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Updated: May 25, 2025
More than slightly to Lanyard's surprise he received no quiet invitation to the captain's quarters to be interrogated concerning the burglary in Stateroom 27. Apparently, the young woman had contented herself with reporting merely that the communicating door had carelessly been left unfastened.
The man on his chest was thrown off as by a young earthquake; and Lanyard's right arm was no sooner free than it shot out with blind but deadly accuracy to the point of his assailant's jaw. A click of teeth was followed by a sickish grunt as the man lurched over....
If I were you, I should go away very quickly, and never stop till I had put stout walls between myself and Popinot." A chill of apprehension sent a shiver stealing down Lanyard's spine. "You're sure?" "But of a certainty, my old one!" "A thousand thanks!" Jumping down, the adventurer cranked the motor, sprang back to his seat, and was off like a hunted hare....
The slightest error in his reckoning would have finished him: for the other had been watching for just such a move, and the revolver was nearly level with Lanyard's head when he grasped it by the barrel, turned that to the ceiling, imprisoned the woman's wrist with his other hand, and in two movements had captured the weapon without injuring its owner. "Don't be alarmed," he said quietly.
The woman sat back in her chair, attentive to the posturing of the dancer, slowly fanning herself. Lanyard's semblance of as much interest was nothing more; furtively his watchfulness alternated between two quarters of the room. On the farther edge of the circle of tropical radiance he had marked down a table at which two men were seated, Dressier and O'Reilly.
For a breath he lay dazed, struggling feebly; not long, but long enough to enable his antagonist to shift his hold and climb on top of his body, where he squatted, bearing down heavily with a knee on either of Lanyard's forearms, hands encircling his neck, murderous thumbs digging into his windpipe.
None the less Lanyard's rough and rapid calculations persuaded him that they were then about Mid-Channel. He had no more than arrived at this conclusion when a sharp, startled movement, that rocked the planes, drew his attention to the man at his side. Glancing in alarm at the aviator's face, he saw it as white as marble what little of it was visible beyond and beneath the wind-mask.
The unfortunate fact is, he was a member in the best of standing; for this society of pseudo-altruistic aims was nothing more nor less than one of those several private gambling clubs of Paris which the French Government tolerates more or less openly, despite adequate restrictive legislation; and gambling was Lanyard's ruling passion a legacy from Bourke no less than the rest of his professional equipment.
Thanks to the racket of the motor, no audible reports had accompanied the sharp-shooting of the man in the monoplane; while Lanyard's cry of horror and dismay had been audible to himself exclusively. Hearing nothing, Lucy suspected nothing. Again Lanyard looked back.
Inscrutable the processes of human hearts: even as from the very first Sofia had instinctively yet unconsciously recognized the intrinsic falsity of Victor's pretensions, so now she perceived the integral honesty that informed Lanyard's every word and nuance of expression, and accepted him without further inquisition.
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