The Blind Barber (25 page)

“Shut up!” hissed Valvick, clapping a hand over the whiskers. “Now. We iss ready. Open dat door … ”

They stared tensely, but the sight, as Morgan opened the door, was not very alarming. Under ordinary circumstances they would have deduced that their visitor was, if anything, a shade more nervous than they. A stocky A. B. in dungarees and a striped jersey was pulling at his forelock, shifting his feet, and flashing the whites of his eyes. Before anybody could speak, the A. B. burst out rapidly, in a hoarse confidential voice.

“Miss! Wot we want to ’ave clearly understood, my mates and me, which I was delegyted ’ere to sy, is that my mates and me is in naow wy responsible. Miss! Stryke me blind, so ’elp me, miss, if we’re responsible! Like this. Not that we didn’t feel like it, wot with ’im ordering us abaht like we wos dirt, and ’im only a ruddy Turk, yer see—but it’s abaht that bloke Abdul, miss—”

“Abdul?” said Peggy. “Abdul! Where is he?”

“Right ’ere, miss, yer see. I’ve got ’im outside, miss. In a wheelbarrow, miss.”

“In a wheelbarrow?”

“Like this, miss. So ’elp me! All dy me and my mates wos a-working wheeling them ruddy dummies, miss, and a w-working ’
ard
, so ’elp me. And Bill Pottle, my mate, says to me, ’e says, ‘Gawd lummy, Tom, d’you know ’oo we’ve got on this ’ere tub?’ ’e says. ‘It’s the Bermondsey Terror, Tom, the bloke we see knock out Texas Willie larst year.’ So all of us thought we’d go and tyke a look at ’im, and a real top-notch good sport ’e wos, miss, ’oo said ’ed been a-drinking, wiv a Swede, and, ‘Come in,’ ’e says, ‘all of yer!’ So ’e begins a-telling us ’ow ’e beat the Dublin Smasher in eighteen seconds. And just when we wos all interested, miss, in walks this ’ere Abdul, yer see, miss, and starts rysing a row. And somebody says, ‘Gorn’ yer ruddy frog-eater,’ ’e says, ‘gorn back to yer ruddy ’arem,’ ’e says. Then Abdul gets narsty and says, ‘Ow, well, ’ed rather be a frog-eater than a—Britisher a-stuffing fuller roast beef,’ ’e says. And the Bermondsey Terror gets up and says, ‘Ow, yerce?’ And Abdul says, ‘Yerce.’ So Bermondsey sorter reaches out and taps him a couple, yersee, miss … ”

“But he’s all
right
, isn’t he?” cried Peggy.

“Sure, ’e’s all right, miss!” the other hastened to assure her, with a gesture of heavy heartiness. “Except ’e can’t
talk
, yer see. Bermondsey ’it ’im in the vocal cords, once, yer see, miss …”

With her eyes brimming over, Peggy glared. “Oooh, you—oh, you nasty, brawling fighting … Can’t
talk
? You take him back, do you hear? You work over him, do you hear? If he isn’t in shape in half an hour I’ll walk straight up and tell the captain, and I’ll—”

She herself was incapable of speech. She dashed at the door, the thoroughly scared A.B. ducking out before her wrath. He was mumbling something rather defiantly to the effect that that was what Abdul had croaked out, and the Bermondsey Terror said
he
didn’t care, and if any games was tried on
him
—Peggy slammed the door.

“Coroosh!” said Captain Valvick, wiping his forehead. He shook his head despondently. “Ay tell you ay seen roughneck ships before, but diss one of Old Barnacle’s iss de worst. It iss hawful. Ay haff a cook once on de old
Betsy Yee
which get mad and chase de whole fo’c’s’l round and round de deck wit’ a carving-knife; and ay tank now ay could get him a job on diss ship and he be right at home. Coroosh! what iss going to happen next?”

A faint, pleasant, gurgling noise behind them caused them to turn. The neck of the bottle had been tilted up among a brush of savage red whiskers. It descended. Red-whiskered and black-wigged, Curtis Warren regarded them affably.

“Good for the old Bermondsey Terror!” he said. “I’d like to meet that fellow. He’d make a good addition to our crowd. It reminds me a little of the way I served old Charley Woodcock about an hour ago … What does Abdul weigh, Peggy? Woodcock’s fairly light.”

Cool despair settled on Morgan, so that he felt pleasant and collected now. Nothing more, he was certain, could happen. They might as well bow before the Parcæ and enjoy the gyrations of those relentless sisters.

“Ha-ha-ha!” he said. “Well, old boy, what did you do to Woodcock? What’s Woodcock got to do with this?”

