The Blind Barber (17 page)

Warren took the gift from the Greek and Morgan and Peggy hurried him out in case he grew violent in an effort to make Mr. Woodcock disgorge information. Woodcock stood teetering on his heels, smiling tightly, as they left him. In the passage outside they leaned against the wall, rather breathless.

“The low-down crook!” breathed Warren, shaking in the air the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun. “The dirty double-crosser! He knows! He knows, and he won’t—”

“But was he serious about that testimonial?” asked Peggy, who could still not get this part of the matter untangled. “I mean, fancy! He can’t really mean that he wants your uncle to appear in the newspapers saying, ‘I’m wild about Woodcock’s bug-powder,’ can he? I mean, that would be awful!”

“Baby, that’s just it. He’s as serious—well, he’s as serious as Uncle Warpus trying to swing an international treaty and protect somebody’s neutrality. You don’t know,” said Warren, with some violence, “how self-complacent modern advertising is. They call it public service. Come on. Let’s go up and see the old horse-thief upstairs. What Uncle Warpus would say to me if I forced him into endorsing bug-powder is more than a drinkless stomach allows me to contemplate. I have a feeling that the sooner we see Captain Whistler, the old herring, and get this business about the girl straightened out, the sooner I’m going to feel well again. Come on.”

“And
I
have a feeling—” said Morgan, and stopped.

He did not continue. But he was right.

W
HEN THEY KNOCKED AT
the door of Captain Whistler’s cabin just abaft the bridge, it was opened by a melancholy steward who was making up the berth and clearing away breakfast dishes in a large, comfortable, rosewood-panelled cabin with curtains of rather startling pattern at the portholes.

“Commander ayn’t ’ere, sir,” the steward informed them, squinting at Warren in a rather sinister fashion. “’E’s gorn to see Lord Sturton, ’e said you wos to wait,
if
you please.”

Warren tried to be nonchalant, but he showed his apprehension.

“Ah,” he said, “Ah! Thanks, steward. How is the old mackerel feeling this morning? That is—er—”

“Ho!” said the steward significantly, and punched at a pillow as he arranged it.

“I see,” said Warren. “Well, we’ll—er—sit down.”

The steward pottered about the cabin, which gave evidence that the captain had fired things about in some haste, and finally doddered out with the breakfast tray. The nasty look he gave them over his shoulder confirmed their hypothesis that the beauties of nature did not induce in Captain Whistler any mood to stand on the bridge and sing sea-shanties.

“I guess he’s still peeved,” was Warren’s opinion. “And this is kind of a delicate matter, Hank. You do all the talking now. I don’t think I care to risk it.”

“You bet your sweet life I’ll do all the talking,” agreed Morgan. “I wouldn’t answer for any of us if the skipper walked in here and saw you with this razor in your hands. Especially as he’s just gone to see Sturton, he is not likely to be in a playful frame of mind. Understand—you are to keep
absolutely silent
throughout the whole interview. Not a word, not a movement unless you’re asked to confirm something. I refuse to take any more chances. But I don’t know—” He sat down in a leather chair, ruffled his hair, and stared out of one porthole at the pale sky. The sunlit cabin, swaying with drowsy gentleness in a murmurous swish of water conveyed no sense of peace. “I don’t know,” he went on, “that I feel altogether right about it myself. For the moment let Woodcock keep his information and blast him.
What has happened to that emerald?
That’s the question.”

“But after all, Hank, it isn’t any business of ours,” Peggy pointed out, with a woman’s practical instinct. She took off her shell-rimmed glasses with a pleased air of having solved the thing, and shut them into her handbag with a decisive snap. “
I
shouldn’t bother, old boy. What’s the odds?”

“What’s the odds?”

“Yes, of course I’m jolly sorry for Lord Sturton, and all that; but, after all, he’s got pots of money hasn’t he? And all he’d do would be to lock the emerald up in some nasty old safe, and what’s the good of that? … Whereas this film of Curt’s is really important, poor boy. I know what
I’d
do if I were a man,” she declared scornfully. “I’d take that nasty little Woodcock chap and torture him until he told. Or I’d lock him up somewhere, the way they did to that baron what’s-his-name, in
The Count of Monte Cristo
, and not let him have anything to eat and hold soup under his nose and laugh ha-ha until he was willing to tell me. You men
Bah!
You make me tired.”

She made a gesture of impatience.

