“Then you believe it was Popinot, too?”

“I believe you would do well to make the search you have promised thorough and immediate.”

“Plenty of time,” Monk replied wearily.  “I’ll turn this old tub inside out, if you insist, in the morning.”

“But why, monsieur, do you remain so obstinately incredulous?”

“Well,” Monk drawled, “I’ve known the pretty lady a number of years, and if you ask me she’s quite up to playing little games all her own.”

“Pretending, you mean—­for private ends?”

The eyebrows offered a gesture urbane and sceptical.

Whether or not sleep brought Monk better counsel, the morning’s ransacking of the vessel and the examination of her crew proved more painstaking than Lanyard had expected.  And the upshot was precisely as Monk had foretold, precisely negative.  He reported drily to this effect at an informal conference in his quarters after luncheon.  He himself had supervised the entire search and had made a good part of it in person, he said.  No nook or cranny of the yacht had been overlooked.

“I trust mademoiselle is satisfied,” he concluded with a mockingly civil movement of eyebrows toward Liane.

His reply was the slightest of shrugs executed by perfect shoulders beneath a gown of cynical transparency.  Lanyard was aware that the violet eyes, large with apprehension, flashed transiently his way, as if in hope that he might submit some helpful suggestion.  But he had none to offer.  If the manner in which the search had been conducted were open to criticism, that would have to be made by a mind better informed than his in respect of things maritime.  And he avoided acknowledging that glance by even so much as seeming aware of it.  And in point of fact, coldly reviewed in dispassionate daylight, the thing seemed preposterous to him, to be asked to believe that Popinot had contrived to secrete himself beyond finding on board the Sybarite.

Without his participation the discussion continued.

He heard Phinuit’s voice utter in accents of malicious amusement:  “Barring, of course, the possibility of connivance on the part of officers or crew.”

“Don’t be an ass!” Monk snapped.

“Don’t be unreasonable:  I am simply as God made me.”

“Well, it was a nasty job of work.”

“Now, listen.”  Phinuit rose to leave, as one considering the conference at an end.  “If you persist in picking on me, skipper, I’ll ravish you of those magnificent eyebrows with a safety razor, some time when you’re asleep, and leave you as dumb as a Wop peddler who’s lost both arms.”

Liane followed him out in silence, but her carriage was that of a queen of tragedy.  Lanyard got up in turn, and to his amazement found the eyebrows signalling confidentially to him.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed, in an open stare.

Immediately the eyebrows became conciliatory.