Spacious, furnished in a way of rich sobriety, tasteful in every appointment, the captain’s quarters were quite as sybaritic as the saloon of the Sybarite.  A bedroom and private bath adjoined, and the open door enabled one to perceive that this rude old sea dog slept in a real bed of massive brass.  His 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 afraid, I am terrified of that one!  I shall not sleep until I am sure he has not succeeded in smuggling himself on board—­”