The Blind Barber

1 — Strange Cargo

When the liner Queen Victoria left New York bound for Southampton and Cherbourg, it was said that two fairly well-known people were aboard, and it was whispered that a highly notorious third person was aboard also. Moreover, there was a fourth — but inconspicuous— person who will take rather a large part in this rowdy and topsy-turvy chronicle. Although he did not know it, this young man had in his luggage something more valuable than the marionettes of M. Fortinbras or the emerald elephant of Lord Sturton, which partly explains why there were puzzles and high carnival in the sedate bosom of the Queen Victoria, and monkey business not altogether according to the customary pattern.

No more dignified ship than the Queen Victoria flies the house-flag of any British line. She is what is sometimes described as a "family" boat: which means that no hilarity is permitted in her state-room after 11 p.m., and all the cross-ocean changes in time are punctiliously observed— so that the bar always closes three-quarters of an hour before you expect it, and makes you swear. Melancholy passengers sit in her glazed writing-room and seem to be composing letters to the relatives of the deceased. In the heavily-ornamented lounge there is soft conversation, not so loud as the creaking of woodwork when the green swell lifts and glitters past the portholes; and knitting is in progress before some electric lights arranged to represent a fire. There is a semblance of gaiety when a serious-minded orchestra plays in the gallery of the dining-saloon at lunch and dinner. But there was one east-bound crossing, in the spring of last year, which Commander Sir Hector Whistler will never forget. Under his professional bluff camaraderie Captain Whistler possesses the most pyrotechnic temper of any skipper who has forsaken sail for steam, and the richness of his language is the admiration of junior officers. When, therefore—

The Queen Victoria was to dock at Southampton on the afternoon of May 18th, after the weirdest voyage she had ever made. On the morning of the next day Mr. Henry Morgan was ringing the bell of Dr. Fell's new house at No. 1 Adelphi Terrace. Henry Morgan, it may be remembered, was that eminent writer of detective-stories who took his own profession with unbecoming levity, and who had made Dr. Fell's acquaintance during the case of the Eight of Swords. On this particular morning — when there was a smoky sun on the river and the quiet gardens below Adelphi Terrace — Morgan's long, bespectacled, deceptively-melancholy face wore an expression which might have been anger or amusement. But he certainly looked like a man who had been through much; as he had.

Dr. Fell boomed a welcome, greeted him warmly, and pressed upon him a tankard of beer. The doctor, his guest saw, was stouter and more red-faced than ever. He bulged out over a deep chair in the embrasure of one of the tall windows overlooking the river. The high room, with its Adam fireplace, had been set to rights since Morgan had seen it some months before, when Dr. and Mrs. Fell moved in. It was still untidy, for that was the doctor's way; but the five-thousand-odd books had been crammed somehow into their oak shelves, and the litter of junk had found place in corners and nooks. Dr. Fell has an old-fashioned weakness for junk, especially for bright pictures of the hunting-print or Dickens variety, and scenes showing people getting out of stage-coaches and holding up mugs of beer before country inns. He also likes carved porcelain tankards with pewter lids, curious book-ends, ash-trays filched from pubs, statuettes of monk or devil, and other childish things which, nevertheless — in the sombre room with the oak bookshelves, with the frayed carpet on the floor — formed a fitting background for his Gargantuan presence. He sat in his chair in the window embrasure, before a broad study table littered with books and papers; there was a grin under his bandit's moustache, and a twinkle in his eye as he blinked at his visitor over eyeglasses on a broad black ribbon. And when the cigars had been lighted Dr. Fell said:

"I may be mistaken, my boy, but I seem to detect a professional gleam in your eye." He wheezed and folded his big hands on the table. "Is there anything on your mind, hey?"

"There is," said Morgan grimly. "I have to unfold just about the rummiest story you've ever listened to, if you've got time to hear it. It's rather a long one, but I don't think it'll bore you. And — if you want any corroboration — I've taken the liberty of asking Curt Warren to come round here… "

"Heh!" said Dr. Fell, rubbing his hands delightedly. "Heh-heh-hehe! This is like old times. Of course I've got time. And bring round anybody you like. Replenish that glass again and let's have the details."

Morgan took a deep drink and a deep breath.

"First," he said, in the manner of one commencing lecture, "I would direct your attention to a group of people sitting at the captain's table on the good ship Queen Victoria. Among whom, fortunately or unfortunately, I was one.

"From the beginning I thought it would be a dull crossing; everybody seemed to be injected with virtue like embalming fluid, and half an hour after the bar had opened there were only two people in it, not counting myself. That was how I made the acquaintance of Valvick and Warren.

"Captain Thomassen Valvick was a Norwegian ex-skipper who used to command cargo and passenger boats on the North Atlantic route; now retired, and living in a cottage in Baltimore with a wife, a Ford, and nine children. He was as big as a prize-fighter, with a sandy moustache, a lot of massive gestures, and a habit of snorting through his nose before he laughed. And he was the most genial soul who ever sat up all night telling incredible yarns, which were all the funnier in his strong squarehead accent, and he never minded if you called him a liar. He had twinkling, pale-blue eyes half-shut up in a lot of wrinkles and a sandy, wrinkled face, and absolutely no sense of dignity. I could see it was going to be an uncomfortable voyage for Captain Sir Hector Whistler.

"Because, you see, Captain Valvick had known the skipper of the Queen Victoria in the old days before Whistler became the stuffed and stern professional gentleman at the head of the table. There was Whistler — growing stout, with his jaw drawn in like his shoulders, strung with gold braid like a Christmas tree — there was Whistler, his eye always on Valvick. He watched Valvick exactly as you'd watch a plate of soup at a ship's table in heavy weather; but it never kept the old squarehead quiet or muzzled his stories.

"At first it didn't matter greatly. We ran into heavy weather immediately and unexpectedly; rain-squalls, and a dizzying combination of pitch-and-roll that drove almost all the passengers to their state-rooms. Those polished lounges and saloons were deserted to the point of ghostliness; the passages creaked like wickerwork being ripped apart, the sea went past with a dip and roar that slung against the bulkhead or pitched you forward on the rise, and navigating a staircase was an adventure. Personally, I like bad weather. I like the wind tearing in when you open a door; I like the smell of white paint and polished brass, which they say is what brings the sea-sickness, when a corridor is writhing and dropping like a lift. But some people don't care for it. As a result, there were only six of us at the captain's table: Whistler, Valvick, Margaret Glenn, Warren, Dr. Kyle, and myself. The two near-celebrities we wanted to see were both represented by vacant chairs… They were old Fortinbras, who runs what has become a very swank marionette-theatre, and the Viscount Sturton. Know either one of them?"

Dr. Fell rumpled his big mop of grey-streaked hair.

"Fortinbras!" he rumbled. "Haven't I seen something about it recently in the highbrow magazines? It's a theatre somewhere in London where the marionettes are nearly life-size and as heavy as real people; he stages classic French drama or something—?"

"Right," said Morgan, nodding, "He's been doing that to amuse himself, or out of a mystic sense of preserving the Higher Arts, for the past ten or twelve years; he's got a little box of a theatre with bare benches, seating about fifty people, somewhere in Soho. Nobody ever used to go there but all the kids in the foreign colony, who were wild about it. Old Fortinbras's piece de resistance was his dramatisation of "The Song of Roland," in French blank verse. I got all this from Peggy Glenn. She says he took most of the parts himself, thundering out the noble lines from back-stage, while he and an assistant worked the figures. The marionettes' weight — nearly eight stone, each of 'em stuffed with sawdust and with all the armour, swords and trappings — was supported by a trolley on which the figures were run along, and a complicated set of wires worked their arms and legs. That was very necessary, because what they did mostly was fight; and the kids in the audience would hop up and down and cheer themselves hoarse.

"The kids, you see, never paid any attention to the lofty sentiments. They probably didn't even hear them or understand what it was all about. All they knew was that out would stagger the Emperor Charlemagne on the stage, in gold armour and a scarlet cloak, with a sword in one hand and a battle-axe in the other. After him would come bumping and reeling all the nobles of his court, with equally bright clothes and equally lethal weapons. From the other side would come in the Emperor of the Moors and his gang, armed to the eyebrows. Then all the puppets would lean against the air in various overbalanced positions while Charlemagne, with a voice of thunder said, "Pry, thee, friend, gadzooks, gramercy, what ho, sirrah!", and made a blank-verse speech lasting nearly twenty minutes. It was to the effect that the Moors had no business in France, and had better get to hell out of there — or else. The Emperor of the Moors lifted his sword and replied with a fifteen-minute address whose purport was, "Says you!" And Charlemagne, whooping out his war-cry, up and dots him one with the battle-axe.

"That was the real beginning, you see. The puppets rose from the stage and sailed at each other like fowls across a cockpit, thrashing their swords and kicking up a battle that nearly brought down the roof. Every so often one of them would be released from the trolley as dead, and would crash down on the stage and raise a fog of dust. In the fog the battle kept on whirling and clashing, and old Fortinbras rushed behind the scenes screaming himself hoarse with noble speeches, until the kids were delirious with excitement. Then down would tumble the curtain; and out would come old Fortinbras, bowing and puffing and wiping the sweat off his face, supremely happy at the cheers of the audience; and he would make a speech about the glory of France which they applauded just as loudly without knowing what he was talking about… He was a happy artist; an appreciated artist.

"Well, the thing was inevitable. Sooner or later the highbrows would 'discover' him, and his art; and somebody did. He became famous overnight, a misunderstood genius whom the British public had shamefully neglected. No kids could get into the place now; it was all top-hats and people who wanted to discuss Corneille and Racine. I gather that the old boy was rather puzzled. Anyhow, he got a thumping offer to exhibit his various classic dramas in America, and it was one long triumphal tour…"

Morgan drew a deep breath.

"All this, as I say, I got from Miss Glenn, who is — and has been long before the thing grew popular — a sort of secretary and general manager for the foggy old boy. She's some sort of relation of his on her mother's side. Her father was a country parson or schoolmaster or something; and when he died, she came to London and nearly starved until old Jules took her in. She's devilish good-looking, and seems prim and stiffish until you realise how much devilment there is in her, or until she's had a few drinks; then she's a glittering holy terror.

"Peggy Glenn, then, made the next member of our group, and was closely followed by my friend, Curtis Warren.

"You'll like Curt. He's a harum-scarum sort, the favourite nephew of a certain Great Personage in the present American Government… "

"What personage?" inquired Dr. Fell. "I don't know of any Warren who is—"

Morgan coughed.

"It's on his mother's side," he replied. "That has a good deal to do with my story; so we'll say for the moment only a Great Personage, not far from F.D. himself. This Great Personage, by the way, is the most dignified and pompous figure in politics; the glossiest Top-Hat, the neatest Trouser-Press, the prince of unsplit infinitives and undamaged etiquette… Anyhow, he pulled some wires (you're not supposed to be able to do this) and landed Curt a berth in the Consular Service. It isn't a very good berth: some God-forsaken hole out in Palestine or somewhere, but Curt was coming over for a holiday round Europe before he took over the heavy labour of stamping invoices or what-not. His hobby, by the way, is the making of amateur moving-pictures. He's wealthy, and I gather he's got not only a full-sized camera, but also a sound apparatus of the sort the news-reel men carry.

"But, speaking of Great Personages, we now come to the other celebrity aboard the Queen Victoria, also paralysed with sea-sickness. This was none other than Lord Sturton — you know — the one they call the Hermit of Jermyn Street. He'll see nobody; he has no friends; all he does is collect bits of rare jewellery… "

Dr. Fell took the pipe out of his mouth and blinked.

"Look here," he said suspiciously, "there's something I want to know before you go on. Is this by any chance the familiar chestnut about the fabulous diamond known as the Lake of Light, or some such term, which was pinched out of the left eye of an idol at Burma, and is being stalked by a sinister stranger in a turban? Because, if it is, I'll be damned if I listen to you…

Morgan wrinkled his forehead sardonically.

"No," he said. "I told you it was a rummy thing; it's much queerer than that. But I'm bound to confess that a jewel does figure in the story — it was what tangled us up and raised all the hell when the wires got crossed — but nobody ever intended it to figure at all."

"H'm!" said Dr. Fell, peering at him.

"And also I am bound to admit that the jewel got stolen—"

"By whom?"

"By me," said Morgan unexpectedly. He shifted. "Or by several of us, to be exact. I tell you it was a nightmare. The thing was an emerald elephant, a big pendant thing of no historical interest but of enormous intrinsic value. It was a curiosity, a rarity, that's why Sturton went after it. It was an open secret that he had been negotiating to buy it from one of the busted millionaires in New York. Well, he'd got it right enough; I had that from Curt Warren. The Great Personage, Curt's uncle, is a friend of Sturton's, and Curt's uncle told him all about it just before Curt sailed. Probably half the people on the boat heard the rumour. I know we were all waiting to catch a glimpse of him when he came aboard — queer, sandy old chap with ancient side-whiskers and a hanging jaw; only attendant a secretary. He popped up the gangway all swathed round in checked comforters, and cursed everybody in reach.

"Now it's a very odd thing, for a variety of reasons, that you should have mentioned the old familiar story about the fabulous jewel. Because, on the afternoon when all the trouble started — it was the late afternoon of the fourth day out, and we were to dock three days later — Peggy Glenn and Skipper Valvick and I had been discussing this emerald elephant, in the way you do when you're lying back in a deck-chair with a robe across your knees, and nothing much to think about except when the bugle will blow for tea. We discussed whether it was in Lord Sturton's possession or locked in the captain's safe, and, in either case, how you could steal it. Peggy, I know, had evolved a very complicated and ingenious plan; but I wasn't listening closely. We had all got to know one another pretty well in those four days, and we stood on very little ceremony.

"As a matter of fact," said Morgan, "I was more than half-asleep. Then—"

2 — Indiscretions of Uncle Warpus

Low along the sky there was a liquid yellow brightness, but twilight had begun to come down, and the grey sea wore changing lights on its white-caps when the Queen Victoria shouldered down against a heavy swell. The skyline tilted and rose above a boiling hiss; there was a stiff breeze along the almost deserted promenade-deck. Lying back drowsily in a deck-chair, well wrapped against the cold, Morgan was in that lethargic frame of mind when the booming sea-noises are as comfortable as a fire. He reflected that shortly lights would go on along the ship; tea would be set out in the lounge while the orchestra played. Both his companions were momentarily silent, and he glanced at them.

Margaret Glenn had dropped her book in her lap; she was lying back in the deck-chair with eyes half-closed. Her rather thin, pretty, impish face — which ordinarily wore such a deceptive look of schoolmistress primness — now seemed puzzled and disturbed. She swung shell-rimmed reading-glasses by one ear-piece, and there was a wrinkle above her hazel eyes. She was muffled in a fur coat, with a wildly-blowing batik scarf; and from under her little brown hat a tendril of black hair danced above the windy deck.

She observed: "I say, what can be keeping Curt? It's nearly tea-time, and he promised to be here long ago; then we were going to round you two up for cocktails… " She shifted, and her earnest eyes peered round at the porthole behind as though she expected to see Warren there.

"I know," said Morgan lazily. "It's that bouncing little blonde from Nashville; you know, the one who's going to Paris for the first time and says she wants to gain experiences for her soul."

Turning a wind-flushed face, the girl was about to rise to the remark when she saw his expression, and stuck out her tongue at him instead.

"Bah!" she said, without heat. "That little faker; I know her type. Dresses like a trollop and won't let a man get within a yard of her. You take my advice," said Miss Glenn, nodding and winking wisely. "You stay clear of women who want to gain deep experience for the soul. All that means is that they don't want to employ the body in doing it." She frowned. "But I say, what can have happened to Curt? I mean, even with the notorious unpunctuality of American men—"

"Ha-ha-ha!" said Captain Thomassen Valvick, with an air of inspiration. "I tell you, maybe. Maybe it is like de horse."

"What horse?" asked Morgan.

Captain Valvick uttered one of his amiable snorts and bent his big shoulders. Even though the deck was rolling and pitching in a way that made the deck-chairs slide into each other, he stood upright without difficulty. His long sandy-reddish face was etched out in wrinkles of enjoyment, and behind very small gilt-rimmed spectacles his pale-blue eyes had an almost unholy twinkle. He wrinkled them up; he snorted again, hoarsely, through his sandy moustache, pulled down his large tweed cap over one ear, and made a massive gesture that would have been as heavy as a smaller man's blow.

"Ha-ha-HA!" thundered Captain Valvick. "Ay tell you. In my country, in Norway, we haff a custom. When you wont to make a horse stop, you say, 'Whoa!' But we don't. We say, "Brubublubluoooo-bl-oooo!' "

Shaking his jowls and lifting his head like Tarzan over a fresh kill, Captain Valvick here uttered the most extraordinary noise Morgan had ever heard. It cannot be reproduced into phonetic sounds, and so loses its beauty and poignancy. It was something like the noise of water running out of a bath-tub, but rising on a triumphant note like a battle-cry, and trembling on in shadings of defective drains and broken water-pipes; as though Mr. Paul White-man (say) had built a symphony round it, and come out strongly with his horns and strings.

"Bru-bloo-bulooooluloo-buloooooo!" crowed Captain Valvick, starting low with his shakings of head and jowl, and then rearing up his head at the climax.

"Isn't that a lot of trouble?" inquired Morgan.

"Oh, no! Ay do it easy," scoffed the other, nodding complacently. "But ay was going to tell you, de first time I try it on a English-speaking 'orse, de 'orse didn't understand me. Ay tell you how it was. At dat time, when I was young, I was courting a girl who lived in Vermont, where it always snow like Norway. So ay t'ink ay take her out for a sleigh-ride, all nice and fine. I hire de best horse and sleigh dey got, I tell de girl to be ready at two o'clock in de afternoon, and I come for her. So of course I want to make a good impression on my girl, and I come dashing up de road to her house, and I see her standing on de porch, waiting for me. So ay t'ink it be fine t'ing to make de grand entrance, and ay say, 'Brubu-bluooo-bloo!' fine and strong to de 'orse so ay can turn in de gates. But he don't stop. And ay t'ink, 'Coroosh! What is wrong wit' de goddam 'orse?' " Here Captain Valvick made a dramatic gesture, "So I shout, 'Brubu-bloooo-bloooo!' and lean over de footboard and say it again. And dis time de 'orse turn its head round to look at me. But it don't stop, you bet. It keep right on going, straight past de house where de girl is standing, and it only gallop faster when I keep saying, 'Brubu-blubluoooo-bl-oooo!' And my girl open her eyes at me and look fonny, but de 'orse fly straight on up de road; and all I can do is stand up in de sleigh and keep taking off my hat and bowing to her w'ile all de time ay go farder and farder away from her; and still ay am doing dat we'en we go round a bend and ay can't see her no more… "

All this was recited with much pantomime and urging the reins of an imaginary horse. With an expiring sigh Captain Valvick shook his head in a melancholy fashion, and then twinkled benevolently.

"Ay could never get dat girl to go out again. Ha-ha-ha!"

"But I don't see the point," protested Peggy Glenn, who was regarding him in some perplexity. "How is that like Curt Warren?"

"Ay don't know," admitted the other, scratching his head. "Ay yust wanted to tell de story, ay guess… Maybe he is sea-sick, eh? Ha-ha-ha! Ah! Dat remind me. Haff ay ever told you de story about de mutiny ay 'ave when de cook always eat all de peas out of de soup and—"

"Sea-sick?" the girl exclaimed indignantly. "Bosh! At least — poor old fellow, I hope not. My uncle is having a terrible time of it, and he's suffering worse because he's promised to give a performance of his marionettes at the ship's concert… Do you think we'd better go and see what's wrong with Curt?"

She paused as a white-coated steward struggled out of a door near by and peered round in the darkening light. Morgan recognised him as his own cabin steward — a cheerful-faced young man with flat black hair and a long jaw. He had, now, a rather conspiratorial manner. Sliding down the gusty deck, he beckoned towards Morgan and raised his voice above the crash and hiss of water.

"Sir," he said, "it's Mr. Warren, sir. 'Is compliments, and 'e'd like to see you. And 'is friends too… "

Peggy Glenn sat up. "There's nothing wrong, is there? Where is he? What's the matter?"

The steward looked dubious, and then reassuring, "Oh no, miss! Nothing wrong. Only I think somebody's 'it him."

"What?"

"Hin the eye, miss. And on the back of th 'ead. But 'e's not a bit upset, miss, not 'im. I left 'im sitting on the floor in the cabin," said the steward, rather admiringly, "with a towel to 'is 'ead and a piece of movie film in 'is 'and, swearing something 'andsome. And 'e'd taken a nasty knock, miss; that's a fact."

They stared at each other, and then they all hurried after the steward. Captain Valvick, puffing and snorting through his moustache, threatened dire things. Tearing open one of the doors, they were kicked by its recoil in the wind into the warm, paint-and-rubbery odour of the corridor. Warren's cabin, a large double which he occupied alone, was an outside one on C deck, starboard side. They descended heaving stairs, struck off past the gloomy staircase to the dining-room, and knocked at the door of C 91.

Mr. Curtis G. Warren's ordinarily lazy and good-humoured face was now malevolent. The odour of recent profanity hung about him like garlic. Round his head a wet towel had been wound like a turban; there was a slight cut of somebody's knuckles. Mr. Warren's greenish eyes regarded them bitterly out of a lean, newly-scrubbed face; his hair, over the bandage, stuck up like a goblin's; and in his hand he had a strip of what resembled motion-picture film with perforations for sound, torn at one end. He sat on the edge of his berth, faintly visible in the yellowish twilight through the porthole, and the whole cabin was wildly disarranged.

"Come in," said Mr. Warren. Then he exploded. "When I catch," he announced, drawing a deep breath like one who begins an oration, and spacing his words carefully— "when I catch the white-livered, greenly empurpled so-and-so who tried to get away with this — when I get one look at the ugly mug of the lascivious-habited son of a bachelor who runs around beaning people with a blackjack—"

Peggy Glenn wailed, "Curt!" and rushed over to examine his head, which she turned to one side and the other as though she were looking behind his ears. Warren broke off and said, "Ow!"

"But, my dear, what happened?" the girl demanded. "Oh, why do you let things like this happen? Are you hurt?"

"Baby," said Warren in a tone of dignity, "I can tell you that it is not alone my dignity which has suffered. By the time they have finished stitching up my head, I shall probably resemble a baseball. As to my deliberately encouraging all this to happen… Boys," he said, appealing moodily to Morgan and the captain, "I need help. I'm in a jam, and that's no lie."

"Ha!" growled Valvick, rubbing a large hand down across his moustache. "You yust tell me who smack you, eh? Ha! Den ay take him and—"

"I don't know who did it. That's the point."

"But why…?" asked Morgan, who was surveying the litter in the cabin; and the other grinned sourly.

"This, old son," Warren told him, "is right in your line. Do you know if there are any international crooks on board? The Prince or Princess Somebody kind, who always hang out at Monte Carlo? Because an important State document has been pinched… No, I'm not kidding. I didn't know I had the damned thing; never occurred to me; I thought it had been destroyed… I tell you I'm in bad trouble, and it's not funny. Sit down somewhere and I'll tell you about it."

"You go straight to the doctor!" Peggy Glenn said, warmly. "If you think I'm going to have you laid up with amnesia or something—"

"Baby, listen," the other begged, with a sort of wild patience; "you don't seem to get it yet. This is dynamite. It's — well, it's like one of Hank's spy stories, only it's something new along that line, now that I come to think of it., Look here. You see this film?"

Ho handed it to Morgan, who held it up for examination against the fading light through the porthole. The pictures were all of a portly, white-haired gentleman in evening clothes, who had one fist lifted as though making a speech and whose mouth was split wide as though it were B vary exploitive speech. There was, moreover, a very curious, bleary look about the dignified person; his tie was skewered under one ear, and over his head and shoulders had been sprinkled what Morgan at first presumed to be snow. It was, in fact, confetti.

And the face was vaguely familiar. Morgan stared at it for some time before he realised that it was none other than a certain Great Personage, the most pompous starched-shirt of the Administration, the potent rain-maker and high priest of quackdoodle. His cheerful, soothing voice over the radio had inspired millions of Americans with dreams of a fresh, effulgent era of national prosperity in which there should be instalment plans without ever any payments demanded, and similar American conceptions of the millennium. His dignity, his scholarship, his courtly manners—

"Yes, you're right," Warren said wryly. "It's my uncle. Now I'll tell you about it… and don't laugh, because it's absolutely serious.

"He's a very good fellow, Uncle Warpus is; you've got to understand that. He got into this position through the ordinary, human behaviour that might happen to anybody, but others mightn't think so. All politicians ought to have a chance every once in a while to blow off steam. Otherwise they're apt to go mad and chew off an ambassador's ear, or something. With the whole country in a mix-up, and everything going wrong, and wooden-heads trying to block every reasonable measure, there are times when they explode. Especially if they're in congenial company and have a social highball or two.

"Well — my hobby is the taking of amateur moving-pictures, with, Lord.help me, sound. So about a week before I was to sail I was due to visit Uncle Warpus in Washington for a good-by call." Warren put his chin in his hands and looked sardonically on the others, who had moved backwards to find seats. "I couldn't take my movie apparatus abroad with me; it was much too elaborate. Uncle Warpus suggested that I should leave it with him. He was interested in such things; he thought he might get some pleasure in tinkering with it, and I should show him how to work everything…

"On the first night I got there," pursued Warren, taking a deep breath, "there was a very large, very dignified party at Uncle Warpus's. But he and a few of his Cabinet and senatorial cronies had sneaked away from the dancing; they were upstairs in the library, playing poker and drinking whisky. When I arrived they thought it would be an excellent idea if I arranged my apparatus, and we took a few friendly talking-pictures there in the library. It took me some time, with the assistance of the butler, to get it all arranged. Meanwhile, they were having a few friendly drinks. Some of 'em were a good deal the strong, silent, rough-diamond administrators from the prairies; and even Uncle Warpus was relaxing considerably."

Warren blinked with reminiscent pleasure at the ceiling.

"It all began with much seriousness and formality. The butler was camera man, and I recorded the sound. First the Honourable William T. Pinkis recited Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. That was all right. Then the Honourable Secretary of Interstate Agriculture did the dagger scene from Macbeth, a very powerful piece of acting, with a bottle Of gin as the dagger. One thing led to another. Senator Borax sang 'Annie Laurie,' and then they got up a quartet to render 'Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?' and 'Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet.'…"

Sitting back in the berth with her back against the wall, Peggy Olenn was regarding him with a shocked expression. Her pink lips were open, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, I say!" she protested. "Curt, you're pulling our legs. I mean to say, just fancy our House of Commons… "

Warren raised his hand fervently. "Baby, as Heaven is my witness, that is precisely—" He broke off to scowl as Morgan began laughing. "I tell you, Hank, this is serious!"

