"Please help me up," Liane Delorme asked in a faint voice. Collison lent a hand. In the support and shelter of Lanyard's arm the woman's body quivered like that of a frightened child. "I must go to my stateroom," she sighed uncertainly. "But I am afraid..."
"Do not be. Remember Mr. Collison and I... Besides, you know, there was nobody..."
The assertion seemed to exasperate her; her voice discovered new strength and violence.
"But I am telling you I saw ... that assassin!"--she shuddered again--"standing there, in the shadow, glaring at me as if I had surprised him and he did not know what next to do. I think he must have been spying down through the skylight; it was the glow from it that showed me his red, dirty face of a pig."
"You came aft on the port side, didn't you?" Lanyard enquired of the second mate.
Collison nodded. "Running," he said--"couldn't imagine what was up."
"It is easy not to see what one is not looking for," Lanyard mused, staring forward along the starboard side. "If a man had dropped flat and squirmed along until in the shelter of the engine-room ventilators, he could have run forward--bending low, you know--without your seeing him."
"But you were standing here, to starboard!"
"I tell you, that match was blinding me," Lanyard affirmed irritably. "Besides, I wasn't looking--except at my sister--wondering what was the matter."
Collison started. "Excuse me," he said, reminded--"if mademoiselle's all right, I ought to get back to the bridge."