Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

In a moment Vivian and the man she had released made their way along the corridor to Vivian’s cabin.

After a minute Wylie arrived. A look of profound astonishment flashed over his face as he saw who her companion was.

“Good God, Vivian,” he said in a tense voice, “I didn’t know, when you asked me to keep those detectives busy, that this was what you intended. Bringing this man to your cabin is madness. You’ll spend the balance of your life in a Spanish jail for this. Don’t you know they’ll search the ship... every inch of it... when they find him gone.”

Cruz Delgado took a step toward Wylie, his long slender fingers working as if they longed to get at Wylie’s throat.

“This is no business of yours,” he began ominously, when Vivian cut him short with an abrupt gesture.

“Keep quiet,” she snapped. Then she turned to Wylie. “I know what I’m doing, Adrian. Go to your cabin. Please. It would be fatal if the searchers found you here when they arrived. Stay in your cabin until I tap on the door.”

“But...” Wylie began.

She cut him short as a glance through the porthole showed her the scarlet sails of the pilot boat rounding alongside the steamer.

“Adrian, time is precious.”

Without another word he turned and left. She locked the door behind him.

“Now you,” Vivian snapped to Delgado. “Get in there...” She flung open the bathroom door... “And stay there. And if you want to live, don’t make a sound.”

She closed the door behind him and began swiftly throwing off her clothes.

Ten minutes later a ship’s officer, accompanied by a sailor and one of the detectives tapped on the door of Vivian’s cabin. There was no response. The ship’s officer tried the knob and, finding the door locked, opened it with his pass key.

The cabin was deserted. A gaily colored sports dress was laid neatly across the berth. A pair of filmy silk stockings hung from; the back of a chair. Intimate, lacy underthings lay in a little heap in front of the door, so close, in fact, that the men were compelled to step over them to enter. From the bathroom came the sound of splashing water and above it the sound of Vivian’s voice humming a gay little Spanish air.

The two men exchanged glances and then the detective tapped on the bathroom door. The singing and the splashing stopped abruptly.

“Who is there?” Vivian demanded.

“It is an officer of the ship, señorita,” came back the answer. “We are searching the ship for an escaped criminal. Will you open the door, please?”

“Certainly not,” she replied indignantly. “I am bathing.”

“I am sorry, señorita, but it^- is of the utmost importance that we search the ship. You must open the door.”

“This is most outrageous,” they heard her sputter, and then the door was opened a trifle, just far enough for the officer to see Vivian clothed in a thin silken dressing gown that failed utterly to conceal her lovely form. She was wet. Water dripped from her face, her shoulders, her arms. The silken dressing gown, rapidly becoming soaked, clung closely, about her, revealing the sensuous contours of her figure. It was obvious that she had just stepped from the brimming tub.

There was a strange little flicker, like fever, playing behind those slanting green eyes. Present in her was the knowledge, like the tension of muscles in, the presence of fear, that she must play these men with all the subtlety that; the years of her criminal life had given her.

“This is outrageous,” she repeated angrily, and the most skilled actress alive could not have thrown more sincerity behind those three words. It told of the outraged modesty of a woman... of many things. Then, as if aware for the first time of the revealing qualities of the thin silken covering, she closed the door except for the merest crack. “I shall complain to the captain.”

“I am truly sorry, señorita,” the ship’s officer said, “but we are searching the ship for an escaped criminal.”

“Am I then supposed to have him concealed in my bath,” she asked in withering scorn. She had long ago learned that anger mixed with scorn is... next to tears... a woman’s chief advantage against men... a citadel against the aggressive. “Can you think of no better place to look than a bathroom while a lady takes a bath?”

She closed the door with a bang, leaned against it listening. In that instant it was almost as if she were a tautened wire which vibrated to the least sound from, the cabin outside. The pounding of her pulses which had crept up imperceptibly to a roaring crescendo during those dragging seconds of nerve splitting suspense suddenly died down. Her blood ran cold and smooth as a river of ice.

Outside that door that had been slammed in their faces the ship’s officer looked at the detective with a grin.

“I think,” he said, “that we had better search elsewhere for our escaped prisoner.”