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Title: Code
Author: L. Paul
Release date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73468]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1927
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CODE ***
The story of a criminal ship and a warning in
CODE
By L. Paul
There was a queer feeling about the ship. “Hush,” thought the man who
stood by the gangway. That was the apt word. A battered ship, a dirty
craft, small, obscene, unseaworthy, of foreign register. And silent--hush!
Grim faced men going about their business, sparing no word for him, though
they might have talked, he guessed, had they cared to.
This man who watched wore soiled dungarees. There was a day’s stubble of
beard on his thin face. His expression, when a passing man darted a look
at him, was blank. His eyes fell when other eyes probed him. He looked
over his shoulder at times, at the rotting dock in the small British port
of Beverstock near Liverpool, where this ship, the _Cora_, lay. He had
come aboard, nobody knew how. One moment, and the ship end of the gangway,
creaking as the current swayed the little tramp, was empty. The next
moment he was there. Nor did these others think it strange. They looked as
if this sudden yet stealthy approach was usual, an accustomed thing, an
item, strange perhaps to some, yet of little moment in their full lives.
The man in dungarees stood there till the first cheerful man he had seen
aboard rolled up, the stout chief engineer.
“That’s him,” said the chief, and tapped him on the shoulder.
The man winced, turned, and saw, climbing the steep gangway, a man.
“That’s him,” repeated the stout chief. “Captain Bain.”
The man in dungarees saw a tall, glum seafarer, with graying hair, his
frowsy shore going linen peeping from sleeves of shiny serge, his lapels
greasy; his boots polished long after polish had become a mockery; and,
topping all, a master’s cap.
This was Captain Bain, right enough. He stopped, stared at the man in
dungarees and said briefly--
“Where from?”
“American Bar,” the man in dungarees replied.
“Come this way,” said the captain. “My name’s Bain. This is my cabin. We
can talk here. Out on deck talk’s barred in port. Who sent you?”
He fell silent, not because he waited for the answer, but more as if he
had run down, as if this long speech had been an effort, a breaking down
of his accustomed reserve. The man in dungarees waited, as if expecting
him to say more, then at last replied:
“Who sent me? Dip Laplace.”
He fumbled in the pocket of his dungarees and found a wad of crumpled
paper.
“He sent this, too.”
The captain of the _Cora_ took the paper, opened it, held it up to the
beam of light that stole through the grimy port. The man in dungarees sat
down on a locker.
“My name’s Drake,” he remarked.
His eyes were fixed on the captain. He saw a wave of color sweep up over
old Bain’s weatherbeaten neck, into his cheeks, then recede again.
What the captain read, spelling out large printed words, was this:
Sparklers--they’re wise--watch.
The captain of the _Cora_ crumpled the paper in his hand.
“You read this, of course?”
“I’m no liar. I did, of course,” the man in dungarees mimicked him. “As I
said, my name’s Drake--”
“And this paper?”
“I’ve forgotten what was on it,” Drake told him.
“Dip gave it to you. Dip grows jocular,” the captain laughed harshly. “Are
you another of his jokes?”
“I am a passenger.”
“I don’t carry passengers.”
“My kind? Dip sent me, remember.”
“You know then; you have money?”
Drake spread five fifty-pound notes out on his knee.
“As bad as that?” The captain whistled. “You could swank aboard a liner
for that.”
“And swank off across the pond?”
The captain stroked his long jaw reflectively. His eyes wandered over
Drake’s face, stopped for a moment on the wall clock above his head,
dropped to the pile of treasury notes and dwelt there.
“As bad as that?” said the captain of the _Cora_. “Not murder?”
“No, Dip sent me. He knows. Need you?”
“Need I? God forbid. Can you swim?”
“Yes, why?”
“You’ll have to. I see you don’t know the game we play. Better learn
before I take your money. You find it--convenient--to travel informally,
to land on the other side incognito-- No, your name may be Drake, and I
don’t care if it is or not. Names don’t count here. But you wish to land
as Drake, unknown to anyone. We arrange that. No immigration folk to
pester you. No police. We sail for Montreal. Below that city fifty miles
or so are islands. Sometimes we go slowly through them, close to land. An
active swimmer, dropping overside--you have more money, have you not?”
“Yes, Captain, a little.”
“There’s a man on one island, there. He has a boat. If you give him more
than five pounds, he’s robbing you. After that your movements are not my
concern.”
Again, as the captain paused, Drake had that strange feeling that here was
a man talking overmuch--a man more fond of silence.
“And that’s all?” Drake asked. “Simple, isn’t it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I feared I’d have to work my passage, and I’m lazy.”
