Peter the Brazen Part 31

It was with these thoughts hammering in his brain that Peter dropped out of range of the deadly porthole and squirmed, inching his way into the doubtful shelter provided by the closet. At any instant he expected another red tongue to burn the now still darkness above his head, to experience the hot plunge of a bullet in some part of his slightly clad anatomy. And then--death? An end of the glorious adventures whose trail he had followed now for well upon ten years?

And still the death bullet was withheld. Groping about in the darkness with one hand as he loosened the magazine clip on the b.u.t.t, and finding that the clip of cartridges had been removed, he finally discovered the whereabouts of the suit-case, and dragged it slowly toward him, with his eyes pinned upon the vacant port.

Fumbling among the numerous objects contained in the suit-case, his fingers encountered at length a cartridge clip. He slipped this into the magazine, and indulged in a silent grunt of relief as the clip moved up into place. He drew back the rejecting mechanism, and heard the soft, rea.s.suring _snick_ of the cartridge as it slid from the magazine into the chamber.

Then sounds without demanded his attention, the sounds of a tussle, of oaths spoken in a high, feminine tongue, in a language not his own.

Peter would have shouted, but he had long ago learned the inadvisability of shouting when such grim business as to-night's was being negotiated.

Slipping on his bath-robe, he opened the door and tentatively peered out into the half-light of the orlop deck from the cross corridor vestibule-way, for indications of a shambles.

They were gone. The deck was deserted. But he caught his breath sharply as he made out a long, dark shape which lay, with the inertness of death, under his port-hole, blending with the shadows. He rolled the man over upon his back, and dragged him by the heels under the deck-light, and, dragging him, a dark trail spread out upon the boards, and even as Peter examined the cold face, the spot broadened and a trickle broke from it and crept down toward the gutter.

Stabbed? More than likely. Pausing only long enough to rea.s.sure himself that this one was the a.s.sa.s.sin whose square head had been framed by the port, Peter looked for a wound, and shortly he found the wound, and Peter was not greatly astounded at the proportions thereof.

It was a small wound, running entirely through the neck from a point below the left ear to one slightly below and to the right of the locked jaw. Upon close scrutiny the death wound proved to be small and thorough and of a triangular pattern.

Just why he had expected to find that triangular wound Peter was unable to explain even to himself, but he was quite as sure that Romola Borria's hand was in this latest development as he had been sure a moment before that her steady, small hand had deliberately removed the clip of cartridges from the b.u.t.t of the automatic, to render him helpless in the face of his enemies.

Silently contemplating the stiffening victim of Romola Borria's triangular dagger, Peter heard the rustle of silk garments, and looked up in time to observe the slender person of Romola Borria herself, attired exactly as he had left her a few hours previous, detach itself from the corridor vestibule-way which led to his stateroom. She approached him.

A thousand questions and accusations swam to his lips, but she was speaking in low, impa.s.sioned tones.

"I knocked at your door. G.o.d! I thought he had killed you! I was afraid. For a moment I thought you were dead."

"You stabbed him," said Peter in an expressionless voice.

She nodded, and drew a long, sobbing breath.

"Yes. He tried to shoot you. I saw him pa.s.s my window. I was waiting. I watched. I knew he would try. Oh, I'm so glad----"

"You knew? You knew that?"

"Yes, yes. He was the--the mate of the coolie you threw overboard in Batavia. You know, they always travel in pairs. You didn't know that?"

"No; I did not know. But I could have defended myself easily enough if it had not been for----"

"Your clip of cartridges? Can you forgive me? Can you ever forgive me for taking them out? I took them out. Oh, Mr. Moore, believe me, I am concealing nothing! I did remove the clip, and in my carelessness I forgot to give them back to you when you left my room."

"I see. Have you them?"

"Yes."

"Please give them to me. You have not by any chance, in another of those careless moods of yours, happened to tamper with the bullets, have you?"

"Mr. Moore----" she gasped, clutching her white hands to her breast in indignation.

"You _are_ clever," said Peter sarcastically. "You're altogether too d.a.m.n clever. What your game is, I'm not going to take the trouble to ask. You--you----"

"Oh, Mr. Moore!" She caught his arm.

He cast it away.

"Didn't tamper with the bullets, eh?" he went on in a deep, sullen voice. "Well, Miss Borria, here is what I think of your word. Here is how much I trust you."

And with a single motion Peter whipped all seven cartridges from the clip and tossed them into the sea. He snarled again:

"You _are_ clever, d.a.m.n clever. Poor, poor little thing! Still want to go to j.a.pan with me, my dear?"

"I do," stated the girl, whose eyes were dry and burning.

"Sure! That's the stuff," railed Peter bitingly; "whatever you do, stick to your story."

He grabbed her wrist, and her glance should have softened granite.

"For example," he sniffed; "that neat little c.o.c.k-and-bull story you made up about your cruel, brutal husband. Expect me to believe that, too, eh?"

"Not if you don't care to," said the girl faintly.

Peter knocked away her hand, the hand which seemed always to fumble at her throat in moments of strain. He pulled down the black kimono and dragged her under the light, forcing her back against the white cabin.

He looked.

The white, soft curve of her chest was devoid of all marks. It was as white as that portion of a woman's body is said to be, by the singing poets, as white as alabaster, and devoid of angry stripes.

Peter seized both limp wrists in one of his hands.

"By G.o.d, you _are_ clever!" he scoffed. "Now, Miss Enigma, you spurt out your story, and the true story, or, by Heaven, I'll call the skipper! I'll have you put in irons--for murder!"

She hung her head, then flung it back and eyed him with the sullen fire of a cornered animal.

"You forget I saved your life," she said.

As if they were red hot, Peter dropped her hands, and they fell at her sides like limp rags.

"I--I----" he stammered, and backed away a step. "Good G.o.d!" he exploded. "Then explain this; explain why you took the clip from my automatic. Explain why you put up that story of a brutal husband, and showed me scars on your breast to prove it--then washed them off. And why--why you killed this man who would have murdered me."

"I will explain what I am able to," she said in a small, tired voice.

"I took the clips from the revolver because--because I didn't want you to shoot me. I know _their_ methods far better than you seem to; and I knew I could handle this coolie myself far better than you could; and I wanted to run no risk of being shot myself in attending to him.

"As for the 'brutal-husband story,' every word of that is the truth.

If you must know, I used rouge for the scars. Since you are so outspoken, I will pay you back in the same cloth. There are scars on my body, on my back and my legs."

Her face was as red as a poppy.

"And I killed this man because--well," she snapped, "perhaps because I hate you."

Had she cut him with a whip, Peter could not have felt more hurt, more humiliated, more ashamed, for grat.i.tude was far from being a stranger to him.