Lanyard nodded. "I am ready."
"No need to hurry—plenty of time for one more drink." The Prussian splashed brandy into the cup, filling it to the brim. "And God knows I need it!"
Lanyard watched critically as, with head well back, he drained that staggering dose of raw spirit gulp by gulp without once removing the cup from his lips. No mortal man could drink like that and stand up under it: it was now a mere question of time….
Hardly that: the hand of the murderer shook and wavered widely as he put down the cup. For a moment he swayed with eyes fixed and glazing, features visibly losing plasticity, then lurched forward, knocking the brandy bottle to the floor, swung around a full half turn in blind effort to re-establish equilibrium, fell backward upon the table, and lay racked from head to foot with savage spasms, hands clawing empty air, chest labouring vainly to win sufficient oxygen to combat the poison with which his system was saturated.
Moving to his side, Lanyard laid a hand upon the left breast. The man's heart was hammering his ribs with agonizing blows, at first rapid, by degrees more slow and feeble.
No power on earth could save him now: he had committed suicide as surely as murder.
Wasting not another glance or thought upon him Lanyard hurried aft to the central operating room.
The time he had spent there, an hour earlier, was by no means lost in purposeless marvelling. He boasted a certain aptitude for mechanics, perhaps legitimately inherited from that obscure origin of his, largely fostered by the requirements of his craft; into the bargain, he had been privileged ere now to gain some slight insight into the principles of submersible operation. If obliged to work swiftly and in some instances upon the advice of intuition rather than practical knowledge, he went not unintelligently about his task, made few false moves.
Turning first to the diving controls, he adjusted the hydroplanes to their extreme downward inclination, then made the rounds of the vent valves, opening all wide. With a sharp hissing and whistling the air from the auxiliary tanks was driven inboard, and as Lanyard manipulated the wheels operating the forward and aft groups of Kingston valves, to the hissing was added the suck and gurgle of water flooding the main and auxiliary ballast and adjusting tanks.
Immediately the U-boat began to sink. Lanyard delayed only to close the switches which controlled the electric motors. As their drone gained volume he grasped the rifle and swarmed up the companion-ladder, passing through the conning tower to deck with little or nothing to spare—with, in fact, barely time to throw off the two mooring lines and jump into the small boat before water, sweeping hungrily up over deck and bridge, began to cascade through conning tower and torpedo hatchways.