"Fainted," said Matthew Sankin, on his feet. "It's a bit stuffy in here-I've just noticed. ..."
Dicky sat still, and watched the man's eyes glaze open, and saw him fall before he could speak again. They fell one by one, while Dicky sat motionless, watching, with the sensation of being a spectator at a play. Dimly he appreciated the strangeness of the scene; dimly he heard the voices, and the smash of crockery swept from the table; but he himself was aloof, alone with his thoughts, and his right hand held his automatic pistol hidden under his napkin. He was aware that Ulrig was shaking him by the shoulder, babbling again and again: "Doped-that coffee was doped-some goldurned son of a coot!"-until the American in his turn crumpled to the floor. And then Dicky and the girl were alone, she standing at her end of the table and Dicky sitting at his end with the gun on his knee.
That queer blind look was still in her eyes. She said, in a hushed voice: "Dicky-"
"I should laugh now," said Dicky. "You needn't bother to try and keep a straight face any longer. And in a few minutes you'll have nothing to laugh about-so I should laugh now."
"I only took a sip," she said.
"I see the rest was spilt," said Dicky. "Have some of mine."
She was working round the table towards him, holding on the backs of the swivel chairs. He never moved. "Dicky, did you mean what you-answered-just now?"
"I did. I suppose I might mean it still, if the conditions were fulfilled. You'll remember that I said-anyone I loved. That doesn't apply here. Last night, I said I loved you. I apologize for the lie. I don't love you. I never could. But I thought-" He paused, and then drove home the taunt with all the stony contempt that was in him: "I thought it would amuse me to make a fool of you."
He might have struck her across the face. But he was without remorse. He still sat and watched her, with the impassivity of a graven image, till she spoke again. "I sent you that note-"
"Because you thought you had a sufficient weapon in my love. Exactly. I understand that."
She seemed to be keeping her feet by an effort of will. Her eyelids were drooping, and he saw tears under them. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Dicky Tremayne is my real name," he said, "and I am one of the Saint's friends."
She nodded so that her chin touched her chest.
"And-I-suppose-you-doped-my coffee," she said, foolishly, childishly, in that small hushed voice that he had to strain to hear; and she slid down beside the chair she was holding and fell on her face without another word.
Dicky Tremayne looked down at her in a kind of numb perplexity, with the ice of a merciless vengefulness holding him chilled and unnaturally calm. He looked down at her, at her crumpled dress, at her bare white arms, at the tousled crop of golden hair tumbled disorderly over her head by the fall, and he was like a figure of stone.
But within him something stirred and grew and fought with the foundations of his calm. He fought back at it, hating it, but it brought him slowly up from his chair at last, till he stood erect, still looking down at her, with his napkin fallen to his feet and the gun naked in his right hand. "Audrey!" he cried suddenly.
His back was to the door. He heard the step behind him, but he could not move quicker than Hilloran's tongue. "Stand still!" rapped Hilloran.
Dicky moved only his eyes.
These he raised to the clock in front of him, and saw that it was twenty minutes past nine.
Chapter IX "DROP that gun," said Hilloran. Dicky dropped the gun.
"Kick it away." Dicky kicked it away.
"Now you can turn round," Dicky turned slowly.
Hilloran, with his own gun in one hand and Dicky's gun in the other, was leaning back against the bulkhead by the door with a sneer of triumph on his face. Outside the door waited a file of seamen. Hilloran motioned them in.
"Of course, I was expecting this," said Dicky.
"Mother's Bright Boy, you are," said Hilloran.
He turned to the seamen, pointing with his gun.
"Frisk him and tie him up."
"I'm not fighting," said Dicky. He submitted to the search imperturbably. The scrap of paper in his pocket was found and taken to Hilloran, who waived it aside after one glance at it.
"I guessed it was something like that," he said. "Dicky, you'll be glad to hear that I saw her slip it under your door. Lucky for me!"
"Very," agreed Dicky dispassionately. "She must have come as near fooling you as she was to fooling me. We ought to get on well after this."
"Fooling you!"
Dicky raised his eyebrows.
"How much did you hear outside that door?"
"Everything."
"Then you must have understood-unless you're a born fool."
"I understand that she double-crossed me, and warned you about the coffee."
"Why d'you think she did that? Because she thought she'd got me under her thumb. Because she thought I was so crazy about her that I was as soundly doped that way as I could have been doped by a gallon of 'knock-out.' And she was right-then."
The men were moving about with lengths of rope, binding wrists and ankles with methodical efficiency. Already pinioned himself, Dicky witnessed the guests being treated one by one in similar fashion, and remained outwardly unmoved. But his brain was working like lightning.
"When they're all safe," said Hilloran, with a jerk of one gun, "I'm going to ask you some questions-Mr. Dicky Tremayne! You'd better get ready to answer right now, because I shan't be kind to you if you give trouble."
Dicky stood in listless submission. He seemed to be in a kind of stupor. He had been like that ever since Hilloran had disarmed him. Except for the movements of his mouth, and the fact that he remained standing, there might have been no life in him. Everything about him pointed to a paralyzed and fatalistic resignation. "I shan't give any trouble," he said tonelessly. "Can't you understand that I've no further interest in anything-after what I've found out about her?"
Hilloran looked at him narrowly, but the words, and Dicky's slack pose, carried complete conviction. Tremayne might have been half-chloroformed. His apathetic, benumbed indifference was beyond dispute. It hung on him like a cloak of lead. "Have you any friends on board?" asked Hilloran.
"No," said Dicky flatly. "I'm quite alone."
"Is that the truth?"
For a moment Tremayne seemed stung to life.
"Don't be so damned dumb!" he snapped. "I say I'm telling you the truth. Whether you believe me or not, you're getting just as good results this way as you would by torture. You've no way of proving my statements-however you obtain them."
"Are you expecting any help from outside?"
"It was all in the letter you read."
"By aлroplane?"
"Seaplane."