"I know it," agreed Morgan, growing thoughtful. "I think I begin to see what's coming. Go on."

"Ay t'ank dey did right," said Captain Valvick, nodding vigorously and approvingly. "Ay haff always wanted to try one of dem t'ings too. Den ay giff my imitation of de two cargo-boats in de fog. It is very good, dat one. I show you. Ha-ha-ha!"

Warren brooded.

"Well, as I say, one little thing led to another. The signal for the fireworks was when one Cabinet member, who had been chuckling to himself for some time, recounted a spirited story about the travelling saleman and the farmer's daughter. And then came the highlight of the whole evening. My uncle Warpus had been sitting by himself — you could almost see his mind going round click-click — click-click—and he was weighed down by a sense of injustice. He said he was going to make a speech. He did. He got in front of the microphone, cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and then the cataract came down at Lodore.

"In some ways," said Warren, rather admiringly, "it was the funniest thing I ever heard. Uncle Warpus had had to repress his sense of humour for some time. But I happened to know of his talent for making burlesque political speeches… Wow! What he did was to give his free, ornamental, and uncensored opinion of the ways of government, the people in the government, and everything connected with it. Then he went on to discuss foreign policy and armaments. He addressed the heads of Germany, Italy, and France, explaining exactly what he thought of their parentage and alleged social pastimes, and indicating where they could thrust their battleships with the greatest possible effect… " Warren wiped his forehead rather dazedly. "You see, it was all done in the form of a burlesque flag-waving speech, with plenty of weird references to Washington and Jefferson and the faith of the fathers… Well, the other eminent soaks caught on and were cheering and applauding. Senator Borax got hold of a little American flag, and every time Uncle Warpus made a particularly telling point, Senator Borax would stick his head out in front of the camera, and wave the flag for a second, and say, 'Hooray!'… Boys, it was hair-raising. As an oratorical effort I have never heard it surpassed. But I know two or three newspapers in New York that would give a cool million dollars for sixty feet of that film.

Peggy Glenn, struggling between laughter and incredulity, sat forward, with her bright hazel eyes fixed on him; she seemed annoyed. "But I tell you," she protested again, "it's absurd! It — it isn't nice, you know… "

"You're telling me," said Warren, grimly.

"… and all those awfully nice high-minded people; it's disgusting! You can't really tell me!… Oh, it's absurd! I don't believe it."

"Baby," said Warren gently, "that's because you're British. You don't understand American character. It's not in the least unreasonable; it's simply one of those scandals that sometimes happen and have to be hushed up somehow. Only this one is a scandal of such enormous, dizzying proportions that — Look here. We'll say nothing of the explosion it would cause at home. It would ruin Uncle Warpus, and a lot of others with him. But can you imagine the effect of those pronouncements on, say, certain dignitaries in Italy and Germany? They wouldn't see anything funny about it in the least. If they didn't jump up and down, tearing out handfuls of hair, and rush out and declare war immediately, it would be because somebody had the forethought to sit on their heads… Whoosh! T.N.T.? T.N.T.'s as mild as a firecracker compared with it."

It was growing dark in the cabin. Heavy clouds had massed up; there was a tremble through the ship above the dull beat of her screws, and a deeper thunder and swish of water as she pitched. Glasses and water-bottle were rattling in the rack above the washstand. Morgan reached up to switch on the light. He said:

"And someone stole it from you?"

"Half* of it, yes… Let me tell you what happened.

"The morning after that little carnival, Uncle Warpus woke up with a realisation of what he'd done. He came rushing into my room, and it appears he'd been bombarded with phone-calls from other offenders since seven o'clock. Fortunately, I was able to reassure him — as I thought, anyhow. What with other difficulties, I'd taken in all only two reels. Each reel was packed into a container like this… "

Reaching down under his berth, Warren pulled out a large oblong box, bound in steel, with a handle like a suitcase. It was unlocked, and he opened the snap-catch. Packed inside were a number of flat circular tins measuring about ten inches in diameter painted black, and scrawled with cryptic markings in white chalk. One of these had its lid off. Inside had been jammed a tangled and disarranged spool of film from which a good length seemed to have been torn off.

Warren tapped the tin. "I was taking some of my better efforts with me," he explained. "I've got a little projector, and I thought they might amuse people on the other side…

"On the night of Uncle Warpus's eloquence, I was a little tight myself. The packing up I left to the butler, and I showed him how to do the marking. What must have happened — I can see it now — was that he got the notations mixed. I carefully destroyed two reels that I thought were the right ones. But, like an imbecile" — Warren got out a pack of cigarettes and stuck one askew into his mouth— "like an imbecile, I only examined one of the reels with any care. So I destroyed the Gettysburg Address, the Dagger Scene, and the singing of 'Annie Laurie.' But the rest of it… well, I can figure it now. What I got rid of were some swell shots of the Bronx Park Zoo.'

"And the rest of it?"

Warren pointed to the floor.

"In my luggage, without my knowing it. Never a suspicion, you see, until this afternoon. Gaa! what a situation. Well, you see, I had an urgent radiogram I had to send off to somebody at home—"

"Oh?" said Miss Glenn, sitting up and eyeing him suspiciously.

"Yes. To my old man. So I went up to the wireless-room. The operator said he'd just received a message for me. He also said, 'This looks like code. Will you check it over and make sure it's all right?' Code. Ho-ho! I glanced over it, and it seemed so queer that I read it aloud. You must remember, what with the excitement of going away and things on board here and all, I'd forgotten that little performance entirely. Besides, the radiogram was unsigned; I suppose Uncle Warpus didn't dare…" Warren shook his head sadly, a weird turbaned figure with the cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth and his face scrubbed like a schoolboy's. Then he took the cable from his pocket. "It said, 'found traces in sweeping out. Hiller—' that's his butler; old family retainer; wouldn't squeal if Uncle Warpus pinched the silver out of the White House—'Hiller nervous. They look like bears. Is this real reel. Urgent no hitch in sarcasm effaced. Advise about bears.'"

"Eh?" demanded Captain Valvick, who was puffing slowly.

"That's the closest he could take a chance on coming to it," Warren explained. "Bears in the zoo. But it's not the sort of thing that makes much sense when it's sprung on you unexpectedly. I argued it out with the wireless operator, and it wasn't until ten minutes later that it struck me — how the devil was I to know Uncle Warpus had sent it? So I couldn't connect up the words; then suddenly it hit me.

"Well, I rushed down here to my cabin. It was getting dark, and besides, the curtain was drawn over the porthole… but there was somebody in here."

"And of course," said Morgan, "you didn't see who it was?"

"When I get that low-down" — snarled Warren, going off at a tangent and glaring murderously at the waterbottle— "when I find — no, damn it! All I knew was that it was a man. He had my film-box over in the corner, half the tins with their lids off (I found this later) and had the right roll in his hands. I dived for him, and he let go a hard one at my face. When I grabbed him I grabbed a piece of the film. He cracked out again — there isn't much space in here, and the boat was pitching pretty heavily — then we staggered over against the washstand while I tried to slam him against the wall. I didn't dare let go of the film. The next thing I knew the whole cabin went up like a flashlight powder; that was his blackjack on the back of my head. I didn't quite lose consciousness, but the place was going round in sparks; I slugged him again, and I was bent over the part of the film I had. Then he yanked the door open and got out somehow. I must have been knocked out for a few minutes then. When I came to, I rang for the steward, sloshed some water on my head, and discovered—" With his foot Warren raised the tangle of film on the floor.

"But didn't you see him?" asked the girl, in her fluttering concern, again taking hold of his head and causing an agonised "Ow!" She jumped. "I mean, old boy, that, after all, you were fighting with him…"

"No, I didn't see him, I tell you! It might have been anybody… But the question is, what's to be done? I'm appealing to you for help. We've got to get that piece of film back. He got — maybe fifty feet of it. And that's as dangerous as though he'd got all of it."

3 — Trap for a Film Thief

"Well," Morgan observed thoughtfully, "I admit this is the rummiest kind of secret-service mission that a self-respecting hero was ever called on to undertake. It rouses my professional instincts."

He felt a glow of pleasurable excitement. Here was he, an eminent writer of detective stories, involved in one of those complicated spy plots to recover a stolen document and preserve the honour of a great Personage. It was the sort of thing that would have been nuts to Mr. Oppenheim; and, Morgan reflected, he himself had often used the background of a luxurious ocean liner, sweeping its lighted decks through waters floored with stars — full of monocled crooks sipping champagne; of pale, long-necked Ladies with a Purpose who are not interested in love-making; and of dirty work in general. (The women in a secret-service story seldom are interested in love-making; that is the trouble with it.) Although the Queen Victoria was scarcely the boat for such goings-on, Morgan considered the idea and found it good. Outside, it had begun to rain. The liner was bumping like a tub against the crash of the swell, and Morgan lurched a little as he stalked up and down the narrow cabin, revolving plans, pushing his glasses up and down his nose, becoming each second more excited with the prospect.

"Well?" demanded Peggy Glenn. "Say something, Hank! Of course we help him, don't we?"

She still seemed hurt by the behaviour of the eminent soaks; but her protective instincts had been roused and her small jaw was very square. She had even put on her shell-rimmed reading-glasses, which lent a look of unwonted sombreness (or flippant make-believe, if you like) to the thin face. And she had removed her hat, to show a mop of black bobbed hair. Sitting with one leg curled under her, she regarded Morgan almost fiercely. He said:

"My girl, I wouldn't miss it for — well, for a good deal. Ha! It is obvious,' he continued, with relish, and hoped it was true, "that there is aboard a wily and clever international crook who is determined to secure that film for purposes of his own. Very good. We therefore form a Defensive Alliance… "

"Thanks," said Warren, in some relief. "God knows I need help and — you see, you were the only people I could trust. Well, then?"

"Right. You and I, Curt, will be the Brains. Peggy will be the Siren, if we need one. Captain Valvick will be the Brawn—"

"Hah!" snorted the captain, nodding vigorously and lifting his shoulders with approval. He twinkled down on them, and raised his arm with terrific gusto. " 'For God! For de cause! For de Church! For de laws,' " he thundered unexpectedly. " 'For Charles, King of England, and Rupert off de Rhine!' Ha-ha-ha."

"What the devil's that?" demanded Morgan.

"Ay dunno yust what it mean," admitted the captain, blinking on them rather sheepishly. "Ay read it in a book once, and ay t'ink it iss fine. If ay ever get stirred up in de heart — hoooo-o! — Ay say it." He shook his head. "But ay got to be careful wit' de books. When ay finish reading one, ay got to be careful to write its name down so I don't forget and go back and read it all over again."

He looked on them with great amiability, rubbing his nose, and inquired, "But what iss dere you want me to do?"

"First," said Morgan, "it's agreed that you don't want official steps taken, Curt? I mean, you could tell Captain Whistler—?"

"Lord, no!" the other said violently. "I can't do that, don't you see? If we get this back at all, it's got to be under the strictest cover. And that's where it's going to be difficult. Out of the whole passenger-list of this boat, how are we going to pick out the person who might want to steal the thing? Besides, how did the fellow know I had that film, if I didn't know it myself?"

Morgan reflected. "That wireless message—" he said, and stopped. "Look here, you said you read it aloud, And it was only a very short time afterwards that the chap tried to burgle this cabin. It seems too much to be a coincidence… Was there anybody who might have overheard you?"

The other made scoffing noises. In the pure absorption of the debate he had absent-mindedly fished out a bottle of whisky from one of his suit-cases. "Bunk!" said Warren. "Suppose there were a crook of some description aboard. What would that cock-eyed message mean to him? It took some time for me to figure it out."

"All right. All right, then! It's got to mean this. The thief was somebody who already knew about the film; that is, that there had been one made… That's possible, isn't it?"

Warren hesitated, knocking his knuckles against his turbaned forehead.

"Ye-es, I suppose it is," he admitted. "There were all sorts of rumours afloat next day; you know how it is. But we were in the library with the door locked, and naturally it can't be any of the people who were in the game… I told you there was a reception downstairs, but how anybody down there could have known—"

"Well, evidently somebody did know," Morgan argued. "And it's at a crush of a reception like that, at the home of some big pot, where you'd expect to find a specimen of the gentry we're looking for… Put it this way, just for a starter." He meditated, pulling at his ear-lobe. "The thief — we'll call him, say, Film-Flam — gets wind of your important document. But he thinks it's been destroyed and abandons any idea of pinching it. Still, he is travelling abroad on the Queen Victoria—"

"Why?" inquired Miss Glenn practically.

"How should I know?" Morgan demanded, with some asperity. His imagination had been working on opulent ballrooms full of tiaras and red shirt-ribbons; and sinister whiskery strangers smoking cigarettes round the corners of pillars. "Maybe it was accident, maybe Film-Flam is a professional diplomatic crook who dashes about from capital to capital and hopes for the best. Anyway, you've got to admit it was somebody who'd been in Washington and heard all about the indiscretion… Righto, then. He's abandoned the idea, but all the same he happens to be travelling aboard the same boat as Curt. If you looked at the passenger-list, Curt, would you recognise the name of anybody who'd been at your uncle's house that night?"

Warren shook his head.

"There were millions of 'em and I didn't know anybody. No, that won't work… But you mean this. You mean that this bird (after abandoning the idea) overhears that cable in the wireless-room, tumbles to it before I do, and takes a long chance on stealing it before I've got time to realise what I'm carrying?"

"He'd have to work fast, man. Otherwise, as soon as you knew you'd chuck it overboard. And here's another thing," crowed Morgan, stabbing his finger into his palm as the idea grew on him. "The field of search isn't as wide as you'd think at first. Again this is only a theory, but look here! — isn't this chap pretty sure to be somebody who has scraped an acquaintance with you already? I mean, if I were an international crook, even though I didn't think you were carrying that roll of film, I'm jolly certain I'd try to get into your good graces. As Uncle Warpus's favourite nephew, you'd be a valuable person to make friends with… Doesn't that sound reasonable?"

By this time they were all eagerly engrossed, in the business, floundering as they tried to stand or sit in the creaking cabin, and each playing with theories. Warren, who had produced paper cups and was pouring out drinks, stopped. He handed a cup carefully to Peggy Glenn before he spoke. Then he said:

"It's a funny thing you should say that…

"Well?"

"Aside from yourselves, I know very few people aboard this tub. The weather's been too bad, for one thing. But it's funny." He blew into a folding paper cup savagely to open it; then he looked up. "There were — let's see — there were five people in the wireless-room at the time my cable came through, aside from the operator and myself. There was

Captain Whistler, who was having some kind of whispered row with the operator; he walked out in a turkey-cock rage. There was a girl I hadn't seen before. Wash out the captain and that girl, and there were three men. One of 'em I didn't know; didn't notice him at all… But the last two are the only other people I do know. One was that fellow Woodcock, the travelling salesman for the bug-powder firm; and the other was Dr. Kyle, who sits at our table."

There was a hoot of derision from Peggy Glenn at the mention of the latter name. Even Morgan, whose profession of necessity made him doubly suspicious of any respectable person, inclined to agree with her. They had both heard of Dr. Kyle. He was one of the more resounding names in Harley Street — a noted brain specialist who had figured as alienist in several murder trials. Morgan remembered him at the table — a tall, lean, rather sardonic Scot, slovenly except for his well-brushed hair, with shrewd eyes under ragged brows whisking upwards at the outer corner, and two deep furrows running down his cheeks. To imagine this distinguished loony-doctor in the role of Film-Flam strained even Morgan's credulity. If he were given a choice in crooks, he would have preferred to fasten on the bouncing Mr. Charles Woodcock, commercial traveller for "Swat," the instant eradicator of insects. But, distinctly, Dr. Kyle must be counted out.

However, when he pointed out this difficulty to Warren, it seemed to make the American all the more certain Dr. Kyle was the culprit.

"Absolutely!" said Warren excitedly. "It's always people like that. Besides — suppose somebody's impersonating him? There's an idea for you! What better disguise would there be for an international crook than as the respectable head of a bughouse? Say, if we were to tax him with it— jump on him suddenly, you see—"

"You want to be shoved in the psychopathic ward?" demanded Morgan. "No, we can't do that; not with Kyle. Besides, it's nonsense! We've got to rule out Kyle, and get a good working plan… "

Captain Valvick shifted from one foot to the other.

"Excuse me," he suggested, with a sort of thunderous timidity, and beamed on them. "Ay got a idea, ay half."

"H'm!" said Morgan dubiously.

"Ay tell you," pursued the captain, peering round to be sure they were not overheard, "dis feller dat bat you one, he hass got only half de film, eh? Well, den, ay tell you what. He got only half de film; den maybe he iss going to come back, eh? So we stand watch and when he come back we say, 'Hey—!' "

"Yes, I know," interrupted Warren, with a gloomy air. "I'd thought of that, too, but it won't work. That's what always happens in the stories; but you can bet your last shirt this bird is too cagy for that. He knows I'm wise to him, he knows I'll take good care of that film; if I don't pitch the rest of it overboard right away. No, no. He won't take any risk like that."

For some time Peggy Glenn had been sitting silent, her chin cupped in her hands, studying the matter. Her glossy hair was tousled across her forehead, and now she suddenly looked up with such an expression of diabolical brightness and practicality that she almost crowed.

"You men," she said, rather scornfully—"you men— just messing about, that's all! Now you let me tell you what to do, and you'll have your film back to-night. Yes, I mean it. I fancy I've got an idea" — she struggled to conceal the pleasure that was making her tilt up her chin and grow as excited as Warren—"and it's a ripping idea! Whee! Listen. In a way, Captain Valvick is right. We've got to trap this chap into coming back for the rest of the film… "

Warren made a weary gesture, but she frowned him down.

"Will you listen to me? I tell you we can do it. Because why? Because we are the only people on the whole boat— we four — who know Curt was attacked and why he was attacked. Very well. We give it out publicly that we came in here and found Curt lying on the floor unconscious, dead to the world with a bad scalp wound. We have no suspicions that there was an attack or theft. We don't know how it happened; we suppose that he must have come in here drunk or something, and staggered about and finally fell and bashed himself over the head—"

Warren raised his eyebrows.

"Baby," he said with dignity, "it is not that I myself have any objection to the charming picture you have just described. But I only want to remind you that I am a member of the American Diplomatic Service. The Diplomatic Service, Baby. The rules laid down for the strictness of my behaviour would cause annoyance among the seraphim and start a riot in a waxworks. I dislike offering suggestions, but why don't you say that in the course of my customary morning opium debauch I went cuckoo and batted my head against the wall? My chief would like that fine."

"Oh, all right," she conceded primly, "if you must keep to your nasty old rules. Then — say you were ill or sea-sick; anyway, that it was an accident. Well, that you haven't recovered consciousness… "

Morgan whistled. "I begin to see this. Curt, I believe the wench has got something!"

"Yes," said Warren, "and in another minute I'm going to tell you what it is. Go on, Baby. Here, have another drink. After I am picked up insensible, what then?"

"Then," the girl continued, beaming excitedly, "we tell everybody you were taken to the infirmary, where you are still in a stupor. You see, if we tell it at the table it will go all about the boat. It's supposed to be an accident, so there'll be no investigation. In the meantime here will be the cabin, open and unguarded. Don't you think this crook will see his opportunity? Of course he will. He'll come back straightaway — and there you are."

She tossed up her head, her hazel eyes shining and her lower lip folded over the upper in defiant triumph. There was a silence.

"By God! it's good!" exploded Morgan, driving his fist into his palm. Even Warren was impressed; he sat like a thoughtful Indian prophet, staring at the paper cup, while Captain Valvick chuckled and Peggy said: "Hoo!" in a pleased tone. "But wait a bit," Morgan added, "what about the steward, the one you sent to tell us? He knows."

"Stewards never talk," the girl said wisely; "they know too much as it is. Make it certain with a good tip. Then you can go ahead… By the way, Curt, is the cabin next to this one vacant? That's where you want to hide and wait for him, if it is."

"Why not in here?"

"He'd see you straightaway, you silly! And you've got to catch him with the goods. It's no good saying, 'Cough up, you villain!' unless you can catch him dead to rights. He'd only say he'd got into the wrong cabin by mistake, and then where are you? He must have the film on his person— then," she added judicially, "I dare say you may land him one, dear, if you like."

"Ah-hh!" Warren breathed, and dreamily fingered a large fist. "Yes, Baby, the next cabin is unoccupied, as it happens. Tell you what. I'll install myself in there, and get the steward to bring me some dinner. Captain Valvick can keep watch with me. You two go down to dinner and spread the glad news. Then you can join us afterwards. We'll probably have a long wait. The ingredients for cocktails might not be out of place… "

"But we mustn't get drunk," said Miss Glenn, as though she were uttering a careful definition of terms.

"Oh, no!" said Warren vigorously. "Not at all. Of course not. Ha-ha! The idea is absurd. But look here, I wish we had more dope on our mysterious crook. If we could only find out something about him… " He frowned. "Wait a minute. I've got an idea. Captain, you know Captain Whistler pretty well, don't you?"

"Dat old barnacle?" inquired the other. "Coroo! Ay know him when he wass not so stuck up, you bet. He got a hawful temper, I tell you. De first time ay know him wass in Naples, when he come in wid de cargo-boat where de chief mate hass de religious mania and go crazy and t'ink he is Yesus." The breath whistled through Valvick's large moustache; his sandy eyebrows rose and he illustrated the drama. "De chief mate walk up on de bridge and fold his arms and say, 'Ay am Yesus.' De captain say, 'You are not Yesus.' De chief mate say, 'Ay am Yesus and you are Pontius Pilate,' and smack—he haul off and bust

Captain Whistler in de yaw, and dey got to put 'im in irons. Iss a fact. Ay t'ank of it w'en you say Dr. Kyle iss a mad doctor, because Captain Whistler don' like de people which go nutty. Anudder time—'

"Listen, old man," begged Warren. "Spare the Odyssey for a minute. If there were any big international crook aboard, or there were a rumour of it, Captain Whistler would be the one to know about it, wouldn't he? They'd wireless him, wouldn't they, even if he kept it under cover?"

Valvick massively lifted his head sideways and scratched his cheek.

"Ay dunno. It depend on wedder dey know it at de port. Maybe. You want me to hask him?"

"Well — not exactly. Sort of sound him out, you see? Don't let on you know anything. You might do it before dinner; and then we'd be all ready to keep watch."

The other nodded vigorously, and Warren looked at his watch. "Nearly time for the bugle to dress for dinner. We're all set, then?"

There was an enthusiastic chorus in the affirmative. For all these people had within them the true, glorious harebrained spirit of adventure; and Warren poured them a quick one as a toast to the new gamble as lights came on through the vibrating sleekness of white decks, and rain-squalls spattered the portholes, and the voice of a bugle began to brattle past state-room doors, and the stately Queen Victoria shouldered on towards the wild business that was to be.

4 — A Matter of Skulls

"But didn't you know it?" inquired Peggy Glenn, in her sweetest and most surprised tone.

Her voice was clear in the almost deserted dining-saloon, its lights winking against polished rosewood and its vast height wrenched with ghostly cracklings. The roof writhed in the fashion of tottering blocks; Morgan was not at all sure about that glass dome. To eat (or do nearly anything else) was a sporting performance in which you must look sharp for sudden rushes of the crockery from any corner of the table, from the snake-like dart of the water-glass to the majestic ground-swell of the gravy. Morgan felt like a nervous juggler. The dining-saloon would slowly surge up with an incredible balloon swell, climb higher, tilt, and plunge down from its height with a long-drawn roar of water that dislodged stewards from their pillars and made diners — clutching their chairs — feel a sudden dizziness in the pit of the stomach.

There were possibly a dozen people to stem a clattering avalanche of dishes and silver. In general, they were eating away grimly but cautiously, while a gallant orchestra attempted to play "The Student Prince." But none of this bothered Peggy Glenn. Suave in black velvet, with her black bobbed hair done into some sort of trick wave that lent a hoydenish air to her thin face, she sat at Captain Whistler's elbow and regarded him with naive surprise.

"But didn't you know it?" she repeated. "Of course Curtis can't help it, poor boy. It runs in the family, sort of. I mean, I shouldn't exactly call it insanity, of course… "

Morgan choked on a bit of fish and peered sideways at her. She appealed to him.

"I say, Hank, what was the name of that uncle of his Curt was telling us about? I mean the one who had the fits-and-gibbers or something in his sleep, or maybe it was claustrophobia, and used to give a terrific spring out of bed because he thought he was being strangled?"

Captain Whistler laid down his knife and fork. He had obviously been in an ill temper when he came to the table; but lie had concealed it under gruff amiability and absent-minded smiles. Wheeling round his chair he had announced that he must return to the bridge and could stay only for one course or two. Captain Whistler was stout and short of breath. He had protruding eyes of a pale brown colour, something like the hue of pickled onions, a ruddy face, and a large loose mouth which was always booming a professional and paternal "Ha-ha" to nervous old ladies. His gold braid blazed, and his short white hair stood up like the foam on a beer-glass.

Now he addressed Peggy with coy heartiness. "Come, come," he said in his best nursery manner, "and what is the little lady telling us now? Eh, my dear? Something about an accident to a friend of yours?"

"A dreadful accident," she assured him, looking round to make sure the dining-room would overhear. The only people at their own table were the captain, Dr. Kyle, Morgan, and herself; so she wanted to make sure. She described Warren's being picked up unconscious, with a wealth of graphic detail. "But, of course, poor boy, he isn't responsible for his actions when he gets into those fits… "

Captain Whistler looked concerned, and then rather alarmed. His fleshy face grew redder.

"Ah, hurrumph!" he said, clearing his throat. "Dear me! Dear me!" — it speaks much for the captain's social polish that he could sometimes force himself to say "Dear me!" — "Bad, bad, Miss Glenn! But there's nothing — ah — seriously wrong with him, is there?" He peered at her in gruff anxiety. "Is it maybe something in Dr. Kyle's line now?"

"Well, of course, I shouldn't like to say—"

"Have you known cases of the kind, Doctor?"

Kyle was not a man of many words. He was methodically disposing of grilled sole — a lean, long-faced figure with a bulging shirt-front, and traces of a thin smile had pulled down the furrows in his cheeks. He glanced at Peggy from under grizzled eyebrows, and then at Morgan. Morgan received the impression that he believed in Warren's lurid ailment about as much as he believed in the Loch Ness monster.

"Oh, yes," he replied in his heavy, meditative voice. "Not unknown. I've met it before." He looked hard at Peggy. "A mild case of legensis-pullibus, I should think. Patient'll recover."

In a harassed way Captain Whistler wiped his mouth with his napkin.

