rom face to face.

Monk adjusted his eyebrows to an angle of earnestness and sincerity.

"The difficulty is, Mr. Lanyard," he said persuasively, "they have cost
us so much, those jewels, in time and money and exertion, we can hardly
be expected to sit still and see you walk off with them and say never a
word in protection of our own interests. Therefore I must warn you, in
the most friendly spirit: if you succeed in making your escape from the
Sybarite with the jewels, as you quite possibly may, it will be my duty
as a law-abiding man to inform the police that Andre Duchemin is at
large with his loot from the Chateau de Montalais. And I don't think
you'd get very far, then, or that your fantastic story about meaning to
return them would gain much credence. D'ye see?"

"But distinctly! If, however, I leave the jewels and lay an information
against you with the police----?"

"To do that you would have to go ashore...."

"Do I understand I am to consider myself your prisoner?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said Captain Monk, inexpressibly pained by such
crudity. "But I do wish you'd consider favourably an invitation to be
our honoured guest on the voyage to New York. You won't? It would be so
agreeable of you."

"Sorry I must decline. A prior engagement...."

"But you see, Lanyard," Phinuit urged earnestly, "we've taken no end of
a fancy to you. We like you, really, for yourself alone. And with that
feeling the outgrowth of our very abbreviated acquaintance--think what
a friendship might come of a real opportunity to get to know one
another well."

"Some other time, messieurs...."

"But please!" Phinuit persisted--"just think for one moment--and do
forget that pistol I know you've got in a handy pocket. We're all
unarmed here, Mademoiselle Delorme, the skipper and I. We can't stop
your going, if you insist, and we know too much to try. But there are
those aboard who might. Jules, for instance: if he saw you making a
getaway and knew it might mean a term in a French prison for him....
And if I do say it as shouldn't of my kid brother, Jules is a dead
shot. Then there are others. There'd surely be a scrimmage on the
decks; and how could we explain that to the police, who, I am able to
assure you from personal observation, are within hail? Why, that you
had been caught trying to stow away with your loot, which you dropped
in making your escape. D'ye see how bad it would look for you?"

To this there was no immediate response.