The captain of the _Cora_ reached for the little pile of notes.
“A man must live,” he growled, as if apologizing for his delinquencies. “A
man must live, and there’s no money in tramp shipping. You’ll find a small
cabin on the port side--the empty one. It’s yours. We sail with the tide.
If you come on deck before that and are nabbed--” he patted his pocket
where he had stowed those notes--“that’s your lookout, Drake.”
Drake rose and crossed the little cabin. At the threshold he paused.
“Those other cabins--”
“You are three. The others, you won’t meet till we are at sea.”
Drake stepped out, dropped down a steep iron stair to the deck, slid into
the port alley, where tiny doors formed a row, tried first one, then
another, till he found one unlocked, entered, and found himself in a cabin
so small that it could scarcely contain a bunk and its occupant at the
same time.
Men had watched him--shadowy figures, heads out of the galley, the
engine-room, the firehold. They had said nothing, betrayed no surprise at
his coming. They were silent men.
“Hush!”
* * * * *
The salt wind drifted across the deck of the _Cora_. She was wallowing in
the Atlantic.
Drake and the fat chief sat in the lee of the funnel. They had struck up
an acquaintance during the first half of the voyage. Drake had traveled;
he knew things. The fat chief, a jovial rascal, had the curiosity of a
child and a stout man’s zest for effortless, vicarious adventure.
The two other passengers had kept apart. There was Quayle, as yet sticking
close to his cabin, save at mealtimes when he joined Drake at the
captain’s table. He had given that name, Quayle, casually, as if it had
just occurred to him, as if names were matters of only passing importance.
He was a tall, silent man, middle-aged.
The third passenger messed with the crew. He was a small Liverpool dock
rat. He claimed that he had not killed his wife, but had only beaten her.
The captain, after discreetly calling up a hospital, found that this was
true. Because he had but twenty pounds they had taken him for that. He
never came up on the boat deck; he viewed the ocean with ignorant terror
and kept behind the high steel bulwarks of the well deck, when he came out
for air.
The chief, having a romantic mind, decided that the Liverpool man’s wife
would probably take a turn for the worse and die. He held that the other
passenger, Quayle, was a Bolshevik.
The chief and Drake sat there and yarned through the long sea morning.
“A rum ship,” Drake hazarded.
“We are that,” the chief grinned, “at home to rum company.”
“True, but you know each other; we don’t, we passengers.”
“Five new faces in the ship’s company,” the chief laughed. “Ye see, we
can’t keep ’em. We ship so many passengers that it has made _their_ pile
easy, or on the way to make it easy. It corrupts the lads. Five new
faces--five old ’uns gone to do likewise--on the trail o’ easy money. Man,
dear, ’tis restless labor is getting to be--”
“Eight of us, new chums, not knowing each other--for five and three is
eight.”
Drake stared out to sea.
“Eight souls,” sighed the chief. “Where they comes from. Gawd only knows.
Where they’re bound, Gawd don’t care; speakin’ more exact, nine. For I’d
forgot Sparks.”
Drake glanced forward. The tall radio man was in his hencoop, a scant
twenty feet away. The door was open.
“Why him?”
“Another bird o’ passage. D’ye notice his duds?”
“New and fancy.”
“Know what the pay is? Man, dear, if he bought them out of wages, he’s
never had smoke nor drink in years. Ever see a tramp’s wireless wonder
before? No. Know what I think? He’s an absconding Scot. He figured we’d
soak him hard for an unconventional passage. You know what you paid, so--”
The chief closed his eyes and gave the details of his imaginative romance
in a few low words:
“Sparks gets him a uniform. Eighty bob, mebbe; or steals one. He finds out
we’re gettin’ a new radio man this voyage. An’ then, back in port some
poor dub brass pounder is wakin’ up, mebbe in hospital. And this
sport--well, he’s on the papers as Sparks, but we lose our dividend on his
passage thereby.”
“So you figure him, as you might say, a jailbird of passage.”
Drake had raised his voice. The chief clutched his arm.
“Don’t ye now; don’t rile that one. Man, dear, every time that devilish
contraption spits sparks I shudder. Think o’ the slander yon lad could
spread and nobody knowin’.”
“Slander?”
“Slander ’bout--you--or me, M’Ginley. Oh, aye, there’s tales he could
tell, even if he’s new. Would ye believe it?” The old chief rose. “Ye
might not; but some o’ the lads aboard here has loose tongues. A thing I
abhor, personal.” And off the old man waddled.
Drake sat there a moment. He was thinking:
“I wonder. Another little swimmer when we come to that island? Will there
be four of us in the water? Will the fourth be Sparks? If so--best watch
him.”
