"Why not run the risk of interesting me, whoever I may be?"
Mussey breathed heavily in the stillness: the breathing of a cautious man loath to commit himself.
"No," he said at length, in the clearest enunciation he had thus far used. "No. If you're not Lanyard, I'd rather say nothing more--I'll just ask you to pardon me for intruding and clear out."
"But you say there is some gossip. And where there is smoke, there must be fire. It would seem safe to assume I am the man gossip says I am."
"Michael Lanyard?" the mutter persisted--"the Lone Wolf?"
"Yes, yes! What then?"
"I suppose the best way's to put it to you straight..."
"I warn you, you'll gain nothing if you don't."
"Then... to begin at the beginning... I've known Whit Monk a good long time. Years I've known him. We've sailed together off and on ever since we took to the sea; we've gone through some nasty scrapes together, and done things that don't bear telling, and always shared the thick and the thin of everything. Before this, if anybody had ever told me Whit Monk would do a pal dirt, I'd've punched his head and thought no more about it. But now..."
The mutter faltered. Lanyard preserved a sympathetic silence--a silence, at least, which he hoped would pass as sympathetic. In reality, he was struggling to suppress any betrayal of the exultation that was beginning to take hold of him. Premature this might prove to be, but it seemed impossible to misunderstand the emotion under which the chief engineer was labouring or to underestimate its potential value to Lanyard. Surely it would seem that his faith in his star had been well-placed: was it not now--or all signs failed--delivering into his hand the forged tool he had so desperately needed, for which he had so earnestly prayed?