Book: The False Faces

V >> Vance, Louis Joseph >> The False Faces




Her colour faded and she caught her breath sharply. "You think it as
serious as all that?"

"I do not know. Such a blow might easily fracture the skull, possibly bring
about a concussion of the brain. Regard, likewise, his laborious breathing.
I most assuredly advise consulting competent authority."

She did not immediately answer, turning back undivided attention to her
task; but he noticed that her hands were tremulous, however, dextrously
they finished dressing and bandaging the hurt; and deep distress troubled
the handsome eyes she turned to his when she rose.

"You are right," she murmured--"unquestionably right, monsieur. We must
have the surgeon in...."

But when Lanyard advanced a hand toward the bell-push, to call the steward,
she interposed in quick alarm:

"No--if you please, a moment; I must have time to think!" Her slender
fingers writhed together in her agony of doubt and irresolution. "If only I
knew what to do...."

Lanyard was dumb. There was, indeed, nothing helpful he could offer, who
was without a solitary tangible or trustworthy clue to the nature of this
strange business.

He owned himself sadly mystified. In the light--or, rather, the shadow--of
this latest development, his revised suspicions seemed unwarranted to the
point of impertinence; unless, of course, one assumed the unknown assailant
to be a rejected lover or wronged husband. And somehow one did not, in
the presence of this clear-eyed, straight-limbed, courageous young
Englishwoman, so wanting in self-consciousness.

And yet ... what the deuce was she to this man whom, indisputably, she
followed against his wish?

And what conceivable chain of circumstances linked their fortunes with his,
and that double burglary of the first night out with this murderous assault
of to-night?

Nor was to-night's work, considered by itself, lacking in questionable
features.

Why had Thackeray carried that sound arm in a sling? How had its bandages
come to be unwrapped? Not in struggles before being placed hors de combat,
for he had never had a chance to resist. Had his assailant, then, unwrapped
it subsequently? If so, with what end in view?

Why had this Miss Cecelia Brooke, surprising the thug at his work, joined
battle with him so bravely and so madly without calling for help?

What hidden motive excused this singular hesitation to summon the surgeon,
this reluctance to inform the officers of the ship?

What duplicity was that which the girl had paraded concerning her
procrastination when Lanyard had surprised her on her knees out there on
the landing?

If this were what Lanyard had first inclined to think it, Secret Service
intrigue, surely it was weirdly intricate when an English girl hesitated
to safeguard an Englishman by taking into her confidence the officers of a
British ship, British manned!

Nevertheless, and however much he might wonder and doubt, Lanyard would
never question her. Never of his own volition would he probe more deeply
into this mystery, take one farther step into the intricacies of its maze.

So, in silence, he waited, passively courteous, at her further service if
she had need of him, content if she had not, tolerant of her tacit prayer
for time in which to think a way out of her difficulties.

After some few moments he grew uncomfortably aware that he had become the
object of a speculative regard not at all unfavourable.

He indulged in a mental gesture of resignation.

Then what he had feared befell, not altogether as he had apprehended, but
in the girl's own fashion, if without material difference in the upshot.

"I am afraid," said she in an even voice, so quietly pitched as to be
inaudible to any eavesdropper. "This becomes a task greater than I had
dreamed, more than my wits can cope with. Monsieur Duchemin...."

She hesitated. He bowed slightly. "If mademoiselle can make any use of my
poor abilities, she has but to command me."

"We--I have much to thank you for already, monsieur, much more than I can
ever hope to reward adequately--"

"Reward?" he echoed. "But, mademoiselle--!"

"Please don't misunderstand." She flushed a little, very prettily. "I am
simply trying to express my sense of obligation, not only for what you have
already done, but for what I mean to ask you to do."

Again he bowed, without comment, amiably receptive.

She resumed with perceptible effort: "I can trust you--"

"You must make sure of that before you do," he warned her, smiling.

"I am sure," she averred gravely.

"You know nothing concerning me, mademoiselle--pardon! For all you know
I may be the greatest rogue in Christendom. And I must tell you in all
candour, sometimes I think I am."

"What I may or may not know concerning you, Monsieur Duchemin, is
immaterial as long as I know you are what you have proved yourself to me, a
gentleman, considerate, generous, brave, and--not inquisitive."

He was frankly touched. If this were flattery, tone and manner robbed it of
fulsomeness, rendered it subtle beyond the coarser perceptions of the man.
He knew himself for what he was, knew himself unworthy; and that part
of him which was unaffectedly French, whether by accident of birth or
influence of environment, and so impulsive and emotional, reacted in
spontaneous gratitude to this implicit acceptance of him for what he strove
to seem to be.