"But — ah — why wasn't I told of this?" he demanded. "I'm master here, and it's my right to be told of things like this… "

"I did tell you, Captain!" Peggy protested indignantly. "I've been sitting here the whole time telling you; I told you three times over before you understood. I say, what is worrying you?"

"Eh?" said the captain, jumping a little. "Worrying me? Rubbish, my dear! Rubbish! Ha-ha!"

"I mean, I hope we're not going to hit an iceberg or anything. That would be dreadful!" She regarded him with wide hazel eyes. "And, you know, they do say the captain of the Gigantic was drunk the night they hit the whale, and—"

"I am not drunk, madam," said Captain Whistler, his voice taking on a slight roar. "And I am not worried either. Rubbish!"

She seemed to have an inspiration. "Then I know what it is, poor dear! Of course. You're worried about poor Lord Sturton and all those valuable emeralds he's got with him… " Commiseratingly she looked at the chair which a very sea-sick peer had not yet occupied on the voyage. "And I don't blame you. I say, Hank, just fancy. Suppose there were a notorious criminal aboard — just suppose it, I mean — and this criminal had decided to pinch Lord Sturton's jewels. Wouldn't it be thrilling? Only not for poor Captain Whistler, of course; because he'd be responsible, wouldn't he?"

Under the table Morgan administered an unmannerly kick towards the shins of his beaming partner. His hps framed "Easy on!" But undoubtedly a number of diners had pricked up their ears.

"My dear young lady," said the captain, in an agitated voice, "for Go — ah — please kindly get that nonsense out of your pretty little head. Ha-ha! You'll alarm my passengers, you know; and I can't have that, can I? (Lower your voice, will you?) The idea's fantastic. Come, now!"

She was appealing. "Oh dear, have I said anything I shouldn't? I mean, I was only supposing, to sort of relieve the monotony; because it has been rather dull, you know, and there hasn't been anything really funny, dear Captain Whistler, since I saw you playing handball on the boat-deck. But if there were a notorious criminal on board, it would be exciting. And it might be anybody. It might be Hank. Or it might be Dr. Kyle — mightn't it?"

"Verra likely," agreed Dr. Kyle composedly, and went on dissecting fish.

"But if I did have anything on my mind," declared the captain, in heavy joviality, "it would be about your uncle, Miss Glenn. He's promised to give us a full-dress performance of his marionettes at the ship's concert. And that's to-morrow night, my dear. He mustn't be ill for that, you know. He and his assistant — ah — well, they're — they're improving, aren't they?" said the captain, his voice rising to a desperate bellow as he tried to divert her. "I have looked forward, I have hoped, I have waited for the — ah — pleasure, the supreme honour," yelled Captain Whistler, of being present at a performance. And now you really must excuse me. I mustn't forget my duties, even at the expense of your charming company. I must — er — go. Good night, my dear. Good night, gentlemen."

He rolled away. There was a silence. Of the diners left at roundabout tables, Morgan noticed swiftly, only three people glanced after him. There was the sharp-edged, bony, shock-haired face of Mr. Charles Woodcock, the commercial traveller, who peered out motionless with his soup-spoon poised above his mouth as though he were going to pose for a figure on a fountain. At another table some distance away Morgan saw a man and a woman— both thin and well-dressed, their pale faces looking curiously alike except that the woman wore a monocle and the man a floating blond moustache like a feather waving from his lip. They stared after the captain. Morgan did not know who they were, but he saw them every morning. They made endless circuits of the promenade-deck, in absolute silence walking rapidly, with their eyes fixed straight ahead. One morning, in dull fascination, Morgan had watched them make one hundred and sixty-four circuits without a word. At the hundred and sixty-fifth they had stopped; the man said, "Eh?" and the woman said, "Ah!" and then they both nodded and went inside. It had occurred to Morgan to speculate how their marital relations were conducted… Anyhow, they seemed to be interested in the movements of Captain Whistler.

"The captain," said Morgan, frowning, "seems to have something on his mind…";

"Verra likely," agreed Dr. Kyle composedly. "I'll have the tripe and onions, steward."

Peggy Glenn smiled at him. "But I say, Doctor, do you think there might be a mysterious master criminal aboard?"

"Why, I'll tell you," said the doctor, bending his head. His shrewd eyes were amused; under the ragged brows whisking upwards at the corners, and with the furrows deepening round his mouth, Morgan thought uncomfortably that he looked a little too much like Sherlock Holmes. "And I'll put in a word of warning gratis. You're a clever young lady, Miss Glenn. But don't pull Captain Whistler's leg too hard. He'd be a bad man to have on the wrong side of anybody. Please pass the salt."

The dining-saloon soared up on another swell, and tilted amid sour notes from the orchestra. "But, really," said Peggy, "I mean, it's perfectly true about poor old Curt… "

"Oh, ah!" said Dr. Kyle. "Was he sober?"

"Doctor," she told him, lowering her voice confidentially, "I hate to tell it, but he was terribly, terribly drunk, poor boy. I mean, it's all right to speak of these things to a medical man, isn't it? But I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, poor boy, when I saw…"

Morgan got her away from the table after a brief and telegraphic exchange of kicks. They navigated the big staircase and stood in a breezy, lurching hall upstairs while Morgan said things. But Peggy, her prim little face beaming, only chortled with pleasure. She said she must go to her cabin and get a wrap, if they were going to watch with the others; also that she ought to look in on her Uncle Jules.

"By the way," she said, doubtfully, "I don't suppose you'd care to be a Moorish warrior, would you?"

"Not particularly," said Morgan, with conviction. "Is this relevant to the issue?"

"All you'd have to do, you know, would be blacken your face and put on some gilt armour and shawls and things; and stand at one side of the stage with a spear while Uncle Jules speaks the prologue… I wonder if you're tall enough, though? I say, Captain Valvick would make a ripping Moorish warrior, wouldn't he?"

"Oh, unquestionably."

"You see, there have to be two extras, a French warrior and a Moor, who stand on either side of the stage for effect. The stage isn't high enough for them to be on it; they're outside, on a little platform… When the play begins they go backstage, and sometimes they help move the figures — the unimportant ones that have nothing to do. Only my uncle and Abdul (that's his assistant) move the chief figures; they're the only ones with speaking parts… I say, it would be simply awful if Uncle Jules can't play. There's a professor or somebody aboard who's written all kinds of articles about his art. Abdul's all right and he could take the main part in place of uncle. But I'm the only other one, and I couldn't very well say the men's lines, could I?"

They had gone down into a tangle of passages on D deck, and Peggy knocked at a door. In response to a spectral groan, she pushed the door open. The cabin was dark except for a faint light over the washstand. That scene— with the cabin twisting sideways, and rain slashing the porthole — gave Morgan a slight shiver. Two or three witless-looking dummies were sprawled against the bulkhead in a seated position, and swayed with the motion as though they were moving their heads in a horrible chorus. The straps and hooks for their wires rattled eerily; they were solid lumps about four and a half feet tall; they glittered with gilt armour, red cloaks, and gaudy jewelled accoutrements. Their faces, bearded formidably in dark wool, smirked from under spiked helmets. While they swayed, a powerful-looking man with a flattish dark face sat on the couch with another dummy across his knee. In the dim light he was mending the figures cloak with a long needle and blue thread. Occasionally he glanced towards the dark berth where something heavy was burrowing and groaning.

"Je meurs!" whispered a voice from the berth, dramatically. "Ah, mon Dieu, je meurs! Oooool Abdul, je t'implore…

Abdul shrugged, squinted at his needle, shrugged again, and spat on the floor. Peggy closed the door.

"He's no better," she said, unnecessarily, and they started back to the cabin where Warren was waiting. Morgan, in fact, was not eager for more than a glimpse into that cabin. Whether it was merely night and the rain in the middle of a shouting Atlantic, or merely that dull after-dinner feeling which is not dispelled on shipboard without bibulous hilarity, still he did not like the look of those smirking dummies. Moreover, such an irrelevant impression as that had given him another impression — of trouble ahead. There was no Q.E.D. about it, or even a rational subtlety. But he glanced round rather sharply when they reached the side passage that led to Warren's cabin.

It opened off a main corridor, and its short length contained two cabins on either side. Warren's was an end one on the left, beside a door opening out on C deck. It was dark, and the white-painted door was hooked open. Morgan knocked in the manner agreed on at the door beside it, and they slipped inside.

Only the light inside the lower berth was on. Warren sat gingerly on the edge of the berth. And he looked worried.

Morgan said sharply, but in a low voice, "Anything wrong?"

"Plenty," said the other. "Sit down and keep as quiet as you can. I think we've got a long time to wait, but you never can tell what this joker will be up to. Valvick's gone for some soda-water. And we're set now." He nodded towards the ventilator high in the wall, communicating with the next cabin. "If anybody goes in there, we can hear him in a second. Then we nab him. Moreover, I've got the hook on the door wedged so that, no matter how quiet he tries to be, he'll make a racket as loud as an alarm clock."

Warren paused, rubbing his jaw rather nervously and peering about the dim-lit state-room. He had discarded the towel round his head, but absorbent gauze and sticking-plaster along the back of the skull still made his dark hair stand up in a goblin-like way. The glow in the berth illumined one side of his face, and they could see a vein beating in his temple.

"Curt," said the girl, "what is wrong?"

"All hell, I'm afraid. Old Valvick went to see Captain Whistler before dinner… "

"Yes?"

"Well, I don't know how much in earnest you people were when we were sitting in there piling up theories about fancy crooks. But the impossible happened. We were right. There's a very badly wanted little joker aboard, and no joke about it. He's after old Sturton's emerald. And — he's a killer."

Morgan felt in the pit of his stomach an uneasy sensation which was partly the motion of the ship. He said:

"Are you serious, or is this—?"

"You bet I'm serious. So is Whistler. Valvick got the information from him, because Whistler badly needs advice. Old Valvick's story is pretty muddled; but that much is clear. Whistler wonders whether to keep it dark or broadcast the news to the ship. Valvick advised the latter: it's customary. But Whistler says this is a respectable boat, a family boat, and the rest of that stuff… "

Morgan whistled. Peggy went over and sat down beside Warren. She protested stoutly that it was nonsense and she didn't believe it.

"Who is he, Curt? What do they know about him?" she demanded.

"That's just it. Nobody seems to know, except that he's travelling under an alias. You remember, I told you this afternoon that when I was in the radio-room old Whistler seemed to be having a row with the wireless operator?… Well, that was it. He'd got a radiogram. Fortunately, Valvik had the sense to persuade Whistler to let him take a copy of it. Have a look."

From his inside pocket he took an envelope, on the back of which was sprawled in crooked handwriting:

Commander S.S. Queen Victoria, at sea. Suspect Man responsible for Stelly job in Washington and Mac-gee killing here sailed under alias your ship. Federal officer arriving to-night from Washington and will send fuller information. Look out for smooth customers and advise if any suspects.

Arnold, Commissioner N.Y.P.D.

"I don't know anything about this MacGee killing, whatever it is, in New York," Warren went on, "but I know a little about the Stelly business because it raised such a row and looked like magic. It was tied up with the British Embassy. Stelly seems to have been a pretty well-

known English jewel-cutter and appraiser……."

"Hold on!" said Morgan. "D'you mean that Bond Street fellow, the one who's always designing the necklaces for royalty and having pictures of his work in the newspapers?"

Warren grunted. "Probably. Because it seems he was staying in Washington, and the wife of the British ambassador asked him to reset or redesign a necklace for her. I don't know the details of it — nobody knows much about it. But he left the British Embassy with the necklace one night, as safe as you please, and about four hours later they found him somewhere out Connecticut Avenue way. He was sitting on the kerbstone with his back propped up against a street lamp, and the back of his head smashed in. He didn't die, but he'll be a paralysed moron for the rest of his life, and never speak a word. That seems to be a quaint habit of this joker. He doesn't exactly kill; but he has a knack of softening their heads ho that they're worse than dead…

"By the Lord!" said Warren, clenching and unclenching his hands, "I'm wondering whether that's what / nearly got in the other cabin, only the fellow missed his aim when the ship rolled."

There was a silence, made portentous by creaking bulkheads and the blustering roar outside.

"I say, Peggy," Morgan observed, thoughtfully, "you'd better get out of this, old girl. It isn't funny. Go up to the bar and entice some gullibles into a bridge game. If this basher comes along and tries to pinch the rest of the film, we'll let you know. Meantime—"

The girl said, with vehemence, "Bah! You can't scare mc. You are a cheerful lot, though. Why don't you start telling ghost stories? If you start off by being afraid of this chap—"

"Who's afraid of him?" shouted Warren. "Listen, Baby. I've got something to settle, I have. When I get at him—" Satirically he watched her jump a little when there was a knock at the door. Captain Valvick bearing two large siphons of soda-water, bent his head under the door and closed it behind him with a mysterious air.

Morgan always remembered the ensuing two hours (or possibly three) on account of the interminable game of Geography that was played to pass away the time. Captain Valvick — cheerfully twinkling, in no whit disturbed — insisted that they should turn out the light, hook the door partly open, and get enough light from the dim bulb in the passage. First he administered to each a hair-raising peg of whisky, which made them feel anew the excellence of the adventure; then he placed them in a weird circle on the floor, with the bottle in the middle like a camp fire; finally, he filled up the glasses again.

"Skoal!" said the captain, raising his glass in the dim light. "Ay tell you, diss iss de life. Coroosh! But ay got to feel bad about Captain Whistler. Ho-ho! Dat poor old barnacle iss near crazy, you bet, on account of de crook which like to steal de jewellery. He iss afraid diss crook going to rob de English duke, and he try to persuade de duke to let him lock up de hemereld helephant in de captain's safe. But dat duke only give him de bird. He say, 'It be safer wit' me dan in your safe, or wit' de purser or anybody.' De captain say no. De duke say yes. De captain say no. De duke say yes… "

"Look here, you can omit the element of suspense," said Morgan, taking another drink. "What did they decide?"

"Ay dunno yust what dey decide. But ay got to feel bad about dat poor old barnacle. Come on, now; we play Geography."

This game was trying, but in many senses lively. As the whisky diminished, it led to long and bitter arguments between Warren and the captain. The latter, when stumped for a place-name, would always introduce some such place as Ymorgenickenburg or the River Skoof, in Norway. Warren would heatedly cast slurs on his veracity. Then the captain would say he had an aunt living there. As this was not considered prima facie evidence, he would embark on a long and complicated anecdote about the relative in question, with accounts of such other members of his family as happened to occur to him. Morgan's watch ticked on, and the stir about the boat gradually died away into a roaring night, as they heard about the captain's brother, August, his Cousin Ole, his niece Gretta, and his grandfather who was a beadle. Footsteps went by in the main corridor, but none of them turned into the side passage. It was growing stuffy in the cabin…

"I–I think he probably won't come," Peggy whispered, reverting to the subject for the first, time. There was an uneasy hopefulness in the way she said it.

"It's hotter than hell in here," muttered Warren. Glassware rattled faintly. "I'm tired of the game, anyhow. I think—"

"Listen!" said Morgan.

He had scrambled up and was holding to the side of the berth. They all felt it — a terrific draught blowing through the passage outside, rattling the hooks of the doors, and they heard the deeper tumult of the sea boiling more loudly. The door to D deck had been pushed open.

But it did not close. They were all standing up now, waiting to hear the swish and slam of that door as it closed against the compressed-air valve. Those doors were heavy; and in a wind you dodged inside quickly. But for an interminable time something seemed to be holding it partly open, while the draught whistled. The Queen Victoria rose, pitched, and went over in a long roll to starboard, but still the door stayed open. It was impossible to distinguish smaller noises above the crazy wickerwork creaking, but yet Morgan had an eerie sense that the door did not close because it could not; that there was something caught there, trapped in a snare and in pain, between the black sea and warm security inside.

They heard a moan. A faint voice seemed to be muttering something, muttering and repeating thinly in the passage. "Warren!" they thought it said. And again, "Warren…." until it died off in pain.

5 — Enter the Emerald Elephant

Morgan almost pitched head foremost into the wardrobe as his clumsy fingers fumbled at the hook on the door. He righted himself, squeezed outside, and called to Valvick to follow.

There was something caught there. It was small and broken-looking, snapped between the jamb and the heavy door — a woman fallen forward across a sill six inches high. She wore no hat, and her dishevelled brown hair, which had tumbled down along one side, blew wildly in the draught. They could not see her face. Her hands, flung forward out of the sleeves of a green, fur-edged coat, were groping in weak movements — horribly, as though she were tapping at the keys of a piano. The head and body rolled with the ship. As they did, a splashing of blood ran thinly along the rubber matting of the floor.

With his shoulder, Morgan forced the door wide while Captain Valvick picked the woman up. Then the door boomed shut once more with a cessation of draught that made them shiver.

"Dat blood," said Valvick, suddenly, in a low voice. "Look! It iss from her nose. She been hit on de back off de head… "

Her head lay limply in the crook of the captain's arm; and he moved his arm as though with a notion he must not touch her there. She was a sturdy, wiry girl with thick eyebrows and long lashes — not unattractive under a pallor that made her rouge stand out, but with one of those straight Greek-coin faces which have a look of heaviness rather than beauty. Her throat quivered as the head lolled over. Breathing raspingly, with eyes squeezed shut, she seemed to be trying to move her lips.

"In here," Warren's voice said in a whisper from the door of the dark cabin. They carried her in, a trembling

Peggy making way for them, laid her down on the berth, and switched on the dim lamp inside. Morgan closed the door.

Peggy was very pale, but with some sudden mechanical Impulse she seized a towel off the rack and wiped the blood from the nose and mouth of the inert girl.

"Who — who is she? What—?"

"Get some whisky," said the captain, curtly. Blinking his pale blue eyes, he puffed slowly through his moustache; there was a scowl on his face as he ran one finger along the base of the woman's skull. "Ay dunno, but she may be hurt bad. Ha! Turn her on de side, and you wet de cloths. Ay haff to know somet'ing of what de doctor know because dere is no doctor on de cargo-boat… Ha! Maybe—"

"I've seen her before," said Warren. He steadily poured out whisky and put it to the girl's lips as the captain eased up her head. "Hold it… I'll see if I can force her teeth apart. Damn it! she's jerking like a mule… She was the girl in the wireless-room this afternoon, the one who was there when I got my cable. You think her skull's fractured?"

"She might—" Peggy observed, in a small voice—"she might have fallen—"

"Haaaah!" growled the captain, jerking his neck. "She fall like Mr. Warren fall in de next cabin, you bet." His fingers were still exploring; his face looked heavy and puzzled. "Ho! Ay dunn, but ay don't t'ink she got de skull fractured; don't feel like it. See, it pain her when ay feel, eh? And dat iss not de way dey act if dey are bad 'urt… " He drew a wheezing breath. "Try de whisky again. So."

"I'll swear I heard her saying my name," Warren whispered," "Got those wet towels, Hank? Put 'em on. Come on — er — ma'am" he said, with a kind of wild, coaxing note, "take some of this liquor… Up you go!… Come on!"

His face wore a rather weird encouraging smile as he clicked the glass against her locked teeth. A shudder went over the white face. The Queen Victoria pitched down in \ a long foam of water, diving with such a deeper cyclone plunge that it flung them all against the forward bulkhead, and they could feel the thick shaking as the propellers beat out of water. But they could hear something else also. It had been done softly, with little draught and no slam whatever, but the door to D deck had again been opened and closed.

They were silent amid the rattling of the cabin. Warren, who had been cursing in a whisper when the contents of the glass splashed wide, turned round sharply. His face, under the wild goblin hair, wore a look of triumphant malevolence. Clinging to furniture, they waited…

Somebody was trying the latch-hook of the cabin next door.

There was an elaborate pantomime of communication. Morgan's lips elaborately writhed to frame, "Let him get inside," as he jerked his thumb at the next cabin. Valvick and Warren nodded; they were all making fierce gestures, and nodding to one another, and trying to reach the passage-door without sprawling full-length. Warren glared at Peggy, and his lips formed, "You stay here," as he pointed at the girl in the berth and then savagely stabbed his finger at the floor. Giving him an answering glare, she folded over her under-lip mutinously and shook her head until the hair obscured her eyes. He repeated his order, first pleadingly and then with a graphic pantomime of somebody being strangled. Rearing out of the trough, the ship was climbing again on a steep upward slant…

The light in the next room was switched on…

Here on the floor, the whisky-bottle was rolling and bumping wildly. Captain Valvick made a dart for it, as a man chases his hat in a gale. The pantomime still went on, grotesque against the dim light in the berth, where that pale-faced figure was twisting…

The door of the next cabin slammed.

Whether or not it was the wind, they could not tell. Warren tore open the door of his state-room, the sticking-plaster on his head going before like a banner, and lurched into the passage. Plunging out after Valvick's big figure, Morgan seized the handrail in the passage just in time to steady himself as the ship plunged once more. The door opening out on C deck was closing again.

Either he had been too quick for them or he had been frightened away. With a rather satiric wink, the rubber edging of the door caught and contracted; the gilt piston closed softly. Over the tortured wrenching and bone-cracking of the woodwork, when the whole ship seemed to be heeling over down a colossal chute, Warren let out a howl and charged for the door. The inrush of wind smashed over them as he got it open; they were whirled sideways in the trough of the wave, and the wind carried away something Captain Valvick was crying, about "be careful," and "hold de rail," and "close to water line."

The spray took Morgan in the face as he clambered out into darkness. Between spray and bellowing wind, he was momentarily blind. The wind cut through him with paralysing chill, and his foot slipped on the wet iron plates. A whistle and drumming went by in the halloo of the blast. A few lights from high up in the ship gleamed out across a darkness shot with ghostly white. The lights shone on creaming white flickers; on a curl of grey-black swell that shone like grained wood, and then a mist of spray as the wet deck tilted sickeningly and the crash of water rose high in a spectral mane. Morgan seized at the bulkhead rail, steadied himself, and shaded his eyes.

They were on the windward side. D deck was long, rather narrow, and very dimly lighted. He saw it go up before them on the rise — and he saw their man. A little way ahead, not holding to the rail, but, head down, a figure was hurrying towards the bows. Even in the dull yellow flicker in the roof they could see that this figure carried something under its arm. And this was a circular black box, flattish, and about ten inches in diameter…

"Steady, boys!" said Warren, exultantly, and flapped against the rail. "Steady, boys! Here we go down again. Hang on!" He stabbed his finger ahead. "And there's the son-of-a—"

The rest of the sentence was lost, although he seemed to keep on speaking. They were after him. Far ahead,

Morgan could see the lamp on the tall foremast swing up, rear, and swerve like a diver. He thought (and thinks to this day) that they did not so much run down that deck as hook their elbows to the rail and sail down it like a stupendous water-chute. They were going so fast, in fact, that he wondered whether they could stop in time, or whether they would go straight at the big enclosure of glass that protected the fore part of the deck from the wind's full violence. Their quarry heard them now. He had reached the turn of the deck by the glass enclosure when he heard the clatter of pursuit; he was almost in darkness, and he whirled round towards them. Juggled on flying water, the liner crested another rise…

"Haaa!" screamed Warren, and charged.

To say that Warren hit the man would be a powerful understatement. Morgan afterwards wondered why that crack did not jar the other's head loose from his spine. Warren landed on his quarry's jaw, with the weight of his own thirteen stone and the catapult-start of the Atlantic Ocean behind. It was the most terrific, reverberating smack since Mr. William Henry Harrison Dempsey pasted Mr. Luis Angel Firpo clean over the ropes into the newspapermen's laps; and it is to be recorded that, when the other hit the glass enclosure, he bounced. Warren did not afterwards even give him time to fall. "You'll go around smacking people with a blackjack, will you?" he demanded — a purely rhetorical question. "You'll come into a guy's cabin, hey! and crack him one with a lead pipe? Oh, you will, will you?" inquired Mr. Warren, and waded in.

Both Captain Vavick and Morgan, who had been ready to lend assistance, clutched the rail and stared. The circular tin box slid from the victim's arms, clattered on the deck, and rolled. Valvick caught it as the deck was carrying it overboard.

"Yumping Yudas!" said the captain, his eyeballs bulging. "Ho! Hey! Go easy! Ay t'ank you going to kill him if you keep on…"

"Whee!" said a voice behind them. "Darling! Sock him again!"

Reeling, Morgan turned round to see Peggy Glenn, without hat or coat, capering in the middle of the spray-drenched deck. Her hair was blowing wildly, and she beamed as she spun to keep her footing. She had the whisky-bottle in one hand ("in case somebody needed it," as she afterwards explained), and she was waving it, encouragingly.

"You blasted little fool," yelled Morgan, "go back!" He seized her arm and dragged her to the inside rail, but she broke loose and stuck out her tongue at him. "Go back, I tell you! Here, take this—" he got the tin box from Valvick, and thrust it into her hands—"take this and go back. We'll be there. It's all over… "

It was, and had been for some seconds. By the time she was persuaded to work her way back some distance. Warren had arranged his tie, smoothed the hair over his sticking-plaster, and come up to them with the deprecating air of a person who regrets having caused a fuss.

"Well, boys," he said, "I feel a little better. Now we can examine this blackjacker-user and see if he's carrying the first part of the film on him. If not, we can easily find out his cabin." He drew a deep breath. A high wave careered, swung and broke close to the deck, drenching him; but he only adjusted his tie and wiped the water from his eyes in a negligent fashion. He was beaming. "This isn't a bad night's work. As a member of the Diplomatic Service, I feel that I have earned considerable thanks from Uncle Warpus, and — What the devil's the matter with—!"

The girl had screamed. Even with the sea noises, it went up shrill and thin above them, paralysing on the darkened liner.

Morgan whirled round. She had taken the lid off the tin box, and Morgan noted in fascinated horror that the lid had a hasp and a hinge, which he did not remember having seen… Holding tight to the rail, he wove his way to where the girl, under a sickly electric bulb, was holding the box out and staring into it.

"Coroosh!" said Captain Valvick.

The box was not tin; it was thin steel. Inside, it was padded and lined with gleaming white satin. Bedded into a depression in the middle was a glow of green brilliancy which shifted and burned under the moving light. There were two rubies for eyes in the exquisitely carven thing; a piece of subtle Persian workmanship somewhat larger than a Vesta matchbox, and wound with gold links into a pendant.

"Hold it!" shouted Morgan, as a jerk of the deck nearly carried the box overboard. He clutched it in. Wet splashes flashed out on the satin… "Thought," he yelled, "gone overboard… "

He swallowed hard, and a nauseating suspicion struck him as he peered over his shoulder.

"By the Lord! had he pinched the emerald elephant?" demanded Warren. "Look here; we did better than we knew. Getting this back — ha! Why old Sturton'll — What's the matter with you all? What are you thinking about?" His eyes suddenly widened. They all stared at one another under the wild screaming of the night. "Look!" muttered Warren, swallowing hard. "That is, you don't think— hurrum?"

