She requested without looking round: "Water, please--and a towel."
Obediently Lanyard ran hot and cold water into the hand-basin in equal
proportions.
"Would it not be well now to call the ship's surgeon?" he suggested
diffidently.
"Is that necessary? I am something of a nurse. This is simply a bad
contusion--no worse, I believe. He was struck down from behind, a cowardly
blow in the dark, as he started to go up on deck. I had been waiting for
him. When he didn't come I suspected something was wrong. I came down,
found him lying there, that brute kneeling over him."
She spoke coolly enough, in contrast with the high excitement that inflamed
her eyes as she turned away from the berth.
"Monsieur Duchemin, are you armed?"
"I have this," he said, exhibiting the knife thrown by the would-be
murderer--a simple trench dagger, without distinguishing marks of any sort.
"Then take this, please." Extracting an automatic pistol from a holster
belted beneath Thackeray's coat, she proffered it. "You won't mind staying
here a moment, standing guard, while I fetch a dressing from my room?"
Before he could utter a word of protest she had slipped out into the
alleyway, shutting the door behind her.
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