And yet, again, that gossip of the smoking room....

Police work? Or had Ekstrom's creatures picked up his trail once more?

Beneath that urbane mask of his, a hunted, wild thing poised in question,
mistrustful of the very wind, prick-eared, fangs agleam, eyes grimly
apprehensive....

A little sound, the least of metallic clicks, breaking the hush of his
solitude, froze the adventurer to attention. Only his glance swerved
swiftly to a fastened door in the forward partition--his stateroom being
the aftermost of three that might be thrown together to form a suite. The
nickeled knob was being tried with infinite precaution. On the half turn it
checked with a faint repetition of the click. Then the door itself quivered
almost imperceptibly to pressure, though it yielded not a fraction of an
inch.

Lanyard's eyes hardened. He did not stir from where he stood, but one hand
whipped an automatic from his pocket while the other darted out to the
switch-box by the head of his berth and extinguished the light.

Instantly a glimmer of light in the forward stateroom showed through
a narrow strip of iron grill-work set in the top of the partition for
ventilating purposes.

Simultaneously the door-knob was gently released, and with another louder
click the light in the adjoining cubicle was blotted out.

Mystified, Lanyard undressed and turned in, but not to sleep--not for a