The Blind Barber

13 — Two Mandarins

Among unthinking chroniclers it is much the fashion, at certain movements of mysticism, to embark on a reflection as to how, if it were not for such-and-such a small thing happening, then such-and-such a larger thing would not have happened, and so on until they have ultimately proved King Priam's bootblack responsible for the fall of Troy. Which is, demonstrably, nonsense.

Doubtless such a historian would say that all would yet have been well, when Curtis Warren was installed in a padded cell on D deck, if it were not for two tiny circumstances harmless in themselves. In proof of this he would point out that — if they had only known it — the conspirators were within an ace of catching the Blind Barber himself at least once that day; and there would have been no more lurid happenings aboard the Queen Victoria. The present chronicler does not believe it. Men go straight as a stream of liquid exterminator from the nozzle of the Mermaid Automatic Electric Bug-Powder Gun along the line (hat is determined by their characters, nor can any horseshoe nail affect their destinies. Curtis Warren, as may have been observed from time to time, was a fairly impetuous young man much influenced by the power of suggestion. If he had not got into more trouble one way, it would have been in another; and only a thoughtless quibbler could lay the blame on such excellent articles as a detective novel and a bottle of Scotch whisky.

Sic volvere parcae! To solace him in captivity they could not share, Peggy Glenn presented him with a bottle of whisky (full size) and Henry Morgan with one of his old detective-novels.

Thereby, incidentally, they showed their own characters. If anybody says Morgan should have known better, it will shortly be indicated how much he had on his mind. Morgan was fighting mad at the perverse orneriness of the Parcae, and his own none-too-good sense reduced to a minimum Besides — as he agreed with Peggy — if that stormy petrel Curtis Warren, were not safe from causing trouble when locked and bolted in a padded cell, where the devil would he be safe?

Now let's quit this philosophising and get down to business.

There had been an almost touching scene of farewell after Warren had been shot into the padded cell by three sturdy seamen, of whom two had to undergo considerable repairs in the doctor's office immediately afterwards. It would also take too much time to dwell on their progress down from the captain's cabin to D deck, which resembled | an erratic Catharine wheel of arms and legs whirling down companionways and causing pale-faced passengers to bolt like rabbits. With a last heave he was fired into the cell and the door slammed; yet, damaged but undaunted, he still continued to shake the bars and hurl raspberries at the exhausted sailors.

Peggy, in a tearful frenzy, refused to leave him. If they would not let her stay with him, she made a loyal attempt to kick Captain Whistler in a vital spot and get locked up herself. Morgan and Valvick also loyally insisted that, if the old sea-cow thought Warren off his onion, they were loony, too, and demanded their rights of being imprisoned. But this Warren — either with a glimmer of sense or a desire to make a gallant gesture — would not hear of.

"Carry on, old man!" he said, grimly and heroically, shaking hands with Morgan through the bars of the cell. "The Barber's still loose, and you've got to find him. Besides, Peggy's got to help her uncle with those marionettes. Carry on, and we'll nail Kyle yet."

That Whistler did not accede to their demands for a uniform imprisonment, both demand and consent being made in the heat of rage, Morgan afterwards attributed solely to his desire to produce them as witness to Lord Sturton that he had been treacherously attacked. This did not occur to him at the time, or he would have made use of it as a threat; and Captain Whistler would have been saved trouble, as shall be seen, with the choleric peer. All the three conspirators knew was that their ally had been locked away in the bowels of the ship: down a dark companionway. through a steel-plated corridor pungent with oil and lit by one sickly electric bulb which quivered to the pounding of the ship's engines, and behind a door with a steel grill through which he stared out like King Richard in exile. A sailor with a whistle, reading Hollywood Romances, had been stolidly posted on a chair outside, so that the possibility of a jail-break was nil.

There was, however, one consolation. The rather sardonic ship's doctor — who believed not at all in Warren's Insanity, but found it prudent from long experience not to cross Captain Whistler before his temper subsided — made no objection to supplying the maniac with cigarettes and reading-matter. If he saw the bottle of whisky which Peggy smuggled through in a roll of magazines, he made no sign.

Morgan's contributions to the captive were a box of Gold Flake and a copy of one of his earlier novels called, Played, Partner! Now, if you are a very prolific writer of detective-stories, you will be aware that the details of earlier ones tend to fade from your mind even more quickly than they do from the reader's. Morgan remembered in a general way what the book was about. Played, Partner! was the tale of Lord Gerald Derreval, known to West End clubland as a wealthy idler, dilettante, and sportsman; but known to Scotland Yard under the enigmatic and terrible pseudonym of The Will-o'-the-Wisp. As a gentleman burglar, Lord Gerald was hot stuff. His thrilling escapes from captivity under heavy guard made Mr. Harry Houdini look like a bungler who had got out of clink only with a writ of habeas corpus. Of course, there was never anything really crooked about Lord Gerald. All he did was pinch the shirt off any old reprobate who had been low-minded enough to get rich, thereby qualifying Lord Gerald for a high place in the Socialist literature which is so popular nowadays. Besides, he was redeemed by his love for the beautiful Sardinia Trelawney. In the end he trapped the real villain who had tried to saddle a murder on him; and made it up with Inspector Daniels, the man who had sworn to get him and was in general so: weak-minded and got the bird so often that even in the? midst of pitying him you wondered how he contrived to hold his job.

These were the details that had faded from Morgan's! mind, but such was the dynamite placed in the hands of J Mr. Curtis Warren along with an imperial-quart of Old J Rob Roy. It would, perhaps, have been wiser to give him a Bradshaw or a volume of sermons; but the moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on; and, besides, philosophical remarks on this question have already been made. After Peggy had bidden him a tearful good-bye, and Morgan and Valvick had shaken hands with him, they { went up in a thunder-fraught mood to see the captain. 1

"Honest, now," said Valvick rather broodingly, as they crossed the boat-deck in the sunlight that Warren was forbidden to see, "do you t'ank we are right, or iss dere a mistake? Dat wass no yoke, what dey tell us. If dey say dere is nobody missing, den ay don't see how dere is somebody missing. Maybe we talk about a murder and dere is no murder."

"I tell you we're right!" snapped Morgan. "We're right, and it's got to be proved somehow. First thing, I'll tackle Whistler in as cool a frame of mind as I can. I'll challenge him to get that blood on the razor and in the berth tested. The ship's doctor can do it, or maybe Dr. Kyle… "

"Kyle?" said Peggy, staring at him. "But Dr. Kyle—"

"Will you get your mind off that tedious joke?" said Morgan, wearily. "Let's dispose of it once and for all. Don't you realise that Kyle is the one person on the whole ship who can't possibly be guilty?"

"Why?"

"Because he's the one man who's got an alibi, old girl.; Look here, Skipper. You're pretty sure your friend with; the toothache, the Bermondsey Terror, is honest; aren't you? — all right. And what did he say? He said that he didn't lose sight of Kyle's door all night; that he heard the row on deck from title beginning…. Wait a bit. You, didn't know about that, did you, Peggy?" He rapidly sketched out the Bermondsey Terror's information, and also gave Valvick the evidence of the Perrigords. "So what? The Blind Barber stole the rest of that film and killed the

girl while the row was going on out on deck. Nobody went n or out of Kyle's door all night. So how did Kyle get out and back? It won't wash, I tell you."irl while the row was going on out on deck. Nobody went n or out of Kyle's door all night. So how did Kyle get out and back? It won't wash, I tell you."

"It's you that's the blind one, Hank," she informed him, scornfully. "He needn't have been in his cabin at all, need he? Alibis! Bah! What's the good of an alibi. They always turn out to be fakes, anyway."

Morgan gestured.

"All right. It's easily settled. We're going into action at once, and by the Lord we're going to prove our case. Here's a commission for you, Skipper. Go down and see your friend the Bermondsey Terror and question him. Also sec the cabin steward and make any inquiries you think of… "

"Now?" asked Valvick, scratching his head.

"Now. We'll prove it one way or another. To continue," lie said to Peggy, as the other muttered a few reflections and lumbered off, "I'll tackle Whistler about that blood. I'll swear it's human blood; and, if it is, we can safely point out to him that nobody could have lost so much and still show no sign of being hurt this morning. Nobody, old girl! Then we'll make the whole round of the ship ourselves, If necessary. And we'll show 'em."

He looked rather malevolently about the boat-deck, which was crowded and noisy. Warren's triumphal progress to the brig had taken place belowdecks and by a devious way, but the news was already flying, so that there was a note of shrillness in the clatter of talk. Somnolent figures in deck chairs, set out to dry themselves under the sun, were sitting up from their rugs; a game of shuffleboard had been suspended and two deck-tennis players came up to the net lor a conference. The ship's reigning belle — there is always one — had stopped her professional smiling, her beret pushed over one ear and a cigarette half-way to her mouth, and was bending to listen in a whispering group of admirers. She stood on a raised platform by a lifeboat, her gaudy green scarf blowing against the sky. Far above their heads, on one of the three vast black funnels that showed; a faint stain of smoke, the liner's whistle emitted a sudden hoarse Whooo! as though it were giving an alarm. A suggestion of lunch was now in the air. There was a good deal of laughter. Morgan scowled.)

They found Whistler getting his cabin set to rights and being particularly rough on the steward.

"I won't discuss it," he said, "any more. Maybe I was hasty. I won't say I wasn't. But I acted within my rights, and I'll let that young drunkard or lunatic stop there until; I damned well get ready to let him out. We'll say nothing of his story. But take a look around my cabin, just look at; it, and then tell me whether I didn't do the right thing.' He thrust out his jaw, the good eye narrowed in his battered face, and the gold stripes on his sleeves gleamed as he jammed his fists on his hips. But there was something: curiously conciliating about him. "Come now!" he said suddenly. "We're alone. There's no need for you to defend your friend. What's the truth of the matter?"

They could hear the breath whistling from his nose.

"Does this mean, Captain," said Peggy, after a pause in which she seemed taken aback, "that you really don't think Curt is mad, after all? Oooh, you villain! After you ordered those nasty men to manhandle and," she gasped, "and mistreat—"

"I want the truth, madam. The truth, that's all. In my s position—" i

"I say, Captain," said Morgan, after another pause in which Whistler shut his teeth hard, "does this mean something new has happened?"

"Why should it?".

"Oh, I only wondered… He was looking quickly, round the cabin, searching a clue, and then he saw it. j Rolled into a wad at one side of the wardrobe lay what] looked very much like a sheet tied round stained blankets.] "So," said Morgan, "do you mean to tell us a steward saw something queer about the cabin next to Curt's? And went I in and found the berth full of bloodstained sheets? And] then reported to you? Excellent. Here's the razor that was j used in the killing." He took it out of his pocket and laid It on the table, while Whistler stared at him fixedly. "Now everything is fine. All you've done is accuse the wrong man of being a liar and a lunatic, and locked him up under guard. If old Sturton can only get you convicted of criminal negligence to the extent of fifty thousand pounds, the officials of this steamship line will be in an even better humour."

As a matter of fact, he was (despite himself) feeling lorry for the old mackerel. A persistent voice told him that the whole mess was their own fault. All that made him wild was that circumstances seemed conspiring to prevent belief in something he still fiercely felt to be true.

"Murder!" said the captain, in a sort of gulp. "Murder! You have the nerve to stand there and talk to me of murder when there's nobody not accounted for on the whole ship? Where's the murdered person?… And don't try to talk to me about what my superiors will think. I put that young lunatic in confinement for an offence against discipline. That's all. An offence against discipline, wild that's my right. My word is law, and any maritime court—"

"It would make a good story, though," the other pointed out, "printed in the newspapers. Impassioned Defence of Captain Whistler. 'The Dastardly Villain Set on Me with a Dug-powder Gun.' That also would gratify the Green Star Line. Yes, it would. In your eye."

The captain seemed slightly awed.

"Isn't there any justice?" he inquired suddenly, and looked rather blankly about the cabin. "In all God's green earth, isn't there any justice? What have I done to deserve (his?"

It was only the beginning of a genuinely powerful, if rather pathetic, oration, for which there was undeniably dome justification. It was pitched in a rather Biblical strain. Captain Whistler pointed out and enumerated his afflictions. Masked foreigners, he said, attacked him with stilettos and bottles. Uninsured jewels belonging to?!<£&/!! viscounts were stolen while murdering thieves posed as Harley Street doctors at his table. Blood-stained blankets and razors mysteriously appeared in the cabins; women vanished but did not vanish; the nephews of eminent American administrators first went mad and gibbered of bears and geography then ran amok with bug-powder guns, tried to poison him and finally threatened him with razors. Indeed, an unprejudiced listener would have decided that the situation aboard the Queen Victoria was past hope. An unprejudiced listener would have said this boat had been chosen for the annual convention of the Ancient Order of Sorcerers, and that the boys must have been showing off a bit. Captain Whistler said it was too much. He said he was a strong man, but he would rather be thrown to the sharks.

"I know it, Captain," Morgan agreed, uncomfortably, when the typhoon began to die and the skipper went to pour himself a drink with shaking hands. "And, believe it or not, we feel as badly about it as you do. So the first thing we must do—"

"There is nothing to do," said the other, with finality, "except maybe get drunk."

"… is to join forces and start to unwind this tangle. So here's a guarantee of good faith. We'll go with you to Sturton and clear you absolutely. We'll say we saw you suddenly struck down without a chance to defend yourself; for all you know, it may be true… "

"You'd do that?" demanded the skipper, sitting up. "I was damned if I'd ask a favour of you, but if you would— could… man, I'll do anything. I'll even let that madman out of the brig."

Morgan reflected. "As a matter of fact," he said, hesitantly, "for the next few hours I'd rather you didn't."

"Hank!" said Peggy. But she stopped.

"Yes, you see how it is," nodded Morgan, after some thought. "When we thought the captain wouldn't listen to reason, we'd have blown the wall down to get him out. But if we do have co-operation — have we Captain?"

"To the water-line, man."

"Then it may be much the best thing to leave him where he is for the moment. He's thoroughly comfortable, and we have a breathing-space while he's in a place where he can't possibly get into trouble. At least," Morgan amended, rather doubtfully, "I don't see how he can get into trouble. The whole thing was in your attitude, Captain. If you'd like us to talk to Sturton now, we're ready."

They met storm signals at the door of the peer's large Mild rather elaborate suite of cabins on B deck. The door to the drawing-room was on the latch, and they penetrated Into a stuffy finery of curtains drawn at the portholes, gilt furniture disarranged, and an array of medicine-bottles sprawled round a chaise-lounge on which Sturton had evidently taken his hitherto sea-sick rest. Whether his recovery had been due to smooth weather or the loss of the emerald they did not know; but he had definitely recovered. From behind the door of the bedroom rose a dry, quick, high-pitched voice in a sort of pounce.

"… and take a radiogram. Ha. Now. 'Messrs. Kick-wood, Bane, and Kickwood, Solicitors."… Spell it? Damn it, Miss Keller, you spell it the way it's pronounced: K-i-c-k-w-o-o-d, Kickwood. Ha. "31b King's Bench Walk." Or is it 31a? Why can't these confounded lawyers make up their minds? How should I remember their infernal addresses? Wait a minute, wait a minute… "

The door popped open in the gloom. A lean figure in a shabby grey dressing-gown, with a worsted plaid shawl wrapped round its shoulders, stared at them. Even indoors It wore a broad-brimmed black hat, and the greyish face underneath had so queer a look, in the midst of Lord Sturton's costly trinkets strewn about the drawing-room, that it reminded Morgan of one of those pictures of wizards in an Arthur Rackham illustration. Also, Morgan wished somebody would open a porthole.

The figure said, "Hah!" and stalked over. It was observable that before this man Captain Whistler looked exactly m Warren had looked before Captain Whistler.

"Well?" said Lord Sturton. "I'm waiting, I'm waiting." lie took a thin finger and thumb and flicked at one of his sideburns. "Have you got that emerald?"

"If you'll only be patient, sir," replied Whistler, as

though he were trying to swell himself out with affability and be his public beaming self, "I — ha-ha! Of course we shall get it."

"Then you haven't got the emerald. Very well. Why don't you say so?"

"I only wished to say—"

"Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! Answer me, yes, or no. If you haven't got the emerald, why are you here?" Sturton shot out his neck.

"It was about that little matter we were discussing— ha-ha!" returned Whistler, with a broad gesture of paternal friendliness. "You know I said, your Lordship, that I could bring witnesses to show I had behaved within my duties. You said I was responsible—"

"So you are, so you are. I have your signed receipt. Here."

"The great line of which I have the honour to be one of the senior commanders has always wished, your Lordship, to avoid unpleasantness," began the captain, in a rolling voice. "However, having its best interests at heart…"

"Pfaa!" snapped the other, suddenly sitting down against the back of the chaise-longue and hunching his shawl round his shoulders. "Why don't you say what you mean? You mean that you've been caught fair and square; but what you want is a sporting run. Eh? Eh?"

"That, your Lordship, is putting it harshly… "

Sturton thrust his finger out of the shawl and pointed. "I'll give it you. Damn no man without proof. Bible says so. Prove it to me; no damage suit. There."

Morgan got the impression that he immensely enjoyed being arbiter of somebody's official head; that it tickled a nerve of perverted humour under his dry ribs. He could humour a whim — but the whim had to have its compensations. Morgan realised that, with this sharp-eyed old lad questioning, a lie had to be good. Well, he should be beaten. In a way, Morgan thought, that was incentive enough to save Whistler's bacon! Sturton was leaning back, hugging the shawl round his head. On the table at his elbow was a curious trinket of his own: a Mandarin-head that would wag on its pedestal, and had two rubies for eyes. At intervals he would reach out and set it wagging.

"Well?" he said, abruptly. "Anything to say?"

"A while ago, your Lordship, you intimated to me — as 1 told this lady and gentleman — that, if I could offer you the proof I said I could," Whistler cleared his throat, "you would not — ah—"

"Well? Well? Where's the proof? I don't see it?"

"These witnesses, you see—"

Morgan got ready, steadying himself. It was unnecessary.

"Who are you, young man? Are you the nephew of a friend of mine? Are you Warpus's nephew? Eh?"

"No, your Lordship," interposed the captain. "This is Mr. Henry Morgan, the very distinguished writer, who I thought would offer evidence acceptable… "

Sturton laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. Morgan glanced at Peggy, who had begun to grow frightened. Sturton laughed again.

"Fail first count. You'd make no lawyer. I want witnesses I know of. Er — Commander, you stated to me, I think, that you believed you could produce this nephew. Where is he?"

He leaned out and flung the question with a snap of impatience.

The Parcae were at it again. Morgan could have whistled In admiring astonishment, or sworn from the same situation.

"This morning," continued Sturton, "you stated to me that you could bring him. Why isn't he here? Won't he come?"

Whistler jerked himself out of his hypnotised stare. "Yes, yes, of course. Your Lordship. I — ah — that is, I'm sure he'll be glad to come."

"I repeat to you," squeaked the other, snapping his linger on the Mandarin's head until the rubies winked demoniacally, "that, as this little trial by the court may cost me fifty thousand pounds, I must insist on a direct answer. Don't quibble with me. Don't spoil my entertainment. He was the witness I especially asked for, and the only witness I especially asked for. Why didn't you bring him?"

"It was not exactly convenient…." said Whistler, his voice beginning to rise to a roar despite himself. His eye rolled round at Morgan, who could only shrug.

"Ah!" said Sturton. "Signals, eh? Signals. Now then… "

"If you will allow me to go and find him, your Lordship—"

"Once and for all, I demand, I insist on an answer! Where is he?"

All caution boarded the Flying Dutchman and sailed away. "He's in the brig-, you dried-up lubber!" roared Captain Whistler, exploding at last. "He's in the brig. And now I'm going to tell you what I think of you and your ruddy elephant and your—"

Sturton was laughing again.

It was an unholy noise in that gloomy, ill-smelling place, with the rubies winking on the table and Sturton's head bobbing under the broad hat. "Ah." he said, "that's better! That's more like yourself. I'd heard the news, you see. He's in the brig. Yes, yes, Exactly. Why did you put him there?"

"Because he's stark, raving mad. that's why! He attacked me with a razor. He tried to poison me. He gabbled about bears. He—"

"Indeed?" said Sturton. "Mad, is he? Well, well. And this is the man, I think, you wished to call as a witness to: your spotless behaviour? This is your star witness, who was to testify how you lost the emerald?… Captain! Whistler, are you sure that you yourself are entirely in: your right mind?"

Peggy went over and patted the skipper on the back, j speaking soothing words to him. Her feminine instincts, were deeply aroused, for he was almost at the point where there were tears in those honest old eyes. And again he was speechless before the evil weaving of Lachesis. He ^! must now be beginning, Morgan fancied, to have a faint j conception of how Warren had felt. j

"I am waiting," said Sturton. I

Again the mirth tickled his rusty ribs. But he was watch-lug Whistler wind himself up for a few sulphurous remark n, and forestalled him by holding up a scraggy hand.

"Rubbish rubbish rubbish. Wait. Don't say it, Commander. You'd regret it. / have something to say. It is only fair to you. The joke has been excellent, excellent, excellent. It has amused me, although, as a lawyer, Commander — tut, tut! But it is time to end it now. I have enjoyed myself long enough… Captain, there will be no suit."

"No suit?"

"None. My secretary informed me of the rumour in the ship. That the nephew of my old friend had been imprisoned for trying to kill somebody. I could not resist amusing myself. Well! Time's ended. Joke's up. I have business… No suit. Finished, ended, done. Don't want to hear of it again."

"But that emerald, .!"

"Oh, yes! Yes, yes. The stone, of course. Very funny things go on aboard this ship. But why should there be a suit? Maybe the thief reformed; got qualms of conscience. How should / know? Anyhow—"

He fumbled in the pocket of his dressing-gown.