Captain Valvick groped his way down to where a stout mass in a waterproof, dead to the world, was wedged into an angle of the glass enclosure. Bending down, and sheltered by the enclosure, they saw the spurt of a match.

"Oh, Yesus!" said the captain, in an awed voice. He got up. He pushed back his cap and scratched his head. When he came back to them his leathery face had a queer, wrinkled, wryly amused expression, and his voice was matter-of-fact.

"Ay t'ank," he observed, scratching his head again— "ay t'ank we haf made a mistake. Ay t'ank we are in one most hawful yam. Ay t'ank de man you haff busted in de yaw is Captain Whistler."

6 — The Missing Body

Morgan reeled, in a more than merely literal sense. Then he recovered himself, after a long silence in which everybody stared at everybody else. He hooked his arms in the rail and took a meditative survey of the deck. He cleared his throat.

"Well, well!" he said.

Captain Valvick suddenly chuckled, and then let out thunderous guffaws. He doubled up his shoulders, shook, writhed in unholy fashion, and there were tears in those honest old eyes as he leaned against the rail. Warren joined him; Warren could not help it. They chortled, they yowled, they slapped one another on the back and roared. Morgan eyed them in some disapproval.

"Not for the world," he observed, in a thoughtful yell, "would I care to be a spirit of Stygian gloom upon the innocent mirth and jollity of this occasion. Go on and gather rosebuds, you fatheads. But certain facts remain for our consideration. I am not thoroughly familiar with maritime law. Beyond the obvious fact that we have compounded and executed a felony, I am therefore not fully aware of the exact extent of our offence. But I have my suspicions, gentlemen. It would strike me that any seagoing passenger who wilfully up and busts the captain in the eye, or is found guilty of conniving at the same, will probably spend the rest of his life in clink… Peggy, my dear, hand me that bottle. I need a drink."

The girl's lips were twitching with unholy mirth, but she put the steel box under her arm and obediently handed over the whisky. Morgan sampled it. He sampled it again. He had sampled it a third time before Warren got his face straight.

"It's aaal-ri-whooooosh!" roared Warren, doubling up again. "It's all riii-whi-choosh! I mean, wha-keeeee! It's all right, old man. You people go on back to the cabin and sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I'll throw some water over the old walrus and confess to him. Huh-huh-huh!" His shoulders heaved; he swallowed and straightened up. "I pasted him. So I'll have to tell him… "

"Don't be a howling ass," said Morgan. "You'll tell him what?"

"Why, that—" said the other, and stopped.

"Exactly," said Morgan. "I defy anybody's ingenuity to invent a reasonable lie as to why you came roaring out of your cabin, Slid down sixty yards of deck, and bounced the captain of the Queen Victoria all over his own deck. And, when that walrus comes to, my boy, he's going to be WILD. If you tell him the truth, then the fat's in the fire and you've got to explain about Uncle Warpus — not that he'd probably believe you, anyway… "

"Um," said Warren, uneasily. "But, say what do you suppose did happen, anyway? Hell! I thought I was hitting the fellow who tried to break into my cabin… "

Morgan handed him the bottle. "It was his captainly solicitude, my lad. Peggy told him all about your accident at dinner. Now that I come to think of it, what she neglected to tell him was that you were supposedly taken to the infirmary. So he came to call on the wreck… "

"After—" shouted Captain Valvick excitedly—"after he hass persuaded de English duke to give him dat hemerald helephant, and he take it wit' him to put in de safe… "'

"Exactly. He glanced in your cabin, saw you weren't there, went out, and—bang " Morgan reflected. "Besides, my lad, there's another good reason why you can't confess. The one thing we'll be forced to report to him is that girl — the one in the cabin now — with a crack over the back of the head. You'll certainly be for it if you admit slugging the captain. To our friend Whistler's forthright intelligence, the explanation would be simple. If one of your simple pleasures is to go about assaulting the skippers of ocean liners, then you would consider beaning his lady-passengers with a blackjack as only a kind of warm-lng-up exercise. Especially as — Holy Mike!" Morgan Mopped, stared, and then seized the rail again as the ship roared down. "Now that I remember it, our good Peggy Informed the captain at dinner that she was afraid you suffered from bats in the belfry… "

"Oooo, I never did!" cried the girl, and undoubtedly believed it. "All I said was—"

"Never mind, Baby," said Warren, soothingly. "The point is, what's to be done? We can't stand here arguing, mid we're soaked to the skin. I'm pretty sure the old whatnot didn't recognise me, or any of us… "

"You're positive of that?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, then," said Morgan, with a breath of relief, "the only thing to do is to shove the box inside his coat and leave him where he is. Every second we stay here we're in danger of being spotted, and then — whaa! I — er — don't suppose there's any danger of his rolling overboard, is there?" he added, doubtfully.

"Noooo, not a chance!" Captain Valvick assured him, with cheerful scorn. "He be all right where he iss. Ay fold him up against de bulkhead, Ha-ha-ha! Giff me de box, Miss Glenn. Ah, you shiver! You should not haf come out wi'out de coat. Now you giff me de box and go back where it iss warm. Dere iss not'ing to be afraid of now, because we haf—"

"Captain Whistler, sir!" cried a voice, almost directly above their heads.

Morgan's heart executed a somersault over a couple of rowdy lungs. He stared at the others, who were stricken silent, and stayed motionless without daring to look up. The voice seemed to have come from the top of the companion-way to B deck, near which Warren and Valvick were standing. They were in shadow, but Morgan feared the worst. He glanced at Peggy, who was petrified, and who held the steel box like a bomb. He saw what was passing in her mind. She looked at the rail, as though she had a wild impulse to toss the box overboard, and he gestured a savage negative. Morgan felt something knocking at his ribs…

"Captain Whistler, sir!" repeated the voice, more loudly. The sea battered back in answer. "I could've sworn," the voice continued, in tones which Morgan recognised as belonging to the second officer, "I heard something down there. What's happened to the old man, anyway? He said he'd be up… " The rest of it was lost in the gale, until a second voice — it sounded like the ship's doctor — said:

"It sounded like a woman. I say, you don't suppose the old man's up to any funny business with the ladies, do you? Shall we go down?"

Feet scuffled on the iron companion-ladder, but the second officer said: "Never mind. It might've been imagination. We'll—"

And then, to the horror of the little group by the glass enclosure, the captain's corpse sat up.

"!!!!³^¹/2&£!?!??⁰???" roared Captain Whistler-weakly it is true, and huskily, but with gathering volume as his sticky wits ceased to whirl."!&£&/£/!" He gasped, he blinked, and then, as the full realisation smote him, he lifted shaking arms to heaven and set soaring his soul in one hoarse blast: "M!!&/£—!!?????&—&£/!!/?%³/4Vsll Thieves! Murderers! Help!"

"That's torn it," breathed Morgan, in a fierce whisper. "Quick! There's only one… What are you doing?" he demanded, and stared at Peggy Glenn.

After saying, "Eiee!" the girl did not hesitate. Just behind her there was the porthole to somebody's cabin, open and fastened back. As the obliging boat rolled over to assist her aim, she flung the steel box inside. It was a dark cabin, and they heard the box bump down. Without looking at the others, who were staring aghast, she had turned to run, when Morgan caught her arm…

"Gawd lummy!" said the ghostly voice from the top of the companionway, as though it were coming out of a trance, "that's the old man! Come on!"

Morgan was shooing his charges before him like chickens. He spoke so fast, under cover of the crashing swell, that he wondered if they heard him: "Don't try to run, you fatheads, or Whistler'll see you! He's still groggy… Stick in the shadow, make a lot of noise with your feet as though you'd heard him and were running to help! Say something! Talk! Run about in circles… "

It was an old detective-story trick, and he hoped it would work. Certainly their response was magnificent. To Captain Whistler, opening gummy eyes as he sat on the deck, it must have seemed that he was being rescued by a regiment of cavalry. The din was staggering especially Captain Valvick's realistic impersonation of a horse starting from far away and growing louder and more thunderous as it galloped near. Morgan's stout-hearted trio also cut the gale with such cries as, "What is it?" "What's wrong?" "Who's hurt?" They had timed themselves to spin round the forward bulkhead just as the second officer and the doctor came pelting up, their waterproofs swishing and the gilt ensigns on their caps gleaming out of the murk. There was silence while everybody clung to what was convenient, and several moments of hard breathing. The second officer, bending down, snapped on his flashlight. One good eye — undamaged, although the pickled-onion blaze of its pupil was distended horribly — one good eye smouldered and glared back at them out of a face which resembled a powerful piece of futurist painting. Captain Whistler was breathing hard. Morgan thought of the Cyclops, and also of incipient apoplexy. Captain Whistler sat on the wet deck, supporting himself with his hands behind him, and his cap was pushed back over his short white hair. He did not say anything. He was incapable, at that moment, of saying anything. He only breathed.

"Gor!" whispered the second officer.

There was another silence. Without removing his gaze from that terrifying face, the second officer beckoned behind him to the doctor. "I — er—" he faltered; "that is, what happened, sir?"

A certain terrible spasm and shiver twitched over the captain's face and chest, as though a volcano were trembling at its crust. But he still said nothing, and continued to wheeze noisily. His Cyclopean eye remained fixed.

"Come on, sir!" urged the second officer. "Let me help you up. You'll — er — catch cold. What happened?" he demanded, bewilderedly, turning to Morgan. "We heard—"

"So did we," agreed Morgan, "and came running when you did. I don't know what happened to him. He must have fallen off the bridge or something."

Among the dusky figures Peggy pressed forward. "It is Captain Whistler!" she wailed. "Oh, the poor dear! This is awful! Whatever can have happened to him? I say—" She seemed to have a shocking presentiment. Although she lowered her voice, there was only a hissing recoil of waters on the rise, and her shocked whisper to Warren carried clearly. "I say, I hope the poor man hasn't been drinking, has he?"

"What's that Tattling on the deck?" demanded Warren, who was peering about him in the gloom. Following his glance, the uneasy second officer directed the beam of the flashlight down on the deck…

"I–I do believe it's a whisky-bottle," said Peggy, earnestly contemplating the object that rolled there. "And — er — it seems to be empty. Oh, poor man!"

Morgan looked at her over his misted spectacles. A fair-minded person, he was bound to consider that this was laying it on a bit thick. Besides, he was momentarily afraid that Captain Whistler might have an apoplectic stroke. There were even richer hues blooming in the Cyclopean-eyed face; there were gurglings and rattlings and mysterious internal combustions which apparently defied nature. The second officer coughed.

"Come along, sir," he urged, soothingly. "Let me help you up, now. Then the doctor can—"

Captain Whistler found his voice.

"I will not get up!" he roared, gasping. "I am perfectly sober!" But so violent was the steam pressure that it even blocked the escape-valve; he could only gurgle insanely, and the pain of his swollen jaw made him grimace and stop, clapping a hand to it. Yet one thought remained burning. "That bottle — that bottle. That's what they hit me with. I am perfectly sober, I tell you. That's what they hit me with. There were three of 'em. Giants. They all jumped on me at once. And — my elephant. O, my God! what's happened to my elephant?" he demanded, galvanised suddenly. "They stole my elephant!

Don't stand there like a dummy, damn you! Do something. Look for it. Find that elephant or, strike me blind? I'll have the ticket of every crimson immoral landlubber on this… "

There is no discipline like that of the British merchant service. The second officer stiffened and saluted. His not to reason why.

"Very good, sir. A search shall be instituted immediately, sir. It cannot have got far. In the meantime," he continued crisply, and turned to the others with a jealous safeguarding of the captain's reputation, "while the hunt for the commander's elephant is in progress, it is his instructions that all of you go below. Captain Whistler feels that it will be unnecessary for any of his guests to mention what has occurred to-night… Let me help you up, sir."

"Sure thing," said Warren affably. "You can trust us. We'll keep quiet. If there's anything we can do—"

"But do you really think it's safe?" Peggy asked the second officer in some anxiety. "I mean, poor man, suppose he sees the elephant sitting up on top of the smokestack or something, making faces at him, and orders one of you to go and coax it down…

"Smell my breath!" cried the captain passionately. "Smell my breath, blast you; that's all I ask. I tell you I have not taken one single scarlet drink since five o'clock this evening."

"Look here," said the ship's doctor, who had been kneeling beside the anguished commander, "you people be sensible. He's not — upset. He's quite all right, Baldwin. There's something very queer going on here. Steady on, sir; we'll have you feeling top-notch in a moment… We can get you up to your room without anybody seeing you, you know… No?" Evidently Captain whistler's soul shrank from encountering passengers or crew at that instant. "Well, then, there's a recess forward here on the leeward side, with some tables and chairs. If Mr. Baldwin will hold the flashlight I've got my bag… "

This, Morgan felt, was the psychological moment for a retreat. The real object in remaining so long had been to ascertain definitely whether Captain Whistler had recognised his assailant. And it seemed they were safe. But he felt that suspicion was growing in the air. The doctor's sharp words had roused the first officer, who now seemed uneasy, and glanced several times at them. Doctor and officer were hoisting up their commander…

"Wait a minute!" shouted Whistler, as there began to be a general melting-away of spectators. The good eye glared. "Hold on, there, you, whoever you are! You thought I was drunk, did you? Well, I'll show you! I want to ask you a lot of questions in a very few minutes. Stop where you are. I'll show you how drunk—"

"But look here, Captain," protested Warren, "we're wet through! We'll stay, if you like, but let this young lady go back to her cabin — to get a coat, anyway. She hasn't got a coat! There's no reason why she should stay, is there? None of us can run away and—"

"You'll tell me what to do, will you?" said the captain, his chest swelling. "You'll give orders aboard my ship, will you? Haa! Strike me blind! There! Now just for that, my lad, you'll all stop exactly where you are; you won't move as much as a fraction of an inch from where you are, or sink me! I'll put the whole crew of you under arrest! Sink me! I'll put everybody under arrest, that's what I'll do. And when I find the so-and-so who hit me with a bottle and stole that emerald—"

"Don't!" Morgan said to Warren in a fierce whisper, as he saw the other lowering his head curiously and shutting up one eye as he regarded Captain Whistler, "for the love of God don't say anything, Curt! In another minute he'll be making us walk the plank. Steady."

"You won't move," pursued Captain Whistler wildly, lifting up his hands, squinting at them, and holding them a fraction of an inch apart before his face, "you won't move so much as that distance from where you are. You won't even move that far. You won't stir. You won't— Who was that who spoke?" he broke off to demand. "Who's there anyway? Who are you? What was that about a coat? Who had the nerve to ask me something about a blasted coat, eh?"

"My name's Warren, Captain. Curtis Warren. You know me. I hope you don't think I'm the crook you're after?"

Whistler stopped, stared, and seemed tumultuously to reflect.

"Ah!" he said in a curious tone. "Warren, hey? Warren. Well, well! And who is with you?" When three voices spoke up simultaneously he took on a grim but rather nervous tone. "Stay where you are now! Don't move… Mr. Baldwin, you watch them. I mean, watch him. You've been wandering round the boat, have you, Mr. Warren? And what's that on your head? Come into the light. Sticking plaster. Oh, yes. You hurt your head… "

Warren made a gesture. "Yes, I did. And that's what I want to tell you. If you won't let us go, at least send somebody back to my cabin. Send the doctor, you old fool! You're all right. Send the doctor, I tell you. There's a young girl back there — unconscious — maybe dead — I don't know. Have some sense, can't you? She's been hit over the head and knocked unconscious… "

"What?"

"Yes. Somebody cracked her over the head and then—"

Between them, the doctor and the second officer got the captain away to a sheltered recess, where he did not stop talking. He would hear of nothing, not a step or a movement. He insisted that the four conspirators should remain within reach of the eye of Mr. Baldwin, who was holding up the flashlight for the repair-work. So they huddled against a glass front that was stung with whips of rain; Warren took off his coat and wrapped it round the girl, and they took whispered communion.

"Listen," said Morgan, peering over his shoulder to make sure they were out of earshot. "We're going to be jolly lucky if we don't get shoved in the brig. Scuttle my hatches, the old man's raving. He's insane, and you don't want to cross him. What fathead dropped that whisky-bottle beside him, anyway?"

"Ay did," replied Captain Valvick, thumping his chest. He beamed proudly. "Ay t'ank dat was a touch of yenius, eh? What iss wrong? Dere wass no more whisky in it, honest. Eh, eh; you t'ink dere be fingerprints on it, maybe?"

Warren frowned and ran a hand through his goblin hair. "Say, Hank," he muttered uneasily, "that's an idea. If it occurs to the old boy… And there's another thing. Baby, what possessed you to fire that box through the porthole of somebody's cabin?"

She was indignant. "Well, I like that! With those officers coming down on us — you didn't want me to chuck it overboard, did you? Besides, I think it was a splendid idea. It can't be blamed on us, and it won't be blamed on anybody else. I don't know whose cabin that was. But there'll be a hunt for the box. And then whoever has the cabin will wake up to-morrow morning and find it on the floor; then he'll take it to the captain and explain it was thrown through the porthole, and there you are."

"Well," said Warren, drawing a deep breath, "all I can say is that we had a piece of luck. I tell you, I damn near died when you did that. I had visions of somebody sticking his head out the porthole just as those officers were coming up, and saying, 'Hey, what's the idea of throwing things through my window?' "

He brooded, staring out through the glass at the murky night ahead, dimly luminous from the glow above on the bridge; at the sharp bows shouldering up ill mist; at the white torrent that poured, swirled, and fell away round stubborn winches. From far above smote the clang of the liner's bell—one-two, one-two, one-two—that is the drowsiest of sea noises by night. The wind had a flat whine now; it was dying, and rain had ceased to tick on the glass. Stately as a galleon, the tall foremast rose, swung, and tilted as the bows smashed down again into a fan of spray…

Warren glared straight ahead.

"I've let you people in for all this," he said in a low voice. "I'm — I'm damned sorry."

"Dat iss de bunk, son," said Captain Valvick. "Ay ain't had so much fun in a long time. De only t'ing, we got to agree on a story dat we are all going to tell… "

"I got you into this," continued Warren doggedly, "and I'm going to get you out. Don't worry about that. You let mc do the talking, and I'll convince him. There's nothing wrong with my diplomatic talents. I very, very seldom go off half-Cocked" — Morgan coughed but the other obviously believed what he was saying, so nobody spoke—"and I'll fix it. All that burns me up—" declared Warren, lifting a heavy fist high and bringing it down on the rail—"all that makes me burn and sizzle with bright murderous flames is that there really is a lousy, low-down, black-jack-using crook aboard this tub, and he's giving us the merry horse laugh right now. Goroo! This was made to order for him. And I'm mad now. I'm good and mad. I'll catch him. I'll get him, if it's the last thing I ever do, and if I have to sit up every night and wait for him to come after that fi—"

He stopped, stiffening, as an idea struck him. Slowly he turned round a lean, hollow-eyed, startled face.

"Film!" he said, clutching at the ends of his spiked hair. "Film! In my cabin. The rest of it. Unguarded! The rest of poor old Uncle Warpus's speech, and he's probably pinching it right now…"

Before anybody could stop him, he had whirled round and was stumbling back towards his cabin along the slippery deck.

"Curt!" said Morgan, with a groan which ended deep in his stomach. "Listen! Hey! Come back! The captain—"

Over his shoulder Warren called out a suggested course of action for the captain. Whistler was out of his alcove at a bound and trumpeting. He shouted to the second officer to follow; then he stood and gibbered while Baldwin pursued the flying shirt-sleeved figure down the deck. Warren got inside the door, and Baldwin after him. In vain stout Valvick attempted to pacify his fellow skipper. Captain Whistler, imprimis, objected to being addressed as "barnacle," and described horrible surgical tortures he would like to perform.»He was in no better mood when presently Warren, with Second-Officer Baldwin keeping a firm grip on his arm, emerged from the door. Warren seemed to be expostulating as they skidded back down the deck.

"But haven't you got any heart?** he demanded. "All I ask you to do, one little thing, is go into that next cabin and see whether that poor girl is alive — whether she needs help — whether — Or let me go. But no. I've got a good mind," said Warren, closing one first with a meditative air, "to—"

"What was he up to?" Whistler demanded eagerly, as the culprit was led up "Why did he bolt?"

A very harassed-looking Baldwin regarded Warren in some uneasiness.

"I don't know, sir. He rushed in 'is own cabin, and when I got there he was kneeling on the floor throwing motion-picture films over his shoulder and saying, 'Gone! Gone!' "

"Yes," agreed Warren. Wryly he shook his head as he glanced from Peggy to Morgan. "The little joker's been there in the meantime. He's swiped it all right."

"What is gone, young man?" inquired Captain Whistler.

A little of the first shock of rage had gone from him. He was still in a thrice-dangerous mood, but the insult of the attack had been partly put aside in favour of appalling reflections as to its consequences. Evidently what bulked large in the captain's rather small brain, larger than whisky-bottles or upper-cuts, was the fact that an emerald trinket worth fifty thousand pounds had been stolen while in his possession. And Lord Sturton had a crusty reputation. Captain Whistler savagely waved aside the doctor, who had not yet completed his ministrations. A few strips of sticking-plaster lent an even subtler Cezanne touch to his purple countenance; he narrowed his good right eye, squared his shoulders, and repeated with hoarse control of his temper: "What is gone, young man?"

"I can't tell you," returned Warren. "And anyway it's not important. To you, anyway. It doesn't concern whatever he stole from you. All I would beg and plead of you, if you have any heart, is don't let that poor girl lie there, maybe dying…!"

"Mr. Warren," said the skipper, with a tense and sinister calmness, "I will have some sense out of this… I will start at the beginning, and I will tell you that there is known to be aboard this ship a dangerous criminal who hits stolen from me an object of enormous value… "

"Ay told you, Barnacle," interposed Valvick, shaking his head gloomily—"ay told you it be better to post a notice and warn all de people. Now look at what iss done."

"Never you mind what you told me, sir. You keep out of this, Sharkmeat. You stow your t'g'lant-royals and come off the high and mighty when you talk to me, Shark-meat. I remember the time—" He caught himself up. "Hurrum! No matter, I will continue, Mr. Warren. You are the nephew of a very distinguished gentleman and were confided especially to my care. I have read Mr. Morgan's stories; he has travelled with me before, and I know him. Captain Valvick, God knows, I am familiar with. I am not drunk or mad, sir. I do not believe that any of you is this notorious criminal. Kindly understand that. But I do believe, Mr. Warren, that from the time Miss Glenn told me about you at dinner to-night, you have been guilty of very odd behaviour. Now, when you tell me about a young lady who has received an injury to the back of her head, I insist on hearing your full story."

"Right!" said Warren, with the air of one coming to an agreement. "That's fair enough, Skipper, and here you are. We don't know anything about the attack on you. It happened this way. We were all together, you see, when this unknown girl staggered in, badly hurt. We knew somebody had hit her, so we rushed out to see whether we could find the assailant. While we were on deck we heard your yell—"

("Not bad for a start," thought Morgan uneasily. "Steady now.")

"I see," said the captain. "And where were you then?"

"Eh?"

"I said," repeated the captain, looking so curiously like the headmaster at old St. Just's that Morgan shivered a little, "where were you when this alleged unknown woman came in? You weren't in your cabin. I looked in there and 1 know."

"Oh! Oh! I see! No, of course not," Warren answered, with some heat. "Naturally not. We were in the empty cabin next door."

"Why?"

"Why? Well — er — well, it was just an idea, you see. A kind of idea I had. I mean," said Warren, his wits clicking out words desperately in the hope of finding the right ones, "I mean, I thought it would be a good idea. Anyway, we were there, damn it! You can ask any of them. They were sort of taking care of me…"

"Taking care of you," repeated Captain Whistler heavily. "And what were you doing there?"

"Well, we were sitting on the floor playing Geography. And then we heard the door to C deck open, and this girl who was attacked started calling my name. I don't know who she is; I only saw her once before," pursued Warren, acquiring greater assurance and fluency as he hurried on, "and that was in the wireless-room, when I got the cablegram about — euh! — I mean, when I got the cablegram— about the bears, you see."

"What bears?"

Warren's jaws moved. He glanced wildly at Morgan for assistance.

"Its quite all right, Captain," the latter explained as smoothly as he could. He had a lump in his throat and a feeling that if Warren kept on explaining he would go insane himself. "Naturally Curt's a bit upset, and I suppose he tells things in rather an odd way. But it's quite simple, after all. It's about some stocks — you understand. The bears were raiding the market, you see, and his stocks had depreciated."

"Oh! He's been worried about financial matters has he? Yes, yes," said the captain heavily. "But let's come down to terms, Mr. Morgan? Do you vouch for the truth of this crazy story?"

"Go and see, why don't you?" shouted the exasperated Warren. "That's what I've been asking you to do from the first, if you'd had any sense. Here you're keeping Miss Glenn shivering M my coat, and all of us standing out here on n zero deck when that poor girl may be dying. Aren't you coming, Doctor?"

"We are all coming," said the captain, with sudden decision. He beckoned his two subordinates, and the weird little procession went down to the door. Warren tugged it open, while they all piled through; a pale-faced Peggy, trembling and breathing deeply in the warm air. For a moment they blinked against the light.

"All right, there you are," said Warren, himself shivering as he stood against the wall of the white passage. "There's where she got caught in the door. You see the blood on the rubber matting… "

The captain looked at him.

"Blood? What blood? I don't see any blood."

There was none, although Morgan knew it had been there. He took off his spectacles, wiped them, and looked again without result. And again he felt in the pit of his stomach that uneasy sensation that behind this foolery there was moving something monstrous and deadly.

"But—!" said Warren desperately. He stared at the captain, and then threw open the door of the state-room beside his.

The light in the roof was burning. The berth on which they had laid the injured girl was empty; the pillow was not disarranged, or the tucked-back sheets wrinkled. There was not even the smeared towel with which Peggy had wiped blood from the girl's face. A fresh towel, white and undisturbed, swung from the rack of the washstand.

"Yes?" said Captain Whistler stormily. "I'm waiting."

7 — Into Which Cabin?

In its own way that was the beginning. It was the mere prospect of an empty bed and a clean towel, not in themselves especially alarming things, which sent through Morgan a sense of fear such as he had not known even in the past during the case of the Eight of Swords, or was to know in the future during the case of the Two Hangmen. He tried to tell himself that this was absurd and was a part of the crack-brain comedy on C deck.

It wasn't. Afterwards he realised that what had struck him first was something about the position of those sheets…

During the brief moment of silence while they all looked into the white state-room, he thought of many things. That girl — he saw again her straight, heavy, classic face, with its strong eyebrows, twitching and blood-smeared against the pillow — that girl had been here. There was no question about that. Ergo, there were three explanations of why she was not here now.