Rising, he added a codicil to this conclusion.
“There’s nine aboard, counting myself,” he thought, “nine that may be,
well, anything. Best start figuring this one out. That’ll leave eight. And
one of the eight is me, Drake. Wonder what I’ll be, when we come to the
end of the voyage?”
He glanced aft. The stout chief engineer was there, where he had paused on
the stair that led below.
“Them that don’t talk here,” said M’Ginley, “them that don’t talk on this
ship--they guesses.”
* * * * *
Drake slipped forward till he stood by the open door of the wireless coop.
The new Sparks looked up.
“Want anything?” he asked.
“Just loafing round.” Drake rolled a cigarette slowly, clumsily. “Smoke?”
“Yes.”
The wireless man reached for pouch and papers, twisted with swift fingers,
struck a match and was exhaling smoke, almost before Drake himself had
lighted up.
“You’ve been in the States?” Drake asked. “Learned to make a gasper there,
didn’t you?”
“And you’re from the old country, calling a cig that?”
“A good country to come from--and the faster the coming the better,” Drake
drawled. “Old country’s not--healthy.”
“For some.”
The wireless man bent over his complicated machinery, as it became alive.
Drake looked on, wonder in his eyes, almost a childish wonder.
“But that’s marvelous,” said he. “Words coming out of the air.”
“Dot dash dot dash,” said the wireless man. “See that smoke yonder? The
_Paladin_. She’s asking the _Caradoc_ if they’ve met ice. Bergs drifting
now, you know.”
Drake glanced at the wall clock, then drifted toward the door.
It was eleven o’clock. It was Wednesday--five days since they had left
port. This old ruin of a ship was traveling with speed.
The voice of the wireless man followed him.
“I’m Cray; come again,” he called. “This packet doesn’t run to rules.”
Drake turned. He seemed uneasy.
“If--” he began.
“If what?” Cray waited.
“If you hear something with that gadget about a man named Drake, the fewer
know--the better. Get me?”
“Don’t slip me money.” Cray’s hand met his, thrust it back. “You’ll need
all you got. A rum lot, on a rum ship.”
“And you as rum as they come,” thought Drake, as he walked away.
Cray watched him go.
“Wonder if he knew what was on the air just now,” he scowled. “If I shove
it to the Old Man will he--well, this time I’m a wireless man. Next time
we’ll see.”
To him, too, this strange ship was saying, “Hush!” Yet his pencil slid
over flimsy paper. He rose with a message, took it to the captain on the
bridge.
“Rum lot aboard, sir.” He handed the message over, winked.
The captain started, backed away into a wing of the bridge, scanned that
message.
“You are right,” he replied. “This came in code, I presume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why not leave it in code. We don’t want the world knowing.”
“Nobody’s seen it, sir, but me.”
“Damn you! That’s an order. Anything else comes, leave it in code.”
Cray went white and was about to speak. Then he checked himself. He walked
away; he was thinking.
“Him, too--the Old Man. Wonder what he knows that the world don’t, that
he’s afraid of the world learning? I’ll, maybe, find out. I’ll see.
Tonight, maybe. He might work in. Who knows?”
The captain, staring at the retreating back was staring at words that
floated before his eyes.
For that message had read:
All ships. All ships. All ships.
Varnavosk necklace stolen. Suspect at sea.
Watch passengers. Stand by for more.
--Scotland Yard.
The urgency of the thrice repeated “All ships”--that stabbed him, made him
wince. Trouble, trouble in large consignments, coming out of the air.
Other messages, and the field of search might narrow, perhaps, till it
centered on an old tramp wallowing across the Western Ocean; till some
swift offshore craft might draw alongside, and some officious jackanapes
would climb up the ladder and ask fool questions about eight new faces
aboard the _Cora_.
There was trouble on the ship that said, “Hush.”
The captain walked stiffly across the bridge and down to his cabin. Cray,
on the boat deck, watched him go.
“Yes, we’ll use you, my bucko,” said Cray. “Now I wonder--” and he stared
down on the well deck, forward, where the little Liverpool passenger
sprawled on a hatch cover.
“You’ve got a shiner on your eye, my lad,” thought Cray, “and you mess
with the crew. They’ll be eating any moment now. I think we’d better not
wait. We’ll begin with you.”
He followed the old captain of the _Cora_ to his cabin.
When the passengers who messed with the skipper came in to lunch, that
worthy’s chair was vacant. Cray it was who greeted them, smiling at Drake,
bowing stiffly to tall Quayle.