He laughed again, shaking his lean shoulders.

Before their astounded eyes he held up, twisting on its gold chain and glittering as it slowly revolved, the emerald elephant.

14 — Can These Things Be?

"Don't know how it happened," continued Sturton, rather carelessly, "and don't care, now I've got it back. I know you didn't recover it. Ha!… Found it lying on the middle of the table there," he stabbed his finger, "half an hour ago. Saw nobody, heard nobody. There it was. Somebody walked in and put it down — Here's your receipt back, Commander. You won't get this elephant again."

Again his squeaky mirth rose as he blinked at their faces. The receipt fluttered out and fell at Whistler's feet.

Morgan only half heard him. He was getting to the point where too many surprises were as deadening as too much pain. Staring at the little Mandarin-head smirking and wagging on the table, he heard Whistler gabbling something, the peer assuring him there would be no trouble, and the end of the latter's squeaky tirade:

"… find out who stole it? Go on, if you like. I won't stop you. But I've got it back, and that's all I care. I'm not going to prosecute anybody. Ha! Got enough lawsuits as it is. Let the beggar go. Why bother? Shouldn't be surprised if it got stolen by mistake, and somebody returned it. Never mind. Now get out. Get out!…"

He was flailing his arms at them like a banshee, with the emerald gleaming on its chain from one hand. They were shooed into the gangway and the door closed behind them. Then they stood in the corridor on B deck and looked at one another.

"You're quite right, Captain," agreed Morgan, after listening thoughtfully to the skipper's rather weak-voiced comments. "If anything, I should think the adjectives were conservative. But the question remains, who, how, and why?"

After Whistler had recovered himself, swabbing his face with a handkerchief, he was weakly jubilant. He had the

Mir of one who had endured blessed martyrdom in the arena, and suddenly sees ahead of him not the cruel countenance of Nero Ahenobarbus, but a cheering St. Peter at the head of a celestial brass band. The captain drew himself up. His face subtly altered. Taking his receipt for the emerald, he tore it into small pieces and blew them away. Over the battered face, with its plum-coloured eye, there spread a benevolent smile.

"My friends," he said, placing an arm around the shoulders of Peggy and Morgan, "I don't know who returned that ruddy elephant, and I don't care. Whoever it was, he did me a good turn that Hector Whistler will never forget. I could forgive him anything, I could almost forgive him" — momentarily the face darkened, but only for a moment—"this. Yes, even the foul blow, foully struck when I wasn't looking. If old Sturton doesn't care — My friends, to-morrow night, our last night at sea, is the captain's dinner. My friends, I will give such a dinner as has never been seen on blue water since the days of Francis Drake. Champagne shall bubble at every table, and every lady shall wear a corsage. And this, my friends, reminds me. I think, I say I think that I have in my locker at this moment a bottle of Pol Roger 1915. If it will now please you to come with me and accept the hospitality of an old, rough sea-dog—"

"But, hang it, Captain," said Morgan, "the difficulties aren't one-tenth over. Not a tenth. There's the little matter of a murder… "

"Murder?" inquired the old, rough sea-dog genially. "What murder, lad?"

Mysterious are the ways of psychology.

"But, Captain Whistler!" cried Peggy, "that poor girl… down in the cabin beside Curt's… that awful razor…"

"Ah, yes, my dear!" agreed the captain tolerantly benevolent. "Yes, of course. You mean that little joke of yours. Of course. Yes. Ha-ha-ha!"

"But—"

"Now, my dear," the other pursued, with radiant kindliness, "you listen to me. Come! You take a bit of advice from a rough old seafaring man old enough to be your father. From the first I've liked the cut of your jib, Miss Glenn, and the swing of your spanker-boom. Aye, lassie, I might have had a daughter like you if the Mrs. W. that was hadn't been dead and gone these twenty years, rest her sweet soul. It was in a sou'wester off Cape Hatteras, I mind… But you don't want to hear of that. This is my advice, lassie. When a murder's been committed, in my experience, there's somebody dead," Captain Whistler pointed out, with irrefutable logic. "And if somebody's dead, that person can't be breathing heaven's free air on my deck. There's nobody missing, and nobody's complained, which they generally do in case of a murder. So— come, now; until somebody complains, I'm a free man. Just between ourselves, wasn't somebody having you on?"

"But you promised, Captain, that you'd co-operate and help us and—"

"And so I will, Miss Glenn," he told her, heartily, patting her shoulder. "You two — and old Sharkmeat also, if he likes — shall have the freedom of the ship, to question whom you like, and say I sent you. If you have news, ha-ha-ha! come to me… By the way, would you like me to release that poor lad from his cell? No? Well, remember that I offered. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send him a fine basket of fruit, with my compliments, and a specially cooked capon for his dinner. How's that? Then, when we touch England day after to-morrow, we'll see what can be done about obtaining the services of the finest mental-specialist in London…"

He stopped.

"Yes," said Morgan, seizing the opportunity, "and that reminds us all of Dr. Kyle, doesn't it? Not that I believe he's the Blind Barber, but it takes us back to that radiogram from the Police Commissioner, and the fact that— whatever else you believe or don't believe — there's a damned dangerous criminal aboard."

"H'm!" said Whistler. "H'm! Possibly. In any case, I've been instructed not to do anything, haven't I, in case there's a mistake, eh? And the more I think it over, sink met" he said with a happy flash of inspiration, "the more I'm convinced there has been a mistake. Why? I'll tell you. Because dangerous criminals don't steal fifty-thousand-pound jewels and then return 'em, do they? Sink me! you know, if I hadn't been assured by old Sturton that the emerald was returned to him while young Warren was in the brig — well I'd be fairly sure it was more of his mad vapourings. But I know it couldn't have been young Warren… "

"Thank God for that," said Morgan.

"Anyhow," continued Whistler, assuming his hearty manner again, "I'll think it over. I believe it's a mistake and there's no crook aboard at all. Though — h'm — it would be a feather in the cap of the Green Star Line if I could have the honour of nabbing a notorious criminal before that New York detective arrived. I'll think it over. So, if you won't drink a health in Pol Roger — eh — no? Well, good day, good day, good day!"

He was off, saluting jauntily, before the stupefied allies could stop him. He swung his shoulders, his thumbs hooked in his pockets, and he was hoarsely humming a tune to the effect that Captain Ball was a Yankee slaver, blow, blow, blow the man down! His smile was radiant.

When he had gone, Peggy looked about hopelessly.

"Hank," she said, "it's no good. We can't beat Providence. Let's give it up. Let's go to the bar and get screamingly drunk."

Morgan replied grimly: "We will not. Give it up, I mean. But a couple of quick ones in the bar might fortify us before we comb this boat from stem to stern… Why's the place so quiet, anyway?" He peered round. "They're all at lunch, that's it! We've missed lunch, and I didn't even hear the bugle. Never mind; we can get a sandwich in the bar. Come on. This thing has got to be thrashed out. Girl, that emerald's turning up puts the absolute lid on it!… What do you suppose could have happened?"

"Oh, drat the emerald!" she sniffed, with some pettishness. "Who cares about their nasty old emerald, anyway?

We'll find out about this girl, if you like. But, honestly, Hank, I'm beginning to think we must be wrong, after all. H'm! I'll bet she was a hussy, anyway… "

"She was calling Curt's name," her companion reminded her. He was determined not to lose his last ally. "She knew something that concerned him, don't you see? So if you want to help him, she'll be your first concern. It probably concerns the film; remember that my wench! Besides, have you forgotten another thing? Curt promised that chap Woodcock — definitely gave him his word — that he'd demonstrate by to-day there'd been a murder committed, or else force a bug-powder endorsement out of old Warpus."

She put her hand to her forehead. "Oh, I say, but I'd forgotten all about that awful little man! Oh, Hank, this is dreadful! And when I think of my poor Curt languishing behind prison bars, sitting there forlornly with his poor head in his hands…" A sob caught her throat; she choked, and the tears overflowed here eyes. "Oh, it's awful, awful, awful!"

"Well, my God! don't cry about it!" said Morgan, waving his arms desperately. He peered round to make sure there was nobody in sight. "Look here. I didn't know you felt like that about it. Listen! Stop yowling, will you? It's all right. You heard what the skipper said. We'll go right down and get him out—"

"Oh, I w-wouldn't g-get him out f-for anything!" she gulped, forlornly, over the handkerchief she was jabbing at the corners of her eyes. Her breast heaved jerkily. "He — h-he'd only d-do some perfectly m-mad thing straightaway and g-get p-put right — right b-back in again. But, oh, d-dear! when I think of the p-poor d-darling l-languish-ing, p-positively — l-languishing — in — in a — foul d-dun— bubuloo!" choked Peggy, and burst into a spasm of weeping.

These, reader, are the times that try men's souls: when tears flow by reason of some inexplicable logic that escapes you, and all you can do is to pat her shoulder whilst desperately wondering what is wrong. He tried remonstrance — an error. He pointed out that it was not as though Warren had been shoved in the Bastille, never again to see the light of day; adding that the maniac was quite comfortable there and had been promised a specially cooked capon for his dinner. She said she wondered how Morgan thought the poor boy would have the heart to eat it. She said he was a cruel, callous beast ever to think of such a thing; and went off the deep end again. After this crushing retort, all he could think of was to rush her to the bar for a couple o!' stiff drinks as quickly as possible.

That her tears were dried was due to a new cause for worry, which he saw presented itself to her as soon as they entered the bar.

The bar (quaintly called smoking-room) was a spacious oak-panelled cathedral at the rear of B deck, full of stale smoke and a damp alcoholic fragrance. There were tables in alcoves of deep leather lounges, and a number of gaunt electric fans depending from the pastoral-painted ceiling. Except for one customer, who stood at the bar counter with his back towards them, it was deserted. Sunlight streamed through windows of coloured mosaic glass swaying gently on the floor; only peaceful creakings of woodwork and the drowsy murmur of the wake disturbed its cathedral hush.

Peggy saw the one customer, and stiffened. Then she began to advance stealthily. The customer was a short, stocky man with a fringe of black hair round his bald head, and the arms and shoulders of a wrestler. He was just raising his glass to his lips when he seemed warned by some telepathic power. But before he could turn Peggy had pounced.

"Ah!" she said, dramatically. She paused. She drew back as though she could not believe her eyes. "Tiens, tno'n oncle! Qu'est-ce que je vois? Ah, mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que je vois, alors?"

She folded her arms.

The other started guiltily. He turned round and peered lip at her over the rim of his glass. He had a reddish face, a large mouth, and an enormous curled grey-streaked moustache. Morgan observed that the moment Peggy fell into the Gallic tongue her gestures corresponded. She became a whirlwind of rattling syllables. She rapidly smacked her hands together under the other's nose.

"Eh bien, eh bien! Encore tu bois! Toujours tu bois! Ah, zut, alors!" She became cutting. "Tu m'a donne votre parole d'honneur, comme un soldat de la France! Et qu'est-ce que je trouve? Un soldat de la France, hein! Non!" She drew back witheringly. "Je te vois en buvant le gin!"

This, unquestionably, was Uncle Jules sneaking out with the laudable purpose of knocking off a quick one before his niece caught him. A spasm contorted his face. Lifting his powerful shoulders, he spread out his arms with a gesture of extraordinary agony.

"Mais, cherie!" he protested in long-drawn, agonised insistence like a steamer's fog-horn. "Mais, che-e-riii-e! C'est un tres, tres, tres petit verre, tu sais! Regards-toi, cherie! Regards!! C'est une pauvre, miserable boule, tu sais. Je suis enrhume, cherie—he coughed hollowly, his; hand at his chest—"et ce soir—" ¹

"Tu paries! Toi," she announced, pointing her finger at him and speaking in measured tones, "toi, je t'appelle degoutant!"

This seemed to crush Uncle Jules, who relapsed into a gloomy frame of mind. Morgan was introduced to him, and he followed them to a table while Morgan ordered ^! two double-whiskies and a milk-and-soda. Uncles Jules appealed in vain. He said he had never had so bad a cold in his life, coughing hideously by way of demonstration, and said that if nothing were done about it he would probably be speechless by five o'clock. Peggy made the obvious retort. She also adduced examples from a long list of Uncle Jules past colds, including the time in Buffalo when he had I been brought back to the hotel in an ash-cart.

He brightened a little, however, as he described the preparations for the performance that night. Preparations marched, he said, on a scale superb. Three hand-trucks had been provided to convey his fifty-eight separate marionettes (housed in a cabin of their own adjoining his, although they were not sea-sick, happy gosses) together with all the vast machinery of his theatre, to the hall of concert.

The three costumes, one in which he spoke the prologue, and two for his extras, the French and Moorish warrior, were now being given a stroke of the iron; the piano and violin for off-stage music were installed behind the scenes us the theatre was set up in the hall of concert. A hall of concert magnificent, situated on B deck, but with a back-stage staircase leading up from the dressing-room on C deck. Which reminded him that, while investigating the dressing-room, he and his assistant, Abdul, had met M. and Mme. Perrigord.

"A husband and his wife," pursued Uncle Jules, excitedly, "very charming, very intelligent, of whom the cabin finds itself near by. Listen, my dear! It is he who has written of me those pieces so magnificent which I do not understand. One thousand thunders, but I am enchanted! Yes, yes, my dear. Among us we have arranged the order of the performance. Good! Also we have met a Dr. Keel, a medicine Scottish, who will make recitations. Good! All is arranged. Two professors of a university who voyage shall shall be our warriors; M. Furioso Camposozzi at the piano and M. Ivan Slifovitz at the violin have arranged for accompanying my sitting with music of the chamber which I do not understand, see you? but, ah, my dear, what a triumph of intelligence. For me, I shall be superb? I—"

"Dear uncle," said Peggy, taking a soothing draught of whiskey neat and sighing deeply afterwards, "it is necessary that I speak with this monsieur. Go to your cabin and couch yourself. But attend! It is I who speak! Nothing to drink. Nothing! Is it understood?"

M. Fortinbras swore that an old soldier of France would cut his throat sooner than break his promise. He finished his milk-and-soda with a heroic gesture, and doddered out of the bar.

"Listen, Hank," said Peggy, dropping the language of Racine. She turned excitedly. "Seeing the old boy has just brought me back to business, I've got to see that he keeps sober until after the show; but it's given me an idea… You're determined on questioning everybody on this boat, seeing everybody face to face… "

"I'm letting nobody by," returned Morgan grimly, "except the people we know to be aboard. I'm going to take a passenger-list, and get a crew-list from the captain, and check everybody if it takes all afternoon. It would be devilish easy for somebody to conceal an absence when that first officer went round. "Oh, no, she wasn't hurt— sorry she isn't here; she's lying down; but I can give you my word… " Peggy, that girl hasn't vanished. She's somewhere on the boat. She's a real person! Hang it, we saw her! And she's going to be found." "Righto. Then I'll tell you your pretext." "Pretext?"

"Of course you've got to have a pretext, silly. You can't go roaring about the ship after somebody who was murdered and starting an alarm, can you? Fancy what Captain Whistler would say, old dear. You've got to do it without arousing suspicion. And I've got the very idea for you." She beamed and winked, wriggling her shoulders delightedly. "Get hold of your dear, dear friend Mrs. Perrigord— Morgan looked at her. He started to say something, but confined himself to ordering two more whiskies.

"… and it's as easy as shelling peas. You're looking for volunteers to do amateur acts at the ship's concert. She's in charge of it. Then you can insist on seeing everybody without the least suspicion."

Morgan thought it over. Then he said: "Ever since last night, to tell the truth, I have been inclined to scrutinise any idea of yours with more than usual circumspection. And this one strikes me as being full of weak points. It's a comparatively simple matter if I encounter a lot of shy violets who are averse to appearing in public. But suppose they accept? Not that I personally would object to an amateur mammy-singer or a couple of Swiss yodellers, but I don't think it would go well with the chamber-music. How do I persuade Mrs. Perrigord to accompany me, in the first place, and to put all my crooners on the programme, in the second?"

Peggy suggested a simple expedient, couched in even simpler language, to which Morgan rather austerely replied that he was a married man. "Well, then," Peggy said excitedly, "it's even easier than that, if you're going to be fussy and moral about it. Like this. You tell Mrs. Perrigord that you're after material for character-drawing, and you want to get the reactions of a number of diversified types. On Being Approached to Make Exhibitions of Themselves in a Public Place… Now don't misunderstand me and get such a funny look on your face! She'll eat it up. All you've got to do is suggest getting somebody's reactions to some loony thing that nobody's ever I bought of before, and the highbrows think it's elegant. Then you might jolly her along and sort of make goo-goo eyes at her. As for the volunteers, bah! You can turn 'em all down after you've heard 'em rehearse, and say it won't do… "

"Woman," said Morgan, after taking a deep breath, "your language makes my gorge rise. I will not make goo-goo eyes at Mrs. Perrigord, or anybody else. Then there is this question of rehearsing. If you think I have any intention of sitting around while amateur conjurers break eggs in my hat and wild sopranos sing "The Rosary," you're cockeyed. Kindly stop drivelling, will you? I've been through too much to-day."

"Can you think of any better plan?"

"It has its points, I admit; but—"

"Very well, then," said Peggy, flushed with triumph and two whiskies. She lit a cigarette. "I'd do it myself with Mr. Perrigord, only I have to help uncle. I'm the Noises Off-Stage, you know: the horses, and Roland's horn, and all that, and I've got to get my effects set up this afternoon. I'll get it over as quickly as I can, because we must find that film. What I really can't understand is why our crook returned that emerald and yet didn't — I suppose he really didn't put the film back in Curt's cabin, did he? Do you think, we ought to look?"

Morgan made an irritable gesture.

"Don't you see that it wasn't the barber who did that? (XT-hand, you'd say that there was only one explanation of il. When we chucked it away, it landed either in Kyle's cabin or in the Perrigords'. The obvious answer is that one

of 'em found it in the cabin, meditated keeping it, then got scared at the row and sneaked it back to Sturton. But, damn it all! I can't believe that! Does it sound like Kyle? j It does not. Conversely, if Kyle is a masquerading crook i you can lay a strong wager that a cool hand like the Blind; Barber wouldn't return that emerald — as Whistler said. Wash out Kyle either because he's a crook or because he isn't. If he's genuinely a great brain specialist he wouldn't do one thing, and if he's genuinely a great crook he wouldn't do the other… And what have we left?"

"You think," demanded Peggy, "that nasty Mrs. Perrigord—?"

"No, I don't. Or friend Leslie, either. I can see Leslie handing over the emerald to Sturton with immense relish, and giving a long dissertation on the bad taste of gaudy baubles, but— Ah! News! Enter our squarehead."

He broke off and gestured to Captain Valvick, who had just shambled into the bar. The captain was puffing hard; his leathery face looked redder than ever, and, as he approached, he distilled like a wandering oven a strong aroma of Old Rob Roy.

"Ay been talking wi' Sparks and de Bermondsey Terror," he announced, somewhat unnecessarily and wheezed as he sat down. "And, ay got proof. Dr. Kyle iss not de crook."

"You're sure of that?"

"Yess. De Bermondsey Terror iss willing to swear. He iss willing to swear Dr. Kyle has gone into his cabin last night at half-past nine and he hass not left it until de breakfast bugle diss morning. He know, because he hass heard Dr. Kyle iss a doctor, and he wonder whedder he can knock on de door and ask him if he can cure de bad toot'. He didn't do it because he hass heard Kyle is a great doctor who live in dat street, you know, and he iss afraid of him. But he knows."

There was a silence.

"Hank," Peggy said, uneasily, "more and more — that radiogram from New York, where they were so sure— don't you think there's a dreadful mistake somewhere?

What can be happening, anyhow? Every time we think we know something, it turns to be just the other way round. I'm getting frightened. I don't believe anything. What can we do now?"

"Come along, Skipper," said Morgan. "We're going to find Mrs. Perrigord."

15 — How Mrs. Perrigord Ordered Champagne, and the Emerald Appeared Again

Clear yellow evening drew in over the Queen Victoria moving steadily, and with only a silken swishing past her bows, down towards a horizon darkening to purple. So luminous was the sky that you could watch the red tip of the sun disappear at the end of a glowing path, the clouds and water changing like the colours of a vase, and the crater of glowing clouds when the sun was gone. The dress bugle sounded at the hush between the lights. And the Queen Victoria, inspired for the first time by that mild fragrance in the air, woke up.

Sooner or later on any voyage this must happen. Hitherto-blank-faced passengers rouse from their deck-chairs and look at one another. They smiled nervously, wishing they had made more acquaintances. The insinuating murmur of the orchestra begins to have its suggestion on them; they see broad Europe looming, and lamps twinkling in the trees of Paris. A sudden clamour of enjoyment whips the decks like the entrance of a popular comedian. Then they begin by twos and threes to drift into the bar.

Activity had begun to pulse this night before it was quite dark. The beautiful, mongoose-eyed shrew who was going to Paris for her divorce searched out her shrewdest evening-gown; so did the little high-school teacher determined to see the Lake Country. Love affairs began to flicker brightly; two or three bridge games were started; and the disused piano in the screened deck off the bar was rolled out for use. The dining-saloon was in a roar of talk. Diffident ladies had come out with unexpected rashes of jewels, optimists ordered from the wine-list, and the orchestra was for the first time encouraged. When Henry

Morgan — tired, disgusted, and without energy to dress for dinner — entered with his two companions towards the close of the meal, he saw that it was the beginning of what for (he sedate Queen Victoria would be a large night.

His own ideas were in a muddle. After four exasperating hours of questioning, he was almost convinced that the girl with the Greek-coin face had never existed. She was not aboard, and (so far as he could ascertain) had never been aboard. The thing was growing eerie.

