The Brightener. Williamson Charles Norris

it hadn't been for the row you and your pal kicked up, we – he on the water and I on land – might have brought off one of the big stunts of the war. You tore it – after I'd been mewed up in the old rat-warren for a week, and everything was working just right! I wish to goodness the whole house had burned, and I did wish you'd burned with it. But I don't know if to-night isn't going to pay me – and you – just as well. There's a lot owing from you to me. I haven't told you all yet. My friend's submarine was caught, and he went down with her. I blame that to you. If I hadn't failed him with the signals, he might be alive now."

      "I was more patriotic than I knew!" I flung back. "As you're so confidential, tell me how you got into the Abbey, and where you hid."

      She shook her dyed and tousled head. "That's where I draw the line," she said. "I've told you what I have told to please myself, not you. You can't profit by a word of it. That's where my fun comes in! If I split about the Abbey, you might profit somehow – or your friend the Courtenaye girl would. I want to punish her, too."

      I shrugged my shoulders. "Perhaps in that case you won't care to explain how you came on board the Naiad?"

      "I don't mind that," the ex-spy made concession. "I went out of England after the Abbey affair – friends helped me away – and I worked in New York till things grew too hot. Then I came over as a Red Cross nurse, got into France, and stopped till the other day. I'd be there still if I hadn't picked up a weekly London gossip-rag, and seen a paragraph about a certain rumoured engagement! You can guess whose! It called Roger —my Roger, mind you! – a 'millionaire.' He never was poor, even in my day; he'd made a lucky strike before we met, with an invention. I said to myself: 'Linda, my girl, 'twould be tempting Providence to lie low and let another woman spend his money.' I started as soon as I could, but missed him in London, and hurried on to Plymouth. If it hadn't been for that bally storm I shouldn't have caught him up! The yacht would have sailed. As it was, before you came on board this afternoon I presented myself, thickly veiled. I had a card from a London newspaper, and an old card of Roger's which was among a few things of his I'd kept for emergencies. I can copy his handwriting well enough not be suspected, except by an intimate friend of his, so I scribbled on the card an order to view the yacht. I got on all right, and wandered about with a notebook and a stylo. I soon found the right place to hide – in the storeroom, behind some barrels. But I had to make everyone who'd seen me think I'd gone on shore. That was easy! I told a sailor fellow by the gang plank I was going, and said I'd mislaid an envelope in which I'd slipped a tip for him and another man. I thought I'd left it on a table in the dining saloon, and he'd better look for it, or it might be picked up by somebody. He went before I could say 'knife!' and the envelope really was there, so he didn't have to hurry back. Two minutes later I was in the storeroom, and no one the wiser. Lord! but I got the jumps waiting for the stewardesses to be safe in bed before I could creep out to pay your cabin a call!"

      "So, to cure the 'jumps' you annexed a whole bottle of brandy," I said.

      "I did – for that and another reason you may find out by and by. But I'm hanged if you're not a cool hand, for a young girl who has just heard her lover's a married man. I thought by this time you'd be in hysterics."

      "Girls of my generation don't have hysterics," I taunted her. By the dyed hair and vestiges of rouge and powder which streaked the battered face I guessed that a sneer at her age would sting like a wasp. I wanted to rouse the woman's temper. If she lost her head, she might show her hand!

      "You'll have worse than hysterics, you fool, before I finish," she snapped. "I'm going to make Roger Fane acknowledge me as his wife and give me everything I want – money, and motor cars, and pearls – and, best of all, a position in society. I'm tired of being a free lance."

      "He won't do it!" I cried.

      "He'll have to – when he hears what will happen if he doesn't. If I can't live a life worth living, I'll die. Roger Fane will go off this yacht under arrest as my murderer."

      "You deserve that he should kill you, but he will not," I said.

      "He'll hang for killing me, anyhow. You see, the more motive he has to destroy me, the more impossible for him – or you – to prove his innocence. Do you think I'd have told you all this, if any one was likely to believe such a cock-and-bull story as the truth would sound to a jury? But I'm through now! I've said what I came to say. I'm ready to act. Do you want a row, or will you go quietly to the door of Roger's cabin (he must be there by this time) and tell him that his wife, Linda Lehmann, is waiting for him in your stateroom? That'll fetch him!"

      I had no doubt it would. My only doubt was what to do! But if I refused, the woman was sure to keep her word, and rouse the yacht by screams. That would be the worst thing possible for Shelagh and Roger. I decided to go, and break to him the news with merciful swiftness.

      If I could, I would have turned a key upon the creature, but the doors of the Naiad's cabins were furnished only with bolts. My one hope, that she'd keep to my room, owed itself to the fact that she was too drunk to move comfortably, and that, despite her bluff, the best trump she had was quiet diplomacy with Roger.

      Softly I closed the door, and tiptoed to his, three staterooms distant from mine. My tap was so light that, if he had gone to sleep, I should have had to knock again. But he opened the door at once. He was fully dressed, and had a book in his hand.

      "Something has happened," I whispered in answer to his amazed look. "Let me come in and explain. I can't talk out here."

      He stood aside in silence, and I stepped in. Then I motioned him to shut the door.

      CHAPTER VII

      THE SECRET BEHIND THE SILENCE

      This was the first time I'd seen Roger's cabin, and I had no eyes now for its charm of decoration; but I saw that it was large, and divided by a curtained arch into a bedroom and a tiny yet complete study fitted with bookshelves and a desk.

      "You're pale as death!" He lowered his voice cautiously. "Sit down in this chair." As he spoke he led me through the bedroom part of the cabin to the study, and there I sank gratefully into the depths of a big chair, where, no doubt, he had sat reading under the light of a shaded lamp.

      "Now what is it?" he asked, bending over me. As I stammered out my story, for a few seconds I forgot the fear of being followed. Our backs were turned to the door. But I had not got far in the tale when I felt that she had come into the room. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw her – a shabby, sinister figure – hanging on to the curtain that draped the archway.

      Roger's start and stifled exclamation proved that, whatever else she might be, the woman was no imposter.

      "You devil!" he gasped.

      "Your wife!" she retorted.

      "Hush," I whispered. "For every sake let's keep this quiet!"

      "I'll be quiet for my own sake, if he accepts my terms," said the woman. "If not, the whole yacht – "

      "Be silent!" Roger commanded. "Princess, I've got to see this through. You'd better go now, and leave me alone with her."

      He was right. My presence would hinder rather than help. I saw the greenish eyes dart from his face to mine when he called me "Princess"; but she must have fancied it a pet name, for no question flashed from her lips as I tiptoed across the room.

      When I got back to my own quarters, I noticed at once that the brandy bottle and the tumbler which had accompanied it were gone from my dressing table. Nor were they to be found in the cabin. The woman must have taken them to Roger's room, and placed them somewhere before I saw her. "Disgusting!" I murmured, for my thought was that the debased wretch had clung lovingly to the drink. Even though I'd sharpened my wits to search all her motives, I failed over that simple-seeming act.

      "Oh, poor Roger!" I said to myself. "And poor Shelagh!"

      I sat miserably on the window seat (for the rumpled bed was now abhorrent), and wondered what would happen next. But I had not long to wait. A few moments passed – how many I don't know – and the crystalline silence of the gliding Naiad was splintered by a scream.

      'Scream' is the