"Who is that?" demanded a tremulous voice.
"It's I. Let me in," I called back.
The door was opened slowly and little Pye stood before me. In the illumination of the incandescent wire he stood out ghastly white.
"It's you, doctor," he said weakly.
The smell of spirits pervaded the cabin. I looked across and saw a tumbler in the rack, half full of whisky and water. He noticed the direction of my gaze.
"I can't sleep," said he. "This heavy water has given me a touch of sea-sickness. I feel awfully queer."
"I don't suppose whisky will do you any good," said I.
He laughed feebly and vacantly. "Oh, but it does! It stays the stomach. Different people are affected different ways, doctor." As he spoke he took down the glass with quivering fingers and drank from it in a clumsy gulp.
"I shall be better if I can get to sleep," he said nervously, and drank again.
"Pye, you're making trouble for yourself," said I. "You'll be pretty bad before morning."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't talk about morning!" he broke out in a fit of terror.
I gazed at him in astonishment, and he tried to recover under my eyes.
"That's not your first glass," said I.
He did not deny it. "I can't go on without it. Let me alone, doctor; for heaven's sake let me alone."
I gave him up. "Well, if you are going to obfuscate yourself in this foolish manner," I said, my voice disclosing my contempt, "at least take my advice and don't lock yourself in. None but hysterical women do that."
I was closing the door when he put a hand out.
"Doctor, doctor...." I paused, and he looked at me piteously. "Could you give me a sleeping draught?"
"If you'll leave that alone, I will," I said; and I returned to my cabin and brought some sulphonal tabloids.
"This will do you less harm than whisky," I said. "Now buck up and be a man, Pye."
He thanked me and stood looking at me. His hands nervously adjusted his glasses on his nose. He took one of the tabloids and shakily lifted his whisky and water to wash it down his throat. He coughed and sputtered, and with a shiver turned away from me. He lifted the glass again and drained it.
"Good-bye, doctor—good-night, I mean," he said hoarsely, with his back still to me. "I'm all right. I think I shall go to sleep now."
"Well, that's wise," said I, "and I'll look in and see how you go on when my watch is over."
He started, turned half-way to me and stopped. "Right you are," he said, with a struggle after cheerfulness. His back was still to me. He had degrading cowardice in his very appearance. Somehow I was moved to pat him on the shoulder.
"That's all right, man. Get to sleep."
For answer he broke into tears and blubbered aloud, throwing himself face downwards on his bunk.
"Come, Pye!" said I. "Why, what's this, man?"
"I'm a bit upset," he said, regaining some control of himself. "I think the sea-sickness has upset me. But I'm all right." He lay on his face, and was silent. And so (for I was due now in the corridor) I left him. As I turned away, I could have sworn I heard the key click in the door. He had locked himself in again.
Lane was on duty at the farther end of the corridor, and I had the door near the entrance connecting with the music balcony. Two electric lights shed a faint glow through the length and breadth of the corridor, and over all was silence. As I sat in my chair, fingering my revolver, my thoughts turned over the situation helplessly, and swung round finally to the problem of Barraclough and Mademoiselle. The Princess and I had guessed what was forward, and Lane also had an inkling. Only the Prince was ignorant of the signal flirtation which was in progress under his nose. I suppose such a woman could not remain without victims. It did not suffice for her that she had captured a prince of the blood, had dislocated the policy of a kingdom, and had ruined a man's life. She must have other trophies of her beauty, and Barraclough was one. I was sorry for him, though I cannot say that I liked him. The dull, unimaginative and wholesome Briton had toppled over before the sensuous arts of the French beauty. His anxiety was for her. He had not shown himself timorous as to the result before. Doubtless she had infected him with her fears. Possibly, even, it was at the lady's suggestion that he had made advances to Holgate.
Suddenly my thoughts were diverted by a slight noise, and, looking round, I saw Lane advancing swiftly towards me.
"I say, Phillimore," he said in a hoarse whisper, "I've lost the key."
"Key!" I echoed. "What key?" For I did not at once take in his meaning.
"Why, man, the purser's key—the key of the strong room," he said impatiently.
I gazed in silence at him. "But you must have left it below," I said at last.
"Not I," he answered emphatically. "I'm no juggins. They're always on me. I go to bed in them, so to speak. See here." He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. "This is how I keep 'em—on my double chain. They don't leave me save at nights when I undress. Well, it's gone, and I'm damned if I know when it went or how it went."
He gazed, frowning deeply at his bunch.
"That's odd," I commented.
"It puts me in a hole," said he. "How the mischief can I have lost it? I can't think how it can have slipped off. And it's the only one gone, too."
"It didn't slip off," said I. "It's been stolen."
He looked at me queerly. "That makes it rather worse, old chap," he said hesitatingly. "For it don't go out of my hands."
"Save at night," said I.
He was silent. "Hang it, what does any blighter want to steal it for?" he demanded in perplexity.
"Well, we know what's in the strong room," I said.
"Yes—but–" There was a sound.
"To your door," said I. "Quick, man."
Lane sped along the corridor to his station, and just as he reached it a door opened and Princess Alix emerged. She hesitated for a moment and then came towards me. It was bitterly cold, and she was clad in her furs. She came to a pause near me.
"I could not sleep, and it is early yet," she said. "Are you expecting danger?"
"We have always to act as if we were," I said evasively.
She was examining my face attentively, and now looked away as if her scrutiny had satisfied her.
"Why has this man never made any attempt to get the safes?" she asked next.
"I wish I knew," I replied, and yet in my mind was that strange piece of information I had just had from Lane. Who had stolen the key?
The Princess uttered a little sigh, and, turning, began to walk to and fro.
"It is sometimes difficult to keep one's feet when the floor is at this angle," she remarked as she drew near to me; and then she paced again into the distance. She was nervous and distressed, I could see, though her face had not betrayed the fact. Yet how was I to comfort her? We were all on edge. Once again she paused near me.
"What are our chances?"
"They are hopeful," said I, as cheerfully as I might. "The fortress has always more chances than the leaguers, providing rations hold out, and there is no fear of ours."
"Ah, tell me the truth!" she cried with agitation.
"Madam, I have said what is exactly true," I replied gravely. "I have spoken of chances."
"And if we lose?" she asked after a pause.