Nobody knew her, nobody remembered having seen her, when at length in desperation he had dropped the pretext of searching for music-hall talent. On the tempers of some already harassed people, in fact, this latter device had been ill-timed. Its effects on Lord Sturton, on an Anglo-Indian colonel and his lady not yet recovered from mal-de-mer, on a D.A.R. from Boston and kindred folk, had been a bouncer's rush from the cabin before the request was fully out of his mouth. Even Captain Valvick's easy temper was ruffled by receptions of this kind.

Mrs. Perrigord, on the other hand, had been invaluable. Although she must have been aware that there was more in the tour than Morgan would admit, she had been impassive, helpful, even mildly enthusiastic. She took on herself a duty of cutting things short in a way that the easygoing novelist admired but could not imitate. When a proud mother eagerly went into long explanations of how her daughter Frances, aged nine, could play "Santa's Sleigh-Bells" on the violin after only six lessons, and how Professor E. L. Kropotkin had confidently predicted a concert future, then Mrs. Perrigord had a trick of saying, "I reolly don't think we need waste your time," in a loud, freezing voice which instantly struck dumb the most clamorous. It was an admirably frank trait, but it did not add to Morgan's comfort through those long, hot, gabbling, foodless hours in which he acquired a distaste for the entire human race.

Mrs. Perrigord did not mind at all. She said she enjoyed it, chatting volubly all the while, and coyly taking Morgan's arm. Moreover, she took quite a fancy to Captain Valvick, who, she confided to Morgan in a loud side-whisper, was so fresh and unspoilt, a definition which the skipper seemed to associate vaguely with fish, and which seemed to fret him a good deal. Another curious, puzzling circumstance was the behaviour of Warren, when they looked in on him in the padded cell just before going down to dinner.

It was growing dark, but he had not switched on the light in his cell. He was lying at full length on the bunk, his face turned to the wall as though he were asleep. In one hand was a closed book with his finger marking the place in the leaves. He breathed deeply.

"Hey!" said Morgan, whistling through the bars. "Curt! Wake up! Listen…!"

Warren did not stir. An uneasy suspicion assailed his friend, but he thought he could see the whisky-bottle also, and it appeared to be only slightly depleted: he could not be drunk. Mrs. Perrigord murmured, "Pooah lad!" The sailor on guard duty, who had respectfully risen, said the gentleman 'ad been like that all afternoon; was exhausted-like.

"Ay don't like dis," said Valvick, shaking his head. "Ahoy!" he roared, and pounded at the bars. "Mr. Warren! Ahoy!"

The figure moved a little. It raised its head cautiously in the gloom and there was a fiendish expression on its face. Placing a finger on its lips, it hissed ' Sh-h-h!", made a fierce gesture for them to go away, and instantly fell somnolent again.

They went. Whatever the meaning of the episode, it was driven from Morgan's mind by the prospect of food and drink. The fragrance and glitter of the dining-room soothed his rattled nerves; he breathed deeply once more. But— there was nobody whatever at the captain's table, not even Dr. Kyle. In the middle of the crowd and clatter, every chair remained ominously empty. He stared.

"… Now you must," Mrs. Perrigord was saying, "you really must come and dine at ouah table to-night, you kneow. Whatevah is worrying you, Mr. Morgan, I must insist on youah forgetting it. Come!" Her smile became mysterious as she took her rather dazed guests across the loom. "Les-leh will not be with us to-night. He will dine on milk and dry biscuit, and prepare himself foah his talk." She leaned close to Morgan. "My husband, you know, has rather extrooordinry principles, Mr. Morgan. But I, on the othah hand—"

Again she smiled. That was how she came to order champagne.

Alter the soup, Morgan felt a warmth steal through him. After the fish, his wolfish silence began to wear thin and III* spirits stirred from their depths. In the midst of a tender steak, done rare between crisp marks of the grill and smoking between those smooth-slipping chipped potatoes whose edges have no hardness, he suddenly felt a pleased sense of relaxation. The music of the orchestra did not not i nd far away, and he rather liked the appearance of the faces about him. Life looked less like a heap of unwashed dishes, and the warm lights were comforting. Champagne nipped warm and soothing. Captain Valvick said, "Ahh-h!" on a long-drawn note. When the steak disappeared, to be replaced by mysteriously tinted ice-cream and smoking black coffee, his spirits commenced to soar. He appreciated the noise that people were making around him. The champagne nestled through his innards, causing him to beam round on Mrs. Perrigord and the captain; to find himself keeping time with his foot when a reckless orchestra ventured into Gilbert and Sullivan.

"Ta-ti-ta-ta-ta-, ti-ta-ta-ta-ri; sing, 'Willow, tit-willow, tit- willow,' " murmured Henry Morgan, wagging his head expansively. He smiled, and Mrs. Perrigord spread effulgence in reply. "'Iss it veakness of intellect, birdie, ay cried—!'" whoomed Captain Valvick, drawing back his chin for a thoughtful rumble; " 'Or a tough worm in youah little in-side—' " gently speculated Mrs. Perrigord, beginning to giggle; and all three together, inspired with a surge of mirth, whirled out together:

"With a shake of his poor little head he replied, "'Willow, " 'Tit-willow,

"'Tit-willow!' (Whee!)"

"Oh, I say, you know," protested Mrs. Perrigord, whose face was growing rather flushed and her voice more loud, "we reolly shouldn't be doing this at oil, should we? Oh, I say! Heh-heh-heh! Shall we have anothah bottle?" she beamed on them.

"You yust bet we do!" boomed Captain Valvick. "And diss one iss on me. Steward!" A cork popped, pale smoke sizzled, and they raised glasses. "Ay got a toast ay like to giff… "

"Oh, I say, you know, I reolly mustn't!" breathed Mrs. Perrigord, putting her hand against her breast; "just fancy! What would deah Les-leh ay? But if you two positively outrageous people positively insist, you know… Heh-heh-heh! Here's loud cheaahs!"

"What I mean to say is this," said Morgan vigorously. "If there's any toast to be drunk, first off there ought to be a toast drunk to Mrs. Perrigord, Skipper. She's been the best sport in the world this after, Skipper, and I'd like to see anybody deny it. She came with us on a fool's errand, and never asked one question. So what I propose—"

He was speaking rather loudly, but he would not have been heard in any case. The entire dining-saloon had begun to converse in an almost precisely similar vein, with the exception of one or two crusty spoil-sports who stared in growing amaze. They could not understand, and would go to their graves without the ability to understand, that mysterious spirit which suddenly strikes and galvanises ocean liners for no reason discernible to the eye. Laughter in varying tones broke like rockets over the tumult; sniggers, giggles, guffaws, excited chuckles growing and rushing. More corks popped and stewards flew. It being against the rules to smoke in the dining-saloon, for the first time a mist of smoke began to rise. The orchestra smashed into a rollicking air out of The Prince of Pisen; then the perspiring leader came to the rail of the balcony and bowed to a roar of applause, dashed back and whipped his minions into another. Jewels began to wink as total strangers drifted to one another's tables, made appointments, gesticulated, argued whether they should stay here or go up to the bar; and Henry Morgan ordered a third bottle of champagne.

"… Oh, no, but I say, reolly!" cried Mrs. Perrigord, dining back in a sort of coy alarm and talking still more loudly, "you mustn't! You two outrageous people are positively outrageous, you know! It's simply dreadful how you take advantage of a pooah, weak woman who" — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—"it's reolly lovely champagne, isn't it? — who can't defend herself, you know. Just fancy, you wicked men, I shall be positively tight, you know. And that would be owful, wouldn't it?" She laughed delightedly. "Simply screamingly, deliriously owful if I am tight when 1 am tight, and—"

"What ay say iss diss," declared Captain Valvick, tapping the table and speaking in a confidential roar. "De champagne iss all right. Ay got not'ing against de champagne. But it iss not a man's drink. It do not put hair on de chest. What we want to drink iss Old Rob Roy. Ay tell you what. After we finish diss bottle we go up to de bar and we order Old Rob Roy and we start a poker game…"

"… but I say, you mustn't be so owfully, owfully formal," said Mrs. Perrigord chidingly. "Henry. Theah! I've said it, haven't I? Oh, deah me! And now you'll think I'm positively" — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—"positively dreadful, won't you? But I have so many things I should like to discuss with you, you know…

A new voice chirped:

"Hullo!"

Morgan started up, rather guiltily, to see Peggy Glenn, in a green evening gown that looked rather disarranged, negotiating the last step of the staircase and bearing down on them. She was beaming seraphically, and something in her gait as she moved through the layers of smoke struck Morgan's eye even out of a warmth of champagne. Mrs. Perrigord turned. "Why, my deah!" she cried, with unexpected and loud affection. "Oh. how reolly, reolly wonderful! Oh, do, do come heah! It's simply wonderful to see you looking so spic hic, so sick and span after oil those owful things that happened to you last night whee! And—"

"Darling!" cried Peggy ecstatically.

"Peggy," said Morgan, fixing her with a stern eye, "Peggy, you — have — been — drinking."

"Hoo!" cried Peggy, lifting her arm with a conquering gesture by way of emphasis. Her eyes were bright and pleased.

" Why have you been drinking?"

"Why not?" inquired Peggy, with the air of one clinching a point.

"Well then," said Morgan magnanimously "have another. Pour her a glass of fizz, Skipper. All I thought was after all that bawling and screaming this afternoon—"

"You did. You bawled and screamed this afternoon about Curt being shut up in a foul dungeon with the rats, and—"

"I hate him!" Peggy said passionately. She became tense and fierce, and moisture came into her eyes. "I hate and loathe him and despise him, that's what I do. I don't ever want to hear his name again, ever, ever, ever! Gimme a drink."

"My God!" said Morgan, starting up. "What's happened now?"

"Ooo, how I loathe him! He wouldn't even speak to me, the f-filthy w-wretch," she said, her lip trembling. "Don't ever mention his name again, Hank. I'll get blind, speechless drunk, that's what I'll do, and that'll show him, it will, and I hope the rats gnaw him, too. And I had a big basket of fruit for him, and all he did was lie there and pretend he was asleep, that's what he did; and I said, "All right!", so I went upstairs and I met Leslie — Mr. Perrigord — and he said, would I like to listen to his speech? And I said yes, if he didn't mind my drinking, and he said he never touched spirits, but he didn't mind if I did; so we sort of went to his cabin—"

"Have another drink, Mrs. Perrigord — Cynthia!" roared Morgan, to drown out the possibilities of this. "Pour everybody a drink. Ha-ha!"

"But, Henry!" crowed Mrs. Perrigord, opening her eyes wide, "I think it's p-perfectly wonderful, reolly, and so screamingly funny, don't you know, because oil deah Les-

He evah does is tolk, you see, and the pooah darling must have been most dreadfully disappointed. Whee!" Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.

"Ay like to see de young foolks have a good time," observed Captain Valvick affably.

"… and for Curt to act like that just when everything was nice and arranged for the performance to-night, when I'd finally succeeded in keeping Uncle Jules sober! And it was such a ghastly task, you know," explained Peggy, wrinkling up her face to keep back the tears, "because four separate times I caught him trying to sneak out after that horrible old gin!" The thought of that horrible old gin Almost overcame her with tears, but she turned a grim if wrinkled face steadily towards them. "But at last I made him see reason, and everything was all right, and he came down here in lovely shape to the dining-room to eat his dinner, and everything is nice—"

"Your Uncle Jules," said Morgan thoughtfully, in the midst of a curious silence, "came down where to eat his dinner?"

"Why, down here! And—" "No, he didn't," said Morgan.

Peggy whirled round. Slowly, painstakingly, with misted eyes and lips slowly opening, she scanned the dining-saloon Inch by inch. Babble and riot flowed there under a fog of smoke; but Uncle Jules was not there. Peggy hesitated. Then she sat down at the table and burst into sobs.

"Come on!" said Morgan, leaping to his feet. "Come on, Skipper! There's a chance to salvage the wreck if we work Nut, He'll be in the bar if he's anywhere… How long's he been on the loose, Peggy?"

"Th-thrree-qu-quarrbolooo!" sobbed Peggy, beating her hands against her forehead. "And only an hour unt-t-il the bolooo. Oh, w-why w-was the aw-ful st-stuff ever invented, lind w-why do beastly m-men drink—?"

"Can he drink much in three quarters of an hour?" "G-gallons," said Peggy. "Whoooo!" "My de-deah," cried Mrs. Perrigord, the tears starting to her own eyes, "do you reolly mean that that cher M'skieux Fortinbras has really m'uskic, hie, has reolly got

himskehelp tight? Oh, my deah, the horrible, owful, drunken—"

"Lady, lady," thundered Captain Valvick, hammering the table, "ay tell you diss is no time for a crying yag! Come on, Mr. Morgan; you take care of one and ay take care of de odder. Stop it, bot' of you! Come on now… "

By dint of holding firmly to Mrs. Perrigord's arm while the captain took Peggy's, they slid through the rollicking, friendly crowd that was now streaming upstairs for a headlong rush on the bar before the hour of the ship's concert. The bar, already crowded and seething with noise, seemed even more crowded and noisy to Morgan. Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion; whereas the more lachrymose became the two ladies over Uncle Jules going off on the razzle-dazzle, the more it impressed him as an excellent joke. On the other hand, his brain was clearer than normal; sights, sounds, colours, voices took on a brilliant sharpness and purity. He felt in his pores the heat and smoke and alcoholic dampness of the bar. He saw the red-faced crowd milling about leather chairs under the whirring fans and the pastoral scenes of the roof. He saw the amber lights glittering on mosaic glass in the windows, and heard somebody strumming the piano. Good old bar! Excellent bar!

"Come on!" said Captain Valvick. "Shovf de ladies into chairs at de table here and we make de round. Coorosh! Ay vant to see that marionette show myself. Come on. We start along de side and work ofer. You see him anywhere? Ay dunno him at all."

Morgan did not see him. He saw white-coated stewards shuttling in and out of the crowd with trays; but everybody in the crowd seemed to get in his way. Twice they made the circuit of the room: and no Uncle Jules.

"It's all right, I think," said Morgan, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief when they drew back towards a door giving on B deck. "He's probably gone down to take a last look at the marionettes. It's all right. He's safe, after all, and—"

" 'When chapman-billies leave the street,'" intoned a sepulchral voice just behind them, " 'and drouthy neighbours neighbours meet — When market-days are wearin' late, and folk begin to tak the gate'… Not bad, not bad," the voice broke off genially. "Guid evening to ye, Mr. Morgan!"

Morgan whirled. A hand was raised in greeting from a leather alcove in a corner, where Dr. Oliver Harrison Kyle sot bolt upright in a solitary state. On Dr. Kyle's rugged face there was an expression of Jovian pleasure; a trifle frozen, it is true, but dreamy and appreciative. He had stretched out one hand levelly, and his eyes were half-closed as he rolled out the lines. But now he gestured hospitably.

Dr. Kyle was full of reaming swats that drank divinely. Dr. Kyle was, in fact, cockeyed.

" 'Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,' " announced Dr. Kyle, with a gesture that indicated him to be a local boy and proud of it, " 'for honest men and bonnie lasses'! Aye! A statement ye ken, Mr. Morgan, frae the wairks o' the great Scottish poet, Rabbie Burrrns. Sit down, Mr. Morgan. And perhaps ye'll tak a drap o' whusky, eh? 'The souter tauld his queerest stories—'"

"Excuse me, sir," said Morgan. "We can't stop now, I'm afraid, but maybe you can help us. We're looking for a Frenchman named Fortinbras; short, stocky chap — perhaps you saw—?"

"Ah," said the doctor reflectively. He shook his head. "A guid horse, Mr. Morgan, a guid horse, but ower hasty. Weel, weel! I could ha' tauld him frae his ain exuberance at clearing the firrst sax hurdles he wadna gang the courrse. Ye'll find him there," said Dr. Kyle.

They hauled Uncle Jules out from under the lounge, a pleasant far-off smile on his red face, but unquestionably locked in slumber. Peggy and Mrs. Perrigord arrived just as they were trying to revive him.

"Quick!" Peggy gulped. "I knew it! Stand round, now, so nobody sees him. The door's right behind you… carry him out and downstairs."

"Any chance of reviving him?" inquired Morgan, rather doubtfully. "He looks—"

"Come on! Don't argue! You won't say anything of this, will you, Dr. Kyle?" she demanded. "He'll be perfectly all right by curtain-time. Pease don't mention it. Nobody'll ever know…"

The doctor assured her gallantly the secret would be safe with him. He deplored the habits of inebriates, and offered to give them assistance in moving Uncle Jules; but Valvick and Morgan managed it. They contrived to lurch out on the deck and below without more than the incurious observation of stewards. Peggy, stanching her tears, was a whirlwind.

"Not to his cabin — to the dressing-room at the back entrance to the concert-hall! Oh, be careful! Be careful! Where can Abdul have been? Why wasn't Abdul watching him? Abdul will be furious; he's got a fearful temper as it is… Oh, if we can't revive him there'll be nobody to speak the prologue; and Abdul will have to take all the parts himself, which he probably won't do…. Listen! You can hear the hall filling up already… "

They had come out into the corridor in the starboard side of C deck aft, and Peggy led them up a darkish side-passage. At its end was a door opening on a steep stairway, and beside it the door of a large cabin whose lights she switched on. Faintly, from up the staircase, they could hear an echoing murmur which seemed to come chiefly from children. Panting hard, Morgan helped Valvick spill on a couch the puppet-master, who was as heavily limp as one of his own puppets. A small whistle escaped the lips of Uncle Jules as his head rolled over. He murmured, "Magnifique!" and began to snore, smiling sadly.

Peggy, weeping and cursing at once, rushed to an open trunk in one corner of the cabin. It was a cabin fully fitted up as a dressing-room, Morgan saw. Three superb uniforms, with spiked helmets, broadswords, scimitars, chain mail, and cloaks crusted in glass jewels, hung in a wardrobe. A scent of powder was in the air; on a lighted dressing table were false whiskers of varying hues, wigs in long fighting-curls, face creams, greasepaints, spirit gum, make-up boxes, and pencils of rich soft blackness. Morgan breathed deeply the air of the theatre and liked it. Peggy snatched from the trunk a large box of baking-soda.

•'You neffer do it," said Captain Valvick, looking gloomily at Uncle Jules. "Ay seen lots of drunks in my time, and (til you—"

"I will do it!" cried Peggy. "Mrs. Perrigord, please, please stop crying and pour out a glass of water. Water, somebody! I got him round once in Nashville when he was nearly as bad as this. Now! Now, if somebody will—"

"Oh, the poah deah!" cried Mrs. Perrigord, going over to stroke his forehead. Immediately, with a deep snore which rose to crescendo in a reverberating whistle, Uncle Jules slid off the couch on the other side.

"lip!" wailed Peggy. "Hold him — lift him up, Captain! Hold his head. That's it. Now tickle him. Yes, tickle him; you know." She dropped a lump of baking-soda into a glass of water and advanced warily through an aroma of gin that was drowning the odour of grease-paint. "Hold Him now. Oh, where is Abdul? Abdul knows how to do (Hi*! Now, hold him and tickle him a little… "

"Gla-goo!" snorted Uncle Jules, leaping like a captured

An expression of mild annoyance had crossed his face.

face

dolphin.

"Viens, mon oncle!" whispered Peggy soothingly. Her steps were a little unsteady, her eyes smearily bright; but lip whs determined. "Ah, mon pauvre enfant! Mon pauvre ftfflt fiosse! Viens, alors…

The pauvre enfant seemed vaguely to catch the drift of fill* lie sat up suddenly with his eyes closed; his fist shot Mil with unerring aim, caught the glass full and true, and muled it with a crash against the opposite bulkhead. Then Uncle Jules slid down and serenely went on snoring. "Haah, whee!" breathed Uncle Jules.

There was a knock at the door.

Peggy nearly screamed as she backed away. "That can't

Mr, Perrigord!" she wailed. "Oh, it can't be! He'll ruin us if he learns this. He hates drinking, and he says he's going to write an account again for the papers. Abdul! Maybe it's Abdul. He'll have to do it now. He'll have to____"

"Dat," said Captain Valvick suddenly, "is a very funny knock. Lissen!"

They stared, and Morgan felt a rather eerie sensation. The knock was a complicated one, very light and rapid, rather like a lodge signal. Valvick moved over to open it, when it began to open of itself in a rather singular and mysterious way, by sharp jerks…

"Ps-s-sst!" hissed a voice warningly.

Into the room, after a precautionary survey, darted none other than Mr. Curtis Warren. His attire was much rumpled, including torn coat and picturesquely grease-stained white flannels; his hair stood up, and there was some damage done to his countenance. But a glow of fiendish triumph shone from it. He closed the door carefully and faced them with a proud gesture.

Before they could recover from the shock of stupefaction and horror, he laughed a low, satisfied, swaggering laugh.

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew it forth and held up, winking and glittering on its gold chain, the emerald elephant.

"I've got it back!" he announced triumphantly.

16 — Danger in Cabin C46

Morgan said nothing. Like Captain Whistler on several occasions too well known to cite, he was incapable of speech. His first sharp fear—viz., that his eyes were deriving him, and that this might be a grotesque fantasy of champagne and weariness — was dispelled by sombre reality, Warren was here. He was here, and he had the emerald elephant. What he might have been up to was a vision which Morgan, for the moment, did not care to face. All he distinctly remembered afterwards was Valvick saying, hoarsely, "Lock dat door!"

"As for you—" continued Warren, and made a withering gesture at Peggy. "As for you — that's all the faith and trust you put in me, is it? That's the help I get, Baby! Ha! t put through a deep-laid plan; but do you trust me when I'm shamming sleep? No! You go rushing off in a tantrum… "

"Darling!" said Peggy, and rushed, weeping into his arms.

