The False Faces Part 6

"If mademoiselle would be so good as to tell me something in return--?"

"If I can...."

"Then why, mademoiselle, did you try my door last night?"

"It was neither locked nor bolted on my side. I wished to make sure--"

"So one fancied. Thank you. Good-night, mademoiselle...?"

She was impervious to his hint. "Good-night, Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin," she said, and closed the door.

Now Lanyard's quarters opened not on this alleyway fore-and-aft but on a short and narrow athwarts.h.i.+p pa.s.sage. And as he turned away he saw out of the corner of an eye a white-jacketed figure emerge from this pa.s.sageway and move hurriedly aft. Something furtive in the round of the fellow's shoulders challenged his curiosity. He called quietly:

"Steward!"

There was no answer. By now the white jacket was no more than a blur moving in that deep gloom. He cried again, more loudly:

"I say, steward!"

He could hardly see, but fancied that the man quickened his steps: in another instant he vanished altogether.

Smothering an impulse to give chase, the adventurer swung alertly into the narrow pa.s.sage and opened the door to Stateroom 29. The room was dark, but as he fumbled for the switch, the door in the forward part.i.tion was thrust open and the girl's slight figure showed, tensely poised against the light behind her.

"Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin!" she cried, in a voice sharp with doubt.

Lanyard turned the switch. "Mademoiselle," he said, and coolly crossed to the port, drawing the light-proof curtains.

"This door was locked all day--locked when the firing alarmed me and I went out to the deck."

"And on my side, mademoiselle, it was locked and bolted when last I was here, shortly before dinner." "Whoever unfastened it entered my room during my absence and tampered with my luggage."

"You have missed something?"

Gaze intent to his she nodded. He shrugged and cast shrewdly round his quarters for some clue to the enigma. His glance fastened on a leather bellows-bag beneath the berth. Dropping to his knees he pulled this out, and looked up with a quizzical grimace, his forefinger indicating the lock, which was uncaught.

"I left this latched but not locked," he said. "Perhaps I, too, have lost something."

Opening the bag out flat, he sat back on his heels, with practised eye inspecting its neat arrangement of intimate things.

"Nothing has been taken, mademoiselle," he announced gravely. "But something--I think--has been generously added. I seem to have an anonymous admirer on board."

Bending forward, he rummaged beneath a sheaf of s.h.i.+rts and brought forth a small jewel-box of grained leather, with a monogram stamped on the lid--"C.B."

"The lock is broken," he observed, and handed it up to the woman. "As to its contents, mademoiselle herself knows best...."

The woman opened the box.

"Nothing is missing," she said in a thoughtful voice.

"I am relieved." Lanyard closed the bag, thrust it back beneath the berth, and got upon his feet. "But you are quite sure--?"

"My jewels are all in order," she affirmed, without meeting his gaze.

"And you miss nothing else?"

"Nothing."

Was there an accent of hesitation in this response?

"Then, I take it, the thief was disappointed."

Now she glanced quickly at his eyes. "Why do you say that?"

"If the thief had found what he sought, he would never have presented it to me, mademoiselle would never again have seen her jewels. Failing in his object, after breaking that lock, and interrupted by your unexpected return, he planted the case with me, hoping to have me suspected. I am fortunately able to prove the best of alibis.... So then," said Lanyard, smiling, "it would appear that, though we met ten minutes ago for the first time--and I have yet to know mademoiselle by name--we are allies in a common cause."

"My name is Brooke--Cecelia Brooke," she said quietly--"if it matters. But why 'allies'?"

"It appears we own a common enemy. Each of us possesses something which that one desires--you a secret, I a good name. (d.u.c.h.emin, indeed, I have always held to be an excellent name.) I shall not hesitate to call on you if my treasure is again violated. May I venture to hope mademoiselle will prove as ready to command my services?"

"Thank you. I fancy, however, there will be no need."

She moved irresolutely toward the communicating door, paused in its frame, eyeing him speculatively from under level brows. He detected, or imagined, a tremor of impulse toward him, as though she faltered on the verge of some grave confidence. If so, she curbed her tongue in time. Her gaze dropped, fixed itself abstractedly on the door.... "This must be fastened," she said, in a tone of complete disinterest.

"I will speak to the chief steward immediately."

"Don't trouble." She roused. "It doesn't matter, really, for to-night. I shall leave what valuables I have in the purser's care and stop on deck till daybreak."

He gave a gesture of bewilderment. "You abandon your seclusion--leave your secret unguarded?"

"Why not?" She shrugged slightly with a little _moue_ of discontent. "If, as you a.s.sume, I had a secret, it was that for certain reasons I did not wish my presence on board to become known. But it seems it has become known: my secret is no more. So I need no longer risk being cut off from the boats in the event of any accident."

Momentarily her gravity was dissipated by a smile at once delightful and provocative.

"Once more, monsieur--good-night!"

After some moments Lanyard, with a start, found himself staring blankly at a blankly incommunicative communicating door.

IV

IN DEEP WATERS

Following this abrupt introduction to his interesting neighbour, Lanyard went back to his deck-chair and, bundling himself up against the cold, settled down to ponder the affair and await developments in a spirit of chastened resignation. That a denouement would duly unfold he was quite satisfied; that he himself must w.i.l.l.y-nilly play some part therein he was too well persuaded.

Not that he wished to meddle. If this Miss Cecelia Brooke (as she named herself) fostered any sort of intrigue, he wanted nothing so fervently as to be left altogether out of it. But already he had been dragged in, without wish or consent of his; whoever coveted her secret--whatever that was, more precious to her than jewels--harboured designs upon his own as well. It was his duty henceforth to go warily, overlooking no circ.u.mstance, however trifling and inconsiderable it might appear. The slenderest thread may lead to the heart of the most intricate maze--and the heart of this was become Lanyard's immediate goal, for there his enemy lay perdu.