The mutter ceased and held an expectant pause.  Lanyard said nothing.  But he was conscious that the speaker occupied a chair by the bed, and knew that he was bending near to catch his answer; for the air was tainted with vinous breath.  Yes:  one required no stronger identification, it was beyond any doubt the chief engineer of the Sybarite.

“Say it’s all right, won’t you?” the mutter pleaded.

“I am listening,” Lanyard replied—­“as you perceive.”

“I’ll say it’s decent of you—­damned decent.  Blowed if I’d take it as calm as you, if I waked up to find somebody in my room.”

“I believe,” said Lanyard pointedly, “you stipulated for a few minutes’ chin with me.  Time passes, Mr. Mussey.  Get to your business, or let me go to sleep again.”

“Sharp, you are,” commented the mutter.  “I’ve noticed it in you.  You’d be surprised if you knew how much notice I’ve been taking of you.”

“And flattered, I’m sure.”

“Look here...”  The mutter stumbled.  “I want to ask a personal question.  Daresay you’ll think it impertinent.”

“If I do, be sure I shan’t answer it.”

“Well... it’s this:  Is or isn’t your right name Lanyard, Michael Lanyard?”

This time it was Lanyard who, thinking rapidly, held the pause so long that his querist’s uneasiness could not contain itself.

“Is that my answer?  I mean, does your silence—?”

“That’s an unusual name, Michael Lanyard,” cautiously replied its proprietor.  “How did you get hold of it?”

“They say it’s the right name of the Lone Wolf.  Guess I don’t have to tell you who the Lone Wolf is.”

“‘They say’?  Who, please, are ’they’?”

“Oh, there’s a lot of talk going around the ship.  You know how it is, a crew will gossip.  And God knows they’ve got enough excuse this cruise.”

This was constructively evasive.  Lanyard wondered who had betrayed him.  Phinuit?  The tongue of that plain-spoken man was hinged in the middle; but one couldn’t feel certain.  Liane Delorme had made much of the chief engineer; though she seemed less likely to talk too much than anyone of the ship’s company but Lanyard himself.  But then (one remembered of a sudden) Monk and Mussey were by reputation old cronies; it wasn’t inconceivable that Monk might have let something slip...

“And what, Mr. Mussey, if I should admit I am Michael Lanyard?”

“Then I’ll have something to say to you, something I think’ll interest you.”

“Why not run the risk of interesting me, whoever I may be?”

Mussey breathed heavily in the stillness:  the breathing of a cautious man loath to commit himself.

“No,” he said at length, in the clearest enunciation he had thus far used.  “No.  If you’re not Lanyard, 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.”