Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/113

Rh 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