"
"Please help me up," Liane Delorme asked in a faint voice. Collison
lent a hand. In the support and shelter of Lanyard's arm the woman's
body quivered like that of a frightened child. "I must go to my
stateroom," she sighed uncertainly. "But I am afraid..."
"Do not be. Remember Mr. Collison and I... Besides, you know, there was
nobody..."
The assertion seemed to exasperate her; her voice discovered new
strength and violence.
"But I am telling you I saw ... that assassin!"--she shuddered
again--"standing there, in the shadow, glaring at me as if I had
surprised him and he did not know what next to do. I think he must have
been spying down through the skylight; it was the glow from it that
showed me his red, dirty face of a pig."
"You came aft on the port side, didn't you?" Lanyard enquired of the
second mate.
Collison nodded. "Running," he said--"couldn't imagine what was up."
"It is easy not to see what one is not looking for," Lanyard mused,
staring forward along the starboard side. "If a man had dropped flat
and squirmed along until in the shelter of the engine-room ventilators,
he could have run forward--bending low, you know--without your seeing
him.
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