"When I know I'll speak," I said; "but I will say this much, that whoever is ignorant of its whereabouts, Holgate isn't."
"I give it up," said Barraclough.
"Unhappily, it won't give us up," I rejoined. "We are to be attacked this evening if we don't part with what we haven't got."
He walked away, apparently in despair of arriving at any conclusion by continuing the conversation. I went toward the door, for I still had my idea. I wondered if there was anything in it. Princess Alix had moved away on the approach of Sir John, but now she interrupted me.
"You're not going?" she asked anxiously.
"My surgery is below," said I. "I must get some things from it."
She hesitated. "Won't—wouldn't that man Holgate let you have them? You are running too great a risk."
"That is my safety," I said, smiling. "I go down. If no one is there so much the better; if some one crops up I have my excuse. The risk is not great. Will you be good enough to bar the door after me?"
This was not quite true, but it served my purpose. She let me pass, looking after me with wondering eyes. I unlocked the door and went out into the lobby that gave on the staircase. There was no sound audible above the noises of the ship. I descended firmly, my hand on the butt of a revolver I had picked up. No one was visible at the entrance to the saloon. I turned up one of the passages toward my own cabin. I entered the surgery and shut the door. As I was looking for what I wanted, or might want, I formulated my chain of reflections. Here they are.
The key had been stolen from Lane. It could only have been stolen by some one in our own part of the ship, since the purser had not ventured among the enemy.