privately he thinks he's a heluva fellow. Don't you, Lanyard?"

"But naturally," Lanyard gave Phinuit a grateful look. "That is understood. But what really interests me, at present, is the question: Who is Dupont, and why?"

"If you're asking me," Monk replied, "I'll say--going on mademoiselle's story--Monsieur Dupont is by now a ghost."

"One would be glad to be sure of that," Lanyard murmured.

"By all accounts," said Phinuit, "he takes a deal of killing."

"But all this begs my question," Lanyard objected. "Who is Dupont, and why?"

"I think I can answer that question, monsieur." This was Liane Delorme. "But first, I would ask Captain Monk to set guards to see that nobody comes aboard this ship before she sails."

"Pity you didn't think of that sooner," Phinuit observed in friendly sarcasm. "Better late than never, of course, but still--!"

The woman appealed to Monk directly, since he did not move. "But I assure you, monsieur, I am afraid, I am terrified of that one! I shall not sleep until I am sure he has not succeeded in smuggling himself on board--"

"Be tranquil, mademoiselle," Monk begged. "What you ask is already done. I gave the orders you ask as soon as I received your telegram, this morning. You need not fear that even a rat has found his way aboard since then, or can before we sail, without my knowledge."

"Thank God!" Liane breathed--and instantly found a new question to fret about. "But your men, Captain Monk--your officers and crew--can you be sure of them?"

"Absolutely."

"You haven't signed on any new men here in Cherbourg?" Lanyard asked.

Monk worked his eyebrows to signify that the question was ridiculous. "No such fool, thanks," he added.

"Yet they may have been corrupted while here in port," Liane insisted.

"No fear."

"That is what I would have said of my maid and footman, twenty-four hours ago. Yet I now know better."

"I tell you only what I know, mademoiselle. If any of my officers and crew have been tampered with, I don't know anything about it, and can't and won't until the truth comes out."

"And you sit there calmly to tell me that!" Liane rolled her lovely eyes in appeal to the deck beams overhead. "But you are impossible!"

"But, my dear lady," Monk protested, "I am perfectly willing to go into hysterics if you think it will do any good. As it happens, I don't. I haven't been idle or fatuous in that matter, I have taken every possible precaution against miscarriage of our plans. If anything goes wrong now, it can't be charged to my discredit."

"It will be an act of God," Phinuit declared: "one of the unavoidable risks of the business."

"The business!" Liane echoed with scorn. "I assure you I wish I were well out of 'the business'!"

"And so say we all of us," Phinuit assured her patiently; and Monk intoned a fervent "Amen!"

"But who is Dupont?" Lanyard reiterated stubbornly.

"An Apache, monsieur," Liane responded sulkily--"a leader of Apaches."

"Thank you for nothing."

"Patience: I am telling you all I know. I recognised him this morning, when you were struggling with him. His name is Popinot."

"Ah!"

"Why do you say 'Ah!' monsieur?"

"There was a Popinot in Paris in my day; they nicknamed him the Prince of the Apaches. But he was an older man, and died by the guillotine. This Popinot who calls himself Dupont, then, must be his son."

"That is true, monsieur."

"Well, then, if he has inherited his father's power--!"

"It is not so bad as all that. I have heard that the elder Popinot was a true prince, in his way, I mean as to his power with the Apaches. His son is hardly that; he has a following, but new powers were established with his father's death, and they remain stronger than he."

"All of which brings us to the second part of my question, Liane: Why Dupont?"

Liane shrugged and studied her bedizened fingers. The heavy black brows circumflexed Monk's eyes, and he drew down the corners of his wide mouth. Phinuit fixed an amused gaze on a distant corner of the room and chewed his cigar.

"Why did Dupont--or Popinot," Lanyard persisted--"murder de Lorgnes? Why did he try to murder Mademoiselle Delorme? Why did he seek to prevent our reaching Cherbourg?"

"Give you three guesses," Phinuit offered amiably. "But I warn you if you use more than one you'll forfeit my respect forever. And just to show what a good sport I am, I'll ask you a few leading questions. Why did Popinot pull off that little affair at Montpellier-le-Vieux? Why did he try to put you out of his way a few days later?"

"Because he wanted to steal the jewels of Madame de Montalais, naturally."

"I knew you'd guess it."

"You admit, then, you have the jewels?"

"Why not?" Phinuit enquired coolly. "We took trouble enough to get them, don't you think? You're taking trouble enough to get them away from us, aren't you? You don't want us to think you so stupid as to be wasting your time, do you?"

His imperturbable effrontery was so amusing that Lanyard laughed outright. Then, turning to Liane, he offered her a grateful inclination of the head.

"Mademoiselle, you have kept your promise. Many thanks."

"Hello!" cried Phinuit. "What promise?"

