Madame heard nothing, but straight before her she saw the communicating door between her room and Marie's open half-way and then close. Someone had penetrated her room by way of the bathroom door, crawled past her bed along the deck, and slipped without sound into her maid's cabin.
A gust of fury shook her. She did not seek to enquire whether Marie were a victim or an accomplice. Just as when those cases of liquor had come aboard, she felt the humiliation of outrage. Her room had been made flagrant use of as a surreptitious passage to her maid's; her one passion at that moment was for instant vengeance.
She stretched forth her left hand, and snapped on the electric lights. In her other hand was gripped the loaded automatic.
The lights flashed on, and Marie's door opened wide. On the threshold stood Lord Topsham, clad only in a pair of pyjama trousers. The dark brown skin of his body glowed in the light. He himself paused, momentarily dazzled.
Behind him rang out a shriek followed instantly by a howl from Willie. White arms were wound about his neck. Marie had sprung upon his back, and clung to him shrieking.
Willie staggered into Madame's room, and some hard object, which had been in his hand, fell upon the deck. Madame heard the ring of steel upon wood. Then he raised both hands, and fastened his fingers into the soft upper arms of the girl who had sprung upon him. Those fingers, contracted with the full force of Willie's powerful muscles, bit into Marie's flesh, and she screamed with a pain which was even greater than her terror. The remorseless fingers ground and bit, and the grip of Marie's arms relaxed. Then Willie bent almost to the deck, and with a heave of his loins flung Marie, a whirl of white tangled draperies, against the cabin wall. She brought up with a sickening crunch against the hard steel-backed panelling, and lay insensible along the wainscot.
Willie stooped and picked up that which he had dropped. Madame sat upon her hammock-bed, motionless, scarcely breathing, every scrap of nervous energy concentrated in her eyes and skilled right hand. As one whose life hung by a thread, which she alone could preserve intact, she watched intently Willie's every movement.
He stooped and picked up the trench dagger which at Marie's onslaught he had dropped. The light ran up and down the thin sharp blade. Madame watched Willie feel the point with his thumb, and settle his fingers comfortably about the grip. He did not hurry, and as he grasped the dagger firmly, and struck out gently once or twice to enjoy a sense of its handiness, the broad lips curled back from his white teeth.
Then he sprang straight at Madame. It was the launching of a human steel-tipped javelin.