"Who knows, Mr. Mussey? One can only say, you seem to know something."
"I'll say I know something! A sight more than Whit Monk dreams I know--as he'll find out to his sorrow before he's finished with Tom Mussey."
"But"--obliquely Lanyard struck again at the heart of the mystery which he found so baffling--"you seem so well satisfied with the bona fides of your informant?"
There was a sound of stertorous breathing as the intelligence behind the mutter grappled with this utterance. Then, as if the hint had proved too fine--"I'm playing my hand face up with you, Mr. Lanyard. I guess you can tell I know what I'm talking about."
"But what I cannot see is why you should talk about it to me, monsieur."
"Why, because I and you are both in the same boat, in a manner of speaking. We're both on the outside--shut out--looking in."
In a sort of mental aside, Lanyard reflected that mixed bathing for metaphors was apparently countenanced under the code of cynics.
"Does one gather that you feel aggrieved with Captain Monk for not making you a partner in his new associations?"
"For trying to put one over on me, an old pal... stood by him through thick and thin... would've gone through fire for Whit Monk, and in my way I have, many's the time. And now he hooks up with Phinuit and this Delorme woman, and leaves me to shuffle my feet on the doormat... and thinks I'll let him get away with it."
The voice in the dark gave a grunt of infinite contempt: "Like hell..."