is sitting-room, or private office,
had a studious atmosphere. Its built-in-bookcases were stocked with
handsome bindings. The panels were, like those in the saloon,
sea-scapes from the hands of modern masters: Lanyard knew good
painting when he saw it. The captain's desk was a substantial affair in
mahogany. Most of the chairs were of the overstuffed lounge sort. The
rug was a Persian of rare lustre.

Monk was following with a twinkle the journeys of Lanyard's observant
eye.

"Do myself pretty well, don't you think?" he observed quietly, in a
break in Liane's dramatic narrative; perforce the lady must now and
again pause for breath.

Lanyard smiled in return. "I can't see you've much to complain of."

The captain nodded, but permitted a shade of gravity to become visible
in his expression. He sighed a philosophic sigh:

"But man is never satisfied..."

Liane had got her second wind and was playing variations on the theme
of the famous six bottles of champagne. Lanyard lounged in his easy
chair and let his bored thoughts wander. He was weary of being talked
about, wanted one thing only, fulfillment of the promise that had been
implicit in Phinuit's manner. He was aware of Phinuit's sympathetic
eye.

The woman sent the grey car crashing again into the tree, repeated
Lanyard's quaint report of the business, and launched into a vein of
panegyric.

"Regard him, then, sitting there, making nothing of it all--!"

"Sheer swank," Phinuit commented. "He's just letting on; privately he
thinks he's a heluva fellow. Don't you, Lanyard?"

"But naturally," Lanyard gave Phinuit a grateful look. "That is
understood. But what really interests me, at present, is the question:
Who is Dupont, and why?"

"If you're asking me," Monk replied, "I'll say--going on mademoiselle's
story--Monsieur Dupont is by now a ghost."

"One would be glad to be sure of that," Lanyard murmured.

"By all accounts," said Phinuit, "he takes a deal of killing."

"But all this begs my question," Lanyard objected. "Who is Dupont, and
why?"

"I think I can answer that question, monsieur." This was Liane Delorme.
"But first, I would ask Captain Monk to set guards to see that nobody
comes aboard this ship before she sails."

"Pity you didn't think of that sooner," Phinuit observed in friendly
sarcasm. "Better late than never, of course, but still--!"

The woman appealed to Monk directly, since he did not move. "But I
assure you, monsieur, I am af