“How do you think I got out of the jug, anyhow?” demanded Warren. “It was a stratagem, I’m telling you, and a damned good stratagem, if you ask me. I asked you before, What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? And I’ll tell you. The trick was this. If they thought he was safely locked up, then he could prowl as he liked and get the evidence that would hang the guilty man. That was my position … So I had to have a substitute to take my place so they wouldn’t suspect anything. And if I do say it myself, I worked it pretty well—though I’ll have to hand the real credit to you, Hank.” He removed his whiskers to talk the better.

“Woodcock was definitely the one person I could summon to me so that he’d come any time I liked, wasn’t he? Right. Well I carefully prepared my ground by seeming to sleep all afternoon, so they’d get used to it; I refused dinner and everything. Then I wrote a note to Woodcock. I said I had news from my Uncle Warpus, and to come down to the brig at exactly seven o’clock. Just before this, I told him to have a message sent in the captain’s name to the sailor on guard—I’d learned his name—to get him away for ten minutes, so there’d be nobody to hear when we talked business. I asked the sailor whether I could send a message, and he said he supposed it was all right, but he couldn’t leave to take it; so they sent a pageboy. The only thing was, I was afraid somebody might read it, so—” Warren glanced round with triumphant glee, rubbing his hands.

“Masterly,” said Morgan in a hollow voice.

“So what did I do? I ripped the book apart. There’s always the heavy mucilage sticking the cover to the inside flaps of the book; and I tore out one of the flaps and sealed it.
And it worked
! Good old Charley came through. The sailor didn’t like to leave when the fake message came through; but he saw there were bolts on the outside of the door I couldn’t move, and I was asleep, anyway.” Warren made a gesture. “Down comes Woodcock and says, ‘You’ve got it, have you?’ And I said, ‘Yes; just pull back those bolts and open the door for a second; I don’t want to get out, but I’ll have to give you this.’ So he opened the door. And I said, ‘Look here, old man, I’m damned sorry, but you know how it is,’ and I let him have it in the jaw …”

“Darling!” said Peggy. “Oh, you poor dear idiot. Why didn’t you make him
tell
before you hit him? … Oh, confound it all, if you’d only done what I wanted you to, if you’d only tortured him before you hit him! Oh, dear … and now look what’s happened, with all this nasty fighting and torturing!” She wrung her hands. “Abdul and Uncle Jules, look at them! And unless we can get them on their feet there’ll be no performance. Listen! I can hear the crowd upstairs already … ”

She snatched the bottle from Warren’s hand and strengthened herself with a draught. A wheel seemed to go round behind her eyes. “The n-nasty d-drunken b-beasts!” said Peggy; “the—”

“My deah!” said Mrs. Perrigord, “Oh, I say, I don’t know what has kick-happened, but I think it was most owfully clevah of Mr. Joyce to torture oll those people, and get out of gaol, I do, reolly, especially as it was Henry’s idea, and I think we reolly might have the courtesy to offer Mr. Lawrence a glass of champagne …”

“SILENCE!” roared Morgan. “Listen, Peggy, the performance doesn’t matter now; hasn’t that occurred to you? Have you realised that we’re saddled again with that blasted emerald … which Curt swears he got out of
Kyle’s
cabin? Curt, come to your senses. You couldn’t have got it out of Kyle’s cabin, I tell you! Lord Sturton—”

Warren shook his head tolerantly, agitating the curls of the savage black wig that was jammed over one ear.

“No, no, old man,” he said. “You don’t understand. Not Lord Sturton—Lord Derreval. Lord Gerald Derreval. If you don’t believe me, go down to Kyle’s cabin—it isn’t far from here—and look behind the wardrobe trunk just under the porthole. The steel box is there; I left the box there so the crook would maybe think the emerald was still in it … ”

Valvick whirled on Morgan.

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe it been dere all de time! Coroosh! You t’ink dere is
two
emeralds, and one of dem a fake, and somebody hass returned de fake to dat English duke, eh?”

“Impossible, Skipper,” returned Morgan, who was feeling queerly light-headed. “Don’t you think Sturton would know a real emerald from a fake? Unless, somehow, the real emerald was returned to him … I don’t know! The thing’s driving me insane. Go on, Curt. Go on from the consummation of your crafty scheme to entice Woodcock to the brig. What then?”

“Well, I got in a neat upper-cut, you see …”

“Yes, yes, we know that. But afterwards?”

“I tore the sheet up, bound and gagged him securely, and tied him to the berth so he couldn’t move; then I put a blanket over him, so when the sailor came back he’d only look into the cell and think I was there … Neat, eh?”

“I have no doubt,” agreed Morgan, “that at the present moment Mr. Woodcock thinks very highly of your forethought. If the idea had ever previously occurred to him to tip over the beams concerning your Uncle Warpus, I should think it would recommend itself strongly to him now. You’re a wonder, you are. Carry on.”

