The Blind Barber (11 page)

Warren sat up, impressed by this new thought. “By the way, Baby, whose cabin
did
you throw it in, anyway?”

“How should I know?” she asked, rather defensively. “I don’t know who has every cabin on the deck. It was just a convenient porthole, and I sort of obeyed the impulse. What difference does it make?”

“Well, I was only wondering … ” He peered at the light, at a corner of the roof, at the wardrobe door. “I—that is, I don’t suppose by any chance you heaved it on somebody to whom it would—er—prove a temptation?”

“Coroosh!” said Captain Valvick.

By one accord they looked at Morgan. The latter would have immensely enjoyed the throne to which this trio of genial idiots had elected him, that of Brains in the combine to catch the joker, if it were not for that disturbing, nagging doubt which was apparently shared by none of his lieutenants. He did not want to examine that berth, and yet he knew he must. Meanwhile his lieutenants—ready to go off at any new tangent, and obsessed now with a thought which had nothing to do with the main problem—were regarding him in expectancy.

“Well,” he said rather wearily, “if you really want to know whose cabin it is, that ought to be easy. Pick out the cabin that’s attached to the porthole in which you threw that box (am I making myself clear?) and spot its number. Then look up the number in the passenger-list, and there you are … What porthole did you throw it through, Peggy?”

The girl opened her mouth eagerly and shut it again. Her brows contracted. She wriggled, as though to assist thought.

“Dash it!” she said in a small voice. “I think—well, honestly, I don’t remember.”

W
ARREN HOPPED UP.

“But, Baby,” he protested, “you’ve
got
to remember. Why shouldn’t you remember? It’s a cinch: there’s a row of portholes, and they’re all near the companionway on the starboard side. All right. You were standing near one, and all you’ve got to do is remember which one. Besides—” A new aspect of the matter struck him. “Say, I never thought of it before, but this is terrible! Suppose by some chance you slung that box into the
criminal’s
cabin? By Jiminy!” said Warren, now almost convinced that this was the case, “he’s got away with a lot, but I won’t stand for this! I’ve got a score to settle with that guy … ”

“Son,” said Morgan, “permit me to suggest that we have enough difficulties on our hands without your imagining fresh ones. That’s foolish! You’re only getting the wind up about nothing.”

“Yes, I know, but it bothers me,” returned Warren, moving his neck uncomfortably. “The thought of that fellow getting away with a thing like that would make me wild. After he’s walked in as easy as pie, and stolen my film, to have us deliberately hand him the emerald elephant as well! … Baby, you’ve got to remember which porthole it was! Then, if we went down to that cabin and sort of busted down the door, you see, and said, ‘Hey, you! … ’”

Morgan lowered his head to cool it, and swallowed hard in a dry throat. Never before had he seen the true extent of American energy.

“So now,” he said, “so now you want to go around breaking down doors, do you? Kindly reflect a moment, Curt. Consider what you have already done to Captain Whistler’s blood pressure. You fathead, why don’t you go up and smash down the captain’s door and get put into a strait-waistcoat and have done with it? You said I was to give the orders, and I’m giving some now. You’re to stop absolutely quiet. Do you understand?”

“Ay haf an idea,” volunteered Captain Valvick, who was scratching his short sandy hair. “Coroosh! Ay yust t’ink of it. Suppose de port where you t’row dat elephant wass in de cabin of dat English duke which own de elephant in de first place? Coroosh! But he iss going to be surprised if he wake up in de morning and find it dere. Maybe he t’ink Captain Whistler hass got mad at him for somet’ing and come down in de night and t’row dat elephant back at him trough de port.”

“No, that won’t work,” said Warren. “Old Sturton’s got a suite on B deck. But we’ve got to find out who does sleep in that cabin. Think. Baby! Get your brain working.”

Peggy’s face was screwed up with intense concentration. She made slow gestures to bring the scene back.

“I’ve got it now,” she said. “Yes, I’m sure. It was either the second or third porthole from the end of the wall where we were standing. They look so much alike and
you
ought to remember it yourself. But it was either the second or third porthole.”

“You’re absolutely sure of that, are you?”

“Yes, I am. I won’t say which one, but I’ll swear it was one of those two.”

“Den dass all right,” rumbled Valvick, nodding. “Ay go out right now and find de numbers on dem cabins, and we look it up in de passenger-list. Also ay got anudder bottle of Old Rob Roy in my locker, and ay get it and we out of it a nightcap haff, hey? Yumping Yudas, but ay am t’irsty! Hold on. Ay won’t be a minute.”

