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?"