“Young lady,” said Morgan, “both your ruthlessness and your logic are scandalous. I have sometimes observed a similar phenomenon in my own wife. Aside from the practical impossibility of holding soup under the bug-powder king’s nose and laughing ha-ha, there’s the sporting element to consider. Don’t say ball. The fact remains that we have pinched old Sturton’s emerald and the responsibility—What the devil’s that noise?”

He jumped a little. For some moments he had been conscious of a low, steady, hissing noise somewhere about him. In his present frame of mind, it sounded exactly like the sinister hissing which Dr. Watson had heard at midnight in the dark bedroom during the Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was, in fact, the Mermaid Automatic Bug-Powder Gun.

“Curt,” said Peggy, whirling suspiciously, “what are you up to
now
?”

“Handy little gadget at that,” declared Warren, in some admiration. His eyes were shining, and he bent absorbedly over the elaborate silver and enamel tube. It was a streamlined cylinder full of scrolls and flutings, with a complicated array of black buttons. From the nozzle a thin wide spray, as advertised, was flying out across the captain’s papers on the centre table. Warren moved it about. “All the buttons are marked, you see. Here’s ‘Spray’—that’s what I’ve got on now. Then there’s ‘Half Power’ and ‘Full Power’.” …

Peggy put a hand over her mouth and began to gurgle. This unseemly mirth annoyed Morgan still more. Besides, the spray was peculiarly pungent.

“Turn the damn thing off!” he howled, as a thin spray began to glitter all about them. “No, don’t turn it at the wardrobe, you fathead. Now you’ve got the captain’s spare uniform. Turn it—”

“All right, all right,” said Warren, rather testily. “You needn’t get griped about it. I was only trying the thing out … All I’ve got to do, you see, is press this dingus and—What’s the matter with the fool thing?
Hey!
”

The pressing of the dingus, it is true, did away with the spray. It substituted what to the skilful engineers who designed it was presumably “Half Power.” A thin but violent stream of liquid bug-powder ascended past Warren’s shoulder as he tried to look at the nozzle and somewhat frantically twisted buttons. All he succeeded in doing was turning on the electric light.

“Give
me
the swine,” said Morgan. “I’ll fix it. Do something, can’t you? It’s raining bug-powder; the place is becoming impregnated with bug-powder! Don’t turn it on yourself, you blithering idiot. Turn it … O my God,
no!
Not in the captain’s berth. Take it out of the captain’s berth … No, you can’t shut it off with a pillow. Not under the bed clothes, dummy! You’re—”

“Well, it’s better than having it soak up the room, isn’t it?” inquired Warren’s hoarse voice, out of a luminous mist of bug-powder. “All right. Don’t get apoplexy. I’ll shut it off. I’ll—” He avoided Morgan’s arm, a fiendish expression on his face, and rushed to the middle of the cabin. “No, you don’t. I turned this thing on and, so help me, I’ll turn it off!” He gestured with the Mermaid, which was hissing like an enthusiastic cobra. “And this is the lousy thing my uncle is asked to endorse, is it? It’s a cheat! It’s no damn good! I’ll find Woodcock and tell him so! I’ve turned every lousy knob … ”

“Don’t stand there orating!” shouted Morgan, whom the clammy mist had begun to envelop. “Do something. Fire it out the port-hole … ”

“I know what I’ll do!” said Warren, with fiendish inspiration. “I know what it is. I’ll try ‘
Full Power
.’ That’s probably the only thing that’ll shut the swine off. That’s it! If Woodcock had told the truth about it—”

Woodcock had told the truth about it, and could have exhibited a pardonable pride in its response. From the nozzle a fine stream of liquid insect exterminator shot with the force and violence of a fire-hose. Nor could Mr. Woodcock have in the least complained of its accuracy. In fact, it sizzled across the cabin full and true into the face of Commander Sir Hector Whistler just as he opened the door.

Morgan shut his eyes. In that moment of blasting and appalled silence he did not wish to look upon Captain Whistler’s countenance. He would sooner have tried to outstare Medusa. Moreover, he wished he could summon his muscles to dive out of the room and run. But he could hear the Mermaid still hissing on the door-post beside the captain’s head; and he risked one eye to look, not at Whistler, but at Warren.

Warren found his voice.

“I couldn’t help it, Skipper!” he yelled. “I swear by all that’s holy I couldn’t help it. I tried everything. I pressed every button, but it wouldn’t stop. Look! See, I’ll show you! Look … !”

There was a sharp click. Instantly the stream gurgled, fell, and died away from the Mermaid’s nozzle. It stopped. The Mermaid was as innocuous as she had been before.