“So I sneaked away and made straight for Kyle’s cabin to get the goods on him. I wasn’t afraid of running into Kyle because I looked through a porthole and saw him in the bar; besides, I knew he was due at the concert. And—there you are. The proof! Also, I’ve got his papers. All I was afraid of was what Captain Whistler had said about maybe catching Kyle, but everything was fine. Now all we’ve got to do is examine his papers, and we’ll find evidence that he’s really the crook who’s impersonating Dr. Kyle …”

“Yess, dere is de papers, too,” rumbled Captain Valvick. “It is a hawful offence, ay tell you. Worst offence on de high seas to steal a man’s papers. What we going to do
now
?”

Morgan stalked up and down the cabin, slapping his hand against the back of his head.

“There’s only one thing. We’ve got to get Curt back to the brig before the captain learns he’s on the loose. I don’t see how it’s to be done without—
Mrs. Perrigord
,” he said whirling round, “
what are you doing
?”

“But, my own Henry,” protested Mrs. Perrigord, jumping involuntarily. Her face wrinkled up in anguish. “Oh, I do so hope I didn’t offend you! Reolly, I was only ringing the bell for the steward. Pierre Louys wants a bottle of champagne, you know, and you know it would be dreadfully rude if we didn’t kick-offer … But I reolly didn’t know which was the b-bell, so what could I do but ring
oll
the bells, you see …”

Morgan reeled. He dived and caught her arm just as she was about to press a last push-button, hitherto overlooked, and labelled “
Fire Alarm
.”

“Peggy,” he said, “if you ever showed any sense and speed, show ’em now. If those bells don’t bring down a mob, at least there’ll be a crowd of highbrows swarming in to see if things are all ready for the performance. At the moment, this is the safest place on the ship for Curt if you’ll do as I tell you. Black his face—fit him out in wig and whiskers …”

“I will, Captain!” said Peggy grimly. “The poor darling sha’n’t go back to that horrible old brig if
I
can help it. But what—?”

Morgan took her hands and looked her steadily in the eye.

“C
AN I TRUST YOU AND
C
URT HERE FOR JUST FIVE MINUTES
—just five minutes that’s all I ask—without your getting in more trouble. You
can
stay out of more trouble for five minutes, can’t you?”

“I swear it, Hank! But what are you going to do?”

“The skipper and I are going to take those papers back to that cabin before anybody discovers they’re gone. There’s no chance of being caught; the only chance and danger is here. Give me that emerald, Curt. I don’t know what’s happened or what it is, but we’ll take it back and be quit of the responsibility. Hand it over!”

“Are you stark, raving crazy?” shouted Warren. “I risk life and limb and my position in the Diplomatic Service to get the goods on a murdering crook, and now you ask me to hand back—”

Morgan lowered his voice, perceiving this was the only way of handling the matter, and fixed him with a hypnotic eye.

“This is subtle, Curt. A subtle, deep scheme, you see. We only pretend to do it. But the moth is in our net now. A pin, a cork, and a card, and we add him to our Baker Street collection! You see? You trusted the wit and resource of Lord Gerald in a tight spot; now trust it again … Eh? Ah, that’s it. That’s it, old chap. Papers all here? Good! And—er—go light on the whisky, will you, or what there is left of it, until we get back? Stout fellow … Now, remember, Peggy, you’ve promised there’ll be no trouble. I rely on you. Come on, Skipper … ”

He backed away gingerly, as a lion-tamer might swerve to get out of a cage. Mrs. Perrigord said she wanted to go with Henry. She insisted on going with Henry. Exactly how she was dissuaded from this intention Morgan never knew, since he and Valvick slid out a fraction of a second before the closing door.

The gangway was empty, although a more confused buzzing and laughing, mingled with the deep note of people shuffling chairs, swept down from the staircase up to the stage.

“Well,” remarked the skipper musingly, “we is de only two people left wit’ any sense, and ay don’t t’ink much of diss Lord Gerald, whoever he iss. Coroosh! Ay don’t believe de government off de United States need to care much about dat movie-film. Ay dunno if dey know it, but dey have bigger worries. All dey got to do iss send dat young Warren out in de Diplomatic Service and dey are going to have a war every week. It iss up to us. We got to save de situation.”

“We’ll save it, Skipper. Easy, now! … Damn it! Don’t walk like a crook! We’re only out for a stroll. Take these papers. Round the corner here. At least, thank the Lord
we’ve
kept out of trouble so far. If anybody saw Curt sneaking back to Kyle’s cabin, he’d be pounced on in a second. We haven’t got a chance to put Kyle’s papers back where they were—he’ll know there’s been a burglary—but at least there’ll be nothing missing. In the ensuing search
this
emerald … Look here, do you think somebody’s pinched it
back
from Sturton?”