Morgan protested in vain. The captain insisted that he would only be a minute, and went out foraging, with the approval of the other two lieutenants.

“ … Also,” Morgan continued, turning to them when Valvick had gone, “what the devil’s the use of bothering about that emerald now? Has it occurred to you what happened in this place to-night? What about that woman? What happened to
her
?”

Warren made a savage gesture. “I’ve got it all figured out,” he snapped. “I knew it the minute we came back in here, but I didn’t very well see how I could tell old Popeye. We’ve been outsmarted, that’s what. They got us to fall for that as neat as you please, and it’s another thing that makes me mad … Why, that girl was our crook’s accomplice, don’t you see? They arranged it between them for her to pull a fake faint, calling my name, mind you—which wasn’t natural to begin with … ”

“And you don’t think the injury was real?”

“Of course it wasn’t real. I read a story once about a bird who could suddenly make funny noises and go into a cataleptic fit, and while the doctor was poking him his gang came in and robbed the doctor’s house. I thought it was a low-down dirty trick at the time; but that’s what they’ve done. Yes, and don’t you remember in your own books, in
Aconite in the Admiralty?
where that detective what’s-his-name gets into the master criminal’s luxurious den in Downing Street, and they think they’ve stabbed him with the poisoned needle?”

“The literary formula,” agreed Morgan, “is excellent. Still, I doubt it in this case. Granted that the crook was watching us, knew where we were, and all that, I don’t see how it would help him much. He knew we’d certainly take the girl into one of these two cabins, so it wouldn’t be much easier. It was only chance in old Whistler’s coming in when he did, so that we were dragged away and the crook had a clear field.”

Peggy also refused to listen to this line of argument. Warren had got out a damp package of cigarettes, and he and Peggy lit one while Morgan filled his pipe. The girl said, between short puffs, as though she were rather angrily trying to get rid of the smoke:

“But, I say, it’s going to be
easy
now, isn’t it? It was rather a dreadful bloomer on their part, wasn’t it? Because we shall know that girl when we see her again, and then we’ve got ’em. She wasn’t disguised, you know. She hardly had any make-up on, even. That reminds me—my compact. Give it to me, Curt. I say I must look a sight! Anyway, we can’t miss her. She’s still aboard the boat.”

“Is she?” said Morgan. “I wonder.”

Warren, who was about to make some impatient comment, glanced up and saw the other’s expression. He took the cigarette out of his mouth; his eyes grew curiously fixed.

“What—what’s on your mind, General?”

“Only that Peggy’s right in one sense. If that girl was an accomplice, then the thing would be too easy, much too easy for us. On the other hand, if that girl had been coming here to try to warn you about something … I know you didn’t know her, but let’s suppose that’s what she was doing … Then the thief gets after her and thinks he’s done the business. But he hasn’t. Then—”

The droning engines seemed to vibrate loud above creaking woodwork, because the wind had died outside, deep tumult was subsiding, and the
Queen Victoria
was rolling almost gently as though she were exhausted by the gale. All of them were relaxed; but it did not help their nerves. Peggy jumped then as the door opened and Captain Valvick returned with the passenger-list in one hand and a quart of Old Rob Roy in the other.

“Ay told you ay only be a minute,” he announced. “It wass easy to find de ports, and den de cabin numbers from inside. One is C 51 and the other C 46. Ay t’ank … Hey?” he said, peering at the strained faces in the room. “What iss de matter, hey?”

“Nothing,” said Morgan. “Not for a minute, anyhow. Come on, now. Set your minds at rest. You wanted to know. Find out who occupies those cabins first, and then we can go on.”

With a jerk of her head, still looking at him, Peggy took the passenger-list. On the point of speaking, she said nothing, and opened the list instead. But she rose and sat on the couch this time. Under cover of Captain Valvick’s talk, Warren helped him take the extra glasses off the rack and pour drinks. They all glanced furtively at Morgan, who had begun to wonder whether he were merely flourishing a turnip ghost. He lit his pipe during a queer silence while Peggy ran her finger down the list, and the ship’s engines beat monotonously …

“Well?” said Warren.

