"Half a minute." The lieutenant halted in the act of stepping across the body. Lanyard levelled a hand at the automatic. "Do you mind taking that with you? I have no desire to be found here with it and a dead man, should anything prevent your return."
With a sickly grimace the murderer snatched up the weapon, thrust it in its holster, and hurriedly departed.
Lanyard watched him pass through the alleyway and turn toward the companion ladder, then followed quietly.
As the lieutenant climbed out on deck, Lanyard ascended to the conning tower and waited there, listening. He could not quite make out what was said; but after a few brusque words of command two pair of boots rang on the gangplank and thumped away down the stage. At the same time Lanyard let himself noiselessly out through the hatch.
As soon as his vision grew reconciled to the change from light to darkness, he discovered the slender figure of the lieutenant skulking on tip-toe after the retreating anchor watch; about midway on the landing stage, however, he paused and bent over one of the piles, apparently fumbling with the painter of a small boat moored in the black shadows below.
At this Lanyard began to move along the deck, one by one working the mooring lines clear of their cleats and dropping them gently overboard, till but two were left to hold the U-boat in place.
Throughout he kept watch upon the manoeuvres of the lieutenant—saw him drop over the side of the stage, heard a thump of feet as he landed in a boat, and a subsequent creak of oar-locks.
The small boat was rounding the bows of the submarine when the adventurer ducked back through conning tower to hold.
He was standing where he had been left when the lieutenant came below.
"It's all right," this last announced with shabby bravado as he stepped over the body in the doorway. "We are rid of that damned watch for a time. They won't return within half an hour at least. I have the dory moored amidships. If we are lively, this dirty job will be over in no time at all."