The False Faces Part 19

He paused, contemplating Lanyard owlishly. "Ought not to tell you all this, I presume," he continued, more soberly, though the wild light still flickered ominously in his eyes. "But it is safe enough; you will see for yourself in a few hours; and then ... either you are all right, or you will never live to tell of it. We radio'd for information about Wilhelmstra.s.se Number 27 just before dawn, after we had dodged that d.a.m.ned Yankee destroyer. Ought to get an answer to-night, when we come up."

Heavier footsteps rang in the alleyway. The Prussian made a grimace of dislike.

"Here comes the commander," he cautioned uneasily.

A great blond Viking of a German in the uniform of a captain shouldered heavily through the doorway and, acknowledging the salute of the rat-faced subaltern with a bare nod, stood looking down at Lanyard in taciturn silence, hostility in his blood-shot blue eyes.

"How long since he wakened?" he asked thickly, with the accent of a Bavarian.

"A minute or two ago."

"Why did you not inform me?"

The tone was offensively domineering, thanks like enough to drink, nerves, and hatred of his job and all things and persons pertaining to it.

The subaltern coloured. "He asked for water--I got it for him."

The commander stared churlishly, then addressed Lanyard: "How are you now?"

"Very faint," Lanyard said truthfully. But he would have lied had it been otherwise with him. It was his book to make time in which to collect his thoughts, concoct a bullet-proof story, plan against an adverse answer to that wireless enquiry.

"Can you eat, drink a little champagne?"

Lanyard nodded slightly, adding a feeble "Please."

The Bavarian glanced significantly at his subaltern, who hastened to leave them.

"Who are you? What is your name?"

"Dr. Paul Rodiek."

"Your employment?"

"Personal Intelligence Bureau--confidential agent."

"What were you doing on board the _a.s.syrian_?"

Lanyard mustered enough strength to look the man squarely in the eye.

"Pardon," he said coldly. "You must know your question is indiscreet."

"I must know more about you."

"It should be enough," Lanyard ventured boldly, "to know that I set off that flare as arranged, at risk of my life."

"How came you overboard?"

"In the scuffle caused by my lighting the flare."

"So you tell me. But we found you half clothed, lacking any sort of identification. Am I to accept your unsupported word?"

"My papers are naturally at the bottom of the sea, in the garments I discarded lest their weight drag me down. If you have doubts," Lanyard continued firmly, "it is your privilege to settle them by communicating via radio with Seventy-ninth Street."

He shut his eyes wearily and turned his head aside on the pillow, confident that this reference to the headquarters and secret wireless station of the Prussian spy system in New York would win him peace for a time at least.

After a moment the commander uttered a non-committal grunt. "We shall see,"

he prophesied darkly, and went away.

Later, one of the crew brought Lanyard a dish of greasy stew and potatoes, lukewarm, with bread and a half-bottle of excellent champagne.

He ate all he could stomach of the first, devoured the second ravenously, and drained the bottle of its ultimate life-giving drop.

Then, immeasurably refreshed and fortified in body and spirit, he turned face to the wall, composed himself as if to sleep, shut his eyes, adjusted the tempo of his respiration, and lay quite still, wide awake and thinking hard.

After a while somebody tramped into the cubicle, bent over Lanyard inquisitively and, satisfied that he slept, retired, taking away the empty bottle and dishes.

Otherwise his meditations were disturbed only by those echoes of revelry in honour of the late manifestation of the Hun's divine right to do wanton murder on the high seas.

The rumour waxed and waned, died into dull mutterings, broke out afresh in spurts of merriment that held an hysterical note. Once a quarrel sprang up and was silenced by the commander's deep, unpleasant tones. Corks popped spasmodically. Again there were sounds much like a man's sobbing; but these were promptly blared down by a phonograph with a typically American accent.

When that palled, a sentimental disciple of frightfulness sang Tannenbaum in a melting tenor.

Everything tended to effect an impression that all, commander and meanest mechanic alike, were making forlorn efforts to forget.

Devoutly Lanyard prayed they might be successful, at least until the submarine made her secret base. If too much alcohol was bad, too much brooding was infinitely worse for the German temperament. He remembered one U-boat commander who, returning to the home port after a conspicuously successful cruise, had been taken ash.o.r.e in a strait-jacket.

Lanyard himself did not care to dwell upon those scenes which must have been enacted on board the _a.s.syrian_ after the torpedo struck....

Deliberately ignoring all else, he set himself the task of reviewing those events which had led up to his going overboard.

One by one he considered the incidents of that night, painstakingly dissected them, examined their every phase in minute a.n.a.lysis, weighing for ulterior meaning every word uttered in his presence, harking even farther back to reconstruct his acquaintance with each actor from the very moment of its inception, seeking that hint which he was convinced must be somewhere hidden in the history of the affair, waiting only recognition to lead straightway out of this gloomy maze of mystery into a sunlit open of understanding.

In vain: there was an ambiguity in that business to baffle the keenest and most pertinacious investigation.

The conduct of Cecelia Brooke alone bristled with inconsistencies inexplicable, the conduct of the German spies no less.

To get better perspective upon the problem, he reduced the premises to their barest summary:

A valuable dossier brought on board the _a.s.syrian_ (no matter by whom) had come into the possession of British agents, with the knowledge of Captain Osborne. Thackeray had secreted it in that fraudulent bandage. German agents, apparently under the leaders.h.i.+p of Baron von Harden, had waylaid him, knocked him senseless, unwrapped the bandage, but somehow (probably in the first instance through the interference of the Brooke girl) had overlooked the doc.u.ment. Subsequently the Brooke girl had found and entrusted it to Lanyard. (No matter why!) He on his part had exerted his utmost inventiveness in hiding it away. Nevertheless it had been discovered and abstracted within an hour.

By whom?

Not improbably by the Brooke girl herself. Repenting her impulsiveness, after leaving Lanyard with the captain, from whom she had doubtless learned the truth about "Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin," she might well have gone directly to Lanyard's stateroom and hit upon the morphia phial as the likeliest hiding place without delay, thanks to prior acquaintance with the proportions of the paper cylinder.

But why should she have a.s.sumed that Lanyard had not disposed of the trust about his person?

Not impossibly the thing had been found by the first officer of the _a.s.syrian_, searching by order of the captain--as Lanyard a.s.sumed he had.

But, if Mr. Warde had found it, he had not reported his find when telephoning to Captain Osborne; or else the latter had gone to great lengths to mystify Lanyard.