We all know we're playing a risky game, but we're for the
owner--he isn't a bad sort, when you get to know him--and we'll go
through with it and take what's coming to us win or lose. Partly, of
course, because it'll mean something handsome for every man if we make
it without getting caught. But if you want to know what I think... I'll
tell you something..."

"But truly I am all attention."

"I think Whit Monk and Phinuit and mam'selle have framed the owner
between them."

"Can't say I quite follow..."

"I think they cooked up this smuggling business and kidded him into it
just to get the use of his yacht for their own purposes and at the same
time get him where he can't put up a howl if he finds out the truth.
Suppose he does..." The mutter became momentarily a deep-throated
chuckle of malice. "He's in so deep on the booze smuggling side he
dassent say a word, and that puts him in worse yet, makes him accessory
before the fact of criminal practices that'd made his hair stand on
end. Then, suppose they want to go on with the game, looting in Europe
and sneaking the goods into America with the use of his yacht: what's
he going to say, how's he going to stop them?"

Accepting these questions as purely rhetorical, Lanyard offered no
comment. After a moment the mutter resumed:

"Well, what do you think? Am I right or am I wrong?"

"Who knows, Mr. Mussey? One can only say, you seem to know something."

"I'll say I know something! A sight more than Whit Monk dreams I
know--as he'll find out to his sorrow before he's finished with Tom
Mussey."

"But"--obliquely Lanyard struck again at the heart of the mystery which
he found so baffling--"you seem so well satisfied with the bona fides
of your informant?"

There was a sound of stertorous breathing as the intelligence behind
the mutter grappled with this utterance. Then, as if the hint had
proved too fine--"I'm playing my hand face up with you, Mr. Lanyard. I
guess you can tell I know what I'm talking about."

"But what I cannot see is why you should talk about it to me,
monsieur."

"Why, because I and you are both in the same boat, in a manner of
speaking. We're both on the outside--shut out--looking in."

In a sort of mental aside, Lanyard reflected that mixed bathing for
metaphors was apparently countenanced under the code of cynics.

"Does one gather that you feel aggrieved with Captain Monk for not
making you a partner in his new associations?"

"For tryin