She might have recovered consciousness, found herself alone in a strange cabin, and left it for her own. This sounded thin, especially as her injury had been severe and as a normal person on recovering consciousness would have called for help, kicked up a row, rung for the steward, at least shown sign of weakness or curiosity. But there was an even stronger reason. Before leaving the cabin, she would not have remade the bed. She would not carefully have put on fresh sheets and a pillow-case, in addition to disposing of a soiled towel and hanging another exactly in its place. Yet this had been done. Morgan remembered that, as they put her down, there had been spots of blood flicked on the sheet. He remembered that a lurch of the ship had caused the contents of a whisky-glass to soak the pillow and a part of the top sheet. The bed had been remade! but why and by whom?

The second explanation was a piece of fantasy which even Morgan doubted. Suppose.the girl had been acting? Suppose she was in league with their friend the joker; that she had only pretended being hurt to distract their attention while somebody rifled Warren's cabin? Ridiculous or not, that film had very dangerous potentialities in countries where it is not considered humorous to direct raspberries at the Chancellor. The world wags, and Progress brings back the solemn nonsense of autocracy. In England or the United States the thing would be regarded with levity, as the sort of diplomatic howler often perpetrated by a Tophat; but elsewhere—? Still, Morgan did not believe in any such abstruse plot. Aside from the fact that the joker could gain very little freedom of movement merely because he had got a woman to sham injuries in the next cabin, there was the question of the girl's condition. The dangerous contusion along the skull, the blood of n real cerebral haemorrhage, the white eyeballs uprolled In unconsciousness, were not feigned. She had been hurt, find badly hurt.

The third explanation he did not like to think of. But he was afraid of it. It was five miles, they said, to the bottom of the sea. As he saw weird images in the stuffy little cabin, he felt a jerk of relief — yes, in a way — that Peggy Glenn hud disregarded orders and had not stayed at the bedside. Somebody would have come in and found her there.

These thoughts were so rapid that Captain Whistler had spoken no more than one sinister sentence before Morgan turned round. The captain, his fat figure hunched into a waterproof, had lowered his head nearly into the collar. Under the full electric light the colours of his swollen face were even more of the paint-palette variety, especially the left eye that had closed up behind a purpling hatch. He knew that they were looking at this, and it made him madder still.

"Well?" he said. "What kind of a joke is this? Where's the woman you said was dying? Where's the woman you begged me to help? Blast my compass with lightning! What's your idea in wasting my time when there's fifty thousand pounds' worth of emeralds stolen somewhere on

this ship? There's nobody in that bunk. There's been nobody in that bunk." A ghoulish thought seemed to strike him. "You don't tell me there's anybody there now, do you? Come on, young man; you don't seriously think you see anybody there now, do you?"

He backed away a little, his eyes on Warren, "Barnacle," said Captain Valvick violently, "dere iss no yoke. Ay tell you he iss right! Ay saw her — ay have my fingers on her head. Ay carry her in here. She wass—" Words failed him. He strode over, seized the pillow out of the berth and shook it. He peered under the berth, and then into the one above. "Coroosh! You don't t'ink we are in de wrong place, do you?"

Peggy, who had been stretching her arms out of War- | ren's loose blue coat to push the hair from her eyes, seized i the captain's arm.]

"It's true, Captain. Oh, can't you see it's true? Do you think we could have been mistaken about a thing like that? There's my compact, see? I left it on the couch. She was here. I saw her. I touched her. Maybe she just woke up and left. She had on a yellow crepe de chine frock, a dark green coat with—"

Captain Whistler inspected each one of them with his good eye and then shut it up. Then he passed the back of' his hand across his forehead.

"I don't know what to make of you," he said. "So help! me Harry! I don't. Forty years I've been at sea, thirteen in sail and seventeen in steam, and I never saw the beat of it. Mr. Baldwin!"

"Sir!" answered the second officer, who had been standing outside the door with a blank expression on his face. "Yes, sir?"

"Mr. Baldwin, what do you make of all this?" "Well, sir," replied Mr. Baldwin doubtfully, "it's all these elephants and bears that bothers me, sir. Not knowing, can't say; but I'd got a bit of a notion we were tryin to round up a bleeding Zoo."

"I don't want to hear anything about elephants an bears, Mr. Baldwin. Will you shut up about elephants and bears? I asked you a plain question and want a plain answer. What do you think of this story about the woman?"

Mr. Baldwin hesitated. "Well, sir, they can't all be loonies, now, can they?"

"1 don't know," said the captain, inspecting them. "My God! I think I must be going mad, if they're not. I know nil of them — I don't think they're crooks — I know they wouldn't steal fifty thousand pounds' worth of emeralds. And yet look here." He reached over and touched the berth. "Nobody's lain on that, I'll swear, if there was the blood they say. Where's the towel they say they used, hey? Where's the blood they say was outside the door? The woman didn't change the linen on that bed and walk off with the towel, did she?"

"No," said Morgan, looking straight at him. "But somebody else might have. I'm not joking, Captain. Somebody else might have."

"You, too, eh?" said Whistler, with the air of one whom nothing surprises now. "You, too?"

"The whole bed was changed, Captain, that's all. And I'm just wondering why. Look here — it won't take a second. Lift off that bedding and look underneath at the mattress."

This, allied with Morgan's absent expression as he blinked at the bed, was too much for the captain's grim-faced attempt to listen to everybody's side of the case. He picked up the pillow and slammed it down on the berth.

"I'll do no such damn fool thing, sir!" he said in what Started to be a bellow but trailed off as he remembered where he was. "I've had about enough of this. You may be right or you may not. I won't argue, but I've got more Important things to attend to. To-night I'm going to call a conference and start one of the finest-toothed-comb searches that you ever heard of on sea or land. That elephant's aboard, and, strike me blind, I'll find it if I have to take this tub apart one plate from another. That's what I'm going to do. And to-morrow morning every passenger will come under my personal observation. I'm master here, and I can search the cabin of anybody I like. That's what I'm going to do. Now, if you'll kindly get out of my way—"

"Look here, Skipper," said Morgan, "I admit we wouldn't be much help, but why don't we join forces?"

"Join forces?"

"Like this. I admit appearances are against us. We've told you a story you don't believe, and nearly given you apoplexy. But in all seriousness, there's a very sound reason behind everything. It's a big thing — bigger than you know. And why don't you believe us?"

"I believe," said the captain grimly, "what I see and hear, that's all."

"Yes, I know. That's what I'm kicking about," the other nodded. He got out his pipe and absently knocked the bowl against his palm. "But we don't. If we did, what do you suppose we should have thought when we walked up and found you sitting bunged-up and gibbering on a wet deck, with an empty whisky-bottle beside you and babbling wildly about your lost elephant?"

"I was perfectly sober," said the captain. "If any illegitimate lubber," said the captain, lifting a shaking arm… "if any illegitimate lubber refers again to what was pure misfortune—"

"I know it was, sir. Of course it was. But it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, don't you see? The misfortunes are precisely alike. Symbolically speaking, as Mr. Baldwin says, they are elephants and bears. And if you insist on having your elephants, why shouldn't you allow Curt his bears?"

"I don't understand this," said the captain dazedly. "I'm a plain man, sir, and I like plain speaking. What are you getting at? What d® you want?"

"Only this. If I were to sit down at the breakfast table to-morrow morning and tell only what I had seen to-nigh — Oh, I don't say I would, of course," said Morgan assuming a shocked expression and also closing one eye significantly. "I only use the illustration as an example you understand—"

This was the sort of plain speaking the captain clearly comprehended. For a moment his head rose in appalling wrath out of the collar of the waterproof.

"Are you," he said thickly, "trying to blackmail—"

It took all Morgan could do, with a swift tactical change, to smooth him down. But it was like a shrewd lawyer's inadmissible question to the witness at a trial which the judge orders the jury to disregard: the suggestion had been put forth, and the effect made. An effect had been made, unquestionably, on the captain.

"I didn't mean anything," Morgan insisted. "Lord knows, we won't be much help. But all I wish you'd do is thin. We're as interested as you are in catching this crook. If you'd keep us posted as to any developments—"

'i don't see any reason why I shouldn't," growled the Other after a pause, during which he cleared his throat Several times. Whistler's eye and jaw were paining him considerably, as Morgan observed; it was much to his credit that he could keep his temper down to a simmering point. Still, ramifications were beginning to suggest themselves to him, and it was apparent that he did not like them. "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't. I tell you straight, right here and now, to-morrow morning I'm going to haul all of you up to Lord Sturton and make you tell him the story you told me. If it weren't so late, I'd take you all up now. Oh, you'll be in it, right enough…

"I'll tell you frankly, Mr. Warren," he added, in a rather different tone, and swung round on him, "that if it weren't for your uncle, you certainly wouldn't get the consideration you are getting. And I'll be fair. I'll give this cock-and-bull story of yours a chance."

"Thanks," said Warren dryly. "And I can take my oath Uncle Warpus will appreciate it if you do. And how?"

"Mr. Baldwin!"

"Sir?"

"Make a note of this. To-morrow morning you will Institute an inquiry, with whatever reason or pretext you like, to find out whether any passenger on this boat got an injury along the fines you've heard described. Be discreet, burn you! or I'll have your stripes. Then report to Mr. Morgan. Now I've done all I can for you," he snapped, turning round, "and I'll bid you good night. But, mind I expect co-operation. Co-operation. I've done a good ileal already, and if so much as one word of all this is breathed, God help you!… And you want to know the truth, Mr. Warren," said Captain Whistler, his Cyclops eye i suddenly bulging past all control, "I think you're mad, sir. i think you're stark, raving mad, and these people] are shielding you. One more questionable action, sir, just one more questionable action, and into a strait-waistcoat 1 you go. That's all!!!'&—£&&"'£&£% Va % Va!!!???!… j Good night." j

The door closed with a dignified slam, and they were j alone. j

Brooding, Morgan stared at the floor and chewed at the i stem of his empty pipe. Besides, his eyes would keep: wandering to the berth; and he did not like to think of j that. The Queen Victoria was pitching less heavily now, ^ so that you could feel the monotonous vibration of the screw. Morgan felt cold and unutterably tired. He jumped I as voices began to sing and glanced up dully. Peggy Glenn and Curtis Warren, with seraphic expressions on their faces (at two o'clock in the morning) had their heads together and their arms round each other's shoulders; they! were swaying slowly as they uplifted throats in harmony:

"Oh, a life on the ocean wave [sang these worthies] A ho-ome on the ro-olling deep… I A life on the ocean wave.

"Shut it, will you?" said Morgan, as Captain Valvick uttered a hoot of approval and joined his unmusical bass to me chorus. "Aside from the fact that there are people hereabouts trying to sleep, you'll have the captain back in here."

This threat quieted them in the middle of a bar. But they shook hands all around, gleefully, and Warren insisted or shaking Morgan's hand in a shoulder-cracking grip. The Englishman studied them: Valvick draping himself affably over the washstand, and Peggy and Warren chortling on the berth. He wondered if they had any idea what had really happened. He also wondered if it would be wise to tell them.

"Hoy," said Warren in admiration, "I don't mind telling you it was a swell piece of work. It was great. It was the MM." He waggled his hand high in the air and brought it down on his knee. "That crack about elephants and bears, and the horrible threat to spill the beans on that incorrigible souse, Captain Whistler… yee! Great! You are hereby elected Brains of this concern. Henceforth anything you say goes. As for me, I'm going to be good, and how. YOU heard what the old sea-terrier said."

"Au, sure," agreed Valvick, with a ponderous gesture. "But it iss going to be all right in de morning. He find de emerald. Whoever hass de cabin where Miss Peggy t'row It In ton going to wake up in de morning and see it. And dere you be."

Warren sat up, impressed by this new thought. "By the Way, Baby, whose cabin did you throw it in, anyway?"

"How should I know?" she asked, rather defensively. "I don't know who has every cabin on the deck. It was just a convenient porthole, and I sort of obeyed the impulse. What difference does it make?"

"Well, I was only wondering… " He peered at the light, at a corner of the roof, at the wardrobe door. "I— that is, I don't suppose by any chance you heaved it on somebody to whom it would — er — prove a temptation?"

"Caroosh!" said Captain Valvick.

By one accord they looked at Morgan. The latter would have immensely enjoyed the throne to which this trio of

genial idiots had elected him, that of Brains in the combine to catch the joker, if it were not for that disturbing, nagging doubt which was apparently shared by none of hi* lieutenants. He did not want to examine that berth, and yet he knew he must. Meanwhile his lieutenants— ready to go off at any new tangent, and obsessed now with enial idiots had elected him, that of Brains in the combine to catch the joker, if it were not for that disturbing, nagging doubt which was apparently shared by none of hi* lieutenants. He did not want to examine that berth, and yet he knew he must. Meanwhile his lieutenants— ready to go off at any new tangent, and obsessed now with a thought which had nothing to do with the main problem — were regarding him in expectancy.

"Well," he said rather wearily, "if you really want to know whose cabin it is, that ought to be easy. Pick out the cabin that's attached to the porthole in which you threw that box (am I making myself clear?) and spot its number. Then look up the number in the passenger-list, and there you are… What porthole did you throw it, through, Peggy?" j

The girl opened her mouth eagerly and shut it again.] Her brows contracted. She wriggled, as though to assist! thought. J

"Dash it!" she said in a small voice. "I think — well, honestly, I don't remember."

8 — Blood Under a Blanket

War hen hopped up.

"But, Baby," he protested, "you've got to remember. Why shouldn't you remember? It's a cinch: there's a row Of portholes, and they're all near the companionway on (he starboard side. All right. You were standing near one, And all you've got to do is remember which one. Besides —" A new aspect of the matter struck him. "Say, I never thought of it before, but this is terrible! Suppose by some chance you slung that box into the criminal's cabin? By Jimlny!" said Warren, now almost convinced that this was the case, "he's got away with a lot, but I won't stand for this! I've got a score to settle with that guy… "

"Son," said Morgan, "permit me to suggest that we have enough difficulties on our hands without your imagining fresh ones. That's foolish! You're only getting the wind up about nothing."

"Yes, I know, but it bothers me," returned Warren, moving his neck uncomfortably. "The thought of that fellow getting away with a thing like that would make me wild. After he's walked in as easy as pie, and stolen my film, to have us deliberately hand him the emerald elephant as well!… Baby, you've got to remember which porthole it was! Then, if we went down to that cabin and sort of busted down the door, you see, and said, 'Hey, you!

Morgan lowered his head to cool it, and swallowed hard through a dry throat. Never before had he seen the true extent of American energy.

"So now," he said, "so now you want to go around breaking down doors, do you? Kindly reflect a moment, Curt. Consider what you have already done to Captain Whistler's blood pressure. You fathead, why don't you go up and smash down the captain's door and get put into a strait-waistcoat and have done with it? You said I was t give the orders, and I'm giving some now. You're to stay absolutely quiet. Do you understand?"

"Ay haf an idea," volunteered Captain Valvick, who was scratching his short sandy hair. "Coroosh! Ay yus t'ink of it. Suppose de port where you t'row dat elephant wass in de cabin of dat English duke which own de elephant in de first place? Corrrsh! But he iss going to be sur prised if he wake up in de morning and find it dere. Maybe he t'ink Captain Whistler hass got mad at him for somet'ing and come down in de night and t'row dat elephant back at him t'rough de port."

"No, that won't work," said Warren. "Old Sturton's got a suite on B deck. But we've got to find out who does sleep in that cabin. Think. Baby! Get your brain working."

Peggy's face was screwed up with intense concentration, She made slow gestures to bring the scene back.

"I've got it now," she said. "Yes, I'm sure. It was either the second or third porthole from the end of the wall where we were standing. They look so much alike and you ought to remember it yourself. But it was either the second or third porthole."

"You're absolutely sure of that, are you?"

"Yes, I am. I won't say which one, but I'll swear it was one of those two."

"Den dass all right," rumbled Valvick, nodding. "Ay go out right now and find de numbers on dem cabins, an< we look it up in de passenger-list. Also ay got anudder bottle of Old Rob Roy in my locker, and ay get it and we out of it a nightcap haff, hey? Yumping Yudas, but ay an t'irsty! Hold on. Ay won't be a minute."

Morgan protested in vain. The captain insisted that hi would only be a minute, and went out foraging, with the approval of the other two lieutenants. I

"… Also," Morgan continued, turning to them when Valvick had gone, "what the devil's the use of bothering about that emerald now? Has it occurred to you what happened in this place to-night? What about that woman! What happened to her?"

Warren made a savage gesture. "I've got it all figure mil," he snapped. "I knew it the minute we came back tit here, but I didn't very well see how I could tell old Popeye. We've been outsmarted, that's what. They got us Id full for that as neat as you please, and it's another thing that makes me mad… Why, that girl was our crook's accomplice, don't you see? They arranged it between them IN her to pull a fake faint, calling my name, mind you— which wasn't natural to begin with… "

"And you don't think the injury was real?"

"Of course it wasn't real. I read a story once about a bird who could suddenly make funny noises and go into a cataleptic fit, and while the doctor was poking him his gang came in and robbed the doctor's house. I thought it was a low-down dirty trick at the time; but that's what they've done. Yes, and don't you remember in your own looks, in Aconite in the Admiralty? where that detective What's-his-name gets into the master criminal's luxurious den in Downing Street, and they think they've stabbed Mm with the poisoned needle?"

"The literary formula," agreed Morgan, "is excellent. Still, I doubt it in this case. Granted that the crook was Watching us, knew where we were, and all that, I don't lee how it would help him much. He knew we'd certainly like the girl into one of these two cabins, so it wouldn't be much easier. It was only chance in old Whistler's coming In when he did, so that we were dragged away and the crook had a clear field."

Peggy also refused to listen to this line of argument. Warren had got out a damp package of cigarettes, and he and Peggy lit one while Morgan filled his pipe. The girl laid, between short puffs, as though she were rather angrily trying to get rid of the smoke:

"But, I say, it's going to be easy now, isn't it? It was father a dreadful bloomer on their part, wasn't it? Because We shall know that girl when we see her again, and then We've got 'em. She wasn't disguised, you know. She hardly had any make-up on, even. That reminds me — my compact. Give it me, Curt. I say I must look a sight! Anyway, We can't miss her. She's still aboard the boat."

'Ms she?" said Morgan. "I wonder."

Warren, who was about to make some impatient comment, glanced up and saw the other's expression. He too the cigarette out of his mouth; his eyes grew curious! fixed.

"What — what's on your mind, General?"

"Only that Peggy's right in one sense. If that girl was an accomplice, then the thing would be too easy, much t easy for us. On the other hand, if that girl had been co ing here to try to warn you about something… I know you didn't know her, but let's suppose that's what she was doing… Then the thief gets after her and thinks he's done the business. But he hasn't. Then—"

The droning engines seemed to vibrate loud above creaking woodwork, because the wind had died outside, deep tumult was subsiding, and the Queen Victoria was rolling almost gently as though she were exhausted by th< gale. All of them were relaxed; but it did not help their nerves. Peggy jumped then as the door opened and Cap tain Valvick returned with the passenger-list in one hand and a quart of Old Rob Roy in the other.

"Ay told you ay only be a minute," he announced, wass easy to find de ports, and den de cabin numbers from inside. One is C 51 and the other C 46. Ay t'ank. Hey?" he said, peering at the strained faces in the room "What iss de matter, hey?"

"Nothing," said Morgan. "Not for a minute, anyhow Come on, now. Set your minds at rest. You wanted t know. Find out who occupies those cabins first, and then we can go on."

With a jerk of her head, still looking at him, Peggy too the passenger-list. On the point of speaking, she said nothing, and opened the list instead. But she rose and sat o the couch this time. Under cover of Captain Valvick's tall Warren helped him take the extra glasses off the rack an pour drinks. They all glanced furtively at Morgan, who had begun to wonder whether he were merely flourishing a turnip ghost. He lit his pipe during a queer silence while Peggy ran her finger down the fist, and the ship's engine beat monotonously.

"Well?" said Warren.

"Wait a bit, old boy. This takes time… Mmmm. Oar — Gran — Gulden — Harris — mmm — Hooper, Isaacs mm, no — Jarvis, Jerome… I say, I hope I haven't missed it; Jeston, Ka-Kedler — Kennedy… Hullo!" She breathed a line of smoke past her cigarette, and glanced US with wide eyes. "What was it, skipper? C 46? Righto! Hire it is. "C 46 Kyle, Dr. Oliver Harrison." Fancy that! Sr. Kyle has one of those cabins…

Warren whistled.

"Kyle, eh? Not bad. Whoa! Wait a bit," said the diplomat, He struck the bulkhead. "My God! wasn't he one of the suspects? Yes, I remember now. This crook is probably masquerading…

With difficulty Morgan shut him up, for more and more Was Warren impressed by the general rightness and poetic reasonableness of a crook with a taste for using the blackjack adopting the guise of a distinguished Harley Street physician. His views were based on the forthright principle that, the more respectable they looked, the more likely they were to turn out dastardly murderers. He also sited examples from the collected works of Henry Morgan in which the authors of the dirty work had proved to be (respectively) an admiral, a rose-grower, an invalid, and an archdeacon. It was only when Peggy protested that this Was merely the case in detective stories that Morgan took his side.

"That's just where you're wrong, old girl," he said. "It's In real life that the crooks and killers always go in the most solidly respectable dress. Only, you see them at the wrong end — in the dock. You think of them as a murderer, not as the erstwhile churchgoing occupant of Number 13 Laburnum Grove. Whisper softly to yourself the names of the most distinguished croakers of a century, and observe that nearly all of them were highly esteemed by the vicar. Constance Kent? Dr. Pritchard? Christina Edmunds? Dr. Lamson? Dr. Crippen—"

"And nearly all of 'em doctors, eh?" inquired Warren, with an air of sinister enlightenment. He seemed to brood over this incorrigible tendency among members of the

medical profession to go about murdering people. "You < see, Peggy? Hank's right." "

"Don't be a lop-eared ass," said Morgan. "Wash out this idea of Dr. Kyle's being a crook, will you? He's a j very well-known figure… oh, and get rid of the notion, too, that somebody may be impersonating him while the real Dr. Kyle is dead. That may be all right for some person who never comes in contact with anybody; but a public figure like an eminent physician won't do… Go on, Peggy. Tell us who's in C 51, and then we can forget it and get down to real business."

She wrinkled her forehead.

"Here we are, and this is odd, too. 'C 51. Perrigord, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie.' So-ho!"

"What's odd about that? Who are they?"

"You remember my telling you about a very, very great highbrow and aesthete who was aboard, and had written reams of ecstatic articles about Uncle Jules's genius? And I said I hoped for his sake as well as the kids who wanted to see the fighting that there'd be a performance tomorrow night?"

"Ah! Perrigord?"

"Yes. Both he and she are awfully aesthetic, you know. He writes poetry — you know, the kind you can't understand, all about his soul being like a busted fencer-rail or something. And I believe he's a dramatic critic, too, although you can't make much sense out of what he writes there, either. I can't anyway. But he says the only dramatists are the French dramatists. He says Uncle Jules has the greatest classic genius since Moliere. Maybe you've seen him about? Tall, thin chap with flat, blond hair, and his wife wears a monocle?" She giggled. "They do about two hundred circuits of the promenade-deck every morning, and never speak to anybody, those people!"

"H'm!" said Morgan, remembering the dinner-table that night. "Oh, yes. But I didn't know you knew them. II this fellow has written all that stuff about your uncle—"

"Oh, I don't know them," she disclaimed, opening her eyes wide. "They're English, you see. They'll write volumes about you, and discuss every one of your good and

bad points minutely; but they won't say how-de-do unless you've been properly introduced."

All this analysis was over the head of the good Captain Valvick, who had grown restive and was puffing through hi* moustache with strange noises, as though he wanted to I if admitted through a closed door.

"Ay got de whisky poured out," he vouchsafed. "And you put in de soda. Iss it decided what we are going to do? What iss decided, anyway? Sometime we got to go to bed."

"I'll tell you what we're going to do," said Warren, with energy, "and we can sketch out the plan of battle now. Tomorrow morning we're going to comb the boat for that gill who pulled the fainting-act in here. That's the only lead we've got, and we're going after it as hard as Whistler goes after the emerald. That is—" He turned round abruptly. "Let's have it out, Hank. Were you only trying to scare us or were you serious when you made that suggestion?"

Obviously this had been at the back of his mind from the beginning, and he did not like to face it. His hands were clenched. There was a silence while Peggy put the passenger-list aside and also looked up.

"What iss de suggestion?" asked Captain Valvick.

"It's a queer thing," said Morgan. "We don't want our pleasant farce to turn into something else, do we? But why «l«* you think new sheets and maybe blankets were put on Unit berth?"

"All right," said Warren, quietly. "Why?"

"Because there may have been more blood afterwards limn we saw there. Steady, now."

There was a silence. Morgan heard the breath whistling through Captain Valvick's nostrils. With a jerk Warren turned round; he regarded the berth for a moment and then began tearing off the bedclothes.

The cabin creaked faintly…

"You may be wrong," said Warren, "and I hope you me. I don't believe anything like that. I won't believe it. Pillow — top-sheet — blanket — under-sheet of the bed… It's all right. Look." He was holding them up, a weird figure in shirt-sleeves, with a brown blanket and a whirl of linen about him. "Look at it, damn you! Everything in order. What are you trying to scare us for? See, this sheet of the bed… Wait a minute…!"

"Take it off," said Morgan, "and look at the mattress. I hope I'm wrong as much as you do."

Peggy took one look, and then turned away, white-faced. Morgan felt a constriction in his throat as he stepped up beside Warren and Valvick. A blanket had been neatly spread under the sheet and over the mattress; but stains were already soaking through it. When they swept off the blanket, the colours of the blue-and-white striped mattress were not very distinguishable in a great sodden patch spread for some length down.

"Is it…?" asked Morgan, and took a deep draw on his cigarette. "Is it…?"

"Oh, yes. It iss blood," said Captain Valvick.

It was so quiet that even across that distance Morgan imagined he could hear the liner's bell. They were moving almost steadily now, with a deep throb below decks in the ship and a faint vibration of glassware. Also Morgan imagined the pale classic-faced girl lying unconscious, with the dim light burning above her in the berth, and the door opening as somebody came in…

"But what's happened to her? Where is she now?" Warren asked, in a low voice. "Besides," he added, with a sort of dull argumentative air—"besides, he couldn't have done that with a blackjack."

"And why should he do it, anyway?" asked Peggy, trying to control her voice. "Oh, it's absurd! I won't believe it! You're scaring me! And — and, anyway, where did he get the linen for the bed? Where is she, and why?… Oh, you're trying to frighten me, aren't you?"

