r is ignorant of its whereabouts, Holgate isn't."

"I give it up," said Barraclough.

"Unhappily, it won't give us up," I rejoined. "We are to be attacked
this evening if we don't part with what we haven't got."

He walked away, apparently in despair of arriving at any conclusion by
continuing the conversation. I went toward the door, for I still had my
idea. I wondered if there was anything in it. Princess Alix had moved
away on the approach of Sir John, but now she interrupted me.

"You're not going?" she asked anxiously.

"My surgery is below," said I. "I must get some things from it."

She hesitated. "Won't--wouldn't that man Holgate let you have them? You
are running too great a risk."

"That is my safety," I said, smiling. "I go down. If no one is there so
much the better; if some one crops up I have my excuse. The risk is not
great. Will you be good enough to bar the door after me?"

This was not quite true, but it served my purpose. She let me pass,
looking after me with wondering eyes. I unlocked the door and went out
into the lobby that gave on the staircase. There was no sound audible
above the noises of the ship. I descended firmly, my hand on the butt
of a revolver I had picked up. No one was visible at the entrance to
the saloon. I turned up one of the passages toward my own cabin. I
entered the surgery and shut the door. As I was looking for what I
wanted, or might want, I formulated my chain of reflections. Here they
are.

The key had been stolen from Lane. It could only have been stolen by
some one in our own part of the ship, since the purser had not ventured
among the enemy.

Who had stolen it?

Here was a break, but my links began a little further on, in this way.

If the person who had stolen the key, the traitor that is in our camp,
had acted in his own interests alone, both parties were at a loss. But
that was not the hypothesis to which I leaned. If, on the other hand,
the traitor had acted in Holgate's interests, who was he?

Before I could continue my chain to the end, I had something to do, a
search to make. I left the surgery noiselessly and passed along the
alley to Pye's cabin. The handle turned and the door gave. I opened it.
No one was there.

That settled my links for me. The man whom I had encountered in the fog
at the foot of the bridge was the man who was in communication with
Holgate. That pitiful little coward, whose stomach had turned at the
sight of blood and on t