He could hardly see, but fancied that the man quickened his steps: in another instant he vanished altogether.
Smothering an impulse to give chase, the adventurer swung alertly into the narrow passage and opened the door to Stateroom 29. The room was dark, but as he fumbled for the switch, the door in the forward partition was thrust open and the girl's slight figure showed, tensely poised against the light behind her.
"Monsieur Duchemin!" she cried, in a voice sharp with doubt.
Lanyard turned the switch. "Mademoiselle," he said, and coolly crossed to the port, drawing the light-proof curtains.
"This door was locked all day—locked when the firing alarmed me and I went out to the deck."
"And on my side, mademoiselle, it was locked and bolted when last I was here, shortly before dinner." "Whoever unfastened it entered my room during my absence and tampered with my luggage."
"You have missed something?"
Gaze intent to his she nodded. He shrugged and cast shrewdly round his quarters for some clue to the enigma. His glance fastened on a leather bellows-bag beneath the berth. Dropping to his knees he pulled this out, and looked up with a quizzical grimace, his forefinger indicating the lock, which was uncaught.
"I left this latched but not locked," he said. "Perhaps I, too, have lost something."
Opening the bag out flat, he sat back on his heels, with practised eye inspecting its neat arrangement of intimate things.