"Mademoiselle is gracious beyond my deserts," he protested. "Only let me
know how I may be of use...."

"In three ways: Continue to be lenient in your judgments, and ask me no
more questions than you must because ... I may not answer...." Her hands
worked together again. She added unhappily, in a faint voice: "I dare not."

That, too, moved him, since he had been far from lenient in his judgments.
He responded the more readily: "All that is understood, mademoiselle."

"Please go at once back to your stateroom, and as quietly as possible.
There is a bare chance you were not recognised, that nobody knows who came
to my aid to-night. If you can slip away without attracting attention, so
much the better for us, for all of us. You may not be suspected."

"Trust me to use my best discretion."

"Lastly ... take and keep this for me, till I ask you for it again. Hide it
as secretly as you can. It may be sought for, is certain to be if you are
believed to be in my confidence. It must not be found. And I may not want
it again before we land in New York."

She extended a hand on whose palm rested a small and slender white
cylinder, no longer and little thicker than the toy pencil that dangles
from a dance-card: a tight roll of plain white paper enclosed in a wrapping
of transparent oiled silk, gummed fast down its length and, at either end,
sealed with miniature blobs of black wax.

"Will you do this for me, Monsieur Duchemin? I warn you, it may cost you
your life."

He took it, his temper veering to the whimsical. "What is life?" he
questioned. "A prelude--perhaps an overture to that great drama, Death. Who
knows? Who cares?"

She heard him in a stare. "You place no value on life?"

"Mademoiselle," he said, "I have lived nearly thirty years in this world,
three years in the theatre of war, seldom far from the trenches of one
front or another. I tell you, I know death too well...."

He shrugged and put the roll of paper away in a pocket.

"You understand it must not be taken from you under any circumstance? As a
last resort, it must be destroyed rather than yielded up."

"It shall be," he said quietly. "Is there anything more?"

She shook her head, thoughtfully knuckling her underlip.

"How can I communicate with you in event of necessity after we get to New
York?" she asked.

"I shall stop for a week or two at the Hotel Knickerbocker."

"If anything should happen"--with a swift glance of anxiety toward the
motionless figure in the berth--"if anything should prevent my calling for
it within a week after our arrival, you will be good enough to deliver it
to--" She caught herself up quickly, the unuttered words trembling on her
lip. "I will write down the address of the person to whom you will deliver
it, and slip it underneath the door between our rooms--first making
certain you are there to receive it--if I do not ask you to return
the--thing--before we land."

"That shall be as you will."

"When you have memorized the address you will destroy it?"

"Depend on that."

"I think that is all. Thank you, Monsieur Duchemin--and good-night."

She extended her hand. He saluted it punctiliously with fingertips and
lips.

"If you will put out the light, mademoiselle, it may aid me to get away
unseen."

She nodded and offered him Thackeray's pistol. "Take this. O, I have
another with me."

Lanyard accepted the weapon and, when she had darkened the room, opened the
door, slipped out, and closed it behind him so noiselessly that the girl
could not believe he was gone.

Nothing hindered his return to Stateroom 29.

Fully two minutes after he had locked himself in he heard the distant
clamour of the annunciator, calling a steward to Stateroom 30.




VI

UNDER SUSPICION


He sat for a long time on the edge of his berth, elbow on knee, chin in
hand, unstirring, gaze fixed upon that little cylinder of white paper
resting in the hollow of his palm, in profoundest concentration pondering
the problems it presented: what it was, what possession of it meant to
Michael Lanyard, what safe disposition to make of it pending welcome relief
from this unsought and most unwelcome trust.

This last question alone bade fair to confound his utmost ingenuity.

As for what it was, Lanyard was well satisfied that he now held the true
focus of this conspiracy, a secret of the first consequence, far too
momentous to the designs of England to be entrusted, though couched in the
most cryptic cipher ever mind of man devised, even to cables or mails which
England herself controlled.

Solely to prevent this communication from reaching America, Lanyard
believed, Germany had sown mines broadcast in all the waters which the
_Assyrian_ must cross, and had commissioned her U-boats, without fail and
at whatever cost, to sink the vessel if by any accident she won safely
through the mine-fields.

In the effort to steal this secret, German spies had sailed on the
_Assyrian_ knowing well the double risk they ran, of being shot like rats
if found out, of being drowned like neutrals if the ship went down through
the efforts of their compatriots.

