The door was locked on the outside.
I was a moment or two in grasping the fact. I shook it carefully to see if it had merely caught, and then, incredulous, I put my weight to it. It refused to yield. The silence outside was absolute.
I felt my way back to the window. It was open, but was barred with iron, and, even without that, too small for my shoulders. I listened for the mate. It was still dark, and so not yet time for the watch to change. Singleton would be on duty, and he rarely came aft. There was no sound of footsteps.
I lit a match and examined the lock. It was a simple one, and as my idea now was to free myself without raising an alarm, I decided to unscrew it with my pocket-knife. I was still confused, but inclined to consider my imprisonment a jest, perhaps on the part of Charlie Jones, who tempered his religious fervor with a fondness for practical joking.
I accordingly knelt in front of the lock and opened my knife. I was in darkness and working by touch. I had extracted one screw, and, with a growing sense of satisfaction, was putting it in my pocket before loosening a second, when a board on which I knelt moved under my knee, lifted, as if the other end, beyond the door, had been stepped on. There was no sound, no creak. Merely that ominous lifting under my knee. There was some one just beyond the door.
A moment later the pressure was released. With a growing horror of I know not what, I set to work at the second screw, trying to be noiseless, but with hands shaking with excitement. The screw fell out into my palm. In my haste I dropped my knife, and had to grope for it on the floor. It was then that a woman screamed - a low, sobbing cry, broken o$ almost before it began. I had got my knife by that time, and in desperation I threw myself against the door. It gave way, and I fell full length on the main cabin floor. I was still in darkness. The silence in the cabin was absolute. I could hear the steersman beyond the chart-room scratching a match.
As I got up, six bells struck. It was three o'clock.
Vail's room was next to the pantry, and forward. I felt my way to it, and rapped.
"Vail," I called. "Vail!"
His door was open an inch of so. I went in and felt my way to his bunk. I could hear him breathing, a stertorous respiration like that of sleep, and yet unlike. The moment I touched him, the sound ceased, and did not commence again. I struck a match and bent over him.
He had been almost cut to pieces with an axe.
CHAPTER VI
IN THE AFTER HOUSE
The match burnt out, and I dropped it. I remember mechanically extinguishing the glowing end with my heel, and then straightening to such a sense of horror as I have never felt before or since. I groped for the door; I wanted air, space, the freedom from lurking death of the open deck.
I had been sleeping with my revolver beside me on the pantry floor. Somehow or other I got back there and found it. I made an attempt to find the switch for the cabin lights, and, failing, revolver in hand, I ran into the chart-room and up the after companionway. Charlie Jones was at the wheel, and by the light of a lantern I saw that he was bending to the right, peering in at the chartroom window. He turned when he heard me.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "I heard a yell a minute ago. Turner on the rampage?" He saw my revolver then, and, letting go the wheel, threw up both his hands. "Turn that gun away, you fool!"
I could hardly speak. I lowered the revolver and gasped: "Call the captain! Vail's been murdered!
"Good God!" he said. "Who did it?" He had taken the wheel again, and was bringing the ship back to her course. I was turning sick and dizzy, and I clutched at the railing of the companionway.
"I don't know. Where's the captain?"
"The mate's around." He raised his voice. "Mr. Singleton!" he called.
There was no time to lose, I felt. My nausea had left me. I ran forward to where I could dimly see Singleton looking in my direction.
"Singleton! Quick!" I called. "Bring your revolver."
He stopped and peered in my direction.
"Who is it?"
"Leslie. Come below, for God's sake!"
He came slowly toward me, and in a dozen words I told him what had happened. I saw then that he had been drinking. He reeled against me, and seemed at a loss to know what to do.
"Get your revolver," I said, "and wake the captain."
He disappeared into the forward house, to come back a moment later with a revolver. I had got a lantern in the mean time, and ran to the forward companionway which led into the main cabin. Singleton followed me.
"Where's the captain?" I asked.