“Old Man’s busy,” said Cray. “Don’t wait for him, gentlemen.”
* * * * *
That was Wednesday. On Thursday the fat engineer M’Ginley sought the warm
lee of the funnel once more. Drake was there, waiting.
“I made my peace with Cray. If he was mad about what I said, he didn’t
show it.”
“A bad case,” the fat old chief growled. “There’s more in this ship than
ballast. There’s a mystery.”
“Eight little mysteries,” Drake jeered, “of which one is my humble self.
Maybe nine, counting Cray. Or ten--”
“What you alludin’ to now?”
“You, honest old M’Ginley.”
“Me? Man could see clean through me.” The chief winked at him. “But look
at this code; and all that pencilin’ under it is writ by the most talented
engineer on the Western Ocean.”
Drake glanced down at the flimsy bit of paper. He saw first a jumble of
phrases and part words. But below that a penciled legend made sense.
All ships.
Varnavosk dying. Look for strong man capable killing bare-handed.
No signature this time.
“Where’d you get this?”
Drake stiffened. He glanced forward uneasily; but Cray’s blind was drawn
on the little window of his cabin. Cray’s door was shut.
“Where’d you think? Notice the Old Man yesterday and today?” the old chief
asked. “Well, he’s fair wild. He come down this mornin’ an’ asks me to
trot along, confidential. We goes to that wife beatin’ runt’s cabin. The
runt is out on deck. Old Man and me, we rip up the floorboards, we pry
apart the bunk.”
“Looking for what?”
“He wouldn’t tell at first. Then, when we found nothin’, he begun to rave
about jewelry. Him, that’s carried such downan’-outs before, lookin’ for
jewelry in that cabin. Told me to shut up. Left me standin’ on air, like.
So I mooched. Half an hour ago Cray comes down with this. Old Man looks
her over, puzzles her out. He was standin’ by his cabin. Next he dives in,
grabs somethin’, pockets it--an’ comes out again. Know what he grabbed?”
“No.”
“His gun. Me, I grabs somethin’ else. This. Now you know as much as I do,
unless you know more.”
Drake stared at him, then dropped his eyes.
“And if I do?”
“Cray and the Old Man know a heap. My guess is there’s been robbery; and
now it looks like murder. Like as not the search’ll narrer down. Scotland
Yard ain’t manned by fools. Like as not there’ll be other messages.
Liverpool runt’s been cleared. He don’t pack no valuables. There’s seven
new faces aboard beside him, leavin’ Cray out. If things gets hot and they
start to search the lot--well--him that has them jewels is like to swing.”
“Unless--” Drake seemed to be master of himself now--“unless!”
“Unless the lad slipped ’em to a good natur’d old fool of an engineer.
There’s places below.” Old M’Ginley winked. “Well, if you meet the man
aboard here, you tell him.”
“Thanks, I will. Cray’s blind’s gone up.” Drake rose. “I’m going to have a
chin with him.”
“If there’s one thing more’n another has hanged fool men, it’s words,”
M’Ginley warned, and left him.
* * * * *
Cray grinned as Drake opened the door.
“You--you heard anything?” Drake asked, nervously.
“Nothing.”
“Thought, maybe, some message might have drifted in; seen you writing a
while back.”
“There was,” Cray laughed. “Fool operator on the _Jessamine_ was askin’ me
if I’d bought my girl that diamond yet.”
Drake stood by the table, his lean fingers clasped about its beveled edge.
Cray, watching covertly, smiled. That table was shaking, though it was
fastened to the floor.
“You’re a strong man, ain’t you?” Cray asked.
“There’s stronger aboard this packet,” Drake answered tonelessly. “Where’d
the Old Man dig up those new sailormen? Two of them I saw this morning,
ramming at that bent stanchion that supports this deck. Take four of me to
make one of them.”
“That’s an idea,” Cray smiled, as if relishing his chance to play with
this man.
“What is?” Drake frowned. “Makin’ one of them from four of me?”
“Then there’s Quayle; he’s husky, too. Well, beef don’t count with me.”
Cray shoved a chair forward. “Want to listen in?”
He reached for an extra headset, plugged in, adjusted it for Drake, then
watched him, keenly, as some faint message came.
“So that’s what it sounds like?” Drake looked up. “I’ve often wondered.”
But Cray was busy, writing. His pencil fairly shook as it sped over the
paper.
“What’s that?”
Drake looked over his shoulder. Too late, Cray shoved a hand over what he
had written, for Drake had seen, seen plainly, the uncompleted sentences:
All ships.
Varnavosk died this morning.
Communicate with us if....
