Scowling, von Bechtold withdrew, the marine following at his heels.
As Darrin stepped back into the cabin he saw the stranger lying as they left him.
“Dead!” uttered Dave, bending over the man and looking at him closely. “He lay down for a nap. Look, Dan, how peaceful his expression is. He never had an intimation that it was his last sleep, though this looks like suicide, not accidental death, for the peach-stone odor is that of prussic acid. He has killed himself with a swift poison. Why? Is it that he feared to fall into enemy hands and be quizzed?”
“A civilian, and occupying an officer’s cabin,” Dan murmured. “He must have been of some consequence, to be a passenger on a submarine. He wasn’t a man in the service, or he would have been in uniform.”
“We’ll know something about him, soon, I fancy,” Darrin went on. “Here is a wallet in his coat pocket, also a card case and an envelope well padded with something. Yes,” glancing inside the envelope, “papers. I think we’ll soon solve the secret of this civilian passenger who has met an unplanned death.”
“Here, you! Stop that, or I’ll shoot!” sounded, angrily, the voice of von Bechtold’s guard behind them.
But the German officer, regardless of threats, had dashed past the marine, and was now in the passageway.
“Here, I’ll soon settle you!” cried the marine, wrathfully. But he didn’t, for von Bechtold let a solid fist fly, and the marine, caught unawares, was knocked to the floor.
All in a jiffy von Bechtold reached his objective, the envelope. Snatching it, he made a wild leap back to the cabin, brushing the marine private aside like a feather.
“Grab him!” yelled Dave Darrin, plunging after the German. “Don’t let him do anything to that envelope!”