"I didn't call him," Singleton replied, and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
Swinging the lantern ahead of me, I led the way down the companionway. Something lay huddled at the foot. I had to step over it to get down. Singleton stood above, on the steps. I stooped and held the lantern close, and we both saw that it was the captain, killed as Vail had been. He was fully dressed except for his coat, and as he lay on his back, his cap had been placed over his mutilated face.
I thought I heard something moving behind me in the cabin, and wheeled sharply, holding my revolver leveled. The idea had come to me that the crew had mutinied, and that every one in the after house had been killed. The idea made me frantic; I thought of the women, of Elsa Lee, and I was ready to kill.
"Where is the light switch?" I demanded of Singleton, who was still on the companion steps, swaying.
"I don't know," he said, and collapsed, sitting huddled just above the captain's body, with his face in his hands.
I saw I need not look to him for help, and I succeeded in turning on the light in the swinging lamp in the center of the cabin. There was no sign of any struggle, and the cabin was empty. I went back to the captain's body, and threw a rug over it. Then I reached over and shook Singleton by the arm.
"Do something!" I raved. "Call the crew. Get somebody here, you drunken fool!"
He rose and staggered up the companionway, and I ran to Miss Lee's door. It was closed and locked, as were all the others except Vail's and the one I had broken open. I reached Mr. Turner's door last. It was locked, and I got no response to my knock. I remembered that his room and Vail's connected through a bath, and, still holding my revolver leveled, I ran into Vail's room again, this time turning on the light.
A night light was burning in the bath-room, and the door beyond was unlocked. I flung it open and stepped in. Turner was lying on his bed, fully dressed, and at first I thought he too had been murdered. But he was in a drunken stupor. He sat up, dazed, when I shook him by the arm.
"Mr. Turner!" I cried. "Try to rouse yourself, man! The captain has been murdered, and Mr. Vail!"
He made an effort to sit up, swayed, and fell back again. His face was swollen and purplish, his eyes congested. He made an effort to speak, but failed to be intelligible. I had no time to waste. Somewhere on the Ella the murderer was loose. He must be found.
I flung out of Turner's cabin as the crew, gathered from the forecastle and from the decks, crowded down the forward companionway. I ran my eye over them. Every man was there, Singleton below by the captain's body, the crew, silent and horror-struck, grouped on the steps: Clarke, McNamara, Burns, Oleson, and Adams. Behind the crew, Charlie Jones had left the wheel and stood peering down, until sharply ordered back. Williams, with a bandage on his head, and Tom, the mulatto cook, were in the group.
I stood, revolver in hand, staring at the men. Among them, I felt sure, was the murderer. But which one? All were equally pale, equally terrified.
"Boys," I said, "Mr. Vail and your captain have been murdered. The murderer must be on the ship - one of ourselves." There was a murmur at that. "Mr. Singleton, I suggest that these men stay together in a body, and that no one be allowed to go below until all have been searched and all weapons taken from them."
Singleton had dropped into a chair, and sat with his face buried in his hands, his back to the captain's body. He looked up without moving, and his face was gray.
"All righ
t," he said. "Do as you like. I'm sick."
He looked sick. Burns, who had taken Schwartz's place as second mate, left the group and came toward me.
"We'd better waken the women," he said. "If you'll tell them, Leslie, I'll take the crew on deck and keep them there."
Singleton seemed dazed, and when Burns spoke of taking the men on deck, he got up dizzily.
"I'm going too," he muttered. "I'll go crazy if I stay down here with that."
The rug had been drawn back to show the crew what had happened. I drew it reverently over the body again.
After the men had gone, I knocked at Mrs. Turner's door. It was some time before she roused; when she answered, her voice was startled.
"What is it?"
"It's Leslie, Mrs. Turner. Will you come to the door?"
"In a moment."
She threw on a dressing-gown, and opened the door.
"What is wrong?"
I told her, as gently as I could. I thought she would faint; but she pulled herself together and looked past me into the cabin.
"That is -?"
"The captain, Mrs. Turner."
"And Mr. Vail?"
"In his cabin."
"Where is Mr. Turner?"
"In his cabin, asleep."