“You seen, hey?” Cray fidgeted, seemed annoyed; yet he might be
pretending. He was, at any rate, ill at ease.
“You seen? Well, what’s a Russky more or less to you or me? Don’t tell the
Old Man I showed you. The others came in code. This one’s plain English.
Best beat it; I’ve got to take this to the Old Man.”
Drake got up and walked silently out. On the threshold Cray stopped him
with:
“Ever know any Russians, Drake? Some of them is big men--hard fighters.
Take a powerful man to handle them.”
“Meaning--” Drake spun about fiercely-- “Meaning--”
“You know more’n you let on,” Cray laughed. “Thought I’d catch you. You
know who Varnavosk was, owner of the Varnavosk necklace? You know why he’s
dead--”
Drake rolled a cigaret with his usual clumsiness.
“What mobsman doesn’t know?” he asked. “Come, come, Cray. You know what
sort we passengers are on this dirty little ship. Know Varnavosk and his
necklace? Who does not, in my walk of life? What gang but has had their
eyes on him and his jewels? And now, that a cleverer man than myself has
pulled the trick--”
“So you’re a crook,” Cray jeered. “So--”
Drake smiled pleasantly.
“Did you think me a lily?” Drake was composed now. “Imagination’s a grand
thing, Cray. Sometimes it leads men into trouble, though. You’ve been
reading dime novels.”
Drake walked away. Cray watched him go aft along the boat deck and down
the steep stairs.
“You’ll worry, my man,” growled Cray. “Now, what’s next. Liverpool swine
is ruled out. That fool of a skipper--a child could see through him. He’s
ripped that dub’s cabin to pieces. At this rate he’ll have the whole ship
torn apart, every manjack on edge. Not one’ll get by him without him
poking and prying. And he’s fool enough to make a bad break. So, we’re
five days from port, and--”
He stared at that last message, which he had left incomplete. With a swift
pencil he ended it.
All ships, westbound. Communicate with us if you have news. Proceed with
caution.
--Scotland Yard
“And that,” said Cray to himself, as he took the message to the captain of
the _Cora_, “that’ll hold him for a while. This ship is jammed full of
_strong men_.”
“So you can’t find him, the thief,” Cray jeered.
There was no deference in his tone, no respect. Here he sat in the Old
Man’s cabin and yarned away as if such a thing as discipline had ceased to
exist.
“The thief? He’s been a murderer for two days.” Old Bain scowled at him.
“You have me nigh crazy. First we rip up that little rat’s cabin--”
“That was you; I just hinted--” Cray began.
“Hinted like you did when that message came about lookin’ for a strong man
who could kill barehanded!”
“A strong man; you’ve found several,” Cray retorted. “Was it me said it
might be one of those two sailors? Oh, yes. I admit I didn’t contradict
you. I’ll say I let you have your way, do your own crude sleuthing,
searching that forecastle. Don’t you know that sailormen are a neat lot,
even such scum as this? They know this moment that you have been prodding
about. And now you say--”
“You put things into my mind, damn you!” The Old Man glowered at him. “I
thinks things, and says things, and there ain’t no reason to them when
said and thought. They ain’t my thoughts; they ain’t my actions, an’--”
“Mine, of course, hey? I do it all? Mebbe I did this. This came today.”
Cray shoved a sheet of paper at him. The Old Man ran his eye over a jumble
of code, then reached for his book, translated.
“You know what it is?” He lifted his head and stared at Cray. “You know--”
“All ships? No, not this time. The search has narrowed down,” Cray grated.
“This one is:
“Ships outward bound, Beverstock. Man aboard you. Hold him.”
“Which means--” The skipper of the luckless _Cora_ waited.
“Us!” Cray’s face was tense. “Scotland Yard--they’ve got a line on us;
they’re closing in on their man.”
“And when--when some detective comes up the ladder-- We’re nigh into St.
Lawrence Gulf--” the Old Man stared out of the grimy port--“When the
showdown comes.”
“Never such a ship for secrets as this,” Cray said. “They’ll come for one.
They’ll find a heap.”
“You, for instance,” the captain suggested.
“Sure, me an’ you. Think I’m sweating over this just for fun? Think I give
a damn if they get their man? Me? Hell, no! I got my reasons; so have you.
They’ll come aboard with the pilot, maybe. They’ll begin poking round.
Unless--”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the man’s ready for them. Then, it’s a pat on the back and a clean
bill of health for you; and, ‘Thanks, my noble radio man; your message was
music to our honest ears,’ for me.” Cray stopped.
“And so--”
Cray leaned closer.
“Get this. There’s two men we ain’t searched yet--Drake and Quayle. Either
one, mebbe--”
The old captain rose.