"Monsieur Lanyard desired a favour of me," Liane explained, her good humour restored; "in return for saving me from assassination by Popinot this morning, he begged me to help him find the jewels of Madame de Montalais. It appears that he--or Andre Duchemin--is accused of having stolen those jewels; so it becomes a point of honour with him to find and restore them to Madame de Montalais."

"He told you that?" Monk queried, studiously eliminating from his tone the jeer implied by the words alone.

"But surely. And what could I do? He spoke so earnestly, I was touched. Regard, moreover, how deeply I am indebted to him. So I promised I would do my best. Et voila! I have brought him to the jewels; the rest is--how do you say--up to him. Are you satisfied with the way I keep my word, monsieur?"

"It's hard to see how he can have any kick coming," Phinuit commented with some acidity.

Lanyard addressed himself to Liane: "Do I understand the jewels are on this vessel?"

"In this room."

Lanyard sat up and took intelligent notice of the room. Phinuit chuckled, and consulted Monk in the tone of one reasonable man to his peer.

"I say, skipper: don't you think we ought to be liberal with Monsieur Lanyard? He's an awfully good sort--and look't all the services he has done us."

Monk set the eyebrows to consider the proposition.

"I am emphatically of your mind, Phin," he pronounced at length, oracular.

"It's plain to be seen he wants those jewels--means to have 'em. Do you know any way we can keep them from him?"

Monk moved his head slowly from side to side: "None."

"Then you agree with me, it would save us all a heap of trouble to let him have them without any more stalling?"

By way of answer Monk bent over and quietly opened a false door, made to resemble the fronts of three drawers, in a pedestal of his desk. Lanyard couldn't see the face of the built-in safe, but he could hear the spinning of the combination manipulated by Monk's long and bony fingers. And presently he saw Monk straighten up with a sizable steel dispatch-box in his hands, place this upon the desk, and unlock it with a key on his pocket ring.

"There," he announced with an easy gesture.

Lanyard rose and stood over the desk, investigating the contents of the dispatch-box. The collection of magnificent stones seemed to tally accurately with his mental memoranda of the descriptions furnished by Eve de Montalais.

"This seems to be right," he said quietly, and closed the box. The automatic lock snapped fast.

"Now what do you say, brother dear?"

"Your debt to me is fully discharged, Liane. But, messieurs, one question: Knowing I am determined to restore these jewels to their owner, why this open handedness?"

"Cards on the table," said Phinuit. "It's the only way to deal with the likes of you."

"In other words," Monk interpreted: "you have under your hand proof of our bona fides."

"And what is to prevent me from going ashore with these at once?"

"Nothing," said Phinuit.

"But this is too much!"

"Nothing," Phinuit elaborated, "but your own good sense."

"Ah!" said Lanyard--"ah!"--and looked from face to face.

Monk adjusted his eyebrows to an angle of earnestness and sincerity.

"The difficulty is, Mr. Lanyard," he said persuasively, "they have cost us so much, those jewels, in time and money and exertion, we can hardly be expected to sit still and see you walk off with them and say never a word in protection of our own interests. Therefore I must warn you, in the most friendly spirit: if you succeed in making your escape from the Sybarite with the jewels, as you quite possibly may, it will be my duty as a law-abiding man to inform the police that André Duchemin is at large with his loot from the Château de Montalais. And I don't think you'd get very far, then, or that your fantastic story about meaning to return them would gain much credence. D'ye see?"

"But distinctly! If, however, I leave the jewels and lay an information against you with the police----?"

"To do that you would have to go ashore...."

"Do I understand I am to consider myself your prisoner?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said Captain Monk, inexpressibly pained by such crudity. "But I do wish you'd consider favourably an invitation to be our honoured guest on the voyage to New York. You won't? It would be so agreeable of you."

"Sorry I must decline. A prior engagement...."

"But you see, Lanyard," Phinuit urged earnestly, "we've taken no end of a fancy to you. We like you, really, for yourself alone. And with that feeling the outgrowth of our very abbreviated acquaintance--think what a friendship might come of a real opportunity to get to know one another well."

"Some other time, messieurs...."

"But please!" Phinuit persisted--"just think for one moment--and do forget that pistol I know you've got in a handy pocket. We're all unarmed here, Mademoiselle Delorme, the skipper and I. We can't stop your going, if you insist, and we know too much to try. But there are those aboard who might. Jules, for instance: if he saw you making a getaway and knew it might mean a term in a French prison for him.... And if I do say it as shouldn't of my kid brother, Jules is a dead shot. Then there are others. There'd surely be a scrimmage on the decks; and how could we explain that to the police, who, I am able to assure you from personal observation, are within hail? Why, that you had been caught trying to stow away with your loot, which you dropped in making your escape. D'ye see how bad it would look for you?"

To this there was no immediate response. Sitting with bowed head and sombre eyes, Lanyard thought the matter over a little, indifferent to the looks of triumph being exchanged above his head.