She looked at me strangely, and, leaving the door, went into her sister's room, next. I heard Miss Lee's low cry of horror, and almost immediately the two women came to the doorway.
"Have you seen Mr. Turner?" Miss Lee demanded.
"Just now."
"Has Mrs. Johns been told?"
"Not yet."
She went herself to Mrs. Johns's cabin, and knocked. She got an immediate answer, and Mrs. Johns, partly dressed, opened the door.
"What's the matter?" she demanded. "The whole crew is tramping outside my windows. I hope we haven't struck an iceberg."
"Adele, don't faint, please. Something awful has happened."
"Turner! He has killed some one finally!"
"Hush, for Heaven's sake! Wilmer has been murdered, Adele - and the captain."
Mrs. Johns had less control than the other women. She stood for an instant, with a sort of horrible grin on her face. Then she went down on the floor, full length, with a crash. Elsa Lee knelt beside her and slid a pillow under her head.
"Call the maids, Leslie," she said quietly. "Karen has something for this sort of thing. Tell her to bring it quickly."
I went the length of the cabin and into the chartroom. The maids' room was here, on the port-side, and thus aft of Mrs. Turner's and Miss Lee's rooms. It had one door only, and two small barred windows, one above each of the two bunks.
I turned on the chart-room lights. At the top of the after companionway the crew had been assembled, and Burns was haranguing them. I knocked at the maids' door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it an inch or so.
"Karen!" I called - and, receiving no answer: "Mrs. Sloane!" (the stewardess).
I opened the door wide and glanced in. Karen Hansen, the maid, was on the floor, dead. The stewardess, in collapse from terror, was in her bunk, uninjured.
CHAPTER VII
WE FIND THE AXE
I went to the after companionway and called up to the men to send the first mate down; but Burns came instead.
"Singleton's sick," he explained. "He's up there in a corner, with Oleson and McNamara holding him."
"Burns," I said cautiously - "I've found another!"
"God, not one of the women!"
"One of the maids - Karen."
Burns was a young fellow about my own age, and to this point he had stood up well. But he had been having a sort of flirtation with the girl, and I saw him go sick with horror. He wanted to see her, when he had got command of himself; but I would not let him enter the room. He stood outside, while I went in and carried out the stewardess, who was coming to and moaning. I took her forward, and told the three women there what I had found.
Mrs. Johns was better, and I found them all huddled in her room. I put the stewardess on the bed, and locked the door into the next room. Then, after examining the window, I gave Elsa Lee my revolver.
"Don't let any one in," I said. "I'll put a guard at the two companionways, and we'll let no one down. But keep the door locked also."
She took the revolver from me, and examined it with the air of one familiar with firearms. Then she looked up at me, her lips as white as her face.
"We are relying on you, Leslie," she said.
And, at her words, the storm of self-contempt and bitterness that I had been holding in abeyance for the last half hour swept over me like a flood. I could have wept for fury.
"Why should you trust me?" I demanded. "I slept through the time when I was needed. And when I wakened and found myself locked in the storeroom, I waited to take the lock off instead of breaking down the door! I ought to jump overboard."
"We are relying on you," she said again, simply; and I heard her fasten the door behind me as I went out.
Dawn was coming as I joined the crew, huddled around the wheel. There were nine men, counting Singleton. But Singleton hardly counted. He was in a state of profound mental and physical collapse. The Ella was without an accredited officer, and, for lack of orders to the contrary, the helmsman - McNamara now - was holding her to her course. Burns had taken Schwartz's place as second mate, but the situation was clearly beyond him. Turner's condition was known and frankly discussed. It was clear that, for a time at least, we would have to get along without him.
Charlie Jones, always an influence among the men, voiced the situation as we all stood together in the chill morning air:
"What we want to do, boys," he said, "is to make for the nearest port. This here is a police matter."
"And a hanging matter," someone else put in.
"We've got to remember, boys, that this ain't like a crime on land. We've got the fellow that did it. He's on the boat all right."
There was a stirring among the men, and some of them looked aft to where, guarded by the Swede Oleson, Singleton was sitting, his head in his hands.