"Well, now—" said Warren, somewhat mollified. "Have i drink!" he added, with an air of inspiration, and drew f ft Mil his pocket a bottle of Old Rob Roy depleted by exactly one pint.

Morgan pressed his fists to his throbbing temples. He swallowed hard. Trying to get a grip on himself, he approached Warren as warily as you would approach a captured orang-outang, and tried to speak in a sensible tone.

"To begin with," he said, "it is no use wasting time in futile recriminations. Beyond pointing out that you are into* lulled as well as off your onion, I will say nothing. But I want you to try, if possible, to collect yourself sufficiently to give me a coherent account of your movements." A horrible suspicion struck him. "You didn't haul off and paste the captain again, did you?" he demanded. "O God!

you didn't assault Captain Whistler for the third time, did you? No? Well, that's something. Then what have you been up to?"

"You're asking me?" queried Warren. He patted Peggy with one hand and passed the bottle to Morgan with the other. Morgan instantly took a healing pull at it. "You're asking me? What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? It was your own idea. What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine?"

To the other's bemused wits this was on a par with that cryptic query touching the manifesto said to have been thundered forth by W. E. Gladstone in the year 1886.

"Now, hold on," said Morgan, soothingly. "We'll take it bit by bit. First, where did you pinch that emerald again?"

"From Kyle, the dastardly villain! I lifted it out of his cabin not five minutes ago. Oh, he had it, all right! We've got him now; and if Captain Whistler doesn't have me a medal… "

"From Kyle?… Don't gibber, my dear Curt," commanded Morgan, pressing his hands to his temples again. "I can't stand any more gibbering. You couldn't have got it from Kyle's cabin. It was returned to Lord—"

"Now, Hank, old man," interposed Warren with an air of friendly reasonableness. "I ought to know where I got it, oughtn't I? You'll at least admit that? Well, it was in Kyle's cabin. I sneaked in there to get the goods on the villain, the way Lord Gerald did when Sir Geoffrey's gang thought they had him imprisoned in the house at Moorfens. And I've got the goods on him… Oh, by the way," said Warren, remembering something exultantly. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and drew out a thick bundle. "I also got all his private papers, too."

"You did what?"

"Well, I sort of opened all his bags and trunk and briefcases and things… "

"But, I say, howevah did the deah boy get out of gaol?" inquired Mrs. Perrigord. She had dried her tears, adjusted her monocle again, and she watched breathlessly with her

hands against her breast. "I think it's most, owfully, screamingly, delightfully clevah of him to…"

There was a quick knock at the door.

"They're after him!" breathed Peggy, whirling round with wide eyes. "Oh, they're a-after the p-poor darling to t him back in that horrible brig. Oh, don't let them

"Sh-h-h!" rumbled Valvick, and made a mighty gesture, He blinked round. "Ay dunno what he done, but he got to

The knock was repeated…

"Dere iss no cupboard — dere iss no — Coroosh! Ay got HI Hi hass got to put on de false whiskers. Come here. Come here, ay tell you, or ay bust you one! You iss cuckoo! Don't argu wit' me," he boomed as a spluttering Warren was hauled across the cabin. "Here iss a pair of fid whiskers wit' de wires for de ears. Here iss a wig. Mr. Morgan, get a robe or something out of dat locker… "

"Hut why, I ask you?" demanded Warren. He spoke with a difficult attempt at dignity from behind a threatening bush of red whiskers with curled ends, and a black wig with long curls which Valvick had jammed over one eye. When he began to shake one arm and declaim, Morgan wrapped round him a scarlet bejewelled robe. "I've got proof! I can prove Kyle is a crook. All I've got to do is to || In Whistler and say, 'Look here, you old porpoise—' "

"Shut up!" hissed Valvick, clapping a hand over the whiskers. "Now. We iss ready. Open dat door… "

They stared tensely, but the sight, as Morgan opened (Hi door, was not very alarming. Under ordinary circumstances they would have deduced that their visitor was, if Anything, a shade more nervous than they. A stocky A.B. In dungarees and a striped jersey was pulling at his forelock, shifting his feet, and flashing the whites of his eyes, Before anybody could speak, the A.B. burst out rapidly, In n hoarse confidential voice.

"Miss! Wot we want to 'ave clearly understood, my mates and me, which I was delegyted 'ere to sy, is that my mates and me is in naow wy responsible. Miss! Stryke me blind, so 'elp me, miss, if we're responsible! Like this. Not that we didn't feel like it, wot with 'im ordering us abaht like we wos dirt, and 'im only a ruddy Turk, yer see — but it's abaht that bloke Abdul, miss—"

"Abdul?" said Peggy. "Abdul! Where is he?"

"Right 'ere, miss, yer see. I've got 'im outside, miss. In a wheelbarrow, miss."

"In a wheelbarrow?"

"Like this, miss. So 'elp me! All dy me and my mates wos a-working wheeling them ruddy dummies, miss, and a-working 'ard, so 'elp me. And Bill Pottle, my mate, says to me, 'e says, 'Gawd lummy, Tom, d'you know 'oo we've got on this 'ere tub?' 'e says. 'It's the Bermondsey Terror, Tom, the bloke we see knock out Texas Willie larst year.' So all of us thought we'd go and tyke a look at 'im, and a real top-notch good sport 'e wos, miss, 'oo said 'ed been a-drinking, wiv a Swede, and, 'Come in,' 'e says, 'all of yer!' So 'e begins a-telling us 'ow 'e beat the Dublin Smasher in eighteen seconds. And just when we wos all interested, miss, in walks this 'ere Abdul, yer see, miss, and starts rysing a row. And somebody says, 'Gorn' yer ruddy frog-eater,' 'e says, 'gorn back to yer ruddy 'arem,' 'e says. Then Abdul gets narsty and says, 'Ow, well, 'e'd rather be

a frog-eater than a-Britisher a-stuffing fuller roast

beef,' 'e says. And the Bermondsey Terror gets up and says, 'Ow, yerce?' And Abdul says, 'Yerce.' So Bermondsey sorter reaches out and taps him a couple, yersee, miss…"

"But he's all right, isn't he?" cried Peggy.

"Sure, 'e's all right, miss!" the other hastened to assure her, with a gesture of heavy heartiness. "Except 'e can't talk, yer see. Bermondsey 'it 'im in the vocal cords, once, yer see, miss… "

With her eyes brimming over, Peggy glared. "Oooh, you — oh, you nasty, brawling fighting… Can't talkl You take him back, do you hear? You work over him, do you hear? If he isn't in shape in half an hour I'll walk straight up and tell the captain, and I'll—"

She herself was incapable of speech. She dashed at the door, the thoroughly scared A.B. ducking out before her wrath. He was mumbling something rather defiantly to the effect that that was what Abdul had croaked out, and the Bermondsey Terror said he didn't care, and if any games tiled 011 him—Peggy slammed the door. "Goroosh!" said Captain Valvick, wiping his forehead. He* shook his head despondently. "Ay tell you ay seen roughneck ships before, but diss one of Old Barnacle's iss de worst. It iss hawful. Ay haff a cook once on de old old Betsy Yee which get mad and chase de whole fo'csl round and round de deck wit' a carving-knife; and ay t'ank now ay could get him a job on diss ship and he be right at home, Coroosh! what iss going to happen next?"

A faint, pleasant, gurgling noise behind them caused them to turn. The neck of a bottle had been tilted up among a brush of savage red whiskers. It descended. Red-whiskered and black-wigged, Curtis Warren regarded them affably,

"Good for the old Bermondsey Terror!" he said. "I'd like to meet that fellow. He'd make a good addition to our crowd. It reminds me a little of the way I served old Charley Woodcock about an hour ago… What does Abdul weigh, Peggy? Woodcock's fairly light."

Cool despair settled on Morgan, so that he felt pleasant Mini collected now. Nothing more, he was certain, could happen. They might as well bow before the Parcae and enjoy the gyrations of those relentless sisters.

"Ha ha-ha!" he said. "Well, old boy, what did you do In Woodcock? What's Woodcock got to do with this?"

"Now do you think I got out of the jug, anyhow?" demanded Warren. "It was a stratagem, I'm telling you, and i damned good stratagem, if you ask me. I asked you before, What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? And I'll tell you. The trick was this. If they thought he was safely locked up, then he could prowl as he liked and get the evidence that would hang the guilty man. That was my position… So I had to have a substitute to take my place in they wouldn't suspect anything. And if I do say it myself, I worked it pretty well — though I'll have to hand the teal credit to you, Hank." He removed his whiskers to talk the better.

"Woodcock was definitely the one person I could summon to me so that he'd come any time I liked, wasn't he? Right. Well I carefully prepared my ground by seeming to sleep all afternoon, so they'd get used to it; I refused dinner and everything. Then I wrote a note to Woodcock. I said I had news from my Uncle Warpus, and to come down to the brig at exactly seven o'clock. Just before this, I told him to have a message sent in the captain's name to the sailor on guard — I'd learned his name — to get him away for ten minutes, so there'd be nobody to hear when we talked business. I asked the sailor whether I could send a message, and he said he supposed it was all right, but he couldn't leave to take it; so they sent a pageboy. The only thing was, I was afraid somebody might read it, so—" Warren glanced round with triumphant glee, rubbing his hands.

"Masterly," said Morgan in a hollow voice.

"So what did I do? I ripped the book apart. There's always the heavy mucilage sticking the cover to the inside flaps of the book; and I tore out one of the flaps and sealed it. And it worked! Good old Charley came through. The sailor didn't like to leave when the fake message came through; but he saw there were bolts on the outside of the door I couldn't move, and I was asleep, anyway." Warren made a gesture. "Down comes Woodcock and says, 'You've got it, have you?' And I said, 'Yes; just pull back those bolts and open the door for a second; I don't want to get out, but I'll have to give you this.' So he opened the door. And I said, 'Look here, old man, I'm damned sorry, but you know how it is,' and I let him have it in the jaw… "

"Darling!" said Peggy. "Oh, you poor dear idiot. Why didn't you make him tell before you hit him?… Oh, confound it all, if you'd only done what I wanted you to, if you'd only tortured him before you hit him! Oh, dear… and now look what's happened, with all this nasty fighting and torturing!" She wrung her hands. "Abdul and Uncle Jules, look at them! And unless we can get them on their feet there'll be no performance. Listen! I can hear the crowd upstairs already… "

She snatched the bottle from Warren's hand and strengthened herself with a draught. A wheel seemed to go round behind her eyes. "The n-nasty d-drunken b-beasts!" said Peggy; "the—"

"My deah!" said Mrs. Perrigord, "Oh, I say, I don't know what has kick-happened, but I think it was most owfully clevah of Mr. Joyce to torture oil those people, and get out of gaol, I do, reolly, especially as it was Henry's idea, and I think we reolly might have the courtesy to offer Mi, Lawrence a glass of champagne… "

"Silence!" roared Morgan. "Listen, Peggy, the performance doesn't matter now; hasn't that occurred to you? Have you realised that we're saddled again with that blasted emerald… which Curt swears he got out of Kyle's cabin? Curt, come to your senses. You couldn't have got it out of Kyle's cabin, I tell you! Lord Sturton—"

Warren shook his head tolerantly, agitating the curls of the savage black wig that was jammed over one ear.

"No, no, old man," he said. "You don't understand. Not Lord Sturton — Lord Derreval. Lord Gerald Derreval. If you don't believe me, go down to Kyle's cabin — it isn't Mi from here — and look behind the wardrobe trunk just under the porthole. The steel box is there; I left the box there so the crook would maybe think the emerald was still In it…

Valvick whirled on Morgan.

"Maybe," he said, "maybe it been dere all de time! Coroosh! You t'ink dere is two emeralds, and one of dem a fake, and somebody hass returned de fake to dat English duke, eh?"

"Impossible, Skipper," returned Morgan, who was feeling queerly light-headed. "Don't you think Sturton would know a real emerald from a fake? Unless, somehow, the Will emerald was returned to him… I don't know! The thing's driving me insane. Go on, Curt. Go on from the consummation of your crafty scheme to entice Woodcock In the brig. What then?"

"Well, 1 got in a neat upper-cut, you see… "

"Yes, yes, we know that. But afterwards?"

"I tore the sheet up, bound and gagged him securely, and tied him to the berth so he couldn't move; then I put a blanket over him, so when the sailor came back he'd only look into the cell and think I was there… Neat, eh?"

"I have no doubt," agreed Morgan, "that at the present moment Mr. Woodcock thinks very highly of your forethought. If the idea had ever previously occurred to him to tip over the beams concerning your Uncle Warpus. I should think it would recommend itself strongly to him now. You're a wonder, you are. Carry on."

"So I sneaked away and made straight for Kyle's cabin to get the goods on him. I wasn't afraid of running into Kyle because I looked through a porthole and saw him in the bar; besides, I knew he was due at the concert. And— there you are. The proof! Also, I've got his papers. All I was afraid of was what Captain Whistler had said about maybe catching Kyle, but everything was fine. Now all we've got to do is examine his papers, and we'll find evidence that he's really the crook who's impersonating Dr. Kyle____"

"Yess, dere is de papers, too," rumbled Captain Valvick. "It is a hawful offence, ay tell you. Worst offence on de high seas to steal a man's papers. What we going to do now?"

Morgan stalked up and down the cabin, slapping his hand against the back of his head.

"There's only one thing. We've got to get Curt back to the brig before the captain learns he's on the loose. I don't see how it's to be done without—Mrs. Perrigord" he said whirling round, "what are you doing?"

"But, my own Henry," protested Mrs. Perrigord, jumping involuntarily. Her face wrinkled up in anguish. "Oh, I do so hope I didn't offend you! Reolly, I was only ringing the bell for the steward. Pierre Louys wants a bottle of champagne, you know, and you know it would be dreadfully rude if we didn't kick-offer… But I reolly didn't know which was the b-bell, so what could I do but ring oil the bells, you see… "

Morgan reeled. He dived and caught her arm just as she

was about to press a last push-button, hitherto overlooked, and labelled "Fire Alarm."

"Peggy," he said, "if you ever showed any sense and speed, show 'em now. If those bells don't bring down a Blob, at least there'll be a crowd of highbrows swarming in ire If things are all ready for the performance. At the moment, this is the safest place on the ship for Curt if you'll do as I tell you. Black his face — fit him out in wig Mild whiskers… "

"I will, Captain!" said Peggy grimly. "The poor darling sha'n't go back to that horrible old brig if 1 can help it. But what—?"

Morgan took her hands and looked her steadily in the aye.

"Can i trust you and Curt here for just five Minutes — just five minutes, that's all I ask — without your getting in more trouble. You can stay out of more trouble for live minutes, can't you?"

"I swear it, Hank! But what are you going to do?" " The skipper and I are going to take those papers back to that cabin before anybody discovers they're gone. There's no chance of being caught; the only chance and danger is here. Give me that emerald, Curt. I don't know What's happened or what it is, but we'll take it back and be quit of the responsibility. Hand it over!"

"Are you stark, raving crazy?" shouted Warren. "I risk life and limb and my position in the Diplomatic Service to get the goods on a murdering crook, and now you ask me lo hand back—"

Morgan lowered his voice, perceiving this was the only Way of handling the matter, and fixed him with a hypnotic

eye.

"This is subtle, Curt. A subtle, deep scheme, you see. We only pretend to do it. But the moth is in our net now. A pin, a cork, and a card, and we add him to our Baker Street collection! You see? You trusted the wit and resource of Lord Gerald in a tight spot; now trust it again.

… Eh? Ah, that's it. That's it, old chap. Papers all here? Good! And — er — go light on the whisky, will you, or what there is left of it, until we get back? Stout fellow… Now, remember, Peggy, you've promised there'll be no trouble. I rely on you. Come on, Skipper… "

He backed away gingerly, as a lion-tamer might swerve to get out of a cage. Mrs. Perrigord said she wanted to go with Henry. She insisted on going with Henry. Exactly how she was dissuaded from this intention Morgan never knew, since he and Valvick slid out a fraction of a second before the closing door.

The gangway was empty, although a more confused buzzing and laughing, mingled with the deep note of people shuffling chairs, swept down from the staircase up to the stage.

"Well, remarked the skipper musingly, "we is de only two people left wit' any sense, and ay don't t'ink much of diss Lord Gerald, whoever he iss. Coroosh! Ay don't believe de government off de United States need to care much about dat movie-film. Ay dunno if dey know it, but dey have bigger worries. All dey got to do iss send dat young Warren out in de Diplomatic Service and dey are going to have a war every week. It iss up to us. We got to save de situation."

"We'll save it, Skipper. Easy, now!… Damn it! Don't walk like a crook! We're only out for a stroll. Take these papers. Round the corner here. At least, thank the Lord we've kept out of trouble so far. If anybody saw Curt sneaking back to Kyle's cabin, he'd be pounced on in a second. We haven't got a chance to put Kyle's papers back where they were — he'll know there's been a burglary— but at least there'll be nothing missing. In the ensuing search this emerald… Look here, do you think somebody's pinched it back from Sturton?"

"Ay not be surprised. Ay not be surprised at anyt'ing. Sh-h-h, now! Here is where we turn off. Listen!"

At a dim side-passage off the main corridor they stopped and peered down. All the noises of the ship were away from them, in the dim tumult of the throng milling up on B deck towards the concert-hall. Here it was so quiet the sea's rush and murmur became again discernible, and the low creaking of woodwork. But there were voices some-where. They listened a moment before they could place them as coming from behind the closed door of C 47 in the passage.

"It iss all right," whispered the captain, nodding. "Dat iss Sparks and hiss cousin, de Bermondsey Terror. Ay half start de Bermondsey Terror off on Old Rob Roy, and ay bet he don't want to stop. But don't disturb 'em, or we Haff to explain. Walk soft____!"

C' 46, Dr. Kyle's cabin, had its door closed. They tip-toed down, and Morgan felt his heart rise in his throat, growing to an enormous pounding, as he softly turned the knob. He pushed it open…

Nobody inside.

One danger passed. If there had been somebody…

Again he felt hot fear as he switched on the light, but there was nobody. It was a large cabin, with what he supposed to be a bathroom attached, and now in a wild state of confusion. Not even a private detective could have called Warren's methods in the least subtle.

Under the porthole stood a large wardrobe trunk with Its leaves apart, its lid propped up and top shelf streaming ties. He pointed.

"Look there, Skipper. If that steel box were thrown in this porthole last night, it would land behind that trunk and nobody would ever see it unless the trunk were moved… "

Valvick closed the door softly. He was peering at two valises open on the floor, and an unlocked brief-case lying across the berth.

"Come on," he said; "we haff to work fast. Take a handful of these papers and shove 'em somew'ere. Coroosh! Ay feel like a crook! Ay don't like diss. What you doing?"

Morgan was groping behind the trunk. His fingers touched metal, and he withdrew the circular box with the hinged lid. He stared at it a moment, and handed it to Valvick.

'There it is, Skipper. And here's the elephant" — he stared at Warren's trophy in his hand and shivered. "Come on; let's put it back. The less we have to do… "

"Listen!" said Valvick, cocking his head.

Nothing. The porthole was open; they heard the curtain thrumming in the breeze, and the multitudinous rustlings of the sea. Also, very faintly, they could hear the murmur of voices from the gangway opposite, where sat Sparks and the Bermondsey Terror. Nothing else.

"Come on," whispered Morgan. "You're getting nerves, Skipper. Stuff those things away somewhere, and let's get out of here. We'll put this little job through without any hitch, and they'll never suspect us… "

A voice said:

"You think so?"

Morgan felt his skin crawl, and his head bump forward against the trunk as he knelt. The voice was not loud, but it brought the universe to a standstill like a dead clock. After it the silence was so heavy that he seemed unable to hear the sea or the thrumming curtain.

He looked up.

The door to the bathroom, previously closed, was standing open. Captain Whistler stood with one hand on the knob and the other on a trigger. He was wearing full-dress uniform, an arabesque of gold braid against the blue, from which the breeze (Morgan noticed even in that glassy, frozen moment) brought a wave of Swat Number 2 Liquid Insect Exterminator. Captain Whistler's good eye had a malignant gleam as at the realisation of some obvious fact that had hitherto escaped him… Behind him, Second-Officer Baldwin was looking over his shoulder…

His glance travelled to the emerald in Morgan's hand.

"So you two," said Captain Whistler, "were the real thieves, after all. I might have known it. I was a fool not to see it first off last night… Don't move! All right, Mr. Baldwin. Move out and see if they're armed. Steady now…" -

17 — Bermondsey Carries On

There were, as they afterwards reflected, several courses that thoughtful men might have pursued. Even thoughtful men, however, would have conceded that these two conspirators were fairly in the soup. If at one time explanations might have been made to Captain Whistler, both Morgan and Valvick realised that by this time the Parcae hud no tangled matters up that it was practically impossible to explain anything. Morgan himself doubted whether even hull an hour's lucid thought would enable him to explain the situation to himself. Yet there are certain courses which thoughtful men deplore — those courses are elementary, like a reflex action, and spring to the muscles horn a prompting older than reason. Captain Valvick, for Instance, might have held out the steel box. He might have tin own the box on the floor at Whistler's feet, and surrendered in explanation. (a plain Valvick did nothing of the kind, lie threw that steel box, in fact, straight at the light in the roof of Cabin C 46, where it spattered glass and extinguished the same in one reverberating pop. Then he nearly yanked Morgan's arm from his socket swinging him out before himself into the passage and slamming the door behind.

Morgan dimly heard Whistler's avenging yell. Flung against the opposite bulkhead, he bounced back in time!» hear a weight of bodies thud against the door inside.

