Alias the Lone Wolf Part 50

"Well," Lanyard said, "I'm d.a.m.ned!"

"I say!" The subdued mutter took on a note of anxiety. "It's all right, isn't it? I mean, you aren't going to kick up a rumpus and spill the beans? I guess you must think I've got a h.e.l.l of a gall, coming in on you like this, and I don't know as I blame you, but... Well, time's getting short, only two more days at sea, and I couldn't wait any longer for a chance to have a few minutes' chin with you."

The mutter ceased and held an expectant pause. Lanyard said nothing.

But he was conscious that the speaker occupied a chair by the bed, and knew that he was bending near to catch his answer; for the air was tainted with vinous breath. Yes: one required no stronger identification, it was beyond any doubt the chief engineer of the Sybarite.

"Say it's all right, won't you?" the mutter pleaded.

"I am listening," Lanyard replied--"as you perceive."

"I'll say it's decent of you--d.a.m.ned decent. Blowed if I'd take it as calm as you, if I waked up to find somebody in my room."

"I believe," said Lanyard pointedly, "you stipulated for a few minutes'

chin with me. Time pa.s.ses, Mr. Mussey. Get to your business, or let me go to sleep again."

"Sharp, you are," commented the mutter. "I've noticed it in you. You'd be surprised if you knew how much notice I've been taking of you."

"And flattered, I'm sure."

"Look here..." The mutter stumbled. "I want to ask a personal question.

Daresay you'll think it impertinent."

"If I do, be sure I shan't answer it."

"Well... it's this: Is or isn't your right name Lanyard, Michael Lanyard?"

This time it was Lanyard who, thinking rapidly, held the pause so long that his querist's uneasiness could not contain itself.

"Is that my answer? I mean, does your silence--?"

"That's an unusual name, Michael Lanyard," cautiously replied its proprietor. "How did you get hold of it?"

"They say it's the right name of the Lone Wolf. Guess I don't have to tell you who the Lone Wolf is."

"'They say'? Who, please, are 'they'?"

"Oh, there's a lot of talk going around the s.h.i.+p. You know how it is, a crew will gossip. And G.o.d knows they've got enough excuse this cruise."

This was constructively evasive. Lanyard wondered who had betrayed him.

Phinuit? The tongue of that plain-spoken man was hinged in the middle; but one couldn't feel certain. Liane Delorme had made much of the chief engineer; though she seemed less likely to talk too much than anyone of the s.h.i.+p's company but Lanyard himself. But then (one remembered of a sudden) Monk and Mussey were by reputation old cronies; it wasn't inconceivable that Monk might have let something slip...

"And what, Mr. Mussey, if I should admit I am Michael Lanyard?"

"Then I'll have something to say to you, something I think'll interest you."

"Why not run the risk of interesting me, whoever I may be?"

Mussey breathed heavily in the stillness: the breathing of a cautious man loath to commit himself.

"No," he said at length, in the clearest enunciation he had thus far used. "No. If you're not Lanyard, I'd rather say nothing more--I'll just ask you to pardon me for intruding and clear out."

"But you say there is some gossip. And where there is smoke, there must be fire. It would seem safe to a.s.sume I am the man gossip says I am."

"Michael Lanyard?" the mutter persisted--"the Lone Wolf?"

"Yes, yes! What then?"

"I suppose the best way's to put it to you straight..."

"I warn you, you'll gain nothing if you don't."

"Then... to begin at the beginning... I've known Whit Monk a good long time. Years I've known him. We've sailed together off and on ever since we took to the sea; we've gone through some nasty sc.r.a.pes together, and done things that don't bear telling, and always shared the thick and the thin of everything. Before this, if anybody had ever told me Whit Monk would do a pal dirt, I'd've punched his head and thought no more about it. But now..."

The mutter faltered. Lanyard preserved a sympathetic silence--a silence, at least, which he hoped would pa.s.s as sympathetic. In reality, he was struggling to suppress any betrayal of the exultation that was beginning to take hold of him. Premature this might prove to be, but it seemed impossible to misunderstand the emotion under which the chief engineer was labouring or to underestimate its potential value to Lanyard. Surely it would seem that his faith in his star had been well-placed: was it not now--or all signs failed--delivering into his hand the forged tool he had so desperately needed, for which he had so earnestly prayed?

A heavy sigh issued upon the stillness, freighted with a deep and desolating melancholy. For, it appeared, like all cynics, Mr. Mussey was a sentimentalist at heart. And in the darkness that disembodied voice took up its tale anew.

"I don't have to tell you what's going on between Whit and that lot he's so thick with nowadays. You know, or you wouldn't be here."

"Isn't that conclusion what you Americans would call a little previous?"

"Previous?" The mutter took a moment to con the full significance of that adjective. "No: I wouldn't call it that. You see, on a voyage like this--well, talk goes on, things get about, things are said aloud that shouldn't be and get overheard and pa.s.sed along; and the man who sits back and listens and sifts what he hears is pretty likely to get a tolerably good line on what's what. Of course there's never been any secret about what the owner means to do with all this wine he's s.h.i.+pped. We all know we're playing a risky game, but we're for the owner--he isn't a bad sort, when you get to know him--and we'll go through with it and take what's coming to us win or lose. Partly, of course, because it'll mean something handsome for every man if we make it without getting caught. But if you want to know what I think... I'll tell you something..."

"But truly I am all attention."

"I think Whit Monk and Phinuit and mam'selle have framed the owner between them."

"Can't say I quite follow..."

"I think they cooked up this smuggling business and kidded him into it just to get the use of his yacht for their own purposes and at the same time get him where he can't put up a howl if he finds out the truth.

Suppose he does..." The mutter became momentarily a deep-throated chuckle of malice. "He's in so deep on the booze smuggling side he da.s.sent say a word, and that puts him in worse yet, makes him accessory before the fact of criminal practices that'd made his hair stand on end. Then, suppose they want to go on with the game, looting in Europe and sneaking the goods into America with the use of his yacht: what's he going to say, how's he going to stop them?"

Accepting these questions as purely rhetorical, Lanyard offered no comment. After a moment the mutter resumed:

"Well, what do you think? Am I right or am I wrong?"

"Who knows, Mr. Mussey? One can only say, you seem to know something."

"I'll say I know something! A sight more than Whit Monk dreams I know--as he'll find out to his sorrow before he's finished with Tom Mussey."

"But"--obliquely Lanyard struck again at the heart of the mystery which he found so baffling--"you seem so well satisfied with the bona fides of your informant?"

There was a sound of stertorous breathing as the intelligence behind the mutter grappled with this utterance. Then, as if the hint had proved too fine--"I'm playing my hand face up with you, Mr. Lanyard. I guess you can tell I know what I'm talking about."

"But what I cannot see is why you should talk about it to me, monsieur."

"Why, because I and you are both in the same boat, in a manner of speaking. We're both on the outside--shut out--looking in."