It was the zeal of Potsdam's agents, seeking the bearer of this secret,
which had caused the rifling of Miss Brooke's luggage when she fell under
suspicion, thanks to her clandestine way of coming aboard; and through the
same agency young Thackeray had been all but murdered when suspicion, for
whatever reason, shifted to him.

To insure safe transmission of this communication, England had held the
_Assyrian_ idle in port, day after day, while her augmented patrols scoured
the seas, hunting down ruthlessly every submarine whose periscope dared
peer above the surface, and while her trawlers innumerable swept the
channels clear of mines.

To prevent its theft, Lieutenant Thackeray had invented the subterfuge of
the "wounded" arm, amid whose splints and bandages (Lanyard never doubted)
the cylinder had been secreted.

Finally, it was as a special agent, deep in her country's confidence, that
this English girl had smuggled herself aboard at the last moment, bringing,
no doubt, this very cylinder to be transferred to the keeping of Lieutenant
Thackeray or, perhaps, another confrère, should she find reason to think
herself suspected, her trust endangered.

Nothing strange in that; women had served their countries in such
capacities before; the secret archives of European chancellories are
replete with their records. Lanyard himself remembered many such women,
brilliant mondaines from many lands domiciled in that Paris of the so-dead
yesterday to serve by stealth their respective governments; but never, it
was true, a woman of the caste of Cecelia Brooke; unless, indeed, this were
an actress of surpassing talent, gifted to hoodwink the most skeptical and
least susceptible of men.

And yet....

Lanyard's train of thought faltered. New doubt of the girl began to shadow
his meditations. Contradictory circumstances he had noted intruded,
uninvited, to challenge overcredulous conclusions concerning her.

Would any secret agent worth her salt invite suspicion by making such a
conspicuously furtive embarkation, by such ostentatious avoidance of her
fellow passengers, by surrounding herself with an atmosphere of such
palpable mystery? Would such an one confess she had a "secret" to an utter
stranger, as she had to Lanyard that first night out? Would she, under any
conceivable circumstances, entrust to that same stranger that selfsame
secret upon whose inviolate preservation so much depended?

And would she make love-trysts on the decks by night?

Would a brother-agent take her in his arms, then reprove her with every
symptom of vexation for her "madness," her "insanity," her "nonsense" that
was like to "drive me mad"?--Thackeray's own words!

Vainly Lanyard cudgelled his wits for some plausible reading of this
riddle.

Was this Brooke girl possibly (of a sudden he sat bolt upright) a Prussian
agent infatuated with this young Englishman and by him beloved in spite of
all that forbade their passion?

Did not this explanation reconcile every apparent inconsistency in her
conduct, even to the entrusting to a stranger of the stolen secret, the
purloined paper she dared not keep about her lest it be found in her
possession?

Lanyard's eyes narrowed. Visibly his features hardened. If this surmise of
his were any way justified in the outcome, he promised Miss Cecelia Brooke
an hour of most painful penitence.

Woman or not, she need not look for mercy from him, who must ever be
merciless in his dealings with Ekstrom's crew.

To be made that one's tool!

The very thought was intolerable....

As for himself, possession of this paper meant that pitfalls were digged
for his every step.

If ever the British found cause to suspect him, his certain portion would
be to face a firing squad in dusk of early day.

If, on the other hand, these Prussian agents on board the _Assyrian_ ever
got wind of the fact that the cylinder was in his care, his fate was apt to
be a knife between his ribs the first time he was caught alone and--with
his back to the assassin.

Two courses, then, were open to him: the most sensible and obvious, to go
straightway to the captain of the _Assyrian_, report all that he knew or
surmised, and turn over the paper for safekeeping; one alternative, to hide
the cylinder so absolutely that the most drastic search would overlook it,
yet so handily that he could rid himself of it at an instant's notice.

But the first course involved denunciation of the Brooke girl. And what
if she were innocent? What if, after all, these doubts of her were the
specious spawn of facts misinterpreted, misconstrued? What if she proved to
be all she seemed? Could he, even though what he had warned her he might
be, the greatest rogue unhung, be false to a trust reposed in him by such a
woman?

As to that, there was no question in his mind; he would never betray her,
lacking irrefutable conviction that she was an employee of the Prussian spy
system.

Then how to hide the paper?

