CHAPTER IV
Peter turned over the log-book and the wireless-house to Dale, a fewminutes before midnight.
"Everything's cleared up. The static is worse, and KPH may want you torelay a message or two to Honolulu. If you have trouble, let me know."
"Yes, yes," replied Dale, looking over his shoulder nervously. "Iwill. Thanks."
Peter left him to the mercies of the static. As he descended the ironladder to the promenade-deck, he imagined he saw some one movingunderneath him. The figure, whoever or whatever it was, slid aroundthe white wall and vanished as his foot felt the deck. He hastened tofollow.
As he stepped into the light a low, sibilant whisper reached him. Atthe cross-corridor doorway he was in time to see the flicker of avanishing gray garment and a sandaled foot on a naked ankle flash overthe vestibule wave-check. He shook open the door and followed.
A vertical stripe of yellow light cleaved the dark of the corridor as adoor was quietly shut. He heard the faint, distant click of adoor-latch. Counting the entrances to that one, and sure that he hadmade no mistake, he rapped. The near-by clank of the engine-room wellwas the reply. He tried the handle. It was immovable. He struck amatch. It was stateroom forty-four.
Peter went to the purser's office. Light rippled through the wrinkledgreen, round window, as he had hoped. He tapped lightly, and a voicebade him to enter.
Blanchard, the purser, dwarfed, perpetually stoop-shouldered, looked upfrom a clump of cargo reports and blinked through convex, thick, steelspectacles at his interrupter. His eyes were red and dim with agray-blue, uncertain definition which always reminded Peter of oysters.Blanchard had been purser of the _Vandalia_ for thirteen years, andPeter knew that the man possessed the garrulous habits of the oyster aswell.
"Well, well!" observed Blanchard in the crisp, brittle accents ofsenility; "so you're back again, eh? Well, well, well." There was noemphasis laid on the words. They were all struck from the same pieceof ancient metal.
"Here I am!" agreed Peter with mild enthusiasm. "The bad penny!"
"Ha, ha! The bad penny returns!" The exclamation died in a futilecough. "What are you prowlin' around ship this time o' night for, eh?After three bells, Sparks. Time for respectable people to be fastasleep. Or, are you leavin' the radio unwatched?"
"I'm looking for information." Peter drew himself by stiffened armsupon the purser's single bunk.
"Lookin' for information?" The thin voice suffered the quaveryattrition of surprise. "Funny place to be lookin' for that commodity.What's on your mind? Eh?"
"Chinamen!"
Blanchard tilted the rusted spectacles to his forehead, and themotionless gray orbs seemed to glint with a half-dead light."Chinamen? What Chinamen?" The spectacles slid back into place.
"One, a woman, came aboard as we were pulling out this afternoon. Whois she? Where is she? Where's she from? Where's she going? Who'swith her? That's what I want to clear up."
"Is that all?" squeaked Blanchard. His wrinkled, dried lips werestruggling as if with indecision. A veiled, a thinly veiled conflictof emotions apparently was taking place behind that ancient gray mask."What--what for?" was the final outcome in a hesitant half-whisper.
"My private information," smiled Peter. "Just curious, that's all.Didn't mean to pry open any dark secrets." He made as if to go.
"Sparks! Don't be in a hurry. I'm not so busy."
"Well?"
"What's botherin' you? Maybe I could straighten you out."
"Who are the occupants of stateroom forty-four?" Peter replied.
Again the expression shifted like water smitten by an evil wind.
"Forty-four!" The words were mild explosions.
A long cardboard sheet with blue and red lines was produced from anoiselessly opened drawer.
"The passenger list. We shall see." Blanchard's red, shiny forefingerclawed down the column of names, halting at the numeral forty-four.The space was blank. "You see?"
"Empty?"
"Empty." A restrained note of triumph was unquestionably evident inthe purser's cracked voice.
"I'll bother you with just one more question. What is Len Yang?"
A look of doubt, of incredulity bordering upon feeble indignation,settled upon the serrated countenance. But Blanchard only shook hishead as if he did not comprehend.
Peter slipped down from the bunk. "Guess I'll take a turn on deck, ifthe fog's lifted, and roll in. G'night, purser."
Blanchard started to say something, evidently thought better of it, andretrieved his pen. As he dipped the fine point into the red ink bymistake he flung another frown over his shoulder. The wireless manlingered on the threshold, swinging the door tentatively.
"G'night, Sparks."
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 4