The After House Part 37

Jones had not finished. He went back to the chart-room and possibly even went on deck and took a look at the wheel. Then he went down again and killed the Hansen woman.

He was exceedingly cunning. He flung the axe into the room, and was up and at the wheel again, all within a few seconds. To tear off and fold up the sheet, to hide it under near-by cordage, to strike the ship's bell and light his pipe--all this was a matter of two or three minutes.

I had only time to look at Vail. When I got up to the wheel, Jones was smoking quietly.

I believe he tried to get Singleton later, and failed. But he continued his devotions on the forward deck, visible when clad in his robe, invisible when he took it off. It was Jones, of course, who attacked Burns and secured the key to the captain's cabin; Jones who threw the axe overboard after hearing the crew tell that on its handle were finger-prints to identify the murderer; Jones who, while on guard in the after house below, had pushed the key to the storeroom under Turner's door; Jones who hung the marlinespike over the side, waiting perhaps for another chance at Singleton; Jones, in his devotional attire, who had frightened the crew into hysteria, and who, discovered by Mrs. Johns in the captain's cabin, had rushed by her, and out, with the axe. It is noticeable that he made no attempt to attack her. He killed only in obedience to his signal, and he had had no signal.

Perhaps the most curious thing, after the murderer was known, was the story of the people in the after house. It was months before I got that in full. The belief among the women was that Turner, maddened by drink and unreasoning jealousy, had killed Vail, and then, running amuck or discovered by the other victims, had killed them. This was borne out by Turner's condition. His hands and parts of his clothing were blood-stained.

Their condition was pitiable. Unable to speak for himself, he lay raving in his room, talking to Vail and complaining of a white figure that bothered him. The key that Elsa Lee picked up was another clue, and in their attempt to get rid of it I had foiled them. Mrs. Johns, an old friend and, as I have said, an ardent partisan, undertook to get rid of the axe, with the result that we know. Even Turner's recovery brought little courage. He could only recall that he had gone into Vail's room and tried to wake him, without result; that he did not know of the blood until the next day, or that Vail was dead; and that he had a vague recollection of something white and ghostly that night--he was not sure where he had seen it.

The failure of their attempt to get rid of the storeroom key was matched by their failure to smuggle Turner's linen off the ship.

Singleton suspected Turner, and, with the skillful and not over scrupulous aid of his lawyer, had succeeded in finding in Mrs. Sloane's trunk the incriminating pieces.

As to the meaning of the keys, file, and club in Singleton's mattress, I believe the explanation is simple enough. He saw against him a strong case. He had little money and no influence, while Turner had both. I have every reason to believe that he hoped to make his escape before the ship anch.o.r.ed, and was frustrated by my discovery of the keys and by an extra bolt I put on his door and window.

The murders on the schooner-yacht Ella were solved.

McWhirter went back to his hospital, the day after our struggle, wearing a strip of plaster over the bridge of his nose and a new air of importance. The Turners went to New York soon after, and I was alone.

I tried to put Elsa Lee out of my thoughts, as she had gone out of my life, and, receiving the hoped-for hospital appointment at that time, I tried to make up by hard work for a happiness that I had not lost because it had never been mine.

A curious thing has happened to me. I had thought this record finished, but perhaps--

Turner's health is bad. He and his wife and Miss Lee are going to Europe. He has asked me to go with him in my professional capacity!

It is more than a year since I have seen her.

The year has brought some changes. Singleton is again a member of the Turner forces, having signed a contract and a temperance pledge at the same sitting. Jones is in a hospital for the insane, where in the daytime he is a cheery old tar with twinkling eyes and a huge mustache, and where now and then, on Christmas and holidays, I send him a supply of tobacco. At night he sleeps in a room with opaque gla.s.s windows through which no heavenly signals can penetrate. He will not talk of his crimes,--not that he so regards them,--but now and then in the night he wraps the drapery of his couch about him and performs strange orisons in the little room that is his. And at such times an attendant watches outside his door.

CHAPTER XXV

THE SEA AGAIN

Once more the swish of spray against the side of a ship, the tang of salt, the lift and fall of the rail against the sea-line on the horizon. And once more a girl, in white from neck to heel, facing into the wind as if she loved it, her crisp skirts flying, her hair blown back from her forehead in damp curls.

And I am not washing down the deck. With all the poise of white flannels and a good cigar, I am lounging in a deck-chair, watching her.

Then--

"Come here!" I say.

"I am busy."

"You are not busy. You are disgracefully idle."

"Why do you want me?"

She comes closer, and looks down at me. She likes me to sit, so she may look superior and scornful, this being impossible when one looks up. When she has approached--

"Just to show that I can order you about."

"I shall go back!"--with raised chin. How I remember that raised chin, and how (whisper it) I used to fear it!

"You cannot. I am holding the edge of your skirt."

"Ralph! And all the other pa.s.sengers looking!"

"Then sit down--and, before you do, tuck that rug under my feet, will you?"

"Certainly not."

"Under my feet!"

She does it, under protest, whereon I release her skirts. She is sulky, quite distinctly sulky. I slide my hand under the rug into her lap. She ignores it.

"Now," I say calmly, "we are even. And you might as well hold my hand.

Every one thinks you are."

She brings her hands hastily from under her rug and puts them over her head. "I don't know what has got into you," she says coldly. "And why are we even?"

"For the day you told me the deck was not clean."

"It wasn't clean."

"I think I am going to kiss you."

"Ralph!"

"It is coming on. About the time that the bishop gets here, I shall lean over and--"

She eyes me, and sees determination in my face. She changes color.

"You wouldn't!"

"Wouldn't I!"

She rises hastily, and stands looking down at me. I am quite sure at that moment that she detests me, and I rather like it. There are always times when we detest the people we love.

"If you are going to be arbitrary just because you can--"

"Yes?"

"Marsh and the rest are in the smoking room. Their sitting-room is empty."

Quite calmly, as if we are going below for a clean handkerchief or a veil or a cigarette, we stroll down the great staircase of the liner to the Turners' sitting-room, and close the door.