have a look round first."

And when Lanyard had satisfied himself there was nobody concealed in
any part of Liane's suite, and had been rewarded with a glance of
gratitude--"I shall lock myself in, of course," the woman said from the
threshold--"and I have my pistol, too."

"But I assure you," Monk commented in heavy sarcasm, "our intentions
are those of honourable men."

The door slammed, and the sound of the key turning in the lock
followed. Monk trained the eyebrows into a look of long-suffering
patience.

"A glass too much... Seein' things!"

"No," Lanyard voiced shortly his belief; "you are wrong. Liane saw
something."

"Nobody questions that," Phinuit yawned. "What one does question is
whether she saw a man or a figment of her imagination--some effect of
the shadows that momentarily suggested a man."

"Shadows do play queer tricks at night, at sea," Monk agreed. "I
remember once--"

"Then let us look the ground over and see if we can make that
explanation acceptable to our own intelligences," Lanyard cut in.

"No harm in that."

Phinuit fetched a pocket flash-lamp, and the three reconnoitred
exhaustively the quarters of the deck in which the apparition had
manifested itself to the woman. By no strain of credulity could the
imagination be made to accept the effect of shadows at the designated
spot as the shape of somebody standing there. On the other hand, when
Phinuit obligingly posed himself between the mouth of the companionway
and the skylight, it had to be admitted that the glow from either side
provided fairly good cover for one who might wish to linger there,
observing and unobserved.

"Still, I don't believe she saw anything," Monk persisted--"a phantom
Popinot, if anything."

"But wait. What is it we have here?"

Lanyard, scrutinising the deck with the flashlamp, stooped, picked up
something, and offered it on an outspread palm upon which he trained
the clear electric beam.

"Cigarette stub?" Monk said, and sniffed. "That's a famous find!"

"A cigarette manufactured by the French Regie."

"And well stepped on, too," Phinuit observed. "Well, what about it?"

"Who that uses this part of the deck would be apt to insult his palate
with such a cigarette? No one of us--hardly any one of the officers or
stewards."

"Some deck-hand might have sneaked aft for a look-see, expecting to
find the quarterdeck deserted at this hour."

"Even ordinary seamen avoid, when they can, what the Regie se