The Crime Club

him, Captain Melun ceased his investigations of Sir Pa

l pressed against his right temple, and from past experience, both objective and subjective,

. Moreover, there was upon the entire vessel that peace which comes between the post-prandial exercises, such as deck quoits,

an opportunity of enjoying the supreme calm of the liner. Bu

a distinctly pleasant, though slightly mockin

ly interested in your movements. The fact that I am attempting to protect the c

e less sincere because he was conscious that the n

tly; then the pleasant voice spoke again, tho

eated. I have a good deal to say, and it is not my h

aced about, to find the most disconcerting e

ted himself upon the edge of his bunk and then motioned t

curiosity and interest; and it would have been hard t

and scarcely hidden by a carefully-trained and very faintly-waxed moustache. He was exceedingly tall and astonishingly spare in build. Indeed, his whole aspect suggested a man who bro

o has been worn fine by activity. His hair was undeniably red in tint, and his face had that pronounced ruddiness possessed only by red-haired folk. His nose was

her beetling for so young a man, were of a shade which can only be described as of duck's-egg green. They gave the man an aspect of superhuman coldness and at times an air

he West. Life he had always held cheap, not only as it touched others, but as it touched himself. He had learnt a hard lesson in the school of life, and taking it hardly had become a hard man. So inured, indee

his well-invested fortune had lain in the hands of able men, slowly accumulating still greater wealth, whi

any millions as would have justified an American plutocrat in be

ek after week Westerham had hesitated to return, for, in spite of the hardships which he had undergone, there lived with him still sufficient o

o the conclusion that it is not, after all, so bad a thing to be able to indulge a whim. And the secret o

even in New York, had been lost to him. The faces of the great men of those great cities were to him as a closed book

rld, which, after all, means a certain cognisance of the evil that men do,

elites had taught him deep distrust of the stranger-par

rewd inquiries that followed on his suspicions had laid bare befo

bound up in his career in America a number of unpleasant episodes. The record of the episodes was vague, but that suspicion of them was justified lay in the fact that whereas Capt

against men so long as they were honest men; but now he resented as an insult to his good sense the suggestion that he shoul

nd of great intelligence, a mind moreover sharpened

heft. Swiftly, however, it came to him that a man in Melun's position was not likely to be engaged in theft. There

t any man should attempt to blackmail him.

o throw his weapon aside and to tell Melun to go his way in peace. Then there came to him a certain recollection, and the blood

the soft, smooth voice, which long absence in the West had no

did yo

not even blink his

ng," h

itatively, "you must have been here a

un, almost earnestly,

am, "nothing which you could t

sour yet demu

y," he sa

od enough to turn over the bundle of socks which you will find in the right-hand corner of the kit-ba

" replied Captain Melun with a

he six-shooter which he had

id, and his voice wa

into Melun's eyes, and under the suasio

led to infinite placidity, inquired for

rs," said Captai

not mistaken you have found only one p

cured hand offered Westerham a slip of paper which

th an astonishingly quiet face. Her cheeks were round and soft, and her chin was round and soft too, but her mouth, a little full and pronounced, was distinctly sad and set. A pair of large dark eyes looked out upon the world unwaveringly and serenely, if a little sorrowfu

dge across the girl's throat, so that the inscri

d up from the p

Therefore I feel confident that you will be able to tell m

ghed and then che

the Earl of Penshurst, who is, as even you are probably aware"-

esterham, and he

t is of any interest to you to know

" said W

nd placed it carefull

I should not now be on my way to England if I had