Part 31 (2/2)

Hardly breathing, I listened intently. Again I heard it--this time more faintly. It had seemed to come from a cabin on my left, a little further forward.

I stood quite still in the alleyway for several minutes. Then, hearing nothing more, I went on to my own cabin.

But somehow, try as I would, I could not get to sleep. For hours I lay wide awake upon my bunk. What had caused that curious sound, I kept wondering, though I tried to put the thought from me. And who had those men been, those three silent figures pa.s.sing like spectres along the deck, and what had they been doing, and why had they gone down into the steerage?

I suppose I must at last have fallen asleep, for when I opened my eyes the sea had risen a good deal, and the boat was rolling heavily. Pulling my watch from beneath my pillow, I saw that it was nearly four--we were due into port at Dieppe before four. The timbers of the s.h.i.+p creaked at intervals; the door of my cabin rattled; I could hear footsteps on deck and in the alleyway beside my door.

”Have you heard the dreadful news, sir?” a scared-looking steward said to me as I made my way towards the companion ladder half an hour later--I had taken care to adjust my disguise exactly in the way that Preston had taught me to.

”No--what?” I asked, stopping abruptly.

”A saloon pa.s.senger has hanged himself during the night.”

”Good G.o.d!” I exclaimed. ”Who is it?”

”I don't know his name. He was in number thirty-two--alone.”

”Thirty-two! Surely that was a cabin in the alleyway where I had heard the gasp, not far from my own cabin.”

”Are you certain it was suicide?” I asked.

”Oh, it was suicide right enough,” the steward answered, ”and he must have been hanging there some hours--by a rope. Seems he must have brought the rope with him, as it don't belong to the boat. He must have come aboard intending to do it. My mate--he found him not half an hour ago, and it so scared him that he fainted right off.”

”Have you seen the poor fellow? What was he like?”

”Yes. Most amazing thing, sir,” the steward continued volubly, ”but it seems he'd disguised himself. He'd got on a wig and false moustache and whiskers.”

All the blood seemed to rush away from my heart. Everything about me was going round. I have a slight recollection of reeling forward and being caught by the steward, but of what happened after that, until I found myself lying on a sofa in the saloon, with the s.h.i.+p's doctor and the stewardess standing looking down at me. I have not the remotest recollection.

The boat was rolling and pitching a good deal, and I remember hearing someone say that we were lying off Dieppe until the sea should to some extent subside. Then, all at once, a thought came to me which made me feel sick and faint. While I had been unconscious, had the fact been discovered that I too was disguised? I looked up with a feeling of terror, but the expression upon the faces of the s.h.i.+p's doctor and of the stewardess revealed nothing, and my mind grew more at ease when I noticed that the few people standing about were strangers to me.

I saw nothing of any member of the group of criminals I now felt literally afraid to meet until the Paris express was about to start.

More than once I had felt tempted to alter my plans by not going to Paris, or by returning to England by the next boat. But then Dulcie had risen into the vision of my imagination and I had felt I could not leave her alone with such a gang of scoundrels--I might be leaving her to her fate were I to desert her now. No, I had started upon this dangerous adventure, and at all costs I must go through with it, even though I no longer had poor Preston to advise me.

”Ah, Sir Aubrey, we have been looking for you.”

I turned sharply, to find at my elbow Connie Stapleton and Doris Lorrimer. The latter stood beside her friend, calm, subdued; Mrs.

Stapleton was in her usual high spirits, and greeted me with an effusive hand-shake.

”Hughie told us you were on board,” she said, ”and he says you are going to stay at our hotel. I am so pleased. Now, you must dine with us to-night--no, I won't take a refusal,” she added quickly, as I was about to make some excuse. ”We shall be such a cheery party--just the kind of party I know you love.”

There was no way of escape, at any rate for the moment. Later I must see what could be done. My desire now was to keep, so to speak, in touch with the gang, and to watch in particular Dulcie's movements, yet to a.s.sociate on terms of intimacy with these people as little as possible.

We had not been long in the train, on our way to Paris, when someone--it was Dulcie who first spoke of it, I think--broached the subject which had created so much excitement on board--the suicide of the disguised stranger.

”I wonder if his act had any bearing upon this robbery which is said to have been committed on board between Newhaven and Dieppe,” a man whom I remembered meeting at Connie Stapleton's dinner party, presently observed--I suddenly remembered that his name was Wollaston.

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