Morgan afterwards realised that only one thing saved them then. Peering over the captain’s shoulder in the doorway he had seen the startled countenance of Captain Valvick. Only the strangled words, “So—it’s—
you!
” issued from the quivering lungs of the
Queen Victoria
’s commander before Valvick had a shot a big hand over his mouth. With one hand over his mouth and the other impelling him by the sack of the trousers, he hustled the insane skipper into the cabin and kicked the door shut.

“Qvick!” rumbled Valvick. “You get somet’ing to gag him wit’ till he cool down, or he call de chief mate and den maybe we iss all in de brig. Ay am hawful sorry, Barnacle, but ay got to do diss … ” Frowning, he turned a glance of angry reproachfulness on Warren. “What you want to playing for, anyway, eh? Diss iss no time for playing, ay tell you. After ay take al de time to smoot’ old Barnacle down and tell him what we are doing, den it iss no time for playing. Coroosh! What iss dat stuff ay smell in de air?”

“It’s only bug-powder, Skipper,” insisted Warren. “After all, it’s only bug-powder!”

A spasm racked the stout frame of Captain Whistler; his good eye bulged, but his internal noises beat in vain against the Gibraltar of Valvick’s hand across his mouth. Nevertheless, Valvick had to use two hands to keep him quiet.

“Honest, Barnacle, diss iss for your own good!” Valvick begged, dragging him over to the chair before his desk and pushing him in. He was answered by a variety of muffled sounds like a steam-calliope heard underground. “Odderwise you are going to do somet’ing you regret. Dese yentlemen can explain; ay know it! If you promise to do not’ing, ay let you loose. Ay mean, you kin svear all you like if it reliefs your mind, but you are not to
do
not’ing. Odderwise we got to gag you, eh? … Ay tell you it iss for your own good! … Now! You iss a man of your word. What about it, eh?”

A noise of assent and an inclination of the head like the Dying Gladiator answered him. Valvick stepped back, removing his hand.

The ensuing half-hour is one of the things in Morgan’s life that he likes to forget. To say that it was nerve-racking would be to employ a spiritless word, and one without those
nuances
which Mr. Leslie Perrigord declares are essential to the power of classic drama. There was much classic fire at one point in the captain’s remarks—that at which he frequently clutched his throat, stabbed a shaking finger at Warren like Macbeth seeing the ghost, and kept repeating “He’s mad, I tell you! He tried to poison me! He’s a homicidal maniac! Do you want him to murder my passengers? Why don’t you let me lock him up?”

If, eventually, more sober counsels prevailed, it was due to a circumstance which Morgan did not at the moment understand. Captain Whistler, he was compelled to admit, had certain reasonable grounds for protest. Aside from all questions of personal dignity (the Mermaid’s aim had gone straight as Locksley’s good clothyard shaft into the skipper’s damaged left eye), there was reason for complaint in the general omnipresence of bug-powder. The cabin was haunted by bug-powder. It rose in ghostly waves from his dress uniform; it soaked his berth, pervaded his linen, clung round his shoes, made fragrant his log-book, and whispered sweet nothings from his correspondence. In short, you could safely have wagered that not for months would even the most reckless cockroach be daredevil enough to venture within smelling-distance of anything that was Captain Whistler’s.

Therefore it considerably astonished Morgan that in the short space of half an hour he was prevailed on to accept their explanations. True, he placed the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun in the middle of the floor and jumped on it. True, he no whit retreated from his declaration that Curtis Warren was a dangerous lunatic who would shortly be cutting somebody’s throat if not placed under observation. But (whether due to Peggy’s blandishments or to another cause shortly to be indicated, you shall decide) he consented to give Warren just one more chance.

“Just one more chance,” he proclaimed, leaning forward in the chair and bringing his hand down on his desk, “and that’s
ALL
. If there’s one more suspicious move out of not only him, but any of you—
Any of you, do you understand?
—then he goes to the brig under guard. That’s my last word.” Glaring he sat back and sipped the healing whisky-and-soda that had been brought him. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll get down to business. And first I’ll tell you this. I promised to share any information I might get, Mr. Morgan, because I considered you at least a sane man. Well, I have some information, although I admit it puzzles me. But before I tell you, there’s something I want to point out. The young maniac, and you three as well, have caused me more trouble than anybody I ever had aboard a craft of mine.
I could murder all four of you!
You’ve caused me more trouble than anybody except the man who stole that emerald; and, in a way, you’re involved in that …”