"Dat old Barnacle!" roared Valvick, whose powerful hands were firmly clamped on the knob at the door as he held it. "Dat!&—£./&???(!! ay show him! He t'ank we iss t'ieves, eh? By jumping Yudas, ay show him. Nobody effer tell me dat before; nobody! Ay show him. Qvick, lad; rope! Ve got to get rope and tie de door shut… "

"Wassermarrer?" inquired a voice behind Morgan.

The voice had to speak loudly and hoarsely, because insane riot banged at the door inside, mingled with baffled bellowings from the Queen Victoria's skipper. Morgan spun round, to see that the door of Cabin C 47 was open. Framed in the doorway, his shoulders filling it and wriggling out at either side, stood a young man who was likewise so tall that he had to bend his head to peer out. He had a flattened countenance and a ruminating jaw like a philosophical cow.

"Coroosh!" roared Valvick, with a blast of thankfulness. He panted. "Bermondsey! Iss dat you?"

"Ho!" said the Bermondsey Terror, his face lighting up. "Sir!"

"Bermondsey — qvick — dere is no time to argue. Ay haff done you a good turn wit' de toot-ache, eh?"

"Ho!" said the Bermondsey Terror.

"And you say you like to do me a good turn? Good! Den you do diss, eh? You hold diss door for me until we can go for help and get aw — can get rope to tie dem up. Here, you hold…"

Uttering his significant monosyllable, the other leaped from the door with a crack of his head on the doorpost which he seemed to mind not at all, and lent his weight to the knob.

"Wot's up?" he inquired.

"Dey iss robbers," said Captain Valvick.

"Ho?"

"Dey steal my pearl cuff-links," rumbled Captain Valvick, with rapid pantomime, "and de platinum studs which my old mudder gave me. Dey steal dis yentleman's watch and his pocket-book wit' all de money… "

"Robbed you?"

"Yess. All ay want you to do iss hold de door v'ile—"

"Ho!" said the Bermondsey Terror, letting to the door to hitch up his belt. "Lemme at 'em!"

"No!" roared the captain, with a hideous insight of what he had done with his burst of poetic fancy. "No! Not dat! Only hold de door! Ay tell you it is de capt—"

The Bermondsey Terror's somewhat diminutive mind was concentrated on business. He hurled his fifteen stone at the door without pausing for explanation or protest. There was a thud and crackle; then a sound suggesting that two rather heavy bodies had been catapulted back across the cabin like bowling-pins. Then Bermondsey plunged Into the dark cabin.

"We've got to stop him!" panted Morgan, trying to get through the door. He was stopped by Valvick's arm. "Listen! he'll—"

"Ay don't t'ink we can do not'ing but run," said Valvick. "No! Stay back. Ay am sorry for old Barnacle, but—"

From the cabin issued hideous muffled noises, language reminiscent of King Kong, and the clean inspiriting crack of knuckles against bone and flesh. A large suit-case sailed out of the darkness, as though from a lively spiritualist stance; banged against the opposite wall and showered underwear, socks, shirts, and papers. The passage began to be inundated with Dr. Kyle's possessions. Morgan, breaking loose, made another effort to dive in at the door. It was a gallant attempt, which might have succeeded if at that moment somebody had not thrown a chair.

Then he had a vague impression that somebody was dragging him away. Dimly he heard the Bermondsey Terror's hoarse voice announcing in muffled accents, between cracks, that he would teach people to steal pearl cuff-links and gold watches that their mothers gave them. When Morgan's wits cleared a second or more later, he was some distance from the scene of tumult. A new sound struck him — a deepening, gathering buzz and laughter. They were in the passage leading to the back stairs of the concert-hall.

"You ain't hurt!" Valvick was saying in his ear. "It yust bump you. Brace up! Qvick, now! De hunt be up in a second, and we got to find a place to hide if we don't want to be put in irons… Sh-h-h! Walk careless! Here iss somebody… "

Morgan straightened up, feeling his eyes crossed in a buzzing head, as somebody stalked round the corner into the narrow gangway. It was a steward bearing a large tray on which there were six tall gilt-foil bottles. Paying no attention to them, the steward swung past and knocked at the door of the dressing-room. In response to his knock there was poked out a face of such appalling hideousness that Morgan blinked. It was a brown face with tangled black hair, murderous squint-eyes, and whiskers.

"Champagne, sir," said the steward, crisply, "for a Mr. D. H. Lawrence. That'll be six pounds six, sir."

The cut-throat leered. On his head he placed rather rakishly a spiked helmet of brass set with emeralds and rubies; so that he could the better reach under an elaborate green robe, where he fumbled a moment, and then laid on the tray two American twenty-dollar bills. The bottles were mysteriously whisked inside by what appeared to be feminine hands behind the warrior. Then, as the steward hastened away, the warrior drew from its scabbard a broad curved scimitar and squinted evilly up and down the passage. Seeing Valvick and Morgan, he beckoned.

"Well?" inquired the voice of Curtis Warren, as the two conspirators tumbled into the dressing-room and Valvick locked the door. "Did you get it back all right? Did you…?" The warrior stared. Thoughtfully he pushed his helmet forward and scratched his wig. "What's the idea, Hank? You've still got the emerald! Look… "

Morgan nodded wearily. He glanced round. Uncle Jules was on the couch again, sprawled wide, while Peggy was trying to raise his head and insinuate a second dose of baking-soda under his twitching nose. There was a sharp plob as Mrs. Perrigord dexterously opened a bottle of champagne.

"You explain, Skipper." said Morgan, sadly juggling the emerald in his palm. "Suffice it to say that the game is up. U-up. Go on, Captain."

Valvick sketched out a rough outline. "You mean," said Warren, quakes and bubbles beginning to show under his ferocious moustache—"you mean the Bermondsey Terror is down there murdering the old sardine for stealing Hank's watch? Why, oh why wasn't I there to see it? Yee-ow! I'd have given anything to see it! Curse the rotten luck, why do I have to miss every good thing…?"

Tears had come into Peggy's eyes again.

"lint," she protested, "why, oh why can't you lay off the poor old captain? What have you got against him, anyway? Why must you go about assaulting the poor dear captain every time you get out of my sight? It isn't fair. It isn't just, after he said he almost had a daughter like me off Cape Hatteras. It—"

"Owful!" said Mrs. Perrigord, clucking her tongue reprovingly. "You owful, naughty boys, you. Have some champagne."

"Well, why hass he got to be dere, anyway?" demanded Valvick, hotly. "Ay tell you de old Barnacle call me a thief, and now ay am mad. Ay going to find out who iss at de bottom of diss business if ay haff to sving from de yard-arm lor it. And ay mean it."

"He was only trying to do his duty, Skipper," said Morgan. "We ought to have been warned. You heard what ho said this afternoon: he wanted to have the honour of nabbing Kyle for himself. He and the second officer were probably there searching the cabin when they heard us coming. They ducked into the bathroom and when they opened the door and saw us they thought… well, what would you have thought? Skipper, it's no go. They'll be Having a search party out for us in five minutes. The only thing to do is to go to Whistler, try to explain, and take our medicine. God knows what they'll do to us; plenty, I should think. But… there you are."

Valvick brought his arm down in a mighty gesture. "Ay will not! Ay am mad now, and ay will not! Barnacle iss not going to put me in de brig like a drunken A.B. while diss crook laughs ha-ha. We are going to hide somewhere, dat iss what, so he don't catch us, and den—"

"What's the good of that?" Morgan wanted to know. "Calm yourself, Skipper. Even if we could hide, which I doubt, what good would it do? We land day after tomorrow, and they'd be bound to catch us. We couldn't stay on the ship… "

"Haff you forgotten dat de New York detective iss coming aboard at Southampton to identify diss crook, eh?"

"Yes, but—"

"And de charge we got to avoid iss stealing de emerald… "

"With others, including Curt's jail-break, assault and battery of Woodcock; to say nothing of—"

"Bah! What iss Woodock? All you got to do iss promise him de bug-powder testimonial and he be all right. As for de odders, what iss dey? When dat detective point out de right man, do you t'ink Whistler going to get away wit' accusing us of stealing? Ay bet you not. Dey only t'ink he iss cuckoo, and den we threaten to tell de newspapers about dat bug-powder gun and dey will giff him de bird something hawful if he open his mouth about de rest! Coroosh! It iss easy. Ay will not be put in dat brig! Dat iss my last word. 'For God. For de cause! For de Church! For de laws!' Liberty for ever, hooray! Are you wit' me, Mr. Warren?"

"Man, you never said a truer word!" said the Moorish warrior, and gripped his hand. "We'll show 'em, we will! Let 'em try to put me back in that brig!" He flourished his scimitar. Peggy rushed into his arms, beaming through* her tears. He burst into song.

"May the serr-vice united ne-'er se-ver, But hold to its co-oolours so true!"

sang the Moorish warrior, enthusiastically, and Valvick took it up,

"Theee ar-my and naaa-avee forever— Three cheers for the red — white — and blue!"

"Sh-h!" howled Morgan as the three of them clasped hands in a dramatic gesture. "All right! Have it your way. If you must do it, I suppose I can be as mad as anybody else. Lead on; I'll follow… The point is, where do you propose to hide?… Yes, thanks, Mrs. Perrigord, I will have some champagne."

Peggy slapped her hands together. "I've got it! I've got it! I know where you'll hide so they won't put you in that nasty brig. You'll hide with the marionettes."

"With the marionettes?"

"Of course, silly! Listen! The marionettes have a cabin of I heir own, haven't they? Adjoining Uncle Jules's, isn't It? And the stewards are all afraid to go in there, aren't they? And you have three uniforms like the marionettes, haven't you, and false whiskers? And food can be passed In to you from Uncle Jules's cabin, can't it? And if they did look in they'd only see marionettes lying in the berth. Hurling, it's wonderful and it'll work, too…"

"I'm glad to hear that," said Morgan. "Without wishing to be a spoil-sport, it would damp my ardour considerably If I had to hang on a hook all day and then found it didn't work. Besides, I think enough strain has already been put on Captain Whistler's reason without having a marionette sneeze in his face when he looked into the cabin. You're mad, Peggy. Besides, how can we get away with it? We're wasting time. The highbrows will be roaring down on this cabin in a minute, asking if Uncle Jules is ready to begin performing, and then we're discovered. This cabin is probably surrounded at the moment, and we can't even get to our hideaway. I also think it probable that a searching-party would feel considerable curiosity concerning three full-panoplied Moorish warriors seen strolling arm in arm down C deck."

Peggy pointed her finger at him.

"No, we're not caught, either! Because you three will climb into those clothes this minute, and we'll put on the whole performance ourselves. They won't know you in disguise, and you can help wheel the marionettes back to the cabin and stay there."

There was a silence. Then Morgan got up, with his head In his hands, and danced helplessly.

"Baby, the idea is a knockout!" breathed Warren. "But how are we going to work it? I can stand in front of the stage with a battle-axe right enough; but what about the rest of it? I can't even work those marionettes, to say nothing of what they say… "

"Listen to me. Quick, champagne, somebody!" She snatched a bottle from the beaming Mrs. Perrigord, and alter a moment, brilliant with inspiration, she continued: "We'll save Uncle Jules's bacon yet. To begin with, there isn't a real Frenchman aboard this ship, with the exception of Uncle Jules and Abdul. The audience will be mostly kids, or else people with only a smattering of French, out to see the fighting…"

"What about Perrigord?" inquired Warren.

"I'm not forgetting him, darling. That's where Hank comes in. Hank will be the Emperor Charlemagne and also the crafty Banhambra, Sultan of the Moors… "

"Good for you, old man!" applauded Warren, radiating kindliness and slapping the Emperor Charlemagne on the back.

"… because I've heard his accent, and it's at least good enough to deceive Perrigord. People will think he is Uncle Jules, because we'll stuff him with pillows and disguise him; and when he speaks the prologue it's behind a lighted gauze screen at the back of the stage, and nobody can tell who it is. Yee, this is wonderful, now I think of it! The rest of the time he's out of sight. I have a typewritten copy of his part, and all he has to do is read it… As for working the marionettes, you can master that in ten minutes while Madame Camposozzi is singing and Kyle's reciting and Perrigord is talking. All you need is to be strong in the arms, which is where Curt and the skipper excel, and you can make 'em fight, can't you? Well—"

"Yess, but where do ay come in?" asked Valvick. "Ay dunno no French except one or two words. Ay can juggle plates, dough," he suggested hopefully, "and play de piano…"

"You can play the piano? Then," declared Peggy excitedly, "we're absolutely all right. Because, you see, the only other speaking parts are very small — the Knight Roland, the Knight Oliver, and Bishop Turpin. Those parts will be taken by Curt. I'll prompt him roughly, just a few words; but it won't matter what he says, because the skipper will be playing the piano, loud and hard, with appropriate music…."

Morgan roared. He couldn't help it. The strengthening sizzle of champagne cried, "Whee!" along his windpipe; weariness dropped from him. He looked round at the radiant Mrs. Perrigord, who was now seated on the stomach of the prostrate Uncle Jules and looking coyly at him. Again plans began to twist and shift in his brain.

'Right you are!" said he, slapping his hands together. "By Gad! we'll go down in a burst of glory if we do nothing else! It's mad, it's risking a thunderbolt from above, but we'll do it. Up and at 'em! Come on, Skipper; into those uniforms we go — there's no time to be lost… "

There was not. From above began to sound now a measured and steady clapping; a deeper buzz and hum which rattled the lights of the dressing-table. Stopping only to execute a brief gleeful round-the-mulberry-bush with Warren, Peggy rushed to set out the cosmetics.

"And this," continued Morgan, excitedly stripping off his coat, "is where Mrs. Perrigord comes in. Sing your prayers, lads, to the blessed stars that sent her to us to-night… "

"Gloo!" crowed Mrs. Perrigord. "Oh, you positively owful man, you mustn't say things like that! Whee!"

"… because," he said, tapping Warren on the chest, "she's going to get rid of the people who were to be extras in our places to-night. Don't you see? We can't have anybody behind the scenes but ourselves. Wasn't this Madame Camposozzi to play the piano, and some Russian the violin; yes, and a couple of professors to be warriors…?"

"O Lord! I'd forgotten that!" cried Peggy, freezing. "Oh, Hank, how can we—?"

"Easy! Mrs. Perrigord simply puts on one of those chilly stares of hers when they come down here, and says the places have been filled. We have the organiser of the concert talking for us, and she'll be obeyed; otherwise there'd be a row and we could never wangle it… Listen!" he whirled round to her. "That's all right, isn't it? Mrs. Perrigord — Cynthia — you'll do it for me, won't you?"

There was a world of pleading in his voice. The organiser of the concert did not give him a chilly stare. She said, "Oh, you owful man!" and got up and put her arms round his neck.

"No, listen! Wait a bit — listen, Cynthia!" said Morgan desperately. "Listen to what I have to say. Let go, damn it!

I tell you we can't lose time! Let me get my waistcoat off… "

"I don't think you're making yourself quite clear," observed Warren critically. "Suppose your wife could see you now, you old rip? Let the poor woman go, can't you?"

"You've got to get her in shape to face 'em, Hank!" cried Peggy, flying across the room. "Oh, it's p-perfectly a-aful the w-way we're p-persecuted and t-tortured with these n-nasty drunken p-people…!"

"Who's a nasty drunken people, may I ask?" inquired Mrs. Perrigord, suddenly raising a flushed face from Morgan's shoulder.

"All I was saying, darling—"

A fusillade of knocks on the door froze the conspirators where they stood.

"Signor Fortinbras!" exclaimed a voice with a broad rolling accent. The knocks were redoubled.

"Signor Fortinbras! It ees-a me, Signor Benito — Furioso — Camposozzi! Signor Perrigord he weesha to know eef you are alla-right. He—"

Peggy raised a quavering voice. "He is quite all right, Signor Camposozzi. He ees-a — I mean, he is dressing now. Please come back in five minutes. Mrs. Perrigord wishes to speak to you."

"Ah! Good! Tenn-mee-noota and we start. Good! Good! I am averraglad to hear it. Signor Ivan Slifovitz hasa tolda me," bawled Signor Camposozzi, with deplorable Latin lack of reticence, "that he thought you might hava drink too moocha Gin…"

"Gin?" repeated a sudden, thoughtful, sepulchral voice just behind Morgan. It seemed to come from deep down in the earth. "Gin?"

Uncle Jules abruptly sat up. He slid off the couch. With eyes half-closed and face intent, as though some illuminating idea had come to him, he walked straight to the door.

"Je vais chercher le gin," he explained hurriedly.

Valvick was after him at a bound, but, since his hand was on the knob of the door, nothing less than a full-sized miracle could have prevented discovery if Signor Camposozzi's attention had not been momentarily distracted.

"Reel" squeaked Signor Camposozzi, for a reason they could not discern. "Sangua delta madonne, who are you? (lo away! You been-a fighting; you area onea begga crook… "

"Now look 'ere, Guv'nor," protested a hoarse voice, "don't run awy, will yer? 'Ere! Come back! I've got 'ere," continued the Bermondsey Terror, "two gold watches, two sets of cuff-links, two pocket-books, but only one set o' Kinds. I'm looking for a chap nymed Cap'n Valvick, 'oo owns part of it, and I wants ter 'ave 'im tyke his choice. 'Mre! Come back — I only wanted to ask where I could find—"

There were two sets of frantic footsteps rushing away as the Bermondsey Terror pursued him.

18 — Gold Watches and Disappearance

"A little more larceny, of course," said Morgan, "added to the list of our other offences won't matter a great deal. All the same, Skipper, you'd better stop the Bermondsey Terror and give him time to think up some excuses. Also, it mightn't be a bad idea to retrieve Captain Whistler's best studs and cuff-links."

Valvick took Uncle Jules, who was smiling vacantly, and propped him against the wall with one hand while he unlocked the door. He called "Bermondsey!" and one set of footfalls stopped. Then Valvick set up Uncle Jules like a sign on a couch just beside the door.

"He's coming round," said Warren, inspecting the red face of the puppet-master. "Look here, Baby, what happens to our new scheme if the old geezer wakes up? He may not be too tight to play, after all. Better give him another drink."

"We'll do nothing of the kind!" snapped Peggy. "We don't need to abandon our scheme. If he does come round, we can still hide in the back of the stage. Take off your helmet, Curt, and fill it with water. We'll slosh him down, and then maybe—"

She stopped as the Bermondsey Terror, laden with his plunder, stooped his head under the door. Except for a torn necktie and a scratch down one cheekbone, the Terror was undamaged. A drowsy smile went over his face.

"Ho!" said the Terror. " 'Ere's the stuff, sir. You and t'other gentleman just pick out whatcher want."

Valvick peered out hastily, drew him into the cabin, took the booty from his hands and slid it out of sight along the couch.

"Listen, Bermondsey," he growled, wiping his forehead: "Ay am afraid dere has been a mistake. Ay 'tank you haff smack de wrong men. Ay—"

"Ho?" inquired the Terror. His smile deepened. He Willed his head and closed one eye portentously. 'I sorter thought so, d'yer see, when I see 'oo they wos." Shaken by hoarse mirth, he winked again. "Never yer mind, Guv'nor. Did me good, that workout. Wot's the game? I sorter thought there wos something up when first I see somebody go into the sawbones' room and come out with the green jule thing as that gentleman's got now," he nodded at Morgan, who had disentangled himself from Mrs. Perrigord, "and then I see you two take it back. None o' my ruddy bursness, yer see, till you asks for 'elp."

Again he laughed hoarsely. Morgan, to whom had come a glimmer of hope that might avert Peggy's insane idea, took it up.

"Look here, Bermondsey. About those two robbers— just how much damage did you do to them?"

The Terror smiled complacently. He counted a few Imaginary stars, closed his eyes, and uttered a snore.

"Out," inquired Morgan.

"Cold," said the Terror.

"Did they see you? Would they know you again, I mean?"

"Ho!" said the Terror. "Not them! Wosn't no light, yer see. 'Ad ter strike a match ter tear the watches orf 'em. Ho-ho-ho!"

"Bermondsey," said Warren, enthusiastically, as the other stared dully at his costume, "I want to shake your hand. I also want to offer you a drink of champagne… What's on your mind, Hank?"

Morgan had begun to stalk about excitedly. He picked up the watches and examined them. Then he put them down on the couch with the emerald elephant.

"If this idea works out," he said, swinging round, "then there'll be no need to he under a heap of marionettes and play dead for two days. Nor will there be any need to go to the brig, either, for any of us except Curt… "

"That's fine," said Warren. "That's great. Well, all I've not to say is, and I take my oath on it, I am not going back lo that damned padded cell, whatever happens! Get me? furthermore—"

"Shut up, will you? — and listen! You'll need to go back for not more than an hour. The whole point is, Captain Whistler doesn't know you're out of the brig, does he? Right. Now don't interrupt. So what have we got? We've got in Bermondsey a witness who can definitely prove we were not stealing that emerald out of Kyle's cabin, but were returning it, together with Kyle's papers. Our witness needn't say anything about Curt's having taken it from there. Then—"

"Ahoy dere!" protested Valvick. "Coroosh! you are not going to try to see Barnacle now, are you?"

"Listen! Then this is the way it's to be done:

"Peggy takes the note-cases, watches, and the rest of it, including the emerald. She goes to Whistler and says, 'Captain, do you know what the two people you thought were thieves have done? They've saved your bacon and saved the emerald when it was nearly stolen a second time.'

«She then tells a story of how, as we were passing by, the skipper and I saw a mysterious masked stranger—" i "Horse feathers!" said Warren, with some definiteness.

"You're drunk."

