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154 Hardly that: the hand of the murderer shook and wavered widely as he put down the cup. For a moment he swayed with eyes fixed and glazing, features visibly losing plasticity, then lurched forward, knocking the brandy bottle to the floor, swung around a full half turn in blind effort to re-establish equilibrium, fell backward upon the table, and lay racked from head to foot with savage spasms, hands clawing empty air, chest labouring vainly to win sufficient oxygen to combat the poison with which his system was saturated.

Moving to his side, Lanyard laid a hand upon the left breast. The man's heart was hammering his ribs with agonizing blows, at first rapid, by degrees more slow and feeble.

No power on earth could save him now: he had committed suicide as surely as murder.

Wasting not another glance or thought upon him Lanyard hurried aft to the central operating room.

The time he had spent there, an hour earlier, was by no means lost in purposeless marvelling. He boasted a certain aptitude for mechanics, perhaps legitimately inherited from that obscure origin of his, largely fostered by the requirements of his craft; into the bargain, he had been privileged ere now to gain some slight insight into the principles of submersible operation. If obliged to work swiftly and in some instances upon the advice of intuition rather than practical knowledge, he went not unintelligently about his task, made few false moves.

Turning first to the diving controls, he adjusted the hydroplanes to their extreme downward inclination, then made the rounds of the vent valves, opening all wide.