"Steady, Baby," said Warren, taking her hand without removing his eyes from the bed. "I don't know why he did it, or what he expected to gain by making the bed over. But we'd better cover that up again."

Carefully putting down his pipe on the edge of the thrumming washstand, Morgan choked back his revulsion and bent over to examine the berth. The stains were still

wet, and he avoided them as much as he could. So strung up was he into that queer, clear-brained, almost fey state of mind that sometimes comes in the drugged hours of the morning, that he was not altogether surprised when he heard something rattle deep down between mattress and bulkhead. He yanked over a corner of the sheet, wound it round his fingers, and groped.

"Better not look, old girl," he said after a pause. "This won't be pretty."

Shielding the find with his body so that only Captain Valvick could see, he pulled it up in the sheet and turned it over in his palm. It was a razor, of the straight, old-fashioned variety, and closed; but it had recently been used. Rather larger than the ordinary size, it was an elaborate and delicate piece of craftsmanship with a handle so curiously fashioned that Morgan wiped the blood away to examine it.

The handle was of a wood that resembled ebony. Down one side ran a design picked out in thin silver and white porcelain. At first Morgan took it for an intricate name-plate, until, under cleaning, it became a man's standing figure. The figure was possibly three inches high, and under it was a tiny plate inscribed with the word Sunday.

"Ay know," said Captain Valvick, staring at it. "It iss one of a set of seven, one for every day of de week. Ay haff seen dose before. But what iss dat thing on it, like a man?"

The thin figure, in its silver and white and black, was picked out in a curious striped medieval costume, which ¹ recalled to Morgan's mind vague associations with steel-cut engravings out of Dore. Surgeon, surgeon — barber, that was it! There was the razor in the thing's fist. But most ugly and grotesque of all, the head of the figure was subtly like a death's head, and a bandage was across the eyes so that the barber was—

"Blind," said Warren, who was looking over his shoulder. "Put it away, Hank! Put it away. Blind… death and barber… end of the week. Somebody used that, and lost it or left it here. Put it away. Have a drink."

Morgan looked at the evil and smeared design. He looked at the door, then at the white-painted bulkhead in the bunk, the tumbled bedclothes and the spotty brown blanket. Again he tried to picture the girl in the yellow frock lying here under a dim light, while the outside door was opening. So who was the girl, and where was she now, wrapped round in the soaked sheets that were here before? It was five miles to the bottom of the sea. They would never find her body now. Morgan turned round.

"Yes," he said, "the Blind Barber has been here tonight."

9 — More Doubts at Morning

As the hands of the travelling-clock at the head of Morgan's bed pointed to eight-thirty, he was roused out of a heavy slumber by the sound of an unmusical baritone voice singing with all the range of its off-keys. The voice singing, "A Life on the Ocean Wave." It brought nightmares into his doze before he struggled awake. As he opened his eyes, the heartening bray of the breakfast bugle went past in the gangway outside, and he remembered where he was.

Furthermore, it was a heartening morning. His cabin— on the boat-deck — was filled with sunshine, and a warm salt-spiced breeze fluttered the curtain at the open porthole. It was winelike May again, with a reflected glitter of water at the porthole; and the ship's engines churning steadily in a docile sea. He drew a deep breath, feeling a mighty uplift of the heart and a sensual longing for bacon and eggs. Then somebody threw a shoe at him, and he knew Warren was there.

Warren sat across from him on the couch under the porthole, smoking a cigarette. He wore white flannels, a careless blue coat, and a sportive tie; he showed not at all the rigours of last night, nor any depression of spirit. His hair was brushed smoothly again, unpropped by sticking-plaster. He said:

"Howdy, General," and tipped his hand to his head. "Wake up, can't you? Wow! it's a beautiful morning! Even our old sea-beetle of a skipper is going to be in better temper to-day. All the sea-sick lads are beginning to creep out of their holes and say it was only something they ate, no doubt. Haaaaa!" Breathing deeply, he arched his chest, knocked his fists against it, and beamed with seraphic good-humour. "Get ready and come down to breakfast. This is an important morning in the lives of several people, including Captain Whistler."

"Right," said Morgan. "Find something to amuse yourself with while I catch a bath and dress… I suppose there's some kind of story all over the boat about last night's activities, isn't there? We were doing a good deal of shouting out on that deck, now I remember it."

The other grinned.

"There is. I don't know how it happens, but there's a kind of wireless telegraphy aboard these tubs that always get a story even if it's a little cockeyed. But I've only heard two versions so far. When I came out this morning, I heard an old dame in 310 raising hell with the stewardess. She was furious. She says six drunken men were standing outside her porthole all night, having a terrible argument about a giraffe, and she's going to complain to the captain. I also passed two clergymen taking a morning stroll. One of them was telling the other some kind of a complicated story — I didn't get much of it. It was something to the effect that the boat's got in her hold a cargo of cages full of dangerous wild beasts, only they're keeping it quiet so as not to alarm the passengers. In the storm last night the cages worked loose and the Bengal tiger was in danger of getting out, but a seaman named Barnacle got it back in its cage. The preacher said A. B. Barnacle was armed only with a whisky-bottle. He said the sailor must be a very brave man, although he used horrible language."

"Come off it," said Morgan, staring.

"So help me, it's absolutely true!" the other declared fervently. "You'll see for yourself." His face clouded a little. "Look here, Hank. Have — have you thought any more about that other business?"

"The film?"

"Ah, hang the film! I'll trust you. We'll get it back somehow. No, I meant the — the other business, you know. It gives me the jitters. If it weren't for that… that, and the fact that when I get my hands on the lousy, low-down skunk who—"

"Save it," said Morgan.

His steward tapped on the door to tell him the bath was ready as usual; Morgan slid into a dressing-gown and went out into the breezy passage. Passing the outer door, he pushed it open a little way to put his head out and breathe the full exaltation of the morning. The warm air blew on him in a splendour of sunlight broadening along the horizon behind long pinkish-white streamers of cloud. There was a deep grey-green sea, stung with flecks of whitecaps and wrinkling under a glitter of sun that trembled up like heat haze. He looked up ahead to the long lift and fall of the bows; at the sweep of white cabins; at the red-mouthed air-funnels and brasswork of portholes awink with morning; he heard the monotonous break and swish of water past the bows, and felt that it was good. Everything was good. He even had a fleeting tenderness for Captain Whistler, who was probably now sitting with a beefsteak at his eye and sighing because he could not go down to breakfast. Good old Captain Whistler. There even occurred to him a wild idea that they might go to Whistler straightforwardly, man to man, and say, "Look here, skipper, it was a blinking shame we had to paste you in the eye last night and strew whisky-bottles all- over your deck, and we're sorry; so let's forget it and be friends. Shall we?" But more sober reflection suggested to him that not all the good omens of the morning presaged enough magic to wangle this. Meanwhile, he dreamily sniffed the morning. He thought in joyous contentment of England and his wife Madeleine who would meet him at Southampton; of the holiday in Paris they would take on the money he had contrived to hypnotise out of gimlet-eyed publishers in America; of the little white hotel by the Ecole Militaire, where there were eels in the fountain of a little gravelled garden; and of other things not relevant to this chronicle.

But, while he bathed and shaved he reviewed the unpleasant side of the problem. He could still feel the horrible shock of finding that grotesque razor in the berth, and the blood under his fingers to mark the way of the Blind Barber. In a conference lasting until nearly four in the morning they had tried to determined what was best to do.

Warren and Valvick, as usual, were for direct action. The former thought it would be best to go straight to Whistler, taking the razor, and saying, "Now, you old so-and-so, if you think I'm crazy, what do you think of this?" Morgan and Peggy had dissented. They said it was a question of psychology and that you had to consider the captain's frame of mind. In the skipper's momentarily excited state, they said, Warren might just as well tell him he had gone back to his cabin and discovered a couple of buffaloes grazing on the furniture. Better wait. In the morning Whistler would institute a search and find a woman missing; then they could go to him and vindicate themselves. Ultimately, it was so agreed.

With the razor safely locked away in Morgan's bag, and the berth on C deck made up in case a steward should become curious, Morgan again discussed the plan with Warren while he dressed that morning. For the moment, Morgan deliberately kept himself from speculating on the hows and whys of the (alleged) murder last night. There were things to come first. Shortly the ship would be buzzing with the news of the recovery of the emerald elephant. Afterwards, with this weight removed from the skipper's microscopic intelligence, they could soothe him back to belief in a throat-cutting. Then would come the real duel with the Blind Barber.

"What I want to know," said Warren, as they descended to the dining-saloon, "is whether it'll be Dr. Kyle or the Perrigords who find the emerald. I still have my suspicions…"

"Of the medical profession?" asked Morgan. "Nonsense! But I would rather like to see Dr. Kyle shaken out of his calm. Jove! you were right! The boat's waking up. We'll have the sick-list down to a minimum by this afternoon. Look at all the kids. If old Jules Fortinbras has got his sea legs—"

The dining-saloon was full of sunlight and murmurous with an eager clatter of knives and forks. Stewards beamed and did tricks with trays. There were more people out for breakfast at the unholy hour of eight-thirty than there had been for dinner last night. But at the captain's table sat only one solitary figure — Dr. Kyle, sturdily plying knife and fork. Dr. Kyle was a trencherman after the fashion of the lairds in Sir Walter Scott. He could mess up a plate of fried eggs with a dispatch that would have roused the envious approval of Nicol Jarvie or that foreigner, Athelstane.

"Good morning!" said Dr. Kyle, with unexpected affability, and rolling round his shoulder, he looked up. "A fine day, a fine day. Good morning, Mr. Warren. Good morrrrning, Mr. Morgan. Sit down."

The other two looked at each other and strove to dissemble. Every morning, hitherto, Dr. Kyle had been perfectly polite, but hardly interested or communicative. He had conveyed an impression that his own society was all he cared to cultivate. A solid large-boned figure in black, with his well-brushed greyish hair and the furrows carven down his cheeks, he had devoted himself to food with the concentration of a surgical operation. Now he had an almost raffish appearance. He wore a tweed suit, with a striped tie, and his grizzled eyebrows were much less Mephistophelean as he welcomed them with a broad gesture. It was, Morgan supposed, the weather…

"Er—" said Warren, sliding into his chair, "good morning, sir. Yes, indeed, it's a fine morning! Did you — er — did you sleep well?"

"Ah, like a top!" said the doctor, nodding. "Though, mind," he added, remembering his habits of thought and correcting himself cautiously, "I don't say, fra my own experience, that I should judge it a well-chosen worrrd as applied to tops. Accurately speaking (fra my own expeerience as a boy) I should say it was mair to the purpose for tops in general to refrain fra sedentary habits. However, that's as may be. I'll have more of the bacon and eggs, steward."

This was the first morning, incidentally, in which Dr. Kyle had given the letter "r" its full-wristed spin. He looked benevolently on them, and at the green glitter of the sea dancing outside the portholes.

"I mean," pursued Warren, looking at him curiously, "you didn't — that is, everything was all right when you woke up, was it?"

"Everything," said Dr. Kyle, "was fine." He paused, drawing down his brows thoughtfully. "Ah! Ye may be referring to that disturbance in the night, then?"

"Disturbance?" said Morgan. "Was there a disturbance?"

The other regarded him shrewdly, and in a way that disturbed him.

"I see, I see. You hadn't hearrd of it, then? Well, well, it didn't disturb me, Mr. Morgan, and all I heard was some speerited currsing on the deck. But I heard an account of it this morning, from a person of my acquaintance — which account I can't vouch for, you understand—"

"What happened?"

"Rape," said the doctor, succinctly, and closed one eye in a startlingly raffish fashion.

"Rape?" yelped Morgan. There are certain words which have a mysterious telepathic power. Although there was a buzz in the dining-room which drowned his voice, several heads were twitched in their direction. "Rape? My God! who was raped? What happened?"

"I can't say," replied Dr. Kyle, chuckling. "However, my inforrmant distinctly heard the girl's scream when set upon. My inforrmant declares that some scoundrelly dastard approached the poor girrul by telling her of his adventures while hunting big game in Africa. Weel, weel, then, that he offered her an emerald brrooch worth a fabulous sum. But, failing in his foul design, the rrascally skellum struck her over the head with a bottle o' whisky… "

"Great — Caesar's — ghost!" said Warren, his eyeballs slightly distended. "You — you didn't hear any names mentioned in the business, did you?"

"My inforrmant made no secret of it," Dr. Kyle answered philosophically. "She said the abandoned wretch and seducer was either Captain Whistler or Lord Sturton."

"And this woman's story is all over the boat?" asked Morgan.

"Oh, it will be," said Kyle, still philosophically. "It will be."

Dr. Kyle continued to talk on affably while the others attacked breakfast; and Morgan wondered what would be the ultimate version of the tale that would be humming through the Queen Victoria by midday. Evidently Dr. Kyle had not found any emeralds. There remained only the stony-faced Mr. Perrigord and his monocled wife. Well? The ship's miniature newspaper lay beside his plate, and he glanced over it between deep draughts of coffee, his eye slid over what appeared to be an article or essay on the back page, stopped, and returned to it. It was headed "renaissance du theatre," and under it appeared, "By Mr. Leslie Perrigord, reprinted by permission of the author from the Sunday "Times" of Oct. 25, 1932."

Skirling notes of harps celestial [began this effusion, with running start] sweeping one old reviewer, malgre lui, counterclockwise from his fauteuil, while nuances so subtle danced and slithered, reminding one of Bernhardt. Will you say, "Has old Perrigord gone off his chump this Sunday?" But what is one to say of this performance of M. Jules Fortinbras, which I journeyed to Soho to see? As Balzac once said to Victor Hugo, "Je suis etonne, sale chameau, je suis bouleverse." (Moliere would have said it better.) A thrilling performance, if that is consolation to the poor British public, but why speak of that? For sheer splendour and beauty of imagic imagery, in these subtle lines spoken by Charlemagne and Roland, I can think of nothing but that superb soliloquy in the fifth act of Cor-neille's tragedy, "La Barbe," which is spoken by Amourette Pernod, and begins, "Moname est un fromage qui souffle dans les forets mysterieuses de la nuit…." Or shall I speak of wit? Almost it approaches some of Moliere's gems, say, "Pour moi, j'aime bien les saucissons, parce qu'ils ne parlent pas frangais…

"What's all this?" demanded Warren, who was reading the article also and making strange whistling noises rather like Amourette Pernod's soul. "Do you see this attack of dysentery on the back page? Is this our Perrigord?"

Morgan said, "You have no cultural feelings, I fear. As Chimene said to Tartuffe, "Nuts" Well, you've got to get cultural feelings, old son. Read that article very carefully. If there's anything in it you don't understand, ask me. Because—" he checked himself, but Dr. Kyle had finished his last order of bacon and eggs and was rising genially from the table. Dr. Kyle bade them good morning, and said he had half a mind to play deck-tennis. Altogether he was so self-satisfied, as he strode away from the table, that in Warren's face Morgan could see newly awakened suspicions gathering and darkening. "Listen!" hissed Warren in a low voice, and stabbed out dangerously with his fork. "He says he didn't find any emerald when he woke up this morning…"

"Will you forget about Dr. Kyle?" said the exasperated Morgan. "It's all right; it simply wasn't his cabin, that's all. Listen to me…"

But an uneasy possibility had struck him. Dr. Kyle didn't find the emerald. Very well. Suppose the Perrigords hadn't found it, either? It was an absurd supposition, yet it grew on him. Assuming both parties to be entirely honest, what the devil could have happened to the emerald? They could not have missed it, either of them; he himself had heard the steel box bump on the floor. Again assuming them to be honest, it might mean that Peggy had mistaken the cabin. But this he doubted. There was shrewdness, there was certainty, in that girl's prim little face. Well — alternatively, it might mean that the Blind Barber was up to tricks. They had ample proof that he was somewhere close at hand during the wild business on C deck. He might very well have seen what happened. Later that night it would have been a simple matter to go after that emerald…

Irritably Morgan told himself that he was flying at theories like Warren. Warren, taking advantage of the other's blank silence, was going on talking with vehemence; and the more he talked the more strongly he convinced himself; so that Dr. Kyle's character had begun to assume hues of the richest and most sinister black. Morgan said, "Nonsense!" and again he told himself there was no sense to this doubt. The Perrigords had found the emerald, and that was that. But his real irritation with himself was for not thinking before of a simple possibility like that of the Blind Barber's having been in attendance. If those aesthetes really hadn't found the thing, after all…

"There's this that's got to be done," he said, breaking in on the other's heated discourse. "Somehow, we've got to ask Kyle a few questions, tactfully — whether he's a light sleeper, whether he keeps his door bolted at night… "

"Now you're showing some sense," said Warren. "Trip him up, eh? Mind, I don't say that necessarily he's the— the barber. What I do say is that fifty thousand pounds' worth of emerald, chucked in on him like that when he thought nobody'd be the wiser… Did you notice his expression? Did you hear the crazy story he told us, knowing the thing'd get so tangled up that nobody would be able to accuse…?"

"Read that article in the paper," the other ordered, tapping it inexorably. "We've got to make the acquaintance of the Perrigords, even if it's only a red herring; and you've got to be able to talk intelligently about nuances. What's the matter with your education? You're in the diplomatic or consular service, or whatever it is. Don't you have to know French to get in that?"

He had hoped that this crack would divert Warren. It did. The young diplomat was stung.

"Certainly I know French," he returned, with cold dignity. "Listen. I had to pass the toughest examination they can dish out, I'll have you know; yes, and I'll bet you couldn't pass it yourself. Only it's commercial French. Ask me anything in commercial French. Go on, ask me how to say, "Dear sir. Yrs of the 18th inst. to hand, and enclose under separate cover bill of exchange, together with consular invoice, to the amt. of sixteen dollars (or perhaps pounds, francs, marks, lire, roubles, kopecks, or kronen) and forty-five cents (or perhaps shillings, centimes, pfennigs.

"Well, what's the matter with you, then?"

"I'm telling you, it isn't the same thing. The only other French I know is some guff I remember from preparatory school. I know how to ask for a hat which fits me, and I know how to inquire my way in case I should feel a passionate desire to rush out and visit the Botanical Gardens. But I never had the least desire to go to the Botanical Gardens; and, believe me, if I ever go into a hat-shop in

Paris, no pop-eyed Frog in the world is going to sell me a lid that slides down over my ears… Besides, not having a sister who's a shepherdess kind of cramps my conversational style."

"Hullo!" said Morgan, who was paying no attention. "It's begun. Good work. She thought of it… "

Down the broad polished staircase into the dining-saloon came the tall and majestic figures of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Perrigord; well-groomed, moving together in step. And between them, talking earnestly, walked Peggy Glenn.

Peggy came just a trifle above Mrs. Perrigord's shoulder. Evidently as a sort of intellectual touch, she had put on her shell-rimmed spectacles and an exuberant amount of make-up. Her frock was what looked to Morgan like a batik pattern. She was speaking with animation to the monocled Mrs. Perrigord, who seemed to convey nuances of reply by ghostly silent movements of eyebrow and lip. At the foot of the stairs Morgan expected her to break off and come to their table; but she did nothing of the kind. To Morgan she made an almost imperceptible signal; of what, he was not sure. Then she went on with the Perrigords to their table.

Warren muttered something in muffled surprise, after which they noted something else. Coming down the staircase a short distance behind them shuffled the big and amiable figure of Captain Valvick, whose sandy hair was brushed up straight and his leathery face once more netted with wrinkles as he listened to some tale. The tale was being told him, in fact, by Mr. Charles Woodcock. Mr. Woodcock, who freely described himself as the Bug-powder Boy, seemed excited. Invariably, when excited his thin frame seemed to hop and twist; an optical illusion, because he kept his eyes fixed on your face while he poured out a rapid string of words in a confidential undertone.

"What's Valvick up to?" demanded Warren. "All the allies seem to be working except us. Have you noticed our square-head's been keeping away from Woodcock, because they're both powerful yarn-spinners and they put each other out like a couple of forest fires? Well, then, look how quiet he's keeping and tell me what's on his mind."

Morgan didn't know; he supposed it was Mr. Woodcock's version of what had occurred last night. If so conservative a Presbyterian as Dr. Oliver Harrison Kyle had suggested rape, then he shuddered to think of the goings-on that would present themselves to the versatile imagination of the Bug-powder Boy. The dining-saloon was rapidly filling up, pulsing now with a joyous babble and clamour as of prisoners released, but they heard Mr. Woodcock's hearty voice. He said, "All right, old socks. Don't forget to tell your pals," and slapped Captain Valvick on the back as he went towards his own table.

With a puzzled expression Valvick lumbered towards their table. He beamed a good morning, swung round his chair, and uttered the word:

"Mermaid!"

Morgan blinked. "Don't," he said. "For God's sake stop! That's enough. If anybody tells me that Captain Whistler was chasing a mermaid around C deck last night, the last shred of my sanity will be gone. Don't say it! I can't bear to hear any more!"

"Eh?" said Valvick, staring. "What iss dis? Ay nefer hear anyt'ing like dat, dough ay haff a mess-boy once who say he hass seen one. Dis iss Mr. Woodcock's invention— ay tell you about it, but ay haff to listen to him a lot because he know a lot about diss crook… "

Valvick sat down.

"Listen! Ay got bot' de hatches full off news. Ay tell you all about it, but first ay tell you de most important. Captain Whistler want all of us up in his cabin after breakfast, and — coroosh! — he t'ink he know who de criminal is."

10 — Dramatis Personae

After the captain had ordered porridge and the table steward had gone, a rather nervous Warren put down his coffee-cup.

"Knows who the criminal is? He's not getting any funny ideas, is he? About us, I mean?"

Chuckling, Valvick made a broad gesture. "Coroosh, no! Not at all. Dat ain't it. Ay dunno yust what it is, but he send Sparks to my cabin to say we all got to come up after mess. Sparks say de captain get a wireless message, but he will not tell me what iss in it until we see old Barnacle."

"I wonder," said Morgan.

"So dat remind, and ay say to Sparks — iss de wireless-operator; all de wireless-operators iss Sparkses, you see— ay say, "Sparks, you wass on duty yesterday afternoon, eh?" And he say, "Yes." And den ay say, "Sparks, do you remember when de old man receive dat first message about de crook, and hass a row wit' you? Wass dere some odder people in de cabin wit' you at de time?" When he says yes, den ay describe dat girl we find cracked on de head last night, and ay say, "Sparks, was she dere?" (All Sparkses is hawful wit' de ladies, so ay know he remember her if she wass.) Halso, if she send or receive a message, he iss going to know her name, eh?"

"Neat!" said Warren. "Swell! Who was she?"

"Ahhhh, dass de trouble. He remember her, but he dunno. Dere was several people, and halso a cousin of Sparks which is travelling as a passenger. She came in, and see dere is people in a waiting-line, so he guess she don't want to wait and she turn round and go out; he say she hass got 'ands full of papers. No matter! We find out when we know who iss missing. Now is de part I want to tell you…"

The porridge had arrived. Captain Valvick emptied the creamjug over it, bent his vast shoulders, adjusted his elbows in a wing-like spread, and spoke between excavations.

"Well, we get to talking, you see, and ay give him a drink of Old Rob Roy, and he say, "Coroosh! Captain, but my cousin Alick could haff use dis whisky last night." Den he tell me his cousin Alick hass suffered somet'ing hawful with de yumping toothache, and de doctor hass give him somet'ing to put on it, but it don't do no good. And ay say, "So-ho?" ay say, "den he should haff come to me, for ay know somet'ing dat cure him bing-bing." It iss composed—"

"Not to interrupt you, Skipper," said Morgan, who was keeping a wary eye out for a signal from Peggy at the Perrigords' table, "but are you sure this is strictly—"

"Ay am sure, you bet!" returned the other, with snorting excitement. "Listen. He say, "Den ay wish you would go see him," Sparks say; "he iss only round in C 47… ' " "Sorry," said Morgan, and jerked his head back. "C 47, eh? Well?"

"So we go to C 47, which iss in de gangway just hopposite Dr. Kyle's. Eh? And hiss cousin is walking round in circles with de 'ot-water-bag, and sometimes he go and bump his head on de bulkhead, and say, "Coroosh! ay wish ay wass dead," and ay pity de poor fallar hawful. So ay write out what he hass to get at doctor's, and send Sparks for it. In fife minutes dat pain go, and de poor fallar can't believe it, and he got tears in his eyes when he t'ank me. Oh, ay forgot to tell you he iss a prizefighter which is called de Bermondsey Terror. He hask me if dere is somet'ing he can do for me. Ay say no, and ay give him a drink of Old Rob Roy, but ay got a hidea yust de same." With a massive finger the captain tapped the table. "Like diss. In de night ay am t'inking to myself, and all of a sudden ay yump up in my bunk, and t'ink, "Coroosh! Maybe de doctor and de odders iss honest people, but suppose diss crook sneak into de cabin where Miss Glenn t'row dat hemerald?…"'

Morgan nodded. The old skipper was no fool. It took some time for his clicking mind to mesh its wheels, but he arrived. This idea, bringing new implications to worry Warren, caused a silence to fall on the table.

"You don't mean" — Warren gulped—"you don't mean—?"

"Oh! no! But ay t'ank ay better ask de Bermondsey Terror. Ay say, "You wass up all night wit' de toothache?" He say yes. Ay say, "Did you hear any yumps and yitters out on de deck?" He say, "Yes, ay t'ank ay hear a woman say, "Sock him again," but ay feel too bad to go see what it iss; besides," he say, "ay haf de port closed so ay don't catch cold in de yaw, and can't hear much, but," he say, "it iss close in de cabin, and ay haff de door fastened open." Dat is de way wit de lime-yuicers. Dey iss hell on cold air. Ay wass in yail once in Boston wit' a lime-yuicer, and all he do all de time iss to squawk about dat yail because it hass got steam heat… "

"And the Bermondsey Terror," said Morgan, "was up all night, and could see Kyle's door?"

"Dat iss right," agreed the captain. "And he swear nobody go down dere all night. So ay got somet'ing off my mind." He heaved a wheezy sigh.

Observing that Warren was about to construe this into further proof of Kyle's guilt, Morgan said, hastily: "You've accomplished lots of work before breakfast, Captain. Was there anything else? What's this you say about Woodcock knowing something?"

"Ah! Yes, yes. Ay almost forget!" The captain gave a mighty flip of his spoon. "But ay dunno yust what to make of it. Dat Woodcock iss a funny fallar, you bet. Efery time he talk business, he try to use de subtlety and den ay dunno what he iss talking about. But he say it iss a business proposition. He say he want to speak to Mr. Warren, and he got a deal to make if Mr. Warren will talk turkey. First, he knows what happen last night…"

"I'll bet he does," said Warren, grimly. "What's his version?"

