A heavy sigh issued upon the stillness, freighted with a deep and desolating melancholy. For, it appeared, like all cynics, Mr. Mussey was a sentimentalist at heart. And in the darkness that disembodied voice took up its tale anew.
"I don't have to tell you what's going on between Whit and that lot he's so thick with nowadays. You know, or you wouldn't be here."
"Isn't that conclusion what you Americans would call a little previous?"
"Previous?" The mutter took a moment to con the full significance of that adjective. "No: I wouldn't call it that. You see, on a voyage like this--well, talk goes on, things get about, things are said aloud that shouldn't be and get overheard and passed along; and the man who sits back and listens and sifts what he hears is pretty likely to get a tolerably good line on what's what. Of course there's never been any secret about what the owner means to do with all this wine he's shipped. We all know we're playing a risky game, but we're for the owner--he isn't a bad sort, when you get to know him--and we'll go through with it and take what's coming to us win or lose. Partly, of course, because it'll mean something handsome for every man if we make it without getting caught. But if you want to know what I think... I'll tell you something..."
"But truly I am all attention."
"I think Whit Monk and Phinuit and mam'selle have framed the owner between them."
"Can't say I quite follow..."
"I think they cooked up this smuggling business and kidded him into it just to get the use of his yacht for their own purposes and at the same time get him where he can't put up a howl if he finds out the truth. Suppose he does..." The mutter became momentarily a deep-throated chuckle of malice. "He's in so deep on the booze smuggling side he dassent say a word, and that puts him in worse yet, makes him accessory before the fact of criminal practices that'd made his hair stand on end. Then, suppose they want to go on with the game, looting in Europe and sneaking the goods into America with the use of his yacht: what's he going to say, how's he going to stop them?"
Accepting these questions as purely rhetorical, Lanyard offered no comment. After a moment the mutter resumed:
"Well, what do you think? Am I right or am I wrong?"