Kneeling, Lanyard drew from beneath the berth his bellows-bag, selected
from its contents a black japanned tin case containing a rather elaborate
though compact trench medicine kit, the idle purchase of an empty afternoon
in London. Extracting from its fittings a small leather-covered case, he
replaced the kit, relocked and shoved the bag back beneath the berth.

Then, standing over the hand-basin, he opened the leather-covered case. Its
velvet-lined compartments held a hypodermic syringe and needle, and a glass
phial of twenty-four one-thirtieth grain morphia tablets.

Uncorking the phial, he shook out all the tablets, replaced three, then
slid the paper cylinder into the tube; it fitted precisely, concealed by
the label of the manufacturing chemist, leaving room for six more tablets.
Lanyard inserted four on top of the cylinder, moistening the lowermost
slightly to make it stick, recorked the phial, and returned it to its
compartment.

Next he dissolved three morphia tablets in a little water in the bottom of
a glass, filled the syringe with the strong solution, fitted on the needle,
squirted most of the contents down the waste-pipe, and consigned the
remaining tablets to the same innocuous fate.

Finally he replaced needle and syringe in the case, let the glass which had
held the solution stand without rinsing, and put the open case upon the
shelf above the basin.

A light tapping sounded on the panels of his door.

"Well? Who's there?"

"Your steward, sir. Captain Osborne's compliments, an' 'e'd like to see you
in 'is room as soon as convenient, sir."

"You may say I will come at once."

"'Nk you, sir."

A summons to have been expected as a sequel to the surgeon's report after
attending Lieutenant Thackeray; none the less, Lanyard had not expected it
so soon.

Authority, he reflected, ran true to form afloat as well as ashore; it was
prompt enough when required to apply a pound or so of cure. Surely the
officers, at least the captain, must have been advised why this voyage
was apt to prove exceptionally hazardous; and surely in the light of such
information it had been wiser to set armed watches on every deck by night,
rather than permit the lives of passengers to be imperilled through the
possible activities of Prussian agents among them incogniti.

And now that he was reminded of it, was not this, perhaps, but a device of
the enemy's to decoy him from the comparative safety of his stateroom?

It was with a hand in his jacket pocket, grasping Thackeray's automatic,
that he presently left the room. The alleyway, however, was deserted except
for his steward; who, as he appeared, turned and led the way up to the
boat-deck.

Rounding the foot of the companionway, Lanyard contrived a hasty glance
down the port alleyway. The door to Stateroom 30 was on the hook; a light
burned within. Outside a guard was stationed, a sailor with a cutlass: the
first application of the pound of cure!

At the heels of his guide, he approached a door in the deck-house, devoted
to officers' accommodations, beneath the bridge. Here the steward knocked
discreetly. A heavy voice grumbling within was stilled for a moment, then
barked a sharp invitation to enter. The steward turned the knob, announced
dispassionately "Monseer Duchemin," and stood aside. Lanyard entered a
well-lighted room, simply but comfortably furnished as the captain's office
and sitting room; sleeping quarters adjoined, the head of a berth with a
battered pillow showing through a door a foot or so ajar.

Four persons were present; the notion entered Lanyard's head that a fifth
possibly lurked in the room beyond, spying, eavesdropping: not a bad scheme
if Thackeray had an associate on board whose identity it was desirable to
keep under cover.

The door closed gently behind him as he stood politely bowing, conscious
that the four faces turned his way were distinguished by a singular variety
of expression.

Miss Cecelia Brooke was nearest him, beside a chair from which she had
evidently just risen, her pretty young face rather pale and set, a scared
look in her candid eyes.

Beyond her, the captain sat with his back to a desk: a broad-beamed,
vigorous body, intensely masculine, choleric by habit, and just now in an
extraordinarily grim temper, his iron-gray hair bristling from his
pillow, and his stout person visibly suffering the discomfort of wearing
night-clothes beneath his uniform coat and trousers. Bending upon Lanyard
the steel-hard regard of small, steel-blue eyes, he drummed the arms of his
chair with thick and stubby fingers.

To one side, standing, was the third officer, a Mr. Sherry, a youngish man
with a pleasant cast of countenance which temporarily wore a look, rarely
British, of ingrained sense of duty at odds with much embarrassment.

Lastly Mr. Crane's lanky person was draped, with its customary effect of
carelessness, on one end of the lounge seat. He looked up, nodded shortly
but cheerfully to Lanyard, then resumed a somewhat quizzical contemplation
of the half-smoked cigar which etiquette obliged him to neglect in the
presence of a lady.