"No, no, no! Dat iss de funny part. Ay t'ank he know most of it for sure, all except about de girl."

Warren seized the edge of the table. "You don't mean he knows about Uncle Warpus or that film?"

"Well, he knows somet'ing about a film, ay tell you dat. He iss a smart man. What all he know ay dunno, but he sort of hint he know plenty about diss crook." Valvick stroked his moustache, scowling. "You better talk to him. De point iss diss. He has invented something. It iss a bug-powder gun wit' a helectric light."

"A bug-powder gun with an electric light?" repeated Morgan, rather wildly. He dismissed the idea that this might be some singular kind of nautical metaphor. "What the hell is a bug-powder gun with an electric light? This strain is gradually sapping my mental powers. I'm going mad, I tell you. Skipper, haven't we got enough on our minds without you babbling about bug-powder guns and electric lights?"

"Ay am not babbling!" said the captain, with some heat. "Dat is yust what he tell me. Ay dunno how it vurk, but it iss somet'ing you use to kill de mosquitoes in de dark. He say it will refolutionise de bug-killing profession, and he iss going to call it de Mermaid. He say it can also be used on bedbugs, cockroaches, earwigs, caterpillars, red ants, horseflies… "

"I have no doubt," said Morgan, "that it will enable a good shot to bring down a cockroach at sixty yards. But get back to the subject. Whether or not it has something to do with us, we have more immediate concerns. Dr. Kyle, skipper, did not find the emerald in his cabin this morning. Thanks to you and the Bermondsey Terror, we've proved that the Blind Barber didn't get in to pinch it, either… That leaves the Perrigords. It's got to be the Perrigords. They're our last hope. Of course the Perrigords have got it! That's why Peggy is staying so long over there. _…"

Warren tapped his arm.

"She's giving us the high sign now," he said, in a low voice. "Don't turn round too obviously now, but have a look. No, wait a minute. It's no secret stuff. She wants us to come over to the table."

"De odder people haff got de emerald?" inquired Valvick, peering over his shoulder. "Haa! Den dat iss all right. Ay tell you ay wass worried."

"Lord! I hope so," said Morgan, fervently. "But Peggy doesn't look too pleased. Finish your breakfast, Skipper, and then join us. Get ready, Curt. Did you finish that article?"

"Sure I did," retorted Warren. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth as they moved out across the dance floor towards the other table. "And don't go making any cracks about my education either. I can tell you all about it. It seems Peggy's uncle is the goods. As a classic dramatist he is an eight-cyclindered wow, and there's been nobody like him since Moliere. If any impertinent criticism of his jewelled lines can be made by one, one would say a certain je ne sais quoi. I should possibly suggest the introduction of certain deft touches of realism into the speech of, say, so human and breathing a figure as the Knight Roland or the crafty Banhambra, Sultan of the Moors which would lend an element of graphic power…."

"An element," said the loud, concise voice of Mr. Leslie Perrigord in the flesh, "of graphic power. And that is all."

Morgan looked him over as he sat stiffly upright at the breakfast-table, holding a fork with its prongs against the cloth and e-nun-ci-a-ting his words through stiff jaws. There was nothing effeminate or lackadaisical about Mr. Leslie Perrigord, that element which most irritated Morgan in the species intellectual. Mr. Perrigord looked as though he could pull his weight in a crew or handle a skittish horse. A tall lath with thin blond hair, a hooked nose, and a mummified eye, he simply talked. He looked at nothing in particular. He seemed far away. If you had not seen the feathery blond moustache floating as in an icy breeze, you would have sworn it was an effect of ventriloquism. But (once started) he showed no disposition to leave off talking.

A measured stream of hooey flowing from Mr. Perrigord's lips in concise cadences was checked by Peggy only when it became necessary for Perrigord to wind himself up with ice-water. She said:

"Oh, I say, excuse me! I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I must present two very good friends of mine. Mr. Warren, Mr. Morgan… "

"De-do?" said Mrs. Perrigord, sepulchrally.

"Oh?" said Mr. Perrigord. He seemed vaguely annoyed. He had just kicked Shakespeare in the eye and mashed the hat of Ben Jonson; and Morgan felt he was ruffled at being interrupted. "Oh? Delighted, I'm sure. I was — ah — mentioning some of the more elementary points, en passant, in the talk I have been asked to deliver at the ship's concert to-night." He smiled thinly. "But — ah — I fear I shall bore you. It is merely a talk serving as an introductory speech to the performance of M. Fortinbras's marionettes. I fear—"

"But of course they'll be interested, Mr. Perrigord!" crowed Peggy, with enthusiasm. "Curt, I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Perrigord about the time in Dubuque when the Knight Oliver got his pants split in the battle with the Moors, and they had to lower the curtain because all the sawdust came out of him, and he had to be sewed up again before uncle would go on with the play. Mr. Perrigord said it was charming, a charming detail. Didn't you, Mr. Perrigord?"

"Quite, Miss Glenn," said the oracle, benevolently (for him), but he looked as if he wished the others would go and let him get back to literature. He showed that heavy sort of politeness which grows acutely uncomfortable in the air. "Quite charming. These little details. But surely I am boring these gentlemen, who can have no conceivable interest… ?"

"But just fancy," continued Peggy, appealing to Morgan. "Hank, you villain, I've lost my bet to you, after all. And now I'll have to stand the cocktails, and it's a terrible shame. Don't you think so, dear Mr. Perrigord?"

Warren did not like this at all.

"Bet?" he said. "What bet? Who made a bet?"

Somebody kicked him in the shins. "Because," the girl went on, "after all my tam-o'-shanter didn't blow in the porthole of Mr. Perrigord's cabin last night. It's beastly luck, because now I've probably lost it; but it didn't, and there's that. Just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully" — here she raised earnest, awed, soft eyes for a moment and kept them fixed on Perrigord's countenance.

He cleared his throat. A sort of paralytic leer passed over his face. Warren saw it. So did Mrs. Perrigord—"just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully, he told me he'd found nothing in the cabin at all, and I'm afraid now I must have lost that nice tam of mine."

"No deu-oubt," said Mrs. Perrigord, giving Peggy a nasty look through her monocle. "It was quayte dark on deck, wasn't it, my de-ah?"

"Quayte. And, I say, these men do take such advantage of us, don't they, Mrs. Perrigord? I mean, I think it's simply awful; but after all what can one do? I mean, it's much better to submit than cause a terrible lot of fuss and bother, isn't it?"

"Well, re-aolly!" said Mrs. Perrigord, stiffening. "I confess I scarcely kneow. To — to one at a time, perhaps. But — ah — reaolly, my deah, since I am olmost certain I heard at least six intoxicated men carousing out the-ah, I confess I should not have been at oil surprised to find on our floor considerably moah than a tam-o'-shanter. As I observed to the steward at the time—"

"To the steward?" asked Peggy wonderingly. "But, Mrs. Perrigord, wherever was your husband?"

Mrs. Perrigord's husband, who now seemed to despair of getting back to the serious business of sitting on literary hats, interposed:

"Most refreshing, Miss Glenn. Most refreshing. Ha-ha! I like the outspoken views, the free and untrammelled straightforwardness of our youth to-day, which is not by ancient prejudice cabined, cribbed, and confined… " At this point, Mrs. Perrigord looked as though, if she were not by ancient prejudice cabined, cribbed, and confined, she would up and dot him one with a plate of kippers. "I— in short, I like it. But you must not mind my wife. Ha-ha!"

"Oh?" said Mrs. Perrigord.

"Come, come, Cynthia. Jeunesse, jeunesse. A trifle of exuberant 'seizing the moment,' so to speak. Remember what D. H. Lawrence said to James Joyce. Ha-ha-ha!"

"My deah Leslie," said Mrs. Perrigord coldly, "Babylonian orgies and revels of Ishtar a la Pierre Louys are oil very well in books. But if it is to youah aesthetic taste to have these rites peahfoahmed oil ovah the deck of a respectable linah undah youah window at 2 a.m., I must say I caon't agree. And I must insist on explaining to this young lady that muh relations with the cabin steward were — ah— puahly those of business—"

"Coo!" said Peggy.

"— and were confined," went on Mrs. Perrigord, in a louder voice, "to ringing the bell, unbolting the doah, and asking him whethah (as my husband will inform you) something could be done to stop the noise. I can assuah you that I slept no moah oil night."

Mr. Perrigord said mildly that you had got to remember what James Joyce said to D. H. Lawrence. Morgan felt that he had better do something to culminate this exchange of dirty digs before it reached the hair-pulling stage. All the same, he was aghast. The emerald had to be somewhere. He held no brief for either Lord Sturton or Captain Whistler, but the fact remained that they had pinched a fifty-thousand-pound jewel and thrown it through the porthole of one of those two cabins. If the emerald had somehow incredibly vanished, it meant the vanishing of Sturton's money and probably Whistler's official head. Something was wrong. Kyle said it wasn't in his cabin, and there was testimony to prove the Barber could not have lifted it from there. On the other hand, the Perrigords were awake; noticed the row; would certainly have noticed anything thrown in, and certainly could not have missed it this morning. His bewilderment grew, and he desperately sought for a new lead…

So Morgan assumed his most winning smile (although he felt it stretch like a hideous mask) and spoke flattering, soothing, cajoling words to Mrs. Perrigord. She was not at all bad-looking, by the way; and he went to work with gusto. While Warren stared at him, he sympathised with her and apologised angrily for the behaviour of whatever disgusting revellers had disturbed her sleep. He intimated that, no matter what might have been the conversation between those two notorious old rips James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence, it had been in very bad taste.

"… But to tell you the truth, Mrs. Perrigord," said

Morgan, leaning confidingly over her chair, "I heard that disturbance, too; and, though I can't say, since of course I wasn't there, you understand…"

"Oh, quayte!" said Mrs. Perrigord, relaxing a good deal and much less stiffly indicating that he had her royal ear. "Yes?"

"… still, I should have said it sounded less like — well, shall we say Dionysian revelry? — than simply a free-for-all scrap. Er, fisticuffs, you know," explained Morgan, seeking the highbrow mot juste. "Especially as (if you'll forgive my saying so, Mrs. Perrigord) that a lady of your charm and knowledge of refinements in sensual indulgence would probably take a light view of men's and women's frailties if only they were staged with any degree of delicacy. Furthermore—"

"Well, no, reaolly!" said Mrs. Perrigord, looking arch. "Come now, Mr. Morgan, you can scarcely expect muh to agree altogether with that, can you? Heh-heh-heh!"

"Sure! Absolutely, Mrs. Perrigord!" said Warren. He perceived that Hank: was trying to win the old girl over, and stoutly tried to help the good work along. "We know you're a good sport. Absolutely. Remember what the travelling salesman said to the farmer's daughter."

"Shut up," said Morgan out of the corner of his mouth. "And naturally I suppose this idea of a fight occurred to you, too. Gad! I wonder you didn't get up and bolt the door, Mrs. Perrigord, in case those drunken ba — ah — in case those revellers should decide—"

"But I did!" cried Mrs. Perrigord. "Oh, the doah was bolted, I assuah you! From the very first moment I heard a woman's voice imploring someone to — to strike someone ageyne, it was bolted. I did not close an eye oil night. I can most certainly tell you that no one came into the cabin."

(Well, that tore it. Morgan glanced at his companions. Peggy looked upset. Warren angry and mystified. The puzzle was growing worse jumbled and also it was Mr. Perrigord who now seemed to be giving the nasty looks. Morgan felt that they had better go off and cool their before going up for the interview with Captain Whistler. He prepared some discreet words…)

tell me," said Mrs. Perrigord, apparently struck an idea. "Someone said—are you the Mr. Morgan writes the detective stories?" "Why — er — yes. Yes, I believe so. Thank you very much, Mrs. Perrigord, and you too, sir. It's been delightful to have made your acquaintance, and I only hope we shall have the opportunity—"

"I adore detective stories," said Mrs. Perrigord. Her husband remained motionless. But on his glassy-eyed countenance was a curious expression. He looked as a familiar of the Spanish Inquisition might have looked if, on the morning of an auto-da-fe, Fra Torquemada had announced an intention of dismissing the poor blighters with a warning.

"Do you indeed, my dear?" inquired Leslie Perrigord, frostily. "Most extraordinary. Well, we must not detain them, Cynthia. Miss Glenn, I hope I shall have the pleasure of conferring with you to-day — and also your excellent uncle, to whom I look forward to meeting — and arrange matters for the performance to-night. A bientot!"

"But we shall see you at the concert, of course," observed Mrs. Perrigord. On her face was a narrow-eyed smile which somehow reminded Morgan of Mr. Stanley Laurel. "Les-leh and I have bean conferring with the pursah to arrange it. I shall so hope to see you, deah Miss Glenn. An excellent programme has bean arranged. Madame Giulia Leda Camopsozzi will sing morceaux from the more modern masters, accompanied by her husband, Signor Benito Furioso Camopsozzi. I — ah — believe," she added, frowning as though this did not appeal to her, "that the pursah, a certain Mr. Macgregor, has persuaded Dr. Oliver Kyle to recite selections from the works of Robert Burns. This will of course precede M. Fortinbras's performance. A bientot"

"Cheero-ho," said Peggy, rising from the table, "and thanks most awfully for all the information. You must come and see me, Mr. Perrigord, and tell me all about those fascinating things — but, I say — er — if you're going to see my uncle—"

"Yes?" inquired Mr. Perrigord. He lifted his eyebrows at her worried expression.

"Don't think me foolish, but I really know him awfully well. And please promise me, if he's up and about — I mean, I know how awful some of you terribly intelligent people are," she really seemed to be in earnest this time, and even Mrs. Perrigord condescended to look at her as she hesitated; "but promise me you won't give him anything to drink. I know it sounds silly, but he really hasn't got a strong head; and — and you'd never believe it, but he has a most awful weakness for gin. I have to watch him, you see, because one night when we were to give a performance in Philadelphia—"

"I never touch spirits, Miss Glenn," said Perrigord, swiftly and rather curtly. " 'Why should I put a thief in my mouth to steal away my brains?' as T. S. Eliot somewhere puts it. It is abominable. I am also a vegetarian. M. Fortinbras will be quite safe in my care. Good day."

In silence the three conspirators hurried away from the table. Morgan, locked up with his own bewildering thoughts, did not speak. Peggy looked scared. It was Warren who broke the silence.

"You see?" he demanded, savagely. "Those two dumb chucks wouldn't steal anything. Now take my advice before it's too late. It's that fake doctor, I'm telling you. My Lord! the thing didn't just disappear! It's in his cabin… "

"Peggy," said Morgan, "there's no other explanation. You must have mistaken the cabin."

They had reached the foot of the staircase, and she waited until a passing steward was out of earshot. "I didn't, Hank," she told him, quietly and earnestly. "I'm absolutely positive I didn't. I was out on deck again this morning, putting myself just where I stood last night… "

"Well?"

"I wasn't mistaken. It was one of those two, because there are only two portholes anywhere near. It was one of those two; and I think, I say I think, it was Dr. Kyle's."

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't see what more evidence you want," remarked Warren, rather querulously. "I'll do what the Brains says, and no questions asked, but I've got my own theories. Come on. We've got to go up and see Captain Whistler."

A voice just above them said: "Excuse me, Mr. Warren. I don't want to bust up anything; but if you've ten minutes to spare, I think I can make it worth your while."

Leaning over the gilt banister, tapping it with his finger, Mr. Charles Woodcock was regarding them in a very curious fashion.

11 — One Who Saw the Blind Barber

Mr. Woodcock's countenance wore such an expression of tense and alert seriousness that Morgan felt a new uneasiness. He remembered Valvick's remarks to the effect that Woodcock had hinted of things, nebulous but dangerous things, the man claimed to know. Never thoroughly at ease before live-wire business men, because his mind could not move as fast as theirs along their own lines, Morgan thought of several disturbing possibilities, including blackmail. And so it was that they encountered a feature of the case which (a week before) Morgan would have considered an absurdity or a frank impossibility, yet which to others was serious: one of the deadly serious things which underlay a tissue of misdirection and nonsense.

Woodcock was a wiry, restless, shock-headed man with a bony face and good-humoured eyes which were nevertheless rather fixed. Round his sharp jaw were wrinkles as though from much talking; the talking, in fact — as he strolled about the ship hitherto — had been rapid, lurid, jovial and winking. He seemed desirous of conveying the impression that he was a bouncing, engagingly mendacious good fellow with little on his mind. Now he leaned over the banister, his sharp eyes moving swiftly right and left.

"Now I spoke to the old skipper," he went on in a rapid and confidential undertone, "because I didn't have any idea of shoving myself in, you understand, where I mightn't be wanted. All right!" said Mr. Woodcock lifting his palm in a gesture as though he expected an objection. He did this each time he said, "All right!" It was a means of noting that he had made a point; and could go on from there with a certainty that, so far, everything was understood. "All right! But I know how it is with these things, and I want to make it man to man, and fair and square, so that I can convince you you'll be doing a thing you'll never regret if you come in on my proposition. All right! Now, all I want, Mr. Warren, is ten minutes of your valuable time — alone. Just ten minutes. You can take out your watch and put it on the table, and if I haven't interested you in just ten minutes—"Here he made a significant gesture of his wrist and raised his eyebrows—"then there's absolutely no more to be said."

"Not at all, not at all," said Warren rather vaguely. He was flustered at this new intrusion, and clearly had the idea Woodcock was trying to sell him something. "Glad to give you all the time you want. Well — we'll have a drink and talk it over. But not just now. My friends and I have an important date—"

Woodcock leaned closer.

"Exactly, old man. Exactly. I know. With the captain. It's all right now; it's all right," he whispered, raising his hand. "I understand, old man."

The conspirators stared at each other, and Woodcock's eyes swept from one to the other of them. "What," said Warren, "what's on your mind?"

"Ten minutes," said the other, "alone?"

"Well — yes. But my friends have got to be there. You can tell all of us, can't you?"

Woodcock seemed to scent a bluff somewhere. His eyebrows went up, but he spoke in a tone of pleasant and fatherly chiding, anxiously.

"Look, old man. Are you sure you've got it straight? Are you sure you'd like to have the young lady there?"

"Why not? Good God! what have you got into your head, anyhow?"

"All right, old man, if that's what you want!" He was affable. "I admit I'd rather talk to you alone, but I won't argue. Suppose we go up to the writing-room, where it'll be quiet."

On the way he talked steadily and with sprightly bounce of other matters, laughing heartily, amid many jocose references. The white-panelled writing-room was deserted. He led them to an embrasure of full-glass windows, where the morning sun was muffled by thick curtains, and quiet was broken only by the pounding of the engines. Here, when they were seated, he ran a hand through his bristly hair, fidgeted, and suddenly shot into action.

"Now, I want to help you, old man," he explained, still confidentially, "but you see, it's a case of mutual benefits, you see? You're young, and you don't understand these things. But when you get older and have a wife and family, ah!" said Mr. Woodcock. He made an impressive gesture. "Then you'll understand that business isn't only a matter of favours. All right! Now, frankly, you're sort of in a jam, aren't you?"

"Shoot," said Warren briefly.

"Well then. I don't know what went on on the boat last night, that everybody's talking about; I don't want to know. It's none of my business, see? But I do know what happened yesterday afternoon. A roll of film was stolen from your cabin, wasn't it? No, no, don't answer, and don't interrupt.

"I'm going to show you," continued Mr. Woodcock, after a pause in which he demonstrated himself an admirable showman—"'m going to show you," he went on, rather sharply, "a little moving-picture of my own as to what might have happened. I don't say it did happen, y'unnastand. You wouldn't expect me to pin myself down to that, would you? I say it might have happened. All right! Now here's my little moving-picture. I'm coming along the gangway down on C deck, see? about ha'-past four yesterday afternoon, and I've just been up sending off a radio to my firm, and there's nothing on my mind. All of a sudden I hear a noise behind me when I'm passing one of those little offshoots of the gangway, and I turn around in time to see a guy ducking out of it, and across the gangway into the wash-room. All right! And I see this bozo's got a whole mess of movie film that he's trying to stuff under his coat—

"U-uh, now!" said Mr. Woodcock warningly, "don't interrupt! Well, suppose I see this guy's face so that if I haven't seen it before I'd know it again wherever I saw it; just-suppose that. I wonder what it is, but I figure it's none of my business. Still, I think there may be a angle to it, see, so I sort of go down and take a peek. But all I can see is a door sort of open and a lot of film and film-boxes scattered around on the floor; and I see a guy — maybe yourself — sort of getting up from the floor with his hands to his head.

"And I think 'Whu-o, Charley! You'd better get out of this, and not be mixed up in any trouble,' see? Besides, the guy was coming round and didn't need any help, or I'd have stopped. But then I get to thinking—"

"You mean," said Warren, rather hoarsely, "you saw who—?"

"Now go easy, old man, go easy. Let me show my picture now!"

His picture, they discovered, exhibited a sort of strange interlude in which Mr. Woodcock's memory spoke to him. Apparently he was a great hand at reading die tabloids and scandal sheets, explaining also that he was a subscriber to the magazine True Sex-Life Stories. One of the papers, it appeared, had recently published a red-hot, zippy item straight from the capital city. It was couched in the form of innuendo, inquiring what Big Shot had a nephew who could always get a job turning a camera crank in Hollywood; furthermore, was it possible that the afore-mentioned Big Shot, in a sportive mood, had been indiscreet before a camera; and, if this were within the limits of possibility, who was the woman in the case?

"Woman?" said Warren uncontrollably. "Woman? There's no woman! Why, my un—"

"Steady," interrupted Morgan, his face stolid. "Mr. Woodcock's doing the talking."

Woodcock did not even smile or contradict. He probably expected this. He was still helpful, concerned; but there were tighter wrinkles round his jaw and his eyes were expressionless. "So maybe I'm thinking to myself," he pursued, jerking his wrist and shoulder with a curiously Hebraic gesture while the sharp eyes fixed Warren, "about a very funny cablegram I overhear in the wireless-room. And maybe I don't make much sense out of it, see? because I don't hear much of it; except that it's about a movie film and also about somebody being bare. Now, now, old man, you needn't look so funny at me — I understand how these things are. But I think, 'Charley, maybe you're wrong. Maybe it was just an ordinary stick-up job. And if it was, then of course there'll be a noise about it this evening, and Mr. Warren'll report he's been robbed.' All right! Only," concluded Mr. Woodcock, leaning over and tapping Warren on the knee, "there wasn't, and he didn't."

During the silence they could hear some children crying out and pelting past the door of the writing-room. The engines throbbed faintly. Slowly Warren passed his hand over his forehead.

"There've been some funny interpretations put on all this," he said in a strained voice, "but this is the limit. A woman!… All right to you, old horse," he added, with sudden crispness. "You're wrong, of course; but this isn't the time to discuss that. Who was that man who stole the film? That's what we want to know. What is it you want? Money?"

Clearly this had never occurred to the other. He jumped on the seat of the window. "I may not be as big as you," he said quietly, "but you try offering me money again, and, by God! you'll regret it. What do you think I am, a blackmailer? Come on, old man" — his voice changed and his eyes had a hopeful and propitiatory gleam—"come on now. I'm a business man and this is the biggest chance of my life. I'm only trying to do my job, after all. If I can put this across, I'll be in line for an assistant-vice-presidency. I'm giving it to you straight: if I'd thought that anything really important'd been stolen, or anything like that, I wouldn't hold out on you for a second. But I figure it this way. What's happened? An old guy, who ought to know better, has played sugar-daddy and got himself into a jam with a woman, and there's a picture of it. All right! I don't wish him any bad luck — I sympathise, and I offer to help. I offer to tell you who's got it, so's you can get it back… well, whatever way you like. But I figure I rate a favour in return. And if that's not fair, I don't know what is."

The man was desperately serious. Morgan studied him, trying to understand both the man's ethics and the man's nature. He was a problem aside from both the grim and the comic. That a governmental stuffed-shirt had been caught in a compromising position with a woman before somebody's moving-picture camera he thought of as neither serious nor ridiculous; in all probability he simply supposed that, if a government official got into difficulties they would be difficulties of that nature, to be judged solely from how he could use the fact in a legitimate business fashion. Morgan looked at Warren, and he could see that the latter considered it all fair enough.

"Good enough," said Warren, nodding grimly. "You've got a right to proposition me. Fire away. But what the devil can / do for you?"

Woodcock drew a deep breath.

"I want a signed testimonial, with a picture," he said, "for the newspapers and magazines."

" Testimonial? Hell, yes, I'll give you a testimonial for anything," Warren returned, staring. "But what good can I do you? What — Wait a minute. Holy smoke! You don't mean a bug-powder testimonial, do you?"

"1 mean," said Woodcock, "I want a recommendation for a certain article which my firm is about to place on the market and which I invented. Mind, old man, if I didn't know this thing was a world-beater I wouldn't try to sell you the idea. I'm not going to ask you to accept anything sight unseen. I'm going to show you," said Mr. Woodcock, suddenly taking out a long package from under his coat like an anarchist who gets his victim in a corner with a bomb. "I'm going to show you that this little gadget will really do everything we claim for it in the advertising campaign. Yes, I want a testimonial, old man… But not from you."

"He means, Curt," said Peggy, regarding Mr. Woodcock with a fascinated horror—"he means, you see—"

Woodcock nodded. "You get it lady. I want a testimonial of endorsement from the Hon. Thaddeus G. Warpus for the Mermaid Electrically-fitted Mosquito Gun, fitted with Swat No. 2 Liquid Insect Exterminator; saying that he personally uses it at his country home in New Jersey, and warmly recommends it. This is my chance, and I'm not going to miss it. For years we've been trying to get testimonials for our stuff from the big shots or the society women. And we can't. Because why? Because they say it isn't dignified. But what's the difference? Cigarettes, toothpaste, face cream, shaving soap — you'll get them recommended all right, and what's the difference? I'm not asking you to recommend a bug-powder, but a neat, svelte-looking, silver-plate and enamel job. Let me show it to you, let me explain how it works — that combines all the advantages of a double-sized electric torch with—"

Eagerly, as though to press an advantage, he began to take off the wrappings of the parcel. Morgan, as he looked at Curtis Warren, was more and more startled. This business, which had the elements of howling farce, was not farce at all. Warren was as serious as the Bug-powder Boy.

"But, man, have some sense!" he protested, waving his arms. "If it had been anything else, toothpaste, cigarettes… It can't be done. It'ud make him out to look foolish… "

"Yeah?" said Woodcock coolly. "Well, answer me this. Which is going to make him look more foolish, which is going to show he's more of a mug, this neat little apparatus or that film? Sorry, old man, but there you are. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

"And otherwise you won't tell who stole that film?"

