nyard, I'd rather say nothing more--I'll
just ask you to pardon me for intruding and clear out."

"But you say there is some gossip. And where there is smoke, there must
be fire. It would seem safe to assume I am the man gossip says I am."

"Michael Lanyard?" the mutter persisted--"the Lone Wolf?"

"Yes, yes! What then?"

"I suppose the best way's to put it to you straight..."

"I warn you, you'll gain nothing if you don't."

"Then... to begin at the beginning... I've known Whit Monk a good long
time. Years I've known him. We've sailed together off and on ever since
we took to the sea; we've gone through some nasty scrapes together, and
done things that don't bear telling, and always shared the thick and
the thin of everything. Before this, if anybody had ever told me Whit
Monk would do a pal dirt, I'd've punched his head and thought no more
about it. But now..."

The mutter faltered. Lanyard preserved a sympathetic silence--a
silence, at least, which he hoped would pass as sympathetic. In
reality, he was struggling to suppress any betrayal of the exultation
that was beginning to take hold of him. Premature this might prove to
be, but it seemed impossible to misunderstand the emotion under which
the chief engineer was labouring or to underestimate its potential
value to Lanyard. Surely it would seem that his faith in his star had
been well-placed: was it not now--or all signs failed--delivering into
his hand the forged tool he had so desperately needed, for which he had
so earnestly prayed?

A heavy sigh issued upon the stillness, freighted with a deep and
desolating melancholy. For, it appeared, like all cynics, Mr. Mussey
was a sentimentalist at heart. And in the darkness that disembodied
voice took up its tale anew.

"I don't have to tell you what's going on between Whit and that lot
he's so thick with nowadays. You know, or you wouldn't be here."

"Isn't that conclusion what you Americans would call a little
previous?"

"Previous?" The mutter took a moment to con the full significance of
that adjective. "No: I wouldn't call it that. You see, on a voyage like
this--well, talk goes on, things get about, things are said aloud that
shouldn't be and get overheard and passed along; and the man who sits
back and listens and sifts what he hears is pretty likely to get a
tolerably good line on what's what. Of course there's never been any
secret about what the owner means to do with all this wine he's
shipped.