"Obviously, it would seem, you have not gone to all this trouble--lured me aboard this yacht--merely to amuse yourselves at my expense and then knock me on the head."

"Absurd!" Liane declared indignantly. "As if I would permit such a thing, who owe you so much!"

"Or look at it this way, monsieur," Monk put in with a courtly gesture: "When one has an adversary whom one respects, one wisely prefers to have him where one can watch him."

"That's just it," Phinuit amended: "Out of our sight, you'd be on our nerves, forever pulling the Popinot stunt, springing some dirty surprise on us. But here, as our guest--!"

"More than that," said Liane with her most killing glance for Lanyard: "a dear friend."

But Lanyard was not to be put off by fair words and flattery.

"No," he said gravely: "but there is some deeper motive..."

He sought Phinuit's eyes, and Phinuit unexpectedly gave him an open-faced return.

"There is," he stated frankly.

"Then why not tell me--?"

"All in good time. And there'll be plenty of that; the Sybarite is no Mauretania. When you know us better and have learned to like us..."

"I make no promises."

"We ask none. Only your pistol..."

"Well, monsieur: my pistol?"

"It makes our association seem so formal--don't you think?--so constrained. Come, Mr. Lanyard! be reasonable. What is a pistol between friends?"

Lanyard shrugged, sighed, and produced the weapon.

"Really!" he said, handing it over to Monk--"how could anyone resist such disarming expressions?"

The captain thanked him solemnly and put the weapon away in his safe, together with the steel despatch-box and Liane Delorme's personal treasure of precious stones.

XXI

SOUNDINGS

With characteristic abruptness Liane Delorme announced that she was sleepy, it had been for her a most fatiguing day. Captain Monk rang for the stewardess and gallantly escorted the lady to her door. Lanyard got up with Phinuit to bow her out, but instead of following her suit helped himself to a long whiskey and soda, with loving deliberation selected, trimmed and lighted a cigar, and settled down into his chair as one prepared to make a night of it.

"You never sleep, no?" Phinuit enquired in a spirit of civil solicitude.

"Desolated if I discommode you, monsieur," Lanyard replied with entire amiability--"but not to-night, not at least until I know those jewels have no more chance to go ashore without me."

He tasted his drink with open relish. "Prime Scotch," he judged. "One grows momentarily more reconciled to the prospect of a long voyage."

"Make the most of it," Phinuit counselled. "Remember our next port of call is the Great American Desert. After all, the despised camel seems to have had the right idea all along."

He gaped enormously behind a superstitious hand. Monk, returning, published an elaborate if silent superciliary comment on the tableau.

"He has no faith at all in our good intentions," Phinuit explained, eyeing Lanyard with mild reproach. "It's most discouraging."

"Monsieur suffers from insomnia?" Monk asked in his turn.

"Under certain circumstances."

"Ever take anything for it?"

"To-night it would require nothing less than possession of the Montalais jewels to put me to sleep."

"Well, if you manage to lay hands on them without our consent," Phinuit promised genially, "you'll be put to sleep all right."

"But don't let me keep you up, messieurs."

Captain Monk consulted the chronometer. "It's not worth while turning in," he said: "we sail soon after day-break."

"Far be it from me to play the giddy crab, then." Phinuit busied himself with the decanter, glasses and siphon. "Let's make it a regular party; we'll have all to-morrow to sleep it off in. If I try to hop on your shoulder and sing, call a steward and have him lead me to my innocent white cot; but take a fool's advice, Lanyard, and don't try to drink the skipper under the table. On the word of one who's tried and repented, it can not be done."

"But it is I who would go under the table," Lanyard said. "I have a poor head for whiskey."

"Thanks for the tip."

"Pardon?"

"I mean to say," Phinuit explained, "I'm glad to have another weakness of yours to bear in mind."

"You are interested in the weaknesses of others, monsieur?"

"They're my hobby."

"Knowledge," Monk quoted, sententious, "is power."

"May I ask what other entries you have made in my dossier, Mr. Phinuit?"

"You won't get shirty?"

"But surely not."

"Well ... can't be positive till I know you better.... I'm afraid you've got a tendency to overestimate the gullibility of people in general. It's either that, or.... No: I don't believe you're intentionally hypocritical, or self-deceived, either."

"But I don't understand...."

"Remember your promise.... But you seem to think it easy to put it over on us, mademoiselle, the skipper and me."

"But I assure you I have never had any such thought."

"Then why this funny story of yours--told with a straight face, too!--about wanting to get hold of the Montalais loot simply to slip it back to its owner?"

Lanyard felt with a spasm of anger constrict his throat; and knew that the restraint he imposed upon his temper was betrayed in a reddened face. Nevertheless his courteous smile persisted, his polite conversational tone was unchanged.

