Otherwise, he
was tall, quite as tall as Lanyard, and had much the same character of
body, slender and lithe.
But he was "Karl" beyond question, confederate and murderer of Baron von
Harden, the man who had thrown the light bomb to signal the U-boat,
the brute with whom Lanyard had struggled on the boat deck of the
_Assyrian_--though the latter, in the confusion of that struggle, had
thought the German's beard a masking handkerchief of black silk.
Now by that same token he was no member of that smoking-room coterie upon
which Lanyard's suspicions had centered.
On the other hand, any number of passengers had worn beards, not a few of
much the same mode as that sported by this nonchalant fraud.
Vainly Lanyard cudgelled his wits to aid a laggard memory, haunted by a
feeling that he ought to know this man instantly, even in so poor a light.
Something in his habit, something in that insouciance which so narrowly
escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly
elusive....
Pausing a little ways within the room, the fellow clicked heels and bowed
punctiliously in Continental fashion, from the hips.
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