His appearance appeared to stupefy her; he took the box from her without resistance, and, pushing her back into the stateroom, locked the door.
Then, still savagely excited, and the hot blood of battle still seething in his veins, he stood staring wickedly into her dazed eyes, the automatic pistol hanging from his right fist.
But after a few moments something in her naïve astonishment—her amazement to see him alive and standing there before her—appealed to him as intensely ludicrous; he dropped on the edge of the bed and burst into laughter uncontrolled.
“Scheherazade! Oh, Scheherazade!” he said, weak with laughter, “if you could only see your face! If you could only see it, my dear child! It’s too funny to be true! It’s too funny to be a real face! Oh, dear, I’ll die if I laugh any more. You’ll assassinate me with your face!”
She seated herself on the lounge opposite, still gazing blankly at him in his uncontrollable mirth.
After a while he put back the automatic into his 189 breast pocket, took off coat and waistcoat, without paying the slightest heed to her or to convention; opened his own suitcase, selected a fresh shirt, tie, and collar, and, taking with him his coat and the olive-wood box, went into the little washroom.
He scarcely expected to find her there when he emerged, cooled and refreshed; but she was still there, seated as he had left her on the lounge.
“I wanted to ask you,” she said in a low voice, “did you kill them?”
“Not at all, Scheherazade,” he replied gaily. “The Irish don’t kill; they beat up their friends; that’s all. Fist and blackthorn, my pretty lass, but nix for the knife and gun.”
“How—did you do it?”