when the ship went down.

Lanyard was confident that all of their company had been warned to hold
themselves ready, and consequently had come off scot free--all, that is,
save that victim of treachery, the unhappy Baron von Harden.

If the number of that group which Lanyard had selected as comprising a
majority of his enemies, those nine who had discussed the Lone Wolf in the
smoking room, was now reduced to five--Becker, Dressier, O'Reilly, Putnam,
and Velasco--or four, eliminating Putnam, of whose loyalty there could be
no question--Lanyard still had no means of knowing how many confederates
among the other passengers these four might not have had.

And even four men who appreciated what peril to their plans inhered in the
Lone Wolf, even four made a ponderable array of desperate enemies to have
at large in New York, apt to be encountered at any corner, apt at any time
to espy and recognise him without his knowledge.

This situation imposed upon him two major tasks of immediate moment: he
must hunt down those four one by one and either satisfy himself as to their
innocence of harmful intent or put them permanently _hors de combat_; and
he must extinguish utterly, once and for all time, that amiable personality
whose brief span had been restricted to the decks of the _Assyrian_,
Monsieur Andre Duchemin.

That one must be buried deep, beyond all peradventure of involuntary
resurrection.

Fortunately the last step toward the positive metamorphosis indicated had
been taken that very morning, when the Gallic beard of Monsieur Duchemin