“We’ll start with Quayle, eh?” He made for the door, but he stopped,
turned. “You put that into my head, damn ye!”
“What if I did?” Cray cried. “What if I did? Since you have no detective
aboard, what price Cray, hey?”
“What price Cray? I’ll tell ye. I’d as soon to God we had a detective
aboard,” the captain growled. “That’s what price Cray!” He stumped out.
The wireless man got up slowly and idled about the cabin as if it were his
own. That last remark of the skipper’s had hit him.
“A detective,” said Cray softly. “Maybe we have, at that, my brave old
sea-dog. Maybe we have, at that.”
He followed the captain on deck and twitched his sleeve. He drew him into
a corner.
“I’ll do this next job myself,” said Cray.
“You mean Quayle?”
“Him. You better stick to your knitting. Talk like a human being at lunch,
keep that solemn-faced, secretive Quayle there, until-- You ever figure
there’ll maybe be a reward for them diamonds?”
“Reward?” The old captain of the _Cora_ snorted. “Reward? If I can sleep
again o’ nights, that’ll be reward enough.”
“I could do with a good sleep myself,” Cray laughed. “I might sleep
through lunch hour, while Quayle’s cabin is empty.”
* * * * *
Morning again and bright sunlight on the Gulf. Tomorrow would see the
pilot coming aboard at Father Point. Tomorrow would see, well, something
rather ghastly to men who clutched secrets close, who feared the eye of
the law.
But today the sun shone. Drake and the old engineer sat there by the
funnel.
Old M’Ginley was sleepy. A bearing had been heating. He had not yet been
to bed. He had come up for a whiff of fresh air. He was soon wide awake,
for Drake, leaning over, whispered--
“I’ve been thinking what you said.”
“I said a heap, laddie.”
“About hiding things.”
He opened his dungaree suit. The old man saw a long thin packet of brown
paper, sealed with wax, tied with many intricate knots.
“I’ve been thinking--and whispering a bit,” Drake went on.
“Oh, aye, doubtless.”
M’Ginley’s eyes glinted. A chief engineer, he knew, could hide things,
where nobody, not even the man who had trusted them to him, could find
them.
“Oh, aye,” he repeated, “something else has whispered, me bold lad. Fear
has, I’m thinking.”
Drake’s face was blank.
“I told the person what you said. There’s been funny work. Cray and the
skipper searching yesterday, today, all cabins but mine. Tomorrow--”
“Perhaps yours. Tomorrow the pilot and--”
The old man too was leaning closer. The packet passed.
“If a knot’s untied, or a seal broken--my--my friend says there’ll be no
split,” Drake grated.
“Unless he goes where splittin’ is hard, save he split rocks,” M’Ginley
laughed, and he drew back. “That bearin’--it needs a pile o’ lookin’
after.”
He lumbered away. Drake sat there. The man Quayle, the silent, secretive
Quayle came up on deck. He walked along. He bent over Drake. He whispered
something. Drake sprang to his feet. Quayle was of an age with him, taller
by a head, powerfully built.
Both the captain, staring down from the bridge, and Cray, peering out of
his little window, saw Drake’s fist shoot out--a blow that seemed but to
glance off Quayle’s jaw. Yet Quayle fell, lay there, knocked out.
Drake walked forward. He beat on Cray’s door with his fists, crying:
“What kind of a ship’s this? What sort o’ man are you?
Blabbin’--blabbin’--”
The captain, clutching the bridge rail, leaned over and bawled:
“You keep still, mister. What’s wrong with ye? One more crack like that
and--”
He paused. Tomorrow, when the pilot and whoever else was waiting came
aboard, he would no longer have the power, save to stand dumbly by and
watch.
But now, now Cray had his door open and was talking to the enraged Drake.
And Drake, calming himself by an effort, was being drawn inside. The
captain wished that this strange man Cray would leave that door open. He
hoped, at least, that afterward he would tell him frankly what now was
going on.
Inside, Cray was talking swiftly:
“What’d he say? Did he tell you I was blabbing?”
“Blabbing. What talking’s been done--” Drake paused, as if uncertain.
“Forget it. A man don’t like to be told he’s like to swing. I’m hot
headed. I figured mebbe you’d told him what was in that cablegram--the one
about Varnavosk bein’ dead--mebbe more, too. But--”
“_Forget it_ is right.”
Cray was acting strangely. Yesterday he had told the captain that the
murderer, supposedly on their ship, must be either Quayle or Drake. Now he
seemed to have shifted his views, unless he wished to lull Drake into a
state of false security.