"This is the gentleman?" Captain Osborne queried heavily of the girl.
Receiving a murmured affirmative, he continued: "Good morning, Monsieur
Duchemin.... Thanks, Miss Brooke; we won't keep you up any longer
to-night."

He rose, bowed stiffly as Mr. Sherry opened the door for the girl, and when
she was gone threw himself back into his chair with a force which made it
enter a violent protest.

"Sit down, sir. Daresay you know what we want of you."

"It is not difficult to guess," Lanyard admitted. "A sad business,
monsieur."

"Sad!" the captain iterated in a tone of harsh sarcasm. "That's a mild name
to give murder."

Even had it not been blurted violently at him, that word was staggering.
The adventurer echoed it blankly. "You can't mean Lieutenant Thackeray--?"

"Not yet, though doctor says it may come to that; the poor chap's in a bad
way--concussion."

"So one feared. But monsieur said 'murder'...."

Captain Osborne sat forward, steely gaze mercilessly boring into Lanyard's
eyes. "Monsieur Duchemin," he said slowly, "Lieutenant Thackeray was not
the only passenger to suffer through to-night's villainy. The other died
instantly."

"In God's name, monsieur--who?"

"Bartholomew."

"Mr. Bartholomew!" A memory of that brisk little body's ruddy, cheerful,
British personality flashed athwart the screen of memory. Lanyard murmured:
"Incredible!"

"Murdered," the captain proceeded, "in Stateroom 28. Lieutenant Thackeray
and he were friends, shared the suite. Apparently Mr. Bartholomew heard
some unusual noise in 30 and left his berth to investigate. He was struck
down from behind as he approached the communicating door. The murderer had
got in by way of the sitting room, 26."

Mr. Sherry added in an awed voice: "Frightful blow--skull crushed like an
eggshell."

There was a pause. Crane thoughtfully relighted his cigar, and wrapped his
right cheek round it. The captain glared glassily at Lanyard. Mr. Sherry
looked, if possible, more uncomfortable than ever. Lanyard pondered,
aghast.

Ekstrom's work, of a certainty! This was his way, the way he imposed upon
his creatures. Ekstrom, ever a killer, obsessed by the fallacious notion
that dead men tell no tales....

And Bartholomew had been in this mess with Thackeray, both of them
operatives of the British Secret Service!

"Miss Brooke has given her version of the attack on Lieutenant Thackeray,"
the captain pursued. "Be good enough to let us have yours."

Succinctly Lanyard recounted the happenings between the moment when
premonition of evil drew him from his stateroom and the moment when he
returned thereto.

He was at pains, however, to omit all mention of the cylinder of paper;
that, pending definite knowledge to the contrary, was a sacred trust, a
matter of his honour, solely the affair of the Brooke girl.

The captain squared himself toward Lanyard, his face louring, his jaw
pugnacious.

"How did you happen to be up and dressed at that late hour, so ready to
respond to this--ah--premonition of yours?"

"I sleep not well, monsieur. It was my intention to go on deck and
endeavour to walk off my insomnia."

Captain Osborne commented with a snort.

"Why did you leave Miss Brooke alone before she called the doctor?"

"At mademoiselle's request, naturally."

"You'd been deuced gallant up to that time. I presume it didn't occur to
you that the young woman might need further protection?"

Lanyard shrugged. "It did not occur to me to refuse her request, monsieur."

"Didn't it strike you as odd she should wish to be left alone with
Lieutenant Thackeray?"

"It was not my affair, monsieur. It was her wish."

"Excuse me, cap'n." Crane sat up. "I'd like to ask Mr. Lanyard a question."

But Lanyard had prepared himself against that, and acknowledged the touch
with a quiet smile and the hint of a bow.

"Monsieur Crane...."

"U.S. Secret Service," Crane informed him with a grin. "Velasco spotted
you--had seen you years ago in Paruss--tipped me off."

"So one inferred. And these gentlemen?" Lanyard indicated the captain and
third officer.

"I wised them up--had to, when this happened."

"Naturally, monsieur. Proceed...."

"I only wanted to ask if you noticed anything to make you think perhaps
there was an understanding between Miss Brooke and the lieutenant?"

"Why should I?"

"I ain't curious why you should. What I want to know is, did you?"

"No, monsieur," Lanyard lied blandly.

"The little lady didn't seem to take on more'n she naturally would if the
lieutenant'd been a stranger, eh?" "How to judge, when one has never seen
mademoiselle distressed on behalf of another?"

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