The After House Part 11

"Yes. I was aroused before that,--I do not know how,--and found I was locked in. I thought it might be a joke--forecastle hands are fond of joking, and they resented my being brought here to sleep. I took out some of the screws with my knife, and--then I broke the door."

"You saw no one?"

"It was dark; I saw and heard no one."

"But, surely--the man at the wheel--"

"Hush," I warned her; "he is there. He heard something, but the helmsman cannot leave the wheel."

She was stooping to the lock again.

"You are sure it was locked?"

"The bolt is still shot." I showed her.

"Then--where is the key?"

"The key!"

"Certainly. Find the key, and you will find the man who locked you in."

"Unless," I reminded her, "it flew out when I broke the lock."

"In that case, it will be on the floor."

But an exhaustive search of the cabin floor discovered no key. Jones, seeing us searching, helped, his revolver in one hand and a lighted match in the other, handling both with an abandon of ease that threatened us alternately with fire and a bullet. But there was no key.

"It stands to reason, miss," he said, when we had given up, "that, since the key isn't here, it isn't on the s.h.i.+p. That there key is a sort of red-hot give-away. No one is going to carry a thing like that around. Either it's here in this cabin--which it isn't--or it's overboard."

"Very likely, Jones. But I shall ask Mr. Turner to search the men."

She went toward Turner's door, and Jones leaned over me, putting a hand on my arm.

"She's right, boy," he said quickly. "Don't let 'em know what you're after, but go through their pockets. And their shoes!" he called after me. "A key slips into a shoe mighty easy."

But, after all, it was not necessary. The key was to be found, and very soon.

CHAPTER X

"THAT'S MUTINY"

Exactly what occurred during Elsa Lee's visit to her brother-in-law's cabin I have never learned. He was sober, I know, and somewhat dazed, with no recollection whatever of the previous night, except a hazy idea that he had quarreled with Richardson.

Jones and I waited outside. He suggested that we have prayers over the bodies when we placed them in the boat, and I agreed to read the burial service from the Episcopal Prayer Book. The voices from Turner's cabin came steadily, Miss Lee's low tones, Turner's heavy ba.s.s only now and then. Once I heard her give a startled exclamation, and both Jones and I leaped to the door. But the next moment she was talking again quietly.

Ten minutes--fifteen--pa.s.sed. I grew restless and took to wandering about the cabin. Mrs. Johns came to the door opposite, and asked to have tea sent down to the stewardess. I called the request up the companionway, unwilling to leave the cabin for a moment. When I came back, Jones was standing at the door of Vail's cabin, looking in. His face was pale.

"Look there!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Look at the bell. He must have tried to push the b.u.t.ton!"

I stared in. Williams had put the cabin to rights, as nearly as he could. The soaked mattress was gone, and a clean linen sheet was spread over the bunk. Poor Vail's clothing, as he had taken it off the night before, hung on a mahogany stand beside the bed, and above, almost concealed by his coat, was the bell. Jones's eyes were fixed on the darkish smear, over and around the bell, on the white paint.

I measured the height of the bell from the bed. It was well above, and to one side--a smear rather than a print, too indeterminate to be of any value, sinister, cruel.

"He didn't do that, Charlie," I said. "He couldn't have got up to it after--That is the murderer's mark. He leaned there, one hand against the wall, to look down at his work. And, without knowing it, he pressed the b.u.t.ton that roused the two women."

He had not heard the story of Henrietta Sloane, and, as we waited, I told him. Some of the tension was relaxing. He tried, in his argumentative German way, to drag me into a discussion as to the foreordination of a death that resulted from an accidental ringing of a bell. But my ears were alert for the voices near by, and soon Miss Lee opened the door.

Turner was sitting on his bunk. He had made an attempt to shave, and had cut his chin severely. He was in a dressing-gown, and was holding a handkerchief to his face; he peered at me over it with red-rimmed eyes.

"This--this is horrible, Leslie," he said. "I can hardly believe it."

"It is true, Mr. Turner."

He took the handkerchief away and looked to see if the bleeding had stopped. I believe he intended to impress us both with his coolness, but it was an unfortunate attempt. His lips, relieved of the pressure, were twitching; his nerveless fingers could hardly refold the handkerchief.

"Wh-why was I not--called at once?" he demanded.

"I notified you. You were--you must have gone to sleep again."

"I don't believe you called me. You're--lying, aren't you?" He got up, steadying himself by the wall, and swaying dizzily to the motion of the s.h.i.+p. "You shut me off down here, and then run things your own d.a.m.ned way." He turned on Miss Lee. "Where's Helen?"

"In her room, Marsh. She has one of her headaches. Please don't disturb her."

"Where's Williams?" He turned to me.

"I can get him for you."

"Tell him to bring me a highball. My mouth's sticky." He ran his tongue over his dry lips. "And--take a message from me to Richardson--" He stopped, startled. Indeed, Miss Lee and I had both started. "To who's running the boat, anyhow? Singleton?"

"Mr. Singleton is a prisoner in the forward house," I said gravely.

The effect of this was astonis.h.i.+ng. He stared at us both, and, finding corroboration in Miss Lee's face, his own took on an instant expression of relief. He dropped to the side of the bed, and his color came slowly back. He even smiled--a crafty grin that was inexpressibly horrible.

"Singleton!" he said. "Why do they--how do they know it was he?"

"He had quarreled with the captain last night, and he was on duty at the time of the when the thing happened. The man at the wheel claims to have seen him in the chartroom just before, and there was other evidence, I believe. The lookout saw him forward, with something--possibly the axe. Not decisive, of course, but enough to justify putting him in irons. Somebody did it, and the murderer is on board, Mr. Turner."

His grin had faded, but the crafty look in his pale-blue eyes remained.

"The chart-room was dark. How could the steersman--" He checked himself abruptly, and looked at us both quickly. "Where are--they?" he asked in a different tone.

"On deck."

"We can't keep them in this weather."