"That leaves a couple to be accounted for, then, since the night you took to the big drink."
"There were two weeks before I became what I am," Lanyard confessed, "when, not to put too fine a point on it, I was purely and beautifully a beachcomber in those enchanting Bahamas."
"I've got a hunch this is going to be good." Crane grinned luxuriously through cigar-smoke. "At least, I don't imagine you've got the crust to think you stand any show of getting whatever it is you want out of me, without coming through with a full account of yourself from then right up to now."
"A stipulation of quid pro quo is always reasonable and in order," Lanyard agreed. "Yet I am afraid you may find my story a poor exchange for what I wish to learn from you, my friend . . ."
"It's your risk. Shoot."
"You are wondering how I eluded the authorities at Nassau? That was elementary. . . . On the other hand, one must admit one was dealing, aboard the Port Royal, with gentry of small experience and less imagination. . . . When I left my stateroom by way of its window, I found myself with scant stomach for a long swim in black water: it needs the hot blood of youth to contemplate without a qualm adventures like that. There was a deck-chair nearby, and in it somebody's steamer-rug; I folded up the one in the other, and cast them overboard. In the darkness they passed for the shape of a man to startled eyes on the main deck below; nobody questioned the alarm I raised of 'Man overboard!' There was much excitement then; but other than the ship's officers, nobody knew the unfortunate was a notorious criminal trying to evade arrest, nobody else was looking for André Duchemin—and I was careful enough to make myself insignificant. When the boat was lowered to scour the seas for me, all hands honoured the performance with undivided attention, it was easy to take refuge in one of the life-boats swung inboard on its davits on the opposite side of the deck; I wormed my way in under the canvas cover and lay snug till the Port Royal took the pilot aboard outside Nassau and with him the police agents. It was still quite dark; and as the blood-hounds swarmed up one side, the Lone Wolf dropped down the opposite, unseen. There were a number of vessels riding at anchor in the roadstead, and when I had put a good distance between myself and the Port Royal I picked out a little schooner of unkempt appearance, climbed aboard her while the anchor-watch snored, and hid myself in her hold."