“Forget it is right,” he grinned, reaching for the spare headset, already
adjusted to fit Drake. “Want to listen in a spell? I’m goin’ out for a
breather. If you hear anything funny call me.”
Drake hesitated.
“What you planning to do?”
“Nothing,” Cray answered. “Be a sport. Most men’d get hot if you come
ravin’ at ’em; but me, I’m different. You set there. Forget it!”
“I’ll try,” Drake scowled. “If the Old Man says anything about that row
with Quayle, you tell him it’s an old score we were settling.”
“Right!”
Cray crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut. Drake listened as he
walked down the deck; he heard other footsteps. Out of the window he
caught a glimpse of the captain’s gray head, then the boatswain,
supporting a limp Quayle toward the stair.
“I wonder--” Drake frowned at the wireless set--“what’s their next move.
And old M’Ginley--what’s he doing?”
Old M’Ginley, cutting loose cord after cord, breaking through wax seals,
was opening that brown paper parcel.
What he found turned him into a covetous old man, who thought furiously.
Finally, one hand fondling his pocket, he climbed heavily down ladders to
his own peculiar domain.
* * * * *
Once more Cray faced the old skipper in his cabin.
“You saw that?” Bain was eager. He sensed, at last, the end of this
mystery. “You saw that Drake and heard him howl about blabbing!”
“Yes,” Cray scoffed. “Heard a heap; but I’m not taking that for gospel.”
“It must be him. You found nothing in Quayle’s cabin?”
“Not yet,” Cray answered. “I’m figuring on looking again. Know what I
think? They’re both in the theft, if not the murder. Take those names.
Both birds’ names--Quayle and Drake--ain’t they? Sort of funny, them both
choosing the same sort of monikers for this trip. Like one had thought of
one, and the other had followed suit. Crooks are like that.”
The captain gazed at him speculatively.
“Cray--crayfish--another zoölogical name. Well, go on. You don’t pass as
an honest man, Cray. Lay to that. You’re no better, if no worse, than the
rest aboard this packet. What were you going to say?”
“I got an idea they been passing that necklace from one to t’other,” Cray
explained. “They had hard words. What if Quayle had it last, after I
searched his dump? What if he wouldn’t hand over, an’ Drake--I been
working on him, scaring him--if Drake, I say, figured Quayle was goin’ to
gyp him? How about that? Mebbe Quayle ain’t scared of getting caught. I
searched his dump careful. He may figure he ain’t suspected no more. He
may think, if he is suspected, that we don’t know how to search right. And
Drake, figurin’ he’s losin’ out, gets mad.”
The captain shook his head. Father Point was getting closer. Morning and
the pilot would come, and with them--well, iron bars, perhaps; certainly a
lost ticket and a lot of trouble. A man couldn’t account for three extra
men on his ship--and such men.
“I don’t know. If we miss this time--” He paused.
“We’ll search both cabins,” Gray broke in, “and both at once. You take
Quayle’s; I’ll go for Drake’s. We’ll win this time.”
The captain stared at him.
“We’ll do it; but how?”
“Easy,” Cray smiled. “That worthless old chief engineer--let him tag on to
Drake. They are thick, anyway. As for Quayle--he’s battered up, ain’t he?
Or if he ain’t exactly battered, he’s shook. Take a couple of men, drag
him out, say you’re givin’ him your room, more light an’ air. Sure, he’ll
suspect, but what can he do? Take them two big sailormen.”
“It might be; but when? Drake sticks below of afternoons.”
“Tomorrow morning we got a couple of hours,” Cray went on. “When we find
that necklace--”
“We give it up, and get clear of--”
“Like hell! We keep it!” Cray corrected him. “Or I keep it. Never mind
how. I’ll pin the job on one of them. Don’t you worry.”
The captain stared at him, aghast.
“But they’ll search the ship.”
“Let ’em. They won’t find it.” Cray got up. “I left Drake in my monkey-
house. Best get him out of there. Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow.”
The captain looked out the door, as Cray opened it. The hills of the south
shore of the Gulf stood out grim and gray, somber, all shadow. Tomorrow.
Well, sooner it comes, sooner over.
* * * * *
The two big sailors dragged Quayle, protesting, out of his cabin. A
strangely ungrateful man he seemed. Up on the boat deck Drake heard the
row.
“What’s that?” he asked.
The old chief, M’Ginley, leaned closer.
“Them--them diamonds,” he whispered.
“How’d you know. You’ve broke the seals,” Drake accused.
M’Ginley shrank back.
“Me? What you think? Ain’t I acted straight with you?”
“You’d better.”