“Wait a bit, old boy. This takes time … Mmmm. Gar—Gran—Gulden—Harris—mmm—Hooper, Isaacs mm, no—Jarvis, Jerome … I say, I hope I haven’t missed it; Jeston, Ka-Kedler—Kennedy … Hullo!” She breathed a line of smoke past her cigarette, and glanced up with wide eyes. “What was it, skipper? C 46? Righto! Here it is. ‘C 46
Kyle
,
Dr. Oliver Harrison
.’ Fancy that! Dr. Kyle has one of those cabins … ”

Warren whistled.

“Kyle, eh? Not bad. Whoa! Wait a bit,” said the diplomat. He struck the bulkhead. “My God! wasn’t he one of the suspects? Yes, I remember now. This crook is probably masquerading … ”

With difficulty Morgan shut him up, for more and more was Warren impressed by the general rightness and poetic reasonableness of a crook with a taste for using the blackjack adopting the guise of a distinguished Harley Street physician. His views were based on the forthright principle that, the more respectable they looked, the more likely they were to turn out dastardly murderers. He also cited examples from the collected works of Henry Morgan in which the authors of the dirty work had proved to be (respectively) an admiral, a rose-grower, an invalid, and an archdeacon. It was only when Peggy protested that this was merely the case in detective stories that Morgan took his side.

“That’s just where you’re wrong, old girl,” he said. “It’s in real life that the crooks and killers always go in the most solidly respectable dress. Only, you see them at the wrong end—in the dock. You think of them as a murderer, not as the erstwhile churchgoing occupant of Number 13 Laburnum Grove. Whisper softly to yourself the names of the most distinguished croakers of a century, and observe that nearly all of them were highly esteemed by the vicar. Constance Kent? Dr. Pritchard? Christina Edmunds? Dr. Lamson? Dr. Crippen—”

“And nearly all of ’em doctors, eh?” inquired Warren, with an air of sinister enlightenment. He seemed to brood over this incorrigible tendency among members of the medical profession to go about murdering people. “You see, Peggy? Hank’s right.”

“Don’t be a lop-eared ass,” said Morgan. “Wash out this idea of Dr. Kyle’s being a crook, will you? He’s a very well-known figure … oh, and get rid of the notion, too, that somebody may be impersonating him while the real Dr. Kyle is dead. That may be all right for some person who never comes in contact with anybody; but a public figure like an eminent physician won’t do … Go on, Peggy. Tell us who’s in C 51, and then we can forget it and get down to real business.”

She wrinkled her forehead.

“Here we are, and this is odd, too. ‘C 51.
Perrigord, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie
.’ So-ho!”

“What’s odd about that? Who are they?”

“You remember my telling you about a very, very great highbrow and aesthete who was aboard, and had written reams of ecstatic articles about Uncle Jules’s genius? And I said I hoped for his sake as well as the kids who wanted to see the fighting that there’d be a performance tomorrow night?”

“Ah! Perrigord?”

“Yes. Both he and she are awfully aesthetic, you know. He writes poetry—you know, the kind you can’t understand, all about his soul being like a busted fencer-rail or something. And I believe he’s a dramatic critic, too, although you can’t make much sense out of what he writes there, either.
I
can’t anyway. But he says the only dramatists are the French dramatists. He says Uncle Jules has the greatest classic genius since Molière. Maybe you’ve seen him about? Tall, thin chap with flat, blond hair, and his wife wears a monocle?” She giggled. “They do about two hundred circuits of the promenade-deck every morning, and never speak to anybody, those people!”

“H’m!” said Morgan, remembering the dinner-table that night. “Oh, yes. But I didn’t know you knew them. If this fellow has written all that stuff about your uncle—”

“Oh, I don’t know them,” she disclaimed, opening her eyes wide. “They’re English, you see. They’ll write volumes about you, and discuss every one of your good and bad points minutely; but they won’t
say
how-de-do unless you’ve been properly introduced.”

All this analysis was over the head of the good Captain Valvick, who had grown restive and was puffing through his moustache with strange noises, as though he wanted to be admitted through a closed door.

“Ay got de whisky poured out,” he vouchsafed. “And you put in de soda. Iss it decided what we are going to do? What
iss
decided, anyway? Sometime we got to go to bed.”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” said Warren, with energy, “and we can sketch out the plan of battle now. Tomorrow morning we’re going to comb the boat for that girl who pulled the fainting-act in here. That’s the only lead we’ve got, and we’re going after it as hard as Whistler goes after the emerald. That is—” He turned round abruptly. “Let’s have it out, Hank. Were you only trying to scare us or were you serious when you made that suggestion?”