"And, what's more," Charlie Jones went on, "I'm for putting Leslie here in charge -for now, anyhow. That's agreeable to you, is it, Burns?"
"But I don't know anything about a ship," I objected. "I'm willing enough, but I'm not competent."
I believe the thing had been discussed before I went up, for McNamara spoke up from the wheel.
"We'll manage that somehow or other, Leslie," he said. "We want somebody to take charge, somebody with a head, that's all. And since you ain't, in a manner of speaking, been one of us, nobody's feelings can't be hurt. Ain't that it, boys?"
"That, and a matter of brains," said Burns.
"But Singleton?" I glanced aft.
"Singleton is going in irons," was the reply I got.
The light was stronger now, and I could see their faces. It was clear that the crew, or a majority of the crew, believed him guilty, and that, as far as Singleton was concerned, my authority did not exist.
"All right," I said. "I'll do the best I can. First of all, I want every man to give up his weapons. Burns!"
"Aye, aye."
"Go over each man. Leave them their pocket-knives; take everything else."
The men lined up. The situation was tense, horrible, so that the miscellaneous articles from their pockets - knives, keys, plugs of chewing tobacco, and here and there, among the foreign ones, small combs for beard and mustache unexpectedly brought to light, caused a smile of pure reaction. Two revolvers from Oleson and McNamara and one nicked razor from Adams completed the list of weapons we found. The crew submitted willingly. They seemed relieved to have some one to direct them, and the alacrity with which they obeyed my orders showed how they were suffering under the strain of inaction.
I went over to Singleton and put my hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Singleton," I said, "but I'll have to ask you for your revolver."
Without looking at me, he drew it from his hip pock
et and held it out. I took it: It was loaded.
"It's out of order," he said briefly. "If it had been working right, I wouldn't be here."
I reached down and touched his wrist. His pulse was slow and rather faint, his hands cold.
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes," he snarled. "You can get me a belaying-pin and let me at those fools over there. Turner did this, and you know it as well as I do!"
I slid his revolver into my pocket, and went back to the men. Counting Williams and the cook and myself, there were nine of us. The cook I counted out, ordering him to go to the galley and prepare breakfast. The eight that were left I divided into two watches, Burns taking one and I the other. On Burns's watch were Clarke, McNamara, and Williams; on mine, Oleson, Adams, and Charlie Jones.
It was two bells, or five o'clock. Burns struck the gong sharply as an indication that order, of a sort, had been restored. The rising sun was gleaming on the sails; the gray surface of the sea was ruffling under the morning breeze. From the galley a thin stream of smoke was rising. Some of the horror of the night went with the darkness, but the thought of what waited in the cabin below was on us all.
I suggested another attempt to rouse Mr. Turner, and Burns and Clarke went below. They came back in ten minutes, reporting no change in Turner's condition. There was open grumbling among the men at the situation, but we were helpless. Burns and I decided to go on as if Turner were not on board, until he was in condition to take hold.
We thought it best to bring up the bodies while all the crew was on duty, and then to take up the watches. I arranged to have one man constantly on guard in the after house - a difficult matter where all were under suspicion. Burns suggested Charlie Jones as probably the most reliable, and I gave him the revolver I had taken from Singleton. It was useless, but it made at least a show of authority. The rest of the crew, except Oleson, on guard over the mate, was detailed to assist in carrying up the three bodies. Williams was taken along to get sheets from the linen room.
We brought the captain up first, laying him on a sheet on the deck and folding the edges over him. It was terrible work. Even I, fresh from a medical college, grew nauseated over it. He was heavy. It was slow work, getting him up. Vail we brought up in the sheets from his bunk. Of the three, he was the most mutilated. The maid Karen showed only one injury, a smashing blow on the head, probably from the head of the axe. For axe it had been, beyond a doubt. I put Williams to work below to clear away every evidence of what had happened. He went down, ashy-faced, only to rush up again, refusing to stay alone. I sent Clarke with him, and instructed Charlie Jones to keep them there until the cabin was in order.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 112