Drake thrust one hand inside his dungaree suit. Something bulged under his
arm. M’Ginley wasn’t looking at a paper packet this time.
“You go heeled; don’t blame ye,” he blustered. “Why pull a gun on me?
They’re searchin’ your cabin.”
He told this with the air of one revealing a previous secret.
“They won’t find nothin’.”
“Not in mine,” Drake grated, “but elsewhere, perhaps. You sit still. We’ve
been playing blind man’s buff overlong. You sit still. This is loaded, you
old fraud. You figure on holding out, hey? Look me in the eye, in ten
minutes, and maybe you’ll change your mind.”
M’Ginley quivered. He was gross mountain of a man, and shaking like jelly.
“Ten minutes. What you mean? Why--”
Drake rose.
“If you value your health, sit tight. If you don’t, I play a hard game.
I’ve an ace in the hole. A neat little ace, isn’t it, in its shoulder
holster. Sit where you are.”
The old man watched him as he walked, cat footed, to the stair, and as he
slowly disappeared down it.
“Some one is goin’ to catch plain hell,” said he, “but it won’t be me,
M’Ginley. Mebbe, when they finish their rough stuff there’ll be a nice
corpse for Scotland Yard and--what’s hid below for M’Ginley.”
But M’Ginley was not down in the alleyway; and it was there that things
were due to happen.
First the old captain’s voice, as he cried through the thin partition
between Drake’s cabin and Quayle’s:
“Come here, for God’s sake, Cray! I found somethin’...”
Cray, running in from Drake’s cabin, saw a velvet covered case, long,
narrow, bound with precious metal.
The captain laughed in relief.
“Got our man.”
“Where--where’d you find that?”
“There!” The captain kicked a disreputable handbag. “In the lining, sewn
in. I felt it, first shot. Now--”
“Open it, open it,” Cray urged. “Let’s see.”
“It’s locked some way; but--”
Old Bain’s strong fingers wrapped themselves about the slim thing of metal
and velvet. The cords of his wrists stood out for a moment. Then the case
was open, cracked like a walnut shell. It was empty. The captain glared at
the fragments in his hands. Cray, leaning closer, muttered:
“Never mind. Hang on to that. It’s evidence, ain’t it? Quayle--he’ll tell
more, when them detectives get after him. He’ll talk. Man can shorten his
stretch that way. Unless--” he thrust his face close to the captain’s
--“unless we find them diamonds, ourselves. Then, this’d do for Quayle;
they’d take him on the strength of this. And we’d--”
“To hell with the diamonds!” In the old skipper’s voice was relief.
“This’ll do for me. You keep your gab shut, mister. The least you know the
best, I’ve got Quayle locked in my cabin. He’ll stay there. If trouble
comes aboard, it comes for him, personal. Not me, nor you, if you’re wise.
You stop snooping round for them diamonds. I won’t have it, I tell you.
First thing there’ll be a murder--another murder.”
Cray, his voice edged, face pale, sneered:
“Changed your tune, hey? Now you found this useless junk, you figure
you’ll let them diamonds go, hey? But you figure without Cray. I’ll have
this ship apart, if need be, but I’ll lay hands on them stones. I’ll--”
“You’ll go easy!” Captain Bain thundered. He was becoming himself rapidly
now. “You’ll keep quiet. There’s others besides Quayle can be locked in
their cabins, and nothing said of it. And I’m master of this ship, by
God!”
“And if--” Cray smiled, though he was still under tension, although that
smile was not a pleasant one. “If I told you the truth, would you sing
small, I wonder?”
“Truth? My God! Truth?” the badgered skipper rasped. “You tell the truth?
What in hell are you, to tell the truth?”
“A detective,” said Cray softly, “a detective.”
The captain stared, at first unbelieving; then he wilted. Too many little
things on Cray’s side. The chances were that he might be. Certainly he’d
acted like one at times. And if he were, what of the _ Cora_, of her
secret sins?
“A detective?” he gasped.
From behind Cray came another voice; the cabin door swung open.
“A detective? That’s fine; for there are two of us, then, my dear Cray.”
It was Drake. He had his gun. In that tiny cabin a gun in the hand meant
mastery. Drake closed the door after him. His gun covered Cray. He
disregarded the old captain. Indeed, old Bain hadn’t an ounce of trouble
making left in him. He was a crushed man. Not one detective, but two! Not
one man, who might conceivably be bribed, but two, each knowing his little
immigrant game, and, what was worse, each knowing that the other knew. He
slumped down on the single bunk. He stared from Cray to Drake, from Drake
to Cray. He shook his gray head sadly.
Cray, snarling, turned on him.