"Now you remind me of something. I presume, Captain Monk, it's not too late to send a note ashore to be posted?"

"Oh!" Monk's eyebrows protested violently--"a note!"

"On plain paper, in a plain envelope--and I don't in the least mind your reading it."

The eyebrows appealed to Phinuit, and that worthy ruled: "Under those conditions, I don't see we can possibly object."

Monk shrugged his brows back into place, found paper of the sort desired, even went so far as to dip the pen for Lanyard.

"You will sit at my desk, monsieur?"

"Many thanks."

Under no more heading than the date, Lanyard wrote:

"Dear Madame de Montalais:"

"I have not forgotten my promise, but my days have been full since I left the château. And even now I must be brief: within an hour I sail for America, within a fortnight you may look for telegraphic advices from me, stating that your jewels are in my possession, and when I hope to be able to restore them to you."

"Believe me, dear madame,"

"Devotedly your servant,

"Michael Lanyard."

Monk read and in silence passed this communication over to Phinuit, while Lanyard addressed the envelope.

"Quite in order," was Phinuit's verdict, accompanied by a yawn.

Lanyard folded the note, sealed it in the envelope, and affixed a stamp supplied by Monk, who meanwhile rang for a steward.

"Take this ashore and post it at once," he told the man who answered his summons.

"But seriously, Lanyard!" Phinuit protested with a pained expression.... "No: I don't get you at all. What's the use?"

"I have not deceived you, then?"

"Not so's you'd notice it."

"Alas!"--Lanyard affected a sigh--"for misspent effort!"

"Oh, all's fair outside the law. We don't blame you for trying it on. Only we value your respect too much to let you go on thinking we have fallen for that hokum."

"You see," Monk expounded--solemn ass that he was beneath his thin veneer of pretentiousness--"when we know how the British Government kicked you out of its Secret Service as soon as it had no further use for you, we can understand and sympathise with your natural reaction to such treatment at the hands of Society."

"But one didn't know you knew so much, monsieur le capitaine."

"And then," said Phinuit, "when we know you steered a direct course from London for the Château de Montalais, and made yourself persona grata there--Oh, persona very much grata, if I'm any judge!--you can hardly ask us to believe you didn't mean to do it, it all just happened so."

"Monsieur sees too clearly...."

"Why, if it comes to that--what were you up to that night, pussyfooting about the château at two in the morning?"

"But this is positively uncanny! Monsieur knows everything."

"Why shouldn't I know about that?" Vanity rang in Phinuit's self-conscious chuckle. "Who'd you think laid you out that night?"

"Monsieur is not telling me----!"

"I guess I owe you an apology," Phinuit admitted. "But you'll admit that in our situation there was nothing else for it. I'd have given anything if we'd been able to get by any other way; but you're such an unexpected customer.... Well! when I felt you catch hold of my shirt sleeve, that night, I thought we were done for and struck out blindly. It was a lucky blow, no credit to me. Hope I didn't jar you too much."

"No," said Lanyard, reflective--"no, I was quite all right in the morning. But I think I owe you one."

"Afraid you do; and it's going to be my duty and pleasure to cheat you out of your revenge if fast footwork will do it."

"But where was Captain Monk all the while?"

"Right here," Monk answered for himself; "sitting tight and saying nothing, and duly grateful that the blue prints and specifications of the Great Architect didn't design me for second-storey work."

"Then it was Jules----?"

"No; Jules doesn't know enough. It was de Lorgnes, of course. I thought you'd guess that."

"How should I?"

"Didn't you know he was the premier cracksman of France? That is, going on Mademoiselle Delorme's account of him; she says there was never anybody like that poor devil for putting the comether on a safe--barring yourself, Monsieur le Loup Seul, in your palmy days. And she ought to know; those two have been working together since the Lord knows when. A sound, conservative bird, de Lorgnes; very discreet, tight-mouthed even when drunk--which was too often."

"But--this is most interesting--how did you get separated, you and de Lorgnes?"

"Bad luck, a black night, and--I guess there's no more question about this--your friend, Popinot-Dupont. I'll say this for that blighter: as a self-made spoil-sport, he sure did give service!"

Phinuit gave his whiskey and soda a reminiscent grin.

"And we thought we were being bright, at that! We'd figured every move to the third decimal point. The only uncertain factor in our calculations, as we thought, was you. But with you disposed of, dead to the world, and Madame de Montalais off in another part of the château calling the servants to help, leaving her rooms wide open to us--the job didn't take five minutes. The way de Lorgnes made that safe give up all its secrets, you'd have thought he had raised it by hand! We stuffed the loot into a grip I'd brought for the purpose, and beat it--slipped out through the drawing-room window one second before Madame de Montalais came back with that doddering footman of hers. But they never even looked our way. I bet they never knew there'd been a robbery till the next morning. Do I lose?"

"No, monsieur; you are quite right."