Morgan steadied himself. "All right, we'll omit the mask then. We saw this stranger sneaking out of Kyle's cabin

laden with Kyle's papers and the emerald. We set on him; i and, although he got away without our learning who he was, we retrieved the whole thing… "A howl of protest arose, and Morgan regarded them sardonically. "Actually, the reason why you oppose it is that you want to hide in with the marionettes and put on that damned show, don't you? Isn't that true?"

"Yes, ay know," Valvick growled stubbornly, "but what about dem getting beaten up?"

"That's part of it. You don't honestly imagine even old Whistler would believe we'd pinch his watch and cufflinks, do you? Very well: Admittedly we were in a bad t position and acted hastily when we ran out on him. But our mythical crook, who was ever in attendance, is on the watch; and, thinking Whistler's got the emerald from us, bursts in. By the use of a bottle as a weapon — that's Whistler's own story, remember, and he's got to stick to it whether he believes it or not — the crook lays low the captain and the second officer, and he makes a clean haul of everything…

He stopped, feeling that the story sounded thin even to his own ears; yet also convinced that their own plan was even more impracticable. It was a case of Mephistopheles in deep water, a toss-up of two insanities, but at least his scheme might do something towards soothing the gigantic wrath of Captain Whistler. Warren grunted.

"And then you and Valvick attack this crook again, I suppose?" he asked. "Hank, it's the bunk. I'm surprised at you."

"No! You don't understand, The crook, groggy from (upturn Whistler's powerful smashes, staggers away to full. We, roused by the noise, return. We find the plunder again. At first we daren't take it to Whistler, knowing what he'll think. But Peggy, seeing we have nothing to fear from our noble conduct, persuades us—"

He saw that Valvick was wavering and scratching his chin, and said desperately:

"Let's put it to a vote. We do this, while Curt returns to the brig and pacifies Woodcock by a definite promise to get him the testimonial. Listen!" An inspiration struck him. "Do you realise that, while Captain Whistler's authority only extends over the high seas, Woodcock is a private citizen and can prosecute in the civil courts? He can get n thousand pounds damages for that, and he's not got any false dignity to restrain him. Do you want to go to jail, Curt? Well, if you leave Woodcock tied up there much longer — and they may not discover him until to-morrow— he'll be so wild that a bug-powder testimonial from the President himself wouldn't keep him quiet. For God's sake, get the champagne out of your brains for three seconds mid think! You needn't stay in the brig any longer than you like, Curt. Whistler's promised to let you out."

"I still vote No," said Warren. A babble of voices arose, while they got together in the middle of the cabin waving their arms and shouting. Mrs. Perrigord said it was oil owfully clever, and she voted as Henry did.

"Eee! Stop it!" cried Peggy, clapping her hands to her ears. "Listen. Let me talk. I'll admit I think it would be rather nice to go to the captain and make goo-goo eyes ai him, sort of. Wait! But we'll let it rest on Uncle Jules and — I don't care what you say, he's my uncle, and I won' have him g-guyed because they s-say he's too drunk to—'

"Steady now!" said Warren, as she shook her fist! desperately.

"… to play. And we'll let it rest at that. If he's sober enough to play inside of, say fifteen minutes or half at hour, we can hold the curtain until then; we'll adopt Hank's idea. If not, then we'll carry on as we'd intended… What's that noise?" She broke off suddenly. Her smeary eyes travelled past Morgan's shoulder and widened. Then she screamed.

"Where," said Peggy, "is Uncle Jules?"

The door of the cabin was lightly banging with the slight roll of the ship.

Uncle Jules was gone. Also missing were the watches the cuff-links, the note-case, the studs, and the emerald elephant.

19 — Indiscretions of Uncle Jules

The Moorish warrior removed his spiked helmet and flung U on the floor.

"Sunk!" he said wildly. "Sunk! Done brown. Come on, lake our vote if we want to, but we can't do either one thing or the other now. I'm getting sick of this. What's the Hint ter with the old soak? Is he a kleptomaniac?"

"You let him alone!" cried Peggy. "He can't help it. lie's drunk, poor darling. Oh, why didn't I think? He's done it before. Only mostly it's only motor-car keys, and there's not an awful lot of harm done, in spite of what awful people say…"

"What do you mean, motor-car keys?"

Her eyes wrinkled up. "Why, the keys of the cars, you know; things you turn on the ignition with. He waits till somebody goes away, leaving the key in the car, and then he sneaks up ever so softly and pinches the key out. Then he goes away somewhere until he can find a fence, and throws the key over it. After that he goes on to find another car. There was a most horrible row in St. Louis because he got loose in a ground where they park cars, and pinched thirty-eight keys at one haul… But why don't you do something? Go after him! Get him back before they find—"

"Hah!" cried a furious voice.

The door was flung open. Fat-faced, with vast trembling cheeks, sinister beetle brows and vast moustachios, a tubby little man stood in the doorway. He pointed at Peggy.

"So! So! You have trieda to deceive me, eh? You have a trieda toa deceive Signor Benito Furiosa Camposozzi, eh? Sangua della madonne, I feex you! You tella me he cesa all-right, eh? Haah! What you call all-aright, eh? I tell you, signorina, to youra face, he ees-a drunk!" Signor (' im isozzi was breathing so hard that he choked. Peggy hurried up to him.

"You saw him? Oh, please tell me! Where is he?"

Signor Camposozzi raised one arm to heaven, slapped his forehead, and the whites of his eyes rolled up horribly.

"Sooah? You aska me if I see heem? Haah! I weela tella you! Never have I beena so insulted! I go up to him. I say, 'Signor Frotinbras!' He say, 'Shhh-h!' In heesa hands he hasa got fourteen gold watches and pocket-books. He open theesa pocket-books and handa me — me — he handa; me wan pound note. He say, 'Sh-hh! You buya me onea* bottle of gin, eh? Sh-h!' Den he go off asaying, 'Shh-h!' and a pooshing wan pound note under every door he see. I say—"

"There goes the old swordfish's dough," said Warren, staring from under his villainous eyebrows. "Look, Mr. Sozzi, listen. Did you see — I mean, did he have a kind of a jewel thing with him? A sort of green thing on a gold chain?"

"Haah! Dida I see it?" inquired Signor Camposozzi, with a withering leer. "He hasa fasten it around his neck."

Morgan turned to Valvick. "The fat's in the fire now anyway, Skipper," he said. "Whatever else we do, we can't be marionettes. But if it occurs to Uncle Jules to give that emerald away to somebody… well, we can't be in more trouble than we are. We'd better go after him. No, Curtli No! You're not coming, do you hear?"

"Certainly I'm coming," said Warren, drawing his scimitar again and placing a bottle of champagne in the pocket of his robe. "Think I'm going to miss this? It's absolutely safe. My own mother wouldn't recognise me in this outfit. If we run into the old haddock or anybody, I can simply gesture and say, 'No speeka da Eenglish.' See?"

As a matter of fact, he was the first one out the door. Nobody protested. The fat was now sizzling and flaring in the fire anyway; and, Morgan reflected, at least three! people were better than two at nobbling Uncle Jules— provided they could find him — before he gave away Captain Whistler's watch to somebody and left a trail of Captain Whistler's money all along C deck. Also, they were joined by the Bermondsey Terror.

"Head for the bar!" said Morgan as the three of them

blunged up the passage. "He'll go in that direction by instinct. No, not that way. Turn round and go by the port side, or we may run into Whistler and his crowd… "

I hey stopped. A confused noise was beginning to bellow down in the direction of cabin C 46; the patter of running feet, excited voices, and a stentorian ocean-going call to glim. The four allies instantly shifted their course and Mimic for the forward part of the boat — a fortunate circumstance, since they picked up Uncle Jules's trail within a few seconds. Indeed, nobody but Messrs. Lestrade, Gregson, Mild Athelney Jones could have missed it. Two or three doors were open, and infuriated passengers, clad only in ill ess trousers, and dress shirts hanging out over them, were dancing stockingless in the doors while they bawled Hi ii dazed steward.

"I couldn't 'elp it!" protested the steward. "I tell you, Nil

"You!" said Warren, presenting the point of his scimitar Hi I lie steward's breast, an apparition which nearly brought a scream bubbling from between the other's hps. "You!" lie repeated, as the steward strove to run. "Have you seen him? A bald-headed drunk with a prizefighter's shoulders and his hands full of stuff?"

"Yes! Y-yes, sir! Take that thing away! Just gone! Did he get yours too?"

"My what?"

"Shoes!" said the steward.

"I'll have the law on this line!" screamed one maddened passenger, laying hold of the steward's collar. "I'll sue 'em for the biggest damages ever awarded in a court. I'll complain to the captain. I put my shoes outside my door to be polished, and when I go to get 'em what do I see but—"

"He's stolen every damn shoe that was outside a door!" snorted another, who was sniffing after shoes up and down the passage like a terrier. "Where's the captain? Who was II? Who—"

"Come on," said Captain Valvick. "Out on de deck and go round."

They found a door forward, and plunged out on C deck — on the same deck and the same side that had seen the

hurricane of the night before. As before, it was dimly lighted, but this time peaceful. They paused and stared round, breathing cool air after the thick atmosphere inside. And Morgan, as he peered down a companion-way leading to D deck, came face to face with Mr. Charles Woodcock.;

Somebody swore, and then there was silence.

Mr. Woodcock was coming slowly and rather painfully up the steps. Aside from rumpled clothes, he was undamaged,' but every joint was cramped from his long trussing in torn sheets. His bush of hair waved in the breeze. He writhed his shoulders, cracking the knuckles of his hands; and on his bony face, as he looked up and saw who stood there, was an expression—

Morgan stared as he saw that look. He had expected] many things from the unfortunate bug-powder representative, triumph, threats, rumpled dignity swearing vengeance, i sinister joviality, at all events hostility. But here was an expression which puzzled him. Woodcock had stiffened. His tie was blown into his face and seemed to tickle his nose and terrify him like the brushing of a bat in the dark. His bony hand jerked. There was a silence but for seething water…

"So it's you again," said Warren, and slapped the scimitar against his leg.

Woodcock recognised the voice. He glanced from Warren to Morgan.

"Listen!" he said, clearing his throat. "Listen! Don't fly off the handle now. I want you to unnastand something… "

This looked inexplicably like retreat. As startled by Woodcock's appearance as he had evidently been by theirs, Morgan nevertheless cut in before Warren could speak again. i

"Well?" he demanded, and assumed by instinct an ominous tone. "Well?"

The pale smile fluttered on Woodcock's face. "What I wantcha to unnastand, old man," he said, writhing his shoulders again and speaking very rapidly, "is that I wasn't responsible for you being stuck in that brig, even if you think I was; honest to God I wasn't. Look, I'm not mad at you, even if you've hurt me so bad I'll maybe have to go hi the hospital. That's what you've done — but you can see I 'in not mad, can't you, old man? Maybe it was right for you lo lake a sock at me — from what you thought, I mean. I know how it is when you get mad. A guy can't help himself. But when I told you — you know, what I did tell you— it was absolutely in good faith… "

There was something so utterly suspicious and guilty-seeming about the man that even the Bermondsey Terror, who had evidently no idea what this was all about, took a step forward.

"'Ere!" he said. "Oo's this?"

"Come up here, Mr. Woodcock," said Morgan quietly, lie jabbed his elbow into Warren's ribs to keep him quiet. "You mean that you really didn't see that film stolen out of ('urt Warren's cabin, after all?"

"I did! I swear I did, old man!"

"Attempted blackmail, eh?" asked the Moorish warrior, who had opened his eyes wide and was fiddling with the scimitar.

"No! No! I tell you it was a mistake, and I can prove it. I mean, it may look like the man I saw isn't on board at all, hut he is! He's got to be. He must have been disguised im something… "

A dim suspicion that at last the Parcae had got tired of (angling things up for their particular crowd, and had begun on somebody else, began to grow hopefully in Morgan's mind.

"Let's hear your side of the story," he said, playing a chance. "Then we'll decide. What do you have to say about it?"

Woodcock came up to the deck. A scowl, of which neither of them probably knew the reason, had overspread the rather grim faces of large Valvick and even larger Bermondsey. Woodcock saw it, and veered like a sloop in ii windward breeze.

Clearing his throat, he set himself amiably for a hypnotic speech.

"So listen, old man. I did see that guy; word of honour. Hut after I talked to you to-day I said to myself, I said, 'Charley, that fellow Warren's a real white man, and he's promised to get the testimonial for you. And you're a man of your word, Charley,' I said," lowering his voice, 'so you'll get the name of the man for him'…"

"You mean you didn't know who the man was?"

"Didn't I tell you I didn't know his name?" demanded Woodcock urgently. "Think what I said! Remember what I said! And what I said was, I'd know him if I saw him again. And, damn it! he had to be on the boat, didn't he? So I thought I'd look around and find out who it was. Well, all the possible people were at meals to-day, and I looked, and he wasn't there! So I thought, 'What the hell?' and I began to get scared," he swallowed hard; "so I went to the purser, and described the man as somebody I wanted to meet. I couldn't miss him; I remembered everything, including a funny-looking ear and a strawberry mark on the fellow's cheek. And the purser said, 'Charley,' he said, 'there's nobody like that aboard.' And then I thought, 'Disguise!' But yet it couldn't have been anybody I'd already seen, because I'd have known 'em disguise or no disguise — shape of the face, no whiskers, all that." He was growing unintelligible, but he rushed on. "And then I heard you'd been put in the brig because the captain had accused you of making a false accusation about somebody; and I thought, 'O God, Charley, this is all your fault and he won't believe you really did see that.' When I got your note to come down, I thought you mightn't blame me after all; but as soon as you hit me — Listen, I'll make it up to you. I'm no crook, I swear… "

Good old Parcae! Morgan felt a rush of gratitude even for this small favour of averting charges of assault and battery, or whatever else might have occurred to Mr. Woodcock in a more rational moment.

"You hear what Mr. Woodcock says, Curt?" asked Morgan.

"I hear it," Warren, in a curious tone. He smoothed at his whiskers and looked meditatively at the scimitar.

"And you're willing to admit the mistake," pursued Morgan, "and let bygones be bygones if Mr. Woodcock is? Righto! Of course Mr. Woodcock will realise from a busi-ncss point of view he no longer has any right to ask for that testimonial…"

"Hank, old man," said Mr. Woodcock, with great earnestness, "what I say is, To hell with the testimonial. And the bug-powder business too. This isn't my game, and I might as well admit it. I can sell things — there's not a better little spieler on the European route than Charley R. Woodcock, if I do say it myself — but for the big business side of it, ixnay. No soap. Through. But I'm entirely willing, old man, to give you all the help I can. You see I kept bumping myself against the wall down there in that cell until the sailor looked in; and finally I got the gag out of my mouth. Well, he released me and went off to find the captain. And I'd better tell you—"

From somewhere on the other side of the deck rose a shout. A door wheezed and slammed, and the clatter of feet rushed nearer.

"There he goes!" said a voice and, rising above it, they heard the view-halloo bellow of Captain Whistler.

"Don't run!" wheezed Valvick. "Don't run, ay tell you, or you may run into him. Down de companion-ladder— 'ere! — all of you. Watch! Maybe dey don't see… "

As the distant din of pursuit grew, Valvick shoved the Moorish warrior down the steps and the Bermondsey Terror after him. The Bug-powder Boy, full of new terrors, tumbled down first. Crouching on the iron steps beside Valvick, Morgan thrust his head up to look along C deck. And he saw a rather impressive sight. He saw Uncle Jules.

Far up ahead, faint and yet discernible in the dim lights, Uncle Jules turned the corner round the forward bulkhead and moved majestically towards them. The breeze blew up his fringe of hair like a halo. His gait was intent, determined, even with a hint of stateliness; yet in it there were the cautious indications of one who suspects he is being followed. A lighted porthole attracted his attention. He moved towards it, so that his red, determined, screwed-up face showed leering against the fight. He stuck his head partly inside.

"Sh-h-h!" said Uncle Jules, lifting his finger to his lip.

"Eeee!" shrieked a feminine voice inside. "Eeeeee!"

A look of mild annoyance crossed Uncle Jules's face. "Sh!" he urged. After peering cautiously around, he searched among the bundle of articles he was carrying, selected what appeared to be a gold watch, and carefully tossed it through the porthole. "Onze!" he whispered. They heard it crash on the floor inside. Uncle Jules moved towards the rail of the boat with an air of impartiality. With fierce care he selected a pair of patent-leather dancing-pumps and tossed them overboard.

"Douze!" counted Uncle Jules. "Treize, quatorze—"

"Eee!" still shrieked the feminine voice as a stream of articles began to go overboard. Uncle Jules seemed annoyed at this interruption. But he was willing to indulge the vagaries of the weaker sex.

"Vouse n'amiez-pas cette montre, hein?" he asked solicitously. "Est-ce-que vous aimez I'argent?"

The din of pursuit burst with a crash of sound round the corner of the deck ahead, led by Captain Whistler and Second-Officer Baldwin. They stopped, stricken. They were just in time to see Uncle Jules empty the contents of Captain Whistler's wallet through the porthole. Then, with swift impartiality, he flew to the rail. Overboard, clear-sailing against the moonlight, went Captain Whistler's watch, Captain Whistler's cuff-links, Captain Whistler's studs — and the emerald elephant.

"Dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf, vingt!" whispered Uncle Jules triumphantly. Then he turned round, saw his pursuers and said "Sh-hhh!"

There are times when action is impossible. Morgan laid his face against the cold iron step, his muscles turning to water, and groaned so deeply that under ordinary circumstances the pursuers must have heard him.

But they did not hear him. Not unreasonably, they had failed to observe the strict letter of Uncle Jules's parting injunction. The noises that arose as the pack closed in on Uncle Jules awoke the sleeping gulls to scream and wheel on the water. They were terrifying noises. But, just as Morgan and Warren were rising again, the implications of one remark struck them motionless.

"So that," bellowed the appalled voice of Captain

Whistler, strangled with incoherent fury, "so that's the man, is it, who burst in there and — and launched the m-most murderous attack on us that—"

"Sure it is, sir," said the hardly less sane voice of Sccond-Officer Baldwin. "Look at him! Look at those arms and shoulders! Nobody but somebody used to swinging those-marionettes day after day could've had the

strength to hit like that. There's nobody on the ship who could've done it else…"

"Ho?" muttered the Bermondsey Terror, starting violently.

"Shh!" hissed Captain Valvick.

"… No, sir," pursued Baldwin, "he's not a crook. But he's a notorious drunkard. I know all about him. A drunkard, and that's the sort of thing he does… "

"Pardonnez-moi, messieurs," rumbled a polite if muffled voice from under what appeared to be many bodies. "Est-ce-que vous pouvez me donner du gin?"

"He — he threw that — that emer—" Whistler gulped amid strange noises. "But what about — those — young Morgan — Sharkmeat — those—"

Somebody's heels clicked. A new voice put in: "Will you let me offer an explanation, sir? I'm Sparks, sir. I saw part of it from my cousin's cabin. If you'll let me tell you, sir, that young fellow and the Swede weren't trying to steal — you know. They were trying to return it. I saw them. They're close friends of Miss Glenn, this man's niece; and I should think they were trying to cover him up after the old drunk had stolen it…"

"From Dr. Kyle's cabin? What the hell do you mean? They—"

"Sir, if you'll listen to me!" roared Baldwin. "Sparks is right. Don't you see what happened? This kleptomaniac souse is the man who stole the emerald from you last night! Who else could have hit you as hard as that? And didn't he act last night exactly as he's acting to-night, sir? Look here: you were standing near where you are now. And what did he do? He did exactly what we saw him do to-night — he chucked that jewel through the nearest port, which happened to be Dr. Kyle's, and it landed behind the trunk… He's drunk, sir, and not responsible; but that's what happened…"

There was an awed silence.

"By God!" said Captain Whistler. "By God!… But wait! It was returned to Lord Sturton—"

"Sir," said Baldwin wearily, "don't you realise that this souse's niece and their crowd have been trying to protect him all the time? One of 'em returned it, that's all, and I sort of admire the sport who did. The drunk stole it again, so they decided they'd put it back in the doc's cabin where the drunk had a fixed idea it ought to go, and then tip off somebody to find it. Only we wouldn't let them explain, sir. We — er — we owe 'em an apology."

"One of you," said the captain crisply, "go to Lord Sturton; present my compliments, and say that I will wait on him immediately. Get me some ropes and tie this lubber up. You!" said Captain Whistler, evidently addressing Uncle Jules, "is — this — true?"

Morgan risked a look. Captain Whistler's back was turned among the group of figures on the deck, so that Morgan could not see the new damage to his face. But he saw Uncle Jules struggling to sit upright among the hands that held him. With a fierce expression of concentration on his face, Uncle Jules wrenched his vast shoulders and flung off the hands. A solitary pair of shoes remained gripped close to him. With a last effort he sent the shoes sailing overboard; then he breathed deeply, smiled, rolled over gently on the deck, and began to snore. "Ha, whee!" breathed Uncle Jules, with a long sigh of contentment.

"Take him away," said Whistler, "and lock him up."

A trampling of feet ensued. Morgan, about to get up, was restrained by Valvick.

"It iss all right!" he whispered fiercely. "Ay know how seafaring men iss. Dey get hawful mad, but dey will not prosecute if dey t'ink a mann iss drunk. De code iss dat whatever you do when you iss drunk, a yentleman goes light on. Shh! Ay know. Listen—!"

They listened carefully while Captain Whistler relieved his mind for some moments. Then he took on a more

tragic note in mourning his watch and valuables, thus gradually working himself up to a dizzy pitch when he came to the last trouble.

