"Hush," I whispered. "For every sake let's keep this quiet!"
"I'll be quiet for my own sake, if he accepts my terms," said the woman. "If not, the whole yacht——"
"Be silent!" Roger commanded. "Princess, I've got to see this through. You'd better go now, and leave me alone with her."
He was right. My presence would hinder rather than help. I saw the greenish eyes dart from his face to mine when he called me "Princess"; but she must have fancied it a pet name, for no question flashed from her lips as I tiptoed across the room.
When I got back to my own quarters, I noticed at once that the brandy bottle and the tumbler which had accompanied it were gone from my dressing table. Nor were they to be found in the cabin. The woman must have taken them to Roger's room, and placed them somewhere before I saw her. "Disgusting!" I murmured, for my thought was that the debased wretch had clung lovingly to the drink. Even though I'd sharpened my wits to search all her motives, I failed over that simple-seeming act.
"Oh, poor Roger!" I said to myself. "And poor Shelagh!"
I sat miserably on the window seat (for the rumpled bed was now abhorrent), and wondered what would happen next. But I had not long to wait. A few moments passed—how many I don't know—and the crystalline silence of the gliding Naiad was splintered by a scream.
'Scream' is the word one must use for a cry of pain or fear. Yet it isn't the right word for the sound that snatched me to my feet. It was not shrill, it was not loud. What might have ended in a shriek subsided to a choked breath, a gurgle. My heart's pounding seemed louder as I listened. My ears expected a following cry, but it did not come. Two or three doors gently opened, that was all. Again dead silence fell; and I felt in it that others listened, fearing to speak lest the sound had been no more than a moan in a dream. Presently the doors closed again, each listener afraid of disturbing a neighbour. And even I, who knew the secret behind the silence, prayed that the choked scream might have come when it did as a mere coincidence. Someone might really have had nightmare!
As time passed, I almost persuaded myself that it was so, and that, at worst, there would be no crime to mark this night with crimson on the calendar. But the next quarter hour was the deadest time I'd ever known. I felt like one entombed alive, praying to be liberated from a vault. Then, at last—when those who'd waked slept again—came a faint knock at my door.
I flew to slip back the bolt, and pulled Roger Fane into the room. One would not have believed a face so brown could bleach so white!