"That's what I said," agreed the other, almost cordially. "I'll tell you what, old man. You get the cablegrams working; you tell him his bare skin'll be saved if he plays ball with Charley Woodcock… "

"But he'd never do it!"

"Then it'll be just too bad for him. won't it?" asked the other candidly. He folded his arms. "Now you're a nice fellow and I like you. There's nothing personal in it. But I've got to look out for myself… Oh, and don't try to start anything either," he suggested, as Warren suddenly got to his feet. "You start any funny business, and I may not get my testimonial, but the story of T. G. Warpus's brief movie stardom is going to be all over the world as fast as I can broadcast it. Get me? In fact, old man," said Mr. Woodcock, trying to keep his confidential suavity, but breathing a little hard now, "if I don't get some assurance before we leave this boat that T. G. Warpus is a right guy who can take his medicine, I might get indiscreet when "I'd had a drink too many in the bar."

"You wouldn't do that!" said Peggy.

There was a long silence. Woodcock had turned away to stare past the curtain at the sea, his hand fluttering at his bony chin. The hand dropped and he turned round.

"All right, lady," he said in a rather different voice. "I suppose you win there. No, I guess I wouldn't." He addressed Warren fiercely. "I'm not a crook. I just got mad for a minute, that was all. At least you don't have to worry about that part of it. I may try to pull some fast ones, but I'm not a lousy blackmailer. I've made you a straight proposition, and it stands. Come on, now; I apologise. What about it?"

Warren, slowly hammering his fist on one knee, said nothing. He looked at Peggy. He looked round at Henry Morgan. Morgan said:

"I'm glad you said that, Mr. Woodcock."

"Said what? Oh, about not being a crook? Thanks," the other answered bitterly, "for nothing, I'm not one of those smooth boys who can scare you into doing anything, only they call it successful salesmanship… Why?"

"For instance," said Morgan, trying to keep his voice steady. He had an idea, and he only prayed that he would not bungle it. "For instance, would you like to be tried as accessory after the fact in a murder?"

"Oh, cut it," said Woodcock. "I've been wondering when the bluff would start."

All the same, his pale blue eyes briefly flashed sideways. He had got out a handkerchief and begun to mop his forehead as though he were tired of the whole business; but his bony hand stopped. The word "murder" comes rather startlingly in a business discussion. As the idea grew on Morgan — he thought that in a few minutes, if he kept his jugglery going with a steady hand, they might hear the Blind Barber's name — he had still more difficulty to keep from showing his nervous excitement. Easy, now. Easy does it…

"Let's see. You know the name of the man who stole a piece of film from Curt Warren's cabin?"

"I could point him out to you. There's not much chance of his leaving the boat."

"He committed a murder last night. He cut a woman's throat in the cabin next to Curt's. I thought you'd better be warned, that's all. Do you want me to show you the razor he did it with?"

"For God's sake," said Woodcock, jerking round, "be yourself!"

It was dusky and stuffily warm in the white writing-room, with its parade of gold-leafed mirrors and mortuary chairs. The white glass-topped desks, the ink-wells and pen-racks rattled slightly with the slight roll of the Queen Victoria; and, with the motion, a drowsy curling swish of water would rise in the silence. Morgan reached into the breast pocked of his coat and took out a folded dark-smeared handkerchief. He opened it just beneath a long beam of sunlight that came through the curtains, and a dull glitter shone inside.

Again there was silence…

But Mr. Woodcock was not having any. Morgan saw him sitting there very straight, his hands relaxed, and a very thin smile fluttered across his face. It was a curious psychological fact, but the very production of evidence, the very display of a blood-stained razor with such sudden convenience, was what seemed to convince Woodcock that he was being elaborately bluffed.

He shook his head chidingly.

"Oh, I remember now, Hank, old man. You're the fellow who writes the stories. Say, I've got to hand it to you at that. You had me wondering for a second." The man looked as though he honestly relished this. "It's all right. I appreciate a good try. I've done the same thing myself. But put it back, old man; put it back and let's talk turkey."

"We don't know who the girl was," Morgan went on, but with a desperate feeling that he had lost his game; "that is, not yet. We were just going up to the captain to find out. It'll be very easy to prove…"

"Now listen," said Woodcock, with an air of friendly if slightly bored tolerance. "The gag's all right, unnastand. It's swell. But why keep on with it? I've told you I'm not falling for it; I'm too old a bird. So why not talk business?"

"It's true, Mr. Woodcock!" Peggy insisted, clenching her hands. "Won't you see its true? We admit we don't know who was killed yet—"

"Well, well!"

"But we will know. Can't you tell us. Can't you give us a hint?"

"You'd never suspect," said Woodcock. He smiled dreamily, and looked at the roof with the expression of one who knows the answer in a guessing game that is driving all the players wild. It was having just that effect on these three. To know that the answer was locked up in the bony skull of the man before them, yet to be told coolly they were not to hear it… "I'll give you the answer," observed the Bug-powder Boy, "the moment I get the right answer back from T.G. Not before."

"I'll try," began Warren, but the other pointed out that was no guarantee.

"You don't believe," Morgan went on grimly, "that there's been a murder by the man who stole that film. Well, suppose you were convinced of it. Wait a bit now! You had your hypothesis, so at least pass an opinion on mine. Suppose there had been a murder and we could prove it, so that you'd be withholding evidence if you kept quiet. Would you tell us then?"

Woodcock lifted his shoulder, still with the pale, tolerant smile on his face. "We-el, old man! No reason why I shouldn't concede that point — in theory. Yes, indeed. If there'd been a murder done, if somebody's been killed, that would be a different thing. I sure would tell you."

"You promise that?"

"Word of honour. Now, if we can just get back to business—"

"All right," said Warren, coming to an abrupt decision. He got up. "We're going to see the captain now. And I'll make a little deal with you. If we can convince you by today that a murder's been committed, then you tell what you know. If we can't, then somehow or other, I give you my solemn word I'll get that testimonial from Uncle Warpus."

For the first time Woodcock seemed a little shaken. "I don't know what the gag is," he remarked critically, "and I'm damn sure there's a gag somewhere; but my answer is, You're on… Put 'er there, old man; shake on it. All right! In the meantime, just as a favour to me, you take the little Mermaid along and test it, will you? There are full directions for use inside, but maybe I'd better explain some of the salient points; some features, I'm telling you, that will make the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun the most talked-about item in the advertising world. For example, gentlemen! The old-fashioned, out-moded type of squirt-gun for insects you had to work by hand— working a plunger in and out by hand — didn't you? Exactly. Now, the Mermaid here is automatic. Simply twist this small enamelled button, and electricity does the rest. From the nozzle issues a fine stream of liquid insect exterminator, which can be regulated to greater or less power and range; also to spray in fan-like fashion over a wide area, all by means of buttons. Then again, gentlemen, there is our own unique feature of the electric light. How will you find those troublesome mosquitoes that, under cover of darkness, are making you loose sleep and undermining your health? I'll show you. Simply press this button…"

Warren took the gift from the Greek and Morgan and Peggy hurried him out in case he grew violent in an effort to make Mr. Woodcock disgorge information. Woodcock stood teetering on his heels, smiling tightly, as they left him. In the passage outside they leaned against the wall, rather breathless.

"The low-down crook!" breathed Warren, shaking in the air the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun. "The dirty double-crosser! He knows! He knows, and he won't—"

"But was he serious about that testimonial?" asked Peggy, who could still not get this part of the matter untangled. "I mean, fancy! He can't really mean that he wants your uncle to appear in the newspapers saying, 'I'm wild about Woodcock's bug-powder,' can he? I mean, that would be awful!"

"Baby, that's just it. He's as serious — well, he's as serious as Uncle Warpus trying to swing an international treaty and protect somebody's neutrality. You don't know," said Warren, with some violence, "how self-complacent modern advertising is. They call it public service. Come on. Let's go up and see the old horse-thief upstairs. What Uncle Warpus would say to me if I forced him into endorsing bug-powder is more than a drinkless stomach allows me to contemplate. I have a feeling that the sooner we see Captain Whistler, the old herring, and get this business about the girl straightened out, the sooner I'm going to feel well again. Come on."

"And / have a feeling—" said Morgan, and stopped.

He did not continue. But he was right.

12 — Indiscretions of Curtis Warren

When they knocked at the door of Captain Whistler's cabin just abaft the bridge, it was opened by a melancholy steward who was making up the berth and clearing away breakfast dishes in a large, comfortable, rosewood-panelled cabin with curtains of rather startling pattern at the portholes.

"Commander ayn't 'ere, sir," the steward informed them, squinting at Warren in a rather sinister fashion. " 'E's gorn to see Lord Sturton, 'e said you wos to wait, if you please."

Warren tried to be nonchalant, but he showed his apprehension.

"Ah," he said, "Ah! Thanks, steward. How is the old mackerel feeling this morning? That is — er—"

"Ho!" said the steward significantly, and punched at a pillow as he arranged it.

"I see," said Warren. "Well, we'll — er — sit down."

The steward pottered about the cabin, which gave evidence that the captain had fired things about in some haste, and finally doddered out with the breakfast tray. The nasty look he gave them over his shoulder confirmed their hypothesis that the beauties of nature did not induce in Captain Whistler any mood to stand on the bridge and sing sea-shanties.

"I guess he's still peeved," was Warren's opinion. "And this is kind of a delicate matter, Hank. You do all the talking now. I don't think I care to risk it."

"You bet your sweet life I'll do all the talking," agreed Morgan. "I wouldn't answer for any of us if the skipper walked in here and saw you with this razor in your hands. Especially as he's just gone to see Sturton, he is not likely to be in a playful frame of mind. Understand — you are to keep absolutely silent throughout the whole interview.

Not a word, not a movement unless you're asked to confirm something. I refuse to take any more chances. But I don't know—" He sat down in a leather chair, ruffled his hair, and stared out of one porthole at the pale sky. The sunlit cabin, swaying with drowsy gentleness in a murmurous swish of water conveyed no sense of peace. "I don't know," he went on, "that I feel altogether right about it myself. For the moment let Woodcock keep his information and blast him. What has happened to that emerald? That's the question."

"But after all, Hank, it isn't any business of ours," Peggy pointed out, with a woman's practical instinct. She took off her shell-rimmed glasses with a pleased air of having solved the thing, and shut them into her handbag with a decisive snap. "I shouldn't bother, old boy. What's the odds?"

"What's the odds?"

"Yes, of course I'm jolly sorry for Lord Sturton, and all that; but, after all, he's got pots of money hasn't he? And all he'd do would be to lock the emerald up in some nasty old safe, and what's the good of that?… Whereas this film of Curt's is really important, poor boy. I know what I'd do if I were a man," she declared scornfully. "I'd take that nasty little Woodcock chap and torture him until he told. Or I'd lock him up somewhere, the way they did to that baron what's-his-name, in The Count of Monte Cristo, and not let him have anything to eat and hold soup under his nose and laugh ha-ha until he was willing to tell me. You men Bah! You make me tired."

She made a gesture of impatience.

"Young lady," said Morgan, "both your ruthlessness and your logic are scandalous. I have sometimes observed a similar phenomenon in my own wife. Aside from the practical impossibility of holding soup under the bug-powder king's nose and laughing ha-ha, there's the sporting element to consider. Don't say bah. The fact remains that we have pinched old Sturton's emerald and the responsibility — What the devil's that noise?"

He jumped a little. For some moments he had been conscious of a low, steady, hissing noise somewhere about him. In his present frame of mind, it sounded exactly like the sinister hissing which Dr. Watson had heard at midnight in the dark bedroom during the Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was, in fact, the Mermaid Automatic Bug-Powder Gun.

"Curt," said Peggy, whirling suspiciously, "what are you up to now?"

"Handy little gadget at that," declared Warren, in some admiration. His eyes were shining, and he bent absorbedly over the elaborate silver and enamel tube. It was a streamlined cylinder full of scrolls and flutings, with a complicated array of black buttons. From the nozzle a thin wide spray, as advertised, was flying out across the captain's papers on the centre table. Warren moved it about. "All the buttons are marked, you see. Here's "Spray" — that's what I've got on now. Then there's "Half Power" and "Full Power."…

Peggy put a hand over her mouth and began to gurgle. This unseemly mirth annoyed Morgan still more. Besides, the spray was peculiarly pungent.

"Turn the damn thing off!" he howled, as a thin spray began to glitter all about them. "No, don't turn it at the wardrobe, you fathead. Now you've got the captain's spare uniform. Turn it—"

"All right, all right," said Warren, rather testily. "You needn't get griped about it. I was only trying the thing out… All I've got to do, you see, is press this dingus and — What's the matter with the fool thing? Hey!"

The pressing of the dingus, it is true, did away with the spray. It substituted what to the skilful engineers who designed it was presumably "Half Power." A thin but violent stream of liquid bug-powder ascended past Warren's shoulder as he tried to look at the nozzle and somewhat frantically twisted buttons. All he succeeded in doing was turning on the electric light.

"Give me the swine," said Morgan. "I'll fix it. Do something, can't you? It's raining bug-powder; the place is becoming impregnated with bug-powder! Don't turn it on yourself, you blithering idiot. Turn it… O my God, no! Not in the captain's berth. Take it out of the captain's berth… No, you can't shut it off with a pillow. Not under the bedclothes, dummy! You're—"

"Well, it's better than having it soak up the room, isn't it?" inquired Warren's hoarse voice, out of a luminous mist of bug-powder. "All right. Don't get apoplexy. I'll shut it off. I'll—" He avoided Morgan's arm, a fiendish expression on his face, and rushed to the middle of the cabin. "No, you don't. I turned this thing on and, so help me, I'll turn it off!" He gestured with the Mermaid, which was hissing like an enthusiastic cobra. "And this is the lousy thing my uncle is asked to endorse, is it? It's a cheat! It's no damn good! I'll find Woodcock and tell him so! I've turned every lousy knob… "

"Don't stand there orating!" shouted Morgan, whom the clammy mist had begun to envelop. "Do something. Fire it out the port-hole… "

"I know what I'll do!" said Warren, with fiendish inspiration. "I know what it is. I'll try "Full Power." That's probably the only thing that'll shut the swine off. That's it! If Woodcock had told the truth about it—"

Woodcock had told the truth about it, and could have exhibited a pardonable pride in its response. From the nozzle a fine stream of liquid insect exterminator shot with the force and violence of a fire-hose. Nor could Mr. Woodcock have in the least complained of its accuracy. In fact, it sizzled across the cabin full and true into the face of Commander Sir Hector Whistler just as he opened the door.

Morgan shut his eyes. In that moment of blasting and appalled silence he did not wish to look upon Captain Whistler's countenance. He would sooner have tried to outstare Medusa. Moreover, he wished he could summon his muscles to dive out of the room and run. But he could hear the Mermaid still hissing on the door-post beside the captain's head; and he risked one eye to look, not at Whistler, but at Warren.

Warren found his voice.

"I couldn't help it, Skipper!" he yelled. "I swear by all that's holy I couldn't help it. I tried everything. I pressed every button, but it wouldn't stop. Look! See, I'll show you! Look…!"

There was a sharp click. Instantly the stream gurgled, fell, and died away from the Mermaid's nozzle. It stopped. The Mermaid was as innocuous as she had been before.

Morgan afterwards realised that only one thing saved them then. Peering over the captain's shoulder in the doorway he had seen the startled countenance of Captain Valvick. Only the strangled words, "So — it's—you!" issued from the quivering lungs of the Queen Victoria's commander before Valvick had shot a big hand over his mouth. With one hand over his mouth and the other impelling him by the sack of the trousers, he hustled the insane skipper into the cabin and kicked the door shut.

"Qvick!" rumbled Valvick. "You get somet'ing to gag him wit' till he cool down, or he call de chief mate and den maybe we iss all in de brig. Ay am hawful sorry, Barnacle, but ay got to do diss… " Frowning, he turned a glance of angry reproachfulness on Warren. "What you want to playing for, anyway, eh? Diss iss no time for playing, ay tell you. After ay take al de time to smoot' old Barnacle down and tell him what we are doing, den it iss no time for playing. Coroosh! What iss dat stuff ay smell in de air?"

"It's only bug-powder, Skipper," insisted Warren. "After all, it's only bug-powder!"

A spasm racked the stout frame of Captain Whistler; his good eye bulged, but his internal noises beat in vain against the Gibraltar of Valvick's hand across his mouth. Nevertheless, Valvick had to use two hands to keep him quiet.

"Honest, Barnacle, diss iss for your own good!" Valvick begged, dragging him over to the chair before his desk and pushing him in. He was answered by a variety of muffled sounds like a steam-calliope heard underground. "Odder-wise you are going to do somet'ing you regret. Dese yentle-men can explain; ay know it! If you promise to do not'ing, ay let you loose. Ay mean, you kin svear all you like if it reliefs your mind, but you are not to do not'ing. Odderwise we got to gag you, eh?… Ay tell you it iss for your own good!… Now! You iss a man of your word. What about it, eh?"

A noise of assent and an inclination of the head like the Dying Gladiator answered him. Valvick stepped back, removing his hand.

The ensuing half-hour is one of the things in Morgan's life that he likes to forget. To say that it was nerve-racking would be to employ a spiritless word, and one without those nuances which Mr. Leslie Perrigord declares are essential to the power of classic drama. There was much classic fire at one point in the captain's remarks — that at which he frequently clutched his throat, stabbed a shaking finger at Warren like Macbeth seeing the ghost, and kept repeating "He's mad, I tell you! He tried to poison me! He's a homicidal maniac! Do you want him to murder my passengers? Why don't you let me lock him up?"

If, eventually, more sober counsels prevailed, it was due to a circumstance which Morgan did not at the moment understand. Captain Whistler, he was compelled to admit, had certain reasonable grounds for protest. Aside from all questions of personal dignity (the Mermaid's aim had gone straight as Locksley's good clothyard shaft into the skipper's damaged left eye), there was reason for complaint in the general omnipresence of bug-powder. The cabin was haunted by bug-powder. It rose in ghostly waves from his dress uniform; it soaked his berth, pervaded his linen, clung round his shoes, made fragrant his log-book, and whispered sweet nothings from his correspondence. In short, you could safely have wagered that not for months would even the most reckless cockroach be daredevil enough to venture within smelling-distance of anything that was Captain Whistler's.

Therefore it considerably astonished Morgan that in the short space of half an hour he was prevailed on to accept their explanations. True, he placed the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun in the middle of the floor and jumped on it. True, he no whit retreated from his declaration that Curtis Warren was a dangerous lunatic who would shortly be cutting somebody's throat if not placed under observation. But (whether due to Peggy's blandishments or to another cause shortly to be indicated, you shall decide) he consented to give Warren just one more chance.

"Just one more chance," he proclaimed, leaning forward in the chair and bringing his hand down on his desk, "and that's all. If there's one more suspicious move out of not only him, but any of you— Any of you, do you understand? — then he goes to the brig under guard. That's my last word." Glaring he sat back and sipped the healing whisky-and-soda that had been brought him. "Now, if you don't mind, we'll get down to business. And first I'll tell you this. I promised to share any information I might get, Mr. Morgan, because I considered you at least a sane man. Well, I have some information, although I admit it puzzles me. But before I tell you, there's something I want to point out. The young maniac, and you three as well, have caused me more trouble than anybody I ever had aboard a craft of mine. I could murder all four of you! You've caused me more trouble than anybody except the man who stole that emerald; and, in a way, you're involved in that… "

("Steady," thought Morgan.)

"But that's more important. And, if you liked, you could, I say, you could, help me a little in return… Are you sure there's nobody listening at that door?"

His tone was so gruffly and uneasily conspiratorial that Valvick peered out the door and closed all the portholes. Peggy said, earnestly:

"I don't think, Captain, you have the least idea how glad we'd be to make it up to you. If there's anything we can do—"

Whistler hesitated. He took another sip of whisky.

"I've just seen his lordship," he went on, as though he hated to make a confession, but that Hector Whistler was a desperate man. "He's — haaa — up in the air, because the emerald wasn't insured. He had the cheek to say I was drunk or careless, the??!!!£!!!/???% Vz YaV^Mold?!!!£?<£%!—that's what he said! He said it would never have happened if I had left it with him… "

"You haven't found it, by any chance, have you?" asked Morgan.

"No! I have searched this ship with fifteen picked men from fo'c's'le-head to rudder, and I have not found it, young man. Now, then, be quiet and listen. I don't think he'll sue the line. But there's a question of law to be considered. That question is: Was I, or was I not, guilty of careless conduct? The emerald was technically in my possession, although I had not locked it in my safe. Show me the lubber," snarled Captain Whistler, glaring from one to the other of them, "who says I was guilty of careless conduct — contributory negligence — just show him to me, that's all. Let me so much as glimpse his sky-s'ls, and I'll make him regret the day his father first went courting. Am I guilty of careless conduct if four armed Dagoes take me from behind and give me the marlinspike with a bottle? Am I? No," was Captain Whistler's reply, delivered with a gesture like that of the late Marcus Tullius Cicero, "no, I am not. Well, then. If somebody would tell old Sturton that I was murderously set on without a chance to defend myself… Mind, I don't want you to tell him you saw me attacked. If there's any lying to be done, sink me! I can do it myself. But if you could tell him you are able to swear, from your own observation at the time, that you believed me to be the victim of a ruthless attack… well, the money don't count much with him, and I'm pretty certain he won't sue… How about it?" inquired the captain, suddenly lowering his voice to a startlingly more normal tone.

There was a chorus of assent.

"You'll do it?" Whistler demanded.

"I'll do more than that, Skipper," said Warren, eagerly. "I'll tell you the name of the son of a bachelor who's got that emerald right now."

"Eh?"

"Yes. I'll give it to you straight from the table. And the man who's got that emerald at this very minute," announced Warren, leaning over and pointing his finger in the captain's face, "is none other than the dastardly crook who's masquerading on this boat as Doctor Oliver Harrison Kyle."

Morgan's spirit, uttering a deep groan, rose from his body and flapped out the porthole on riddled wings. He thought: It's all up now. This is the end. The old mackerel will utter one whoop, go mad, and call for assistance. Morgan expected many strange, possibly intricate observations from the captain. He expected him to order a strait-waistcoat. He expected, in fact, every conceivable thing except what actually happened. For fully a minute Whistler stared, his handkerchief at his forehead.

"You, too?" he said. "You think so, too?" His voice awed. "Out of the mouths of babes and — and lunatics. But wait. I forgot to show you. That was why I wanted you here. I don't believe it. I can't believe it. But when even the maniacs can see it, I've got to hard my helm. Besides, it may not mean that. I don't believe it. I'm going insane myself. Here! Here! Read this!" He whirled to his desk and rummaged. "This was what I wanted you to see. It came this morning."

He held out a radiogram, delicately scented with Swat Number 2 Instantaneous Insect Exterminator, and handed it to Morgan.

Morgan whistled. Warren uttered an exclamation of triumph as he read the message across the other's shoulder. "You've come to that, have you?" demanded Captain Whistler. "If that message is right, I don't know what to think. There's no other physician than Dr. Kyle aboard the ship — except the ship's doctor, and he's been with me seven years."

"Ha-ha!" said Warren. He threw out his chest. He took the radiogram from Morgan and flourished it over his head. "Now say I'm crazy, Skipper! Go on, say it — if you can. By God! I knew I was right. I had him figured out… " "How?" demanded Captain Whistler. Warren stopped, his mouth slightly open. They all saw the open trap into which, with cheers and wide eyes, Warren had deliberately walked. To tell why he thought Dr. Kyle guilty was exactly the one thing he could not do. Morgan froze. He saw his companion's eyes assume a rather glassy look in the long silence…

"I'm waiting, young man," said Whistler, snappishly. "Sink me! I'd be eternally blasted if I'd let the police get all the credit for a capture on my ship, sink me! provided I could think of a way to trap that — Go on! Speak up! Why do you think he's guilty?"

"I tell you I've said it from the first. Ask Peggy and Hank and the captain if I haven't! I've sworn he was posing as Dr. Kyle, ever since he batted me over the head in my cabin…"

He stopped suddenly. Captain Whistler, who had started to take a healing pull at his whisky-and-soda, choked. He put down the glass.

"Dr. Kyle batted you over the head in your cabin?" he said, beginning to look curiously at the other. "When was this?"

"I mean, I was mistaken. That was an accident! Honest it was, Captain. I fell and hit my head—"

"Then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, young man.

/ will not be trifled with any longer. You made an accusation, and it seems — I say it seems—to be right. Why did you accuse Dr. Kyle?" Warren ruffled his hair. He gritted his teeth feverishly.

"Well, Captain," he said,after a pause, "I knew it! He looked guilty. He — had a kind of guilty look about him when he was so pleasant at breakfast and said somebody'd been raped; that's why… You don't believe me, do you? Well, I'm going to show you, and I'm going to prove that he's got to be put under lock and key! So I'll tell you why I came up here to see you. There was a murder committed aboard this boat last night, you old sturgeon! Hank," said Warren, whirling around, "give me that razor."

It is a literal fact that Captain Whistler shot at least six inches into the air. Without doubt this was due partly to the extraordinary power in his sea-legs that uncoiled him from his chair like a spring; but behind this materialistic explanation there surged a stronger spiritual ecstasy. And he did not forget what to do. Even as he was descending, his hand flashed into the drawer of the desk and emerged levelling an automatic pistol.

"All right," he said. "Steady, me lads____"

"Captain, it's absolutely true," said Morgan, seizing his arm. "He's not mad and he's not joking. This criminal did commit a murder; I mean, the impostor on the boat. If you'll give me one minute, I'll prove it. Come on, Valvick. To hell with his gun. Let's hold him back in his chair and sit on him until we can jam the truth down his throat. By this time your second officer will have made the rounds of the boat, and he'll find a woman missing. That woman was murdered last night, and she's overboard now—" There was a knock at the door. Everybody froze; why, none of them knew, except that it may have been some latent idea they were all making outstanding asses of themselves. A silence fell while Whistler gibbered a command to come in.

"Beg leave to report, sir," said the crisp voice of the second officer. "And" — his eyes flashed over—"and to Mr. Morgan, as you ordered. Two of us have made a complete round of the ship. We have investigated every passenger and member of the crew. There was nobody hurt last night."

A vein was beginning to beat in Morgan's temple. He controlled his voice. "Right-ho, Mr. Baldwin. But we're not looking for a person who was merely hurt. We're looking for a woman who is murdered and missing… "

Baldwin stiffened. "Well, sir, you may be," he said in a tone of regret. "But you won't find her. I have checked over personally everybody on this ship, and there is nobody missing, either."

"Is that so, Mr. Baldwin?" inquired Whistler, almost genially. "Well, well."

Warren was escorted to the brig, under heavy guard, at exactly 11:45 Eastern daylight-saving time.