"So that's the thief I was supposed to have aboard, eh?" he wanted to know. "A common drunk, who throws fifty-thousand-pound emeralds overboard, who — who—"

Baldwin said gloomily: "You see now why that young Warren pretended to act like a madman, sir? He's more or less engaged to the girl, they tell me. Well, they made a good job of it shielding him. But I've got to admit we've been a bit rough on—"

"Sir," said a new voice, "Lord Sturton's compliments, sir, and—"

"Go on," sneered the captain, with a sort of heavy-stage-despair. "Don't stop there. Speak up, will you? Let's hear it!"

"Well, sir — he — he says for you to go to hell, sir…

"What?"

"He says — I'm only repeating it — he says you're drunk, sir. He says nobody's stolen his emerald, and he got it out and showed it to me to prove it. He's in a bit of a temper, sir. He says if he hears one more word about that bleeding emerald — if anybody makes a row or so much as mentions that bleeding emerald to him again — he'll have your papers and sue the line for a hundred thousand pounds. That's a fact."

"Here, Mitchell!" snapped Baldwin. "Don't stand there like a dummy! Come and give me a hand with the commander… Get some brandy or something. Hurry, damn you, hurry!"

There was a sound of running footsteps. Then up from behind Morgan, an expression of dreamy triumph on his face, rose Curtis Warren full panoplied in Moorish arms. He pushed past the others and ascended the ladder. Drawing his bejewelled cloak about him, shooting back the cuffs of his chain mail, he adjusted the spiked helmet rakishly over the curls of his wig. He drew himself up with a haughty gesture. Before the bleary eyes of the Queen Victoria's skipper, who was reeling dumbly against the rail and almost toppling overboard, Warren strode forward with ringing footfalls.

He paused before Whistler. Lifting the scimitar like an accusing finger, he pointed it at the captain.

"Captain Whistler," he said in a voice of shocked and horrified rebuke, "after all your suspicions of innocent men… Captain Whistler, aren't — you — ashamed of yourself?"

20 — Disclosure

In a certain big room above Adelphi Terrace, a misted nun was beginning to lengthen the shadows. It was beginning to make a dazzle against a huddle of purpling towers westward at the curve of the river; and from one of these towers Big Ben had just finished clanging out the hour of four. A very hoarse story-teller listened to the strokes reverberating away. Then Morgan sat back.

Dr. Fell removed his glasses. With a large red bandana he mopped a moisture of joy from his eyes, said, "Whoosh!" with a wheezing and expiring chuckle, and rumbled:

"No, I'll never forgive myself for not being there. My boy, it's an epic. Oh, Bacchus, what I'd give for one glimpse of Uncle Jules in his last moment supreme! Or of the old mollusc, Captain Whistler, either. But surely that's not all?"

"It's all," said Morgan wearily, "I have the voice to tell you now. Also, I imagine, it's all that's relevant to the issue. If you think the fireworks ended there, of course, you still haven't plumbed the spiritual possibilities of our crowd. I could fill a fair number of pages with the saga of pyrotechnics between nine-fifteen night before last, when Uncle Jules threw his last gallant shoe, until 7 a.m. this morning, when I slipped away from a ship accursed. But I can give you only a general outline… Besides, I hesitated to include all the things I have. It was hair-raising action, if you like, but it seemed to me not to have any bearing on the vital issues… "

Dr. Fell finished mopping his eyes and subsided in dying chuckles. Then he blinked across the table.

"Curiously enough, that's where you're wrong," he said. "Now I can say positively that it's a pleasure to me to find a case in which the most important clues are jokes. If you had omitted any point of that recital I should have been cheated of valuable evidence. The cuckoo's call is the lion's roar, and a jack-in-the-box has a disconcerting habit of showing a thief's face. But the clues are sealed now; you've provided me with my second eight. H'm! Four o'clock. It's too late to do anything more, or hear anything that can help me further. If I'm right, I should know it shortly. If not, the Blind Barber has got away. Still—"

There was a ring downstairs at the bell.

For a moment Dr. Fell sat motionless, only his great stomach heaving, and he seemed flushed and rather uneasy.

"If I'm wrong—" he said. Then he struggled to his feet. "I'll answer that ring myself. Just glance over this notation, will you? Here's a list of my second eight clues. See if they convey anything?"

While he was gone Morgan drew out a full bottle of beer from the troop of dead guardsmen that stood at attention on the table. He grinned. Whatever had happened, it was something to write in the note-book."?" he said, and read on the slip of paper:

9. The Clue of Wrong Rooms.

10. The Clue of Lights.

11. The Clue of Personal Taste.

12. The Clue of Avoided Explanations.

13. The Clue Direct.

14. The Clue of Known Doubles.

15. The Clue of Misunderstanding.

& 16. The Clue Conclusive.

He was still frowning over it when Dr. Fell stumped back, leaning on his two canes. Under one arm Dr. Fell held a package wrapped in brown paper, and in the other an envelope ripped open. Many things he could conceal: the insight and strategy of his nimble, rocket-brilliant, childlike brain, and these he could conceal because, out of a desire to spring his surprise, he liked to fog them round with genial talk. But a certain relief he could not conceal. Morgan saw it and half rose from his chair.

"Rubbish, rubbish!" boomed the doctor, nodding jovi-ially. "Sit down, sit down! Heh! As I was about to say—"

"Have you—?"

"Now, now! Let me get comfortab… aah! So. Well, my boy, whatever's done is already done. Either the Blind Barber has got away or he hasn't. If he has got away, I think it's highly likely we shall catch him sooner or later. I don't think he intended to keep his present disguise after he had landed in either France or England; then, safely out of it, he could perform another of his quick changes and disappear. He's by way of being a genius. I wonder who he really is?"

"But you said—"

"Oh, I know the name he's using at the moment. But I warned you long ago that the garb was only a mask and a dummy; and I should like to see how his real mind works… In any event, the boat has docked. Didn't you tell me that young Warren was coming to see me? What arrangements have you made about that?"

"I gave him your address and said to look up the phone number if he needed to communicate. He and Peggy and the old man are coming on to London as soon as they can get the boat train. But listen! Who is it? Is he going to get away, after all? What, in God's name, is the real explanation of the whole thing?"

"Heh!" said Dr. Fell. "Heh-heh! You read my last eight clues and still don't know? You had the evidence of that steel box staring you in the face and still couldn't make your wits work? Tut, now, I don't blame you. You were doing too much action to think. If a man's required to turn round every second and pick up a new person who has been knocked out by somebody, he isn't apt to have much time for cool reflection… You see this parcel?" He put it on the table. "No, don't look at it just yet. We've still some time before a final consultation, and there are a few points on which I should like enlightenment… What was the upshot of the matter after Uncle Jules was haled away to clink? Does Whistler still think Uncle Jules was the thief? And what about the marionette show? The thing seems to me to be incomplete. From the very first, as a matter of fact, I had a strong feeling that your band would

I somehow be enticed into that marionette show and would be forced by the Parcae into putting on a performance…"

Morgan scratched his ear. "As a matter of fact," he said, "we did. It was Peggy's fault for insisting on our saving Uncle Jules's bacon. She _¥ said if we didn't she'd go straight to the captain and tell him everything. We pointed out that, whatever the explanations might have been, Uncle Jules really had left a brilliant trail of shoes in our wake; that Captain Whistler was not li in the mood to smile indulgently when his fifty-guinea watch sailed overboard; and after all Uncle Jules was better off in the brig. We also pointed out that, just prior to his capture, he had been seen marching through the bar and placing a shoe in the hand of any person who took his fancy. Consequently, we said, it would not appear probable to the passengers that he could work his marionette show that night."

"And then?"

Morgan shook his head gloomily.

"Well, she wouldn't hear of it. She said it was our fault that he'd done all of it. She pointed out that most of the passengers were in the concert-hall, applauding for the show to go on, and the person she was really afraid of was Perrigord. Perrigord had prepared an elaborate and lit * powerful speech commemorating Uncle Jules's genius, and pi, had just begun it at the moment Uncle Jules was firing shoes overboard. Peggy said if a good performance didn't go on, Perrigord would be made out such an ass that he'd never let up on Uncle Jules in the papers, and their success depended on him. The girl was loony and wouldn't see reason. At last we promised her we'd do it if she'd consent to allow Uncle Jules to stay in the brig. It was the best way out for everybody, for they'll forgive a drunk's insanities when they'll prosecute an honest mistake. Curt insisted on paying for the damage, which amounted, all in all, to close on two hundred pounds. And we felt it was time for peace to descend on the Queen Victoria… " far "Well?"

"It didn't," said Morgan gloomily. "I begged and pleaded with Peggy. I told her some damned thing was bound to happen if we tried to work that show, and Perrigord would be more infuriated than though there'd been no performance. She wouldn't see it. She wouldn't even see It when we had one brief rehearsal of the first scene. My portrayal of Charlemagne, I flatter myself, would have been eloquent and kingly, but Curt, in the role of Roland got stage-struck at the rehearsal and insisted on dictating a long consular report in French about the facts and figures In the export of sardines from Lisbon. Captain Valvick at the piano would have been an error. It was not merely that he wanted to greet the entrance of the Frankish army with the strains of 'La Madelon,' but since somebody had informed him in general terms that Moors were 'black men,' then the crafty Sultan of the Moors would have made his entrance with 'Old Man River.' Next—"

"Hold on!" said Dr. Fell, whose eyes were growing bright with tears again, and who had clapped a hand over his mouth as he trembled. "I don't quite understand this. It should have been one of your high lights, Why are you so reluctant to talk about it? Out with it now! Was there, or wasn't there a performance?"

"Well — yes and again no," replied Morgan, shifting uneasily. "It started, anyway. Oh, I'll admit it saved our lives in a way, because the old dabble Parcae were working for us now; but I'd rather not have had it saved in that way… Have you noticed that I've not seemed too cheerful today! Have you also noticed that I'm not accompanied by my wife? She was supposed to meet me at Southampton, but at the last minute I sent her a radiogram not to come, because I was afraid some of the passengers might—"

Dr. Fell sat up.

"If I've got to tell it," said Morgan wryly, "I suppose I must. Fortunately, we got no farther than the first scene, wherein Charlemagne speaks the prologue. I was Charlemagne. Charlemagne wore long white whiskers; his venerable head was adorned with a gold crown studded with diamonds and rubies; a mantle of scarlet and ermine swathed his mighty shoulders; a jewelled broadsword was buckled about his waist, and under his chain mail his stomach was stuffed with four sofa-pillows to give him embonpoint. I was Charlemagne.

"Charlemagne spoke the prologue behind an illuminated gauze screen, like a tall picture-frame, at the rear of the stage. Yes. And how. Mr. Leslie Perrigord had just concluded an impassioned speech lasting fifty-five minutes to the tick. Mr. Perrigord said that this performance was the goods. He said he hoped his hearers, with minds made torpid by the miasmatic sluggishness of Hollywood, would receive a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul. He said to watch closely, even though they would not fully appreciate its lights and shadings, its subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of line, its bold chords on the metaphysical yearning of man, not surpassed in the mightiest pages of Ibsen. He also said a number of complimentary things about the prowess of Charlemagne. I was Charlemagne.

"When at length he ran out of breath, he stopped. There were three hollow knocks. Captain Valvick, despite all that could be done to stop him, played an overture consisting of 'La Marseillaise.' The curtain flew up a bit prematurely, I fear. Among eighty-odd others, Mr. Perrigord saw the gauze screen glowing luminous against darkness, and full of rich colour. He saw the venerable Charlemagne. He also saw his wife. The position was — er — full of subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of fine. Yes. That was the moment at which the chain mail split and the sofa-pillows flew out as though they had been fired from a gun. I was Charlemagne… Now, maybe you understand why I do not care to incorporate it into the body of the story. I have no doubt that the audience received a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul."

Morgan took a deep drink of beer.

Dr. Fell turned his face towards the window. Morgan observed that his shouders were quivering as though with shock and outrage.

"In any event, it saved us, and it saved Uncle Jules for ever. The roar of applause which went up pleased everybody except possibly Mr. Perrigord. Such an instantaneous success was never achieved in any theatre by a performance which lasted only long enough for somebody to drop the curtain. Uncle Jules's marionette theatre in Soho will be crowded to the end of his days whether he's drunk or sober. And rest solemnly assured that, whatever he happens to feel about it, Mr. Leslie Perrigord will never write in the newspapers a word to condemn him."

The declining sun drew lower across the carpet, resting on the brown-wrapped parcel in the middle of the table. After a time, Dr. Fell turned back.)

"So—" he observed, his face gradually becoming less red as quiet settled down—"so it all ends happily, eh? Except perhaps for Mr. Perrigord and — the Blind Barber."

He opened a penknife and weighed it in his hand.

"Yes," said Morgan. "Yes, except in one sense. After all, the fact remains that — whatever little game you're playing — we still don't know a blasted thing that's important. We don't know what happened on that ship, although, in spite of all the foolery, we know there was a murder. And a murder isn't especially funny. Nor is, actually, the fact that Curt hasn't recovered his film, and, however ridiculous that looks, to him and to others it's as desperately serious a matter as any."

"Oh?" grunted Dr. Fell. "Well, well!" he said, deprecatingly, and winked one eye, "if that's all you want… "

Suddenly he reached across the table and cut the strings of the parcel with his knife.

"I thought—" he added, beaming, as his hand dived among the wrappings and lifted up a tangled coil of film like a genial Laocoon, "I thought it might be better to have it sent up here before the police rake over the Blind Barber's effects and cause scandal by finding this. I'll hand it over to young Warren when he arrives, so that he can destroy it immediately; although, in return for the favour, do you think he would consent to running it privately, just once, for my benefit? Heh-heh-heh! Hang it all, I think I can insist on that much reward, hey? Of course, it's holding back evidence, in a way. But there'll be enough to hang the Barber without it. It was my price for pointing out the culprit to Captain Whistler and handing him the credit of capturing a dangerous criminal. I felt the old sea-horse would comply… "

Tossing the rustling coil across on Morgan's arm, Dr. Fell sat back and blinked. Morgan was on his feet, staring.

"You mean, then, the man is under arrest already?"

"Oh, yes. Caught neatly by the brilliant Captain Whistler — who will get a medal for this, and completing everybody's happiness — an hour before the ship docked. Inspector Jennings, at my suggestion, went down from the Yard in a fast car and was ready to take the Barber in charge when he landed… "

"Ready to take who in charge?" he demanded.

"Why, the impostor who calls himself Lord Sturton, of course!" said Dr. Fell.

21 — The Murderer

"I perceive on your face," continued the doctor affably, as he lit his pipe, "a certain frog-like expression which would seem to indicate astonishment. H'm! puff, puff, haaaa! You should not be in the least astonished. Under the data given, as I have tabulated in my sixteen clues, there was only one person who could conceivably have been guilty. If I were wrong on my first eight — which, as I pointed out to you, were mere suggestions — then no harm could be done by testing my theory. The second eight confirmed it, and so I had no fear of the result. But, not to leap in too sylph-like a fashion at conclusions, I did this. Here is a copy of the telegram I dispatched to Captain Whistler."

He drew a scribbled envelope from his pocket, on which Morgan read:

"What's the use of special authority," inquired Dr. Fell, "if you don't use it. Besides, if I had been wrong, and the girl was not really missing, there wouldn't have been an enormous row. But she was. You see, this bogus Sturton was able to conceal her presence or absence admirably so long as you never had any suspicions of him. Lad, at several places he was in devilish tight positions; but his very position, and the fact that he was the one who seemed to suffer most from the theft, kept him entirely immune from being suspected… Don't choke, now; have some more beer. Shall I explain?"

"By all means," said Morgan feelingly.

"Hand me back my list of clues, then. H'mf! I'll see if I can have a modest shot at proving to you that — always supposing your data to be correct and complete — Lord Sturton was the only person aboard the Queen Victoria who could fill all the requirements for the Blind Barber.

"We commence, then, on one assumption: one assumption on which the whole case must rest. This assumption is that there is an impostor aboard, masquerading as somebody else. Fix that fact firmly in mind before beginning; go even to the length of believing a police commissioner's radiogram, and you will have at least a direction in which to start."

"Wait a bit!" protested Morgan. "We know that now, of course; and, since you were the only one who saw who it was, you ought to have the concession. But that radiogram accused Dr. Kyle, and therefore—"

"No, it didn't," said Dr. Fell, gently. "That is precisely where your whole vision strained away into the mist. It went wrong on so small but understandable a matter as the fact that people don't waste money by sending punctuation in radiograms, and you were misled by the absence of a couple of commas. With that error I shall deal in its proper place, under the head of The Clue of Terse Style… For the moment, we have only the conception of an impostor aboard. There is another point in connection with this, stated to you so flatly and frankly that I have not even bothered to include it as a clue. As in other cases of mine, I seem to remember, it was so big that nobody ever gave it a thought. At one sweep it narrowed the search for the

Blind Barber from a hundred passengers to a very, very few people. The Police Commissioner of the City of New York — not unusually timorous or faint-hearted about making arrests, even if they happen to be wrong arrests— wires thus: 'Well-known figure and must be no mistake made or trouble,' and adds, 'Will not be definite in case of trouble.' Now, that is suggestive. It is even startling. The man, in other words, is so important that the Commissioner finds it advisable not to mention his name, even in a confidential communication to the commander of the ship. Not only does it exclude John Smith or James Jones or Charles Woodcock, but it leads us towards men of such wealth or influence that the public is (presumably) interested in newspaper photographs of them (or anybody else) playing golf. This coy reticence on the part of the New York authorities may also be due partly to the possibility that the eminent man is an Englishman, and that severe complications may ensue in case of an error. But I do not press the point, because it is reasoning before my clues."

He had clearly been listening absently for the doorbell; and now, as the doorbell rang, he nodded and lifted his head to bellow:

"Let 'em in, Vida!"

There was a tramping of footfalls up the steps. The door of Dr. Fell's study opened to admit two large men with a prisoner between them. Morgan heard Dr. Fell say, "Ah, good afternoon, Jennings; and you, too, Hamper. Inspector Jennings, this is Mr. Morgan, one of our witnesses. Mr. Morgan, Sergeant Hamper. The prisoner, I think you know…"

But Morgan was looking at the latter, who said, almost affably:

"How do you do, Doctor? I — er — I see you're looking at my appearance. No, there's no deception and damned little disguise. Too tricky and difficult… Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan. I see you're surprised at the change in my voice. It's a relief to let down from the jerky manner; but I'd got so used to it it almost came natural. Rubbish rubbish rubbish!" squeaked the bogus Lord Sturton, with a sudden shift back to the manner he had previously used, and crowed with mirth.

Morgan jumped a little when he heard that echo of the old manner. The bogus Lord Sturton was in sunlight now, where Morgan remembered him only in the gloom of a darkened cabin like a picture-book wizard: his head hunched into a shawl, his face shaded by a flopping hat. Now he was revealed as a pale, long-faced, sharp-featured man with a rather unpleasant grin. A checked comforter was wound round his scrawny throat, and his clothes were weird. But he wore a bowler hat pushed back on his head, and he was smoking a cigar. Yet, although the grotesquerie had been removed, Morgan liked his look even less. He had an eye literally like a rattlesnake's. It measured Dr. Fell, swivelled round to the window, calculated, and became affable again.

"Come in!" said Dr. Fell. "Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I've been wanting very much to make your acquaintance, if you're willing to talk… "

"Prisoner's pretty talkative, sir," said Inspector Jennings, with a slow grin. "He's been entertaining Sergeant Hamper and me all the way up on the train. I've got a note-book full and he admits—"

"Why not?" inquired their captive, lifting his left hand to take the cigar out of his mouth. "Rubbish rubbish rubbish! Ha-ha!"

"… But all the same, sir," said Jennings, "I don't think I'll unlock the handcuff just yet. He says his name's Nemo. Sit down, Nemo, if the doctor says so. I'll be beside you."

Dr. Fell lumbered to the sideboard and got Nemo a drink of brandy. Nemo sat down.

"Point's this," Nemo explained, in a natural voice which was not quite so shrill or jerky as the Lord Sturton impersonation, but nevertheless had enough echo of it to make Morgan remember the whole scene in the darkened ill-smelling cabin. "Point's this. You think you're going to hang me? You're not. Rubbish!" His snaky neck swivelled round, and his eye smiled on Morgan. "Haha, no, no! I've got to be extradited first. They'll want me in the

States. And between that time and this — I've got out of worse fixes."

Dr. Fell put the glass at his elbow, sat down opposite, and contemplated him. Mr. Nemo worked his head round and winked.

"Point is, I'm giving this up because I'm a fatalist. Fatalist! Wouldn't you be? Best set-up I ever had — meat— pie — easy; ho-ho, how easy? Wasn't as though I had to be a disguise expert. I told you there was no deception. I'm a dead ringer for Sturton. Look so much like him I could stand him in front of me and shave by him. Joke. But I can't beat marked cards. Sweat? I never had such a bad time in my life as when those God-damned kids—" again he twisted round and looked at Morgan, who was glad he had not a razor in his hands at that moment—"when those God-damned kids tangled it all up… "

"I was about to tell my young friend," said Dr. Fell, "at his own request, some of the points that indicated you were — yourself, Mr. Nemo…"

The doctor was getting great if sleepy enjoyment as he sat back against the dying light from the window and studied the man. Mr. Nemo's lidless eyes were returning the stare.

"Be interested to hear it myself," he said. "Anything to — delay things. Good cigar, good brandy. You listen, m'boy," he said, leering at Jennings. "Give you some pointers. If there's anything you don't know — well, when you've finished I'll tell you. Not before."

Jennings gestured to Sergeant Hamper, who got out his notebook.

Dr. Fell settled himself to begin with relish:

"Sixteen clues, then. Casting my eye over the evidence presented — you needn't take all this down, Hamper; you won't understand all of it — I came, after the obvious giveaway of the impostor being an important man…"

Mr. Nemo bowed very gravely, and the doctor's eye twinkled.

"… to what I called the Clue of Suggestion. It conveyed the idea. It opened the door on what first seemed a mad notion. During a heated argument between you, Morgan, and your friend Warren, while Warren was enthusiastically pleading the guilt of Dr. Kyle on the basis of detective fiction, you yourself said: 'Oh, and get rid of the idea that somebody may be impersonating him… That may be all right for somebody who seldom comes in contact with anyone, but a public figure like an eminent physician won't do."

"It wasn't evidence. It only struck me as a curious coincidence that there really was aboard the ship somebody who seldom came in contact with anyone; who was known, I think, you said, as 'The Hermit of Jermyn Street.' 'He'll i see nobody,' you remarked; 'he has no friends; all he does t is collect rare bits of jewellery. These were only supporting facts to my real clue of suggestion; but undeniably Lord Sturton filled the qualifications of the radiogram. a Merely a coincidence…

"Then I remembered another coincidence: Lord Sturton to was in Washington. A Sturton, real or bogus, had called on Uncle Warpus and told him of the purchase of the emerald elephant, which is the Clue of Opportunity.³ Wit Whether he was at the reception on the night of Uncle Warpus's indiscretion some time later, and learned about full the moving-picture film…"

" "He was," said Mr. Nemo, and chortled suddenly, to t, this I didn't know. But what we do know is that the bish Stelly affair occurred next in Washington, as Warren explained. This account of the Stelly business is what I call the Clue of Fraternal Trust.⁴ It was described as a crime Sit d that looked like magic and was connected with the British Embassy. Stelly was a shrewd, careful, well-known jewel-drink collector who didn't omit any precautions against thieves, "P, ordinary or extraordinary, as he thought. He left the Embassy one night, and was robbed without fuss. What looked like magic was his being decoyed or robbed by any ordinary make criminal, and also how the criminal should have known of

the necklace to begin with… But it is not at all magical if two well-known jewel-collectors exhibit their treasures to each other and have a tendency to talk shop. It is not at all magical for an eminent peer, even if he is so hermitlike that nobody knows him, to be welcomed at the Embassy in a foreign country, provided he has the documents to prove his identity. These coincidences, you see, are piling up.

"But this peer doesn't travel entirely alone. He is known to have a secretary. The first glimpse we have of him in the narrative is his rushing up the gangplank of a ship (so notoriously eccentric that he can wrap himself round in concealing comforters) and accompanied by this secretary.⁵ In the passenger-list I find a Miss Hilda Keller occupying the same suite as Lord Sturton, as I think you yourselves found later.⁶ But for the moment I put that aside…"

There was a gurgling noise as Dr. Fell chuckled into his pipe.

"Definitely, things began to happen after some days out (during all of which time Lord Sturton has kept entirely to his cabin, and the secretary with him).⁷ The first part of the film was stolen. The mysterious girl appeared, obviously trying to warn young Warren of something. There was the dastardly attack on Captain Whistler — the absence of the attackers on deck for some half an hour — and the subsequent disappearance of the girl. You believed (and so did 1) that she had been murdered and thrown overboard. But, putting aside the questions of who the girl was and why she was killed, we have that curious feature of the bed being remade thoroughly, a soiled towel even being replaced. That is what I call, from deductions you will see in a moment, the Clue of Invisibility…" ⁸

Mr. Nemo wriggled back in the chair. He put down his glass; his face had gone more pale and his mouth twitched — but not from fear at all. He had nothing to conceal. He was white and poisonous from some emotion Morgan did not understand. You felt the atmosphere about him, as palpably as though you could smell a drug.

"I was crazy about that little whore," he said, suddenly, with such a change in voice and expression that they involuntarily started. "I hope she's in hell."

"That's enough," said Dr. Fell, quietly. He went on: "If somebody wished (for whatever reason) to kill her, why was she not merely killed and left there? The inference first off was that she would be more dangerous to the murderer if her body were discovered than if she were thrown overboard. By why should this be. Disappearance or outright murder, there would still be an investigation… Yet observe! What does the murderer do? He carefully makes up the berth and replaces the towel. This could not be to make you think the stunned girl had recovered and gone to her own cabin. It would have exactly the opposite effect. It means that the murderer was trying to make those in authority think — meaning Captain Whistler — that the girl was nothing but a mythical person; a lie invented for some reason by yourselves.

"Behind the apparent madness of this course, since four people had seen her, consider what the murderer's reasons must have been. To begin with, he knew what had happened on C deck; he hoped Whistler would spot young Warren as the man who had attacked him, and yourselves ^ as the people who had stolen the emerald; he knew that ® Whistler would not be likely to credit any story you told, and give short shrift to your excuses. But to adopt such a dangerous course as pretending she was a myth meant (a) that the girl would be traced straight to him if she were found dead, and that he could not stand the light of any investigation whatever by police authorities afterwards. It?^1£ also meant (b) it was far less dangerous to conceal her absence, and that he had good reason to think he could ^ conceal it.

"Now, this, gentlemen, is a very remarkable choice indeed, when you try to conceal an absence from a community of only a hundred passengers. Why couldn't he stand any investigation? How could he hope to convince investigators that nobody was missing?

"First ask yourself who this girl could have been. She could not have been travelling alone: a solitary passenger is not connected closely enough with anybody else to lead absolutely damning evidence straight to him among a hundred people, and to make it necessary to pretend the girl had never existed; besides, a solitary passenger would be the first to be missed. She was not travelling in a family party, or, as Captain Whistler shrewdly pointed out, there might possibly have been complaint at her disappearance. She was travelling then, with just one other person — the murderer. She was travelling as wife, companion, or what you like. The murderer could hope to conceal her disappearance, first, because she must have made no acquaintances and have been with him every moment of the time. That means the murderer seldom or never had left his cabin. He might conceal it, second, because he was so highly placed as to be above suspicion—not otherwise— and because he himself was the victim of a theft that directed attention away from him. But, if he were all this, why couldn't he stand any investigation whatever? The not-very-complicated answer is that he was an impostor who had enough to do in concealing his imposture. If you then musingly consider what man was travelling with a single female companion, what man had kept to his cabin every moment of the time, what man was so highly-placed as to be above suspicion; what man had been the victim of a theft; and, finally, what man there is whom we have some slight reason to think as an impostor; then it is remarkable how we swing round again to Lord Sturton. All this is built up on the clue of a clean towel, the clue of invisibility. But it is still coincidence without definite reason, though we find rapid support for it.

"I mean that razor incautiously left behind in the berth…"

Mr. Nemo, who had been mouthing his cigar for some time, twitched round and looked at each in turn. His pale, bony face had worn an absent look, but now it had such a wide smile of urbanity and charm that Morgan shivered. "I cut the little bitch's throat," offered Mr. Nemo, making a gesture with the cigar. "Much better for her. And more satisfactory for me. That's right, old man," he said to the staring Hamper; "write it down. It's much better to damage their skulls. A surgeon showed me all about that once. If you practise, you can find the right spot. But it wouldn't do for her. I had to take one of Sturton's set of razors to do it, and throw the others away. It hurt me. That case of razors must have cost a hundred-odd pound."

He jerked with laughter, lifted his bowler off his head as though in tribute, smirked, kicked his heels, and asked for another drink.

"Yes," said Dr. Fell, staring at him curiously, "that's what I mean. I asked my young friend here not to think of one razor, but of seven in a set. I asked him to think of a set of razors as enormously expensive as those carven, silver-studded, ebony-handled rarities, which were obviously made to order. No ordinary man would have had them. The person likeliest to have them, said my Clue of Seven Razors, was the man who went after costly trinkets, who bought the emerald elephant, "because it was a curiosity and a rarity, of enormous intrinsic value."…And the razors bring us back again to the question of who the girl was.

"Her solitary appearance in public was in the wireless-room, where she was described by the wireless-operator as 'having her hands full of papers'; and this I call, symbolically, my Clue of Seven Radiograms.What does that appearance sound like? Not a joyous tourist dashing off an inconsequential message home. There is a businesslike look to it. A number of messages — a businesslike look — and we begin to think of a secretary. The edifice rears. Our Blind Barber becomes not only an impostor masquerading as a highly placed recluse who kept to his cabin, and travelled with a female companion; but the girl becomes a secretary and the recluse an enormously wealthy man with a taste for grotesque trinkets… "

Dr. Fell lifted his stick and pointed suddenly.

"Why did you kill her?" he demanded. "Was she an accomplice?"

"You're telling the story," shrugged Mr. Nemo. "And while I'm bored, I'm bored as hell with it, because just at the moment / feel like talking, still — your brandy's not at all bad. Ha-ha-ha. Ought to get hospitality. Go on. You talk. Then I'll talk, and I'll surprise you. Give you a little hint, though. Yes. Sporting run for your money, like old Sturton would… Didn't I come down on old Whistler, though! Ho-ho! Yes… Hint is, she was what you'd call virtuous in the way of being honest. She wouldn't step into my game with me when she found out who I was. And when she tried to warn that young fellow— Tcha! Bloody little fool! Ha-ha! Eh?" inquired Mr. Nemo, putting back his cigar with a portentous wink.

"Did you know," said Dr. Fell, "that a man named Woodcock saw you when you stole the first part of that film?"

"Did he?" asked Mr. Nemo, lifting one shoulder. "What did I care? Remove sideburns — they're detachable — little wax in mouth; strawberry mark on cheek; who'll identify me afterwards, eh?"

Dr. Fell slowly drew a line through one line on a sheet of paper.

"And there we had the first direct evidence: of Elimination. Woodcock said definitely that you were a person he'd never seen before. Now, Woodcock hadn't been seasick. He'd been in the dining-room at all times, and after the sea-sick passengers came out of their lairs he would have spotted the thief — if the thief hadn't been still among the very, very few who kept to their cabins. Humf! Ha! I was wondering whether anybody had fantastic suspicions of — well, say Perrigord or somebody of the sort. But it ruled out Perrigord, it ruled out Kyle, it ruled out nearly everybody. The thing is plain enough, but where everybody went off on the wrong scent was over that radiogram from New York." Dr. Fell wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper and pushed it across to Morgan.

Federal agent thinks crook responsible for Stelly and MacGee jobs. Federal agent thinks also physician is impostor on your ship…

"Well?" said Morgan. The doctor made a few marks, and held it out again.

"The Clue of Terse Style," said Dr. Fell, "indicates that the word "also" is a supernumerary, is out of place, is a word merely wasted in an expensive radiogram if what it means is, "Federal agent also thinks… " But read it thus."

Federal agent thinks — also physician — is impostor on your ship…

"Meaning," said Dr. Fell, crumpling up the paper, "an entirely different thing. The remark about 'medical profession influential' simply means that the doctor in attendance is making a row; he is insisting that, despite the patient at the hospital being apparently out of his head in insisting he is Sturton, the doctor believes it and they mustn't disregard it. But, good God! Do you seriously think that, if he had meant Dr. Kyle was a murderer, the whole medical profession would have wanted to shield him? The idea was so absurd that I wonder anybody considered it. It refers to Sturton! Sweep away the whole flimsy tangle, now. Let's have one point piled on top of the other until you'll realise it couldn't have been anybody; let's come at last to the gigantic and damning proof."

He flung the paper on the table with an angry gesture. "You visit Sturton to pacify him over the loss of the emerald. Do you see his secretary? No! You hear him apparently talking to somebody behind a door in the bedroom. But. though you don't make any noise or speak, out he darts to see you and closes the door. He knew you were there already, and he put on that show for your benefit. The mistake, the Clue of Wrong Rooms, was — why in the bedroom? It wasn't in the drawing-room where he'd been apparently lying, with his medicine-bottles around; that was his haunt. But he had to be out of sight… "

Morgan heard Mr. Nemo's shrill laughter and the steady scratching of a pencil; but Dr. Fell went on:

"Then there was the business of Lights: curtains always drawn, shawl round his shoulders, hat on, always back to the light. There was the straight suggestion of his Personal Taste: the toy trinket with real rubies for eyes, winking and leering at you as he deliberately tapped it while he bamboozled you; and still you didn't see the connection between the wagging Mandarin-head and the costly trinket of the razor.¹⁸ And what happened," said Dr. Fell, rapping his stick sharply on the table, "when you and Captain Valvick and Mrs. Perrigord went round with the grim intention of finding the missing girl? You combed the boat through — but yet in sublime innocence of heart you did not demand to see Sturton's secretary; you went there, you asked a question, and you let him rush you out of the cabin without ever going any further!"… After a pause Dr. Fell wheeled round and looked at Inspector Jennings. "I'm going off my base, Jennings. I suppose you don't understand any of this?"

The inspector smiled grimly. "I understand every word of it, sir. That's why I haven't interrupted you. Nemo here regaled us with a whole account of it on the train. It's fine. Eh, Nemo?"

"Rubbish rubbish rubbish!" squeaked Nemo, in repulsive glee at his successful imitation. "Mad Captain Whistler. Prosecute the line! And all the while I was wondering…. Eh, Inspector?"

The inspector studied him curiously. He seemed to wish he were farther away than handcuffed to Nemo's wrist.

"Oh, it's a great joke," he said coolly. "But you'll hang for all of it, you filthy swine. Go on, Dr. Fell."

Nemo straightened up.

"I'll kill you for that, one day," he remarked, just as coolly. "Maybe to-morrow, maybe next day, maybe a year from now." His eye wandered round the room; his face was slightly paler, and he breathed hard. Morgan felt he was keeping his spirits up with desperate jocularity. "Shall I talk now?" he asked suddenly.

22 — Exit Nemo

It was growing shadowy in the room. Nemo took of! his hat and brushed its brim across his forehead. He gestured with it.

"I'll tell you," he said, "why you can't beat What's cut out for you at birth. I'll fill up your story. I'll show you how a trick nobody could help cheated me out of the cushiest soft spot on earth. And those kids — they thought it was funny…

"I won't tell you who I am," he said, looking round at them with a curious expression which reminded Morgan of Woodcock squinting at the ceiling in the writing-room. "I might be anybody. You'll never know. I could say I was Harry Jones of Surbiton, or Bill Smith of Yonkers — or maybe somebody not very much different from the man I was impersonating. I'll tell you what I am, though — I'm a ghost. Reason that out how you like; I'm not telling. I'll never have any occasion to tell."

He grinned. Nobody spoke. The yellow twilight outside showed in queer colour his face peering at Dr. Fell, at Jennings, at Morgan.

"Or maybe I'm only Mad Tommy, of.. who's going to tell? But what I will tell you is that I put through that trick neatly. I passed as Sturton without anybody being suspicious, but I won't tell you how I managed it, because it might get others in trouble. I deceived his secretary. I admit she'd only been with him for a month or two — but I deceived her. If I was an eccentric who couldn't remember my business affairs, she took care of it. She was nice." He stroked the air and chortled. "I did it so well that I thought, 'Nemo, you only intended to impersonate Sturton long enough to make a haul; but why not keep on?'

"I kept her with me. I shouldn't have killed MacGee in New York; but he was a diamond man, and I couldn't resist diamonds. When I sailed aboard that ship I had unlimited cash of Sturton's — ever see me imitate a signature? — and nearly five hundred thousand pounds in jewels. The only thing people knew I had was the emerald elephant. And what did I intend to do? Pay duty on it, like an honest man; no fuss at all. For the rest, I was the well-known Sturton; / wouldn't smuggle in other things, and they'd be very careless about my luggage. I knew that, being close to me aboardship, Hilda — Miss Keller, my Hilda — might find out who I was. But I wanted her to. I was going to say: 'You're in deep; too deep; I'm the one you'll have to stick with; so' " — he made a gesture and spoke in a rather, thick ghastly voice—" 'so move your belongings into my berth, Hilda,' I'd say to her. Ha!…"

"If you had all that money," said Dr. Fell, sharply, "why did you want to steal the film?"

"Trouble," said Nemo, tapping his free hand on the side of his nose. "To make trouble for — oh, everybody I could, do you see? No, you don't. I meant to give away that film, free, to whoever could do the most damage with it. You don't see? But I do. I'm like Sturton. I might be Sturton's ghost; I hate — people." He laughed, and massaged his head. "I'd heard of it in Washington. Hilda, still not knowing who I was, came to my cabin that afternoon. She told me all about a very, very curious radiogram she'd overheard. Then my wits—my wits — remembered. And I thought, 'Here's my chance to break it to her gently.' I'd get the film, I'd show it her, and we'd appreciate — both of us — how much trouble we could make.

"I did," said Nemo, in a sudden loud, harsh voice like a crow. "But she didn't understand. That was why I had to kill her.

"And what happened just before that? Eh? Eh? I had another inspiration, to make her love me still more. When I first planned to rob old Sturton, I hadn't intended to impersonate him; never mind all that; I was after the elephant, and I had a nearly perfect duplicate made to switch on him. That was the way I meant to work it…

"But I thought, why not make a clean sweep? Why pay duty on the real emerald at all? And it would be easy. I would take the imitation emerald across with me, and the real one hidden, and it would be the imitation I'd offer to the customs men. They'd say, 'This isn't real,' when I was offering to pay the enormous duty. I would say, What?'…" Here Mr. Nemo chuckled with delight. A curious wondering expression, however, had come into his eyes… "They would say, 'Your Lordship, you've been had. This isn't real.' And there would be a terrific joke at my expense, and I would curse and jump, and give them big tips to keep quiet about it. And walk off with it in my luggage… So, to make it look more real, I let the captain lock it in his safe…

"But what happened. It went wrong. God damn the whole world! It went wrong! Those kids—"

Dr. Fell cut him off. "Yes," he said, quietly, "and that was where you made a mistake; and what I call the Clue Direct. The last thing you wanted was the emerald to be stolen, especially as it was false, because that meant there would be an inquiry on the ship and afterwards a police inquiry, which was the one thing you couldn't risk. The only thing you could do was shut off investigation by producing the real emerald and saying it had been returned to you. That would stop things. The Clue Direct, and your whole mistake, was that you acted entirely out of character for the first time; you did something Lord Sturton would never have done; you said, "I don't know how it happened, and I don't care, now I've got it back." ² Not one word of all that rang true, friend Nemo. What puzzled me for a moment, though I see the explanation now, is why you left the bogus emerald lying in the steel box behind the cabin trunk; and risked having it found. You must have known where it was, if you were on hand and saw the whole scene. Anybody could have seen it was your work from the time young Warren found the bogus emerald there… "

"Wait a bit!" protested Morgan. "I don't see that. How so?"

"Well, there were obviously two emeralds. If one had been lying all the time in a box behind Kyle's trunk, it couldn't be the one in Sturton's hands. Yet — the box containing the emerald was the one which Captain Whistler had received straight from Sturton's hands! Sturton gave it to him; it was presumably the real emerald; yet here is Sturton flourishing another elephant which he says is genuine! The Clue of Known Doubles lies simply in your own statement that, if there were two emeralds, Sturton would surely know a true from a false… ² Certainly he would; but, if the emerald he gave in the steel box to Whistler were real, then the one returned to him couldn't have been; and yet he said it was real. It is not a very abstruse deduction, is it? And it leads straight back to our gallant impostor." Dr. Fell stared at him. "But what I didn't see for a second, friend Nemo, was why you risked the bogus emerald lying in Kyle's cabin and the deadly chance of having it brought forward."

Nemo was so inexplicably excited that he overturned and smashed his glass. The excitement seemed to have been growing on him for some time, as though he were waiting for something that did not happen.

"I thought it had gone overboard," he snarled. "I knew it had gone overboard! I heard that — that swine" — he stabbed his finger at Morgan—"distinctly say — there was a lot of noise on the deck from the waves — but I was listening, and I heard him say, 'Gone overboard… ' " ³

"You missed part of it, I fear," said Dr. Fell, composedly, and ran his pencil through the Clue of Misunderstanding. "And the final proof conclusive — it must have shaken you — was when the other emerald did turn up. Even to the last you screamed that there had been no robbbery, and went so ridiculously far as to forbid anybody mentioning it.⁴ As it was, your goose was burned to a cinder and your identity out with a yell if anybody hadn't been fairly sure before. What you should have done was try even the thin tale that you had been robbed again. And yet (bow, friend Nemo, and prostrate yourself before the Parcae) for a second you were saved by good old Uncle Jules chucking it overboard."

Mr. Nemo straightened up. He twisted his neck.

"I may be a ghost," he said with a glassy-eyed and absolute seriousness which was not absurd, but rather terrible} "and yet, my friend, I'm not omniscient. Ha-ha! Well, I shortly shall be; and then I'll come back with a razor, some night, when you aren't looking."

He exploded into mirth.

"What the devil ails him?" demanded Dr. Fell, and got slowly to his feet.

"That little bottle," said Nemo. "I drank it an hour ago, just when we left the train. I was afraid it wasn't working; I've been afraid, and that's why I had to talk. I drank it. 1 tell you I'm a ghost. A ghost has been sitting with you for an hour; I hope you remember it and think about it at night."

In the eerie yellow light, against which Dr. Fell's great bulk was silhouetted black, the mirth of the prisoner bubbled, and his body made a rustling sound which froze Morgan… And then, in the silence, Inspector Jennings got slowly to his feet. His face was impassive. They heard the creak and clink of the handcuffs.

"Yes, Nemo," said Inspector Jennings, with satisfaction, "I thought you'd try that. That's why I changed the contents of it. Most of 'em try the trick. It's old. You're not going to die of poison… "

The mirth struck off in a choking sound, and the man began to flap at the handcuffs…

"You're not going to die of poison, Nemo," said Inspector Jennings, moving slowly towards the door. "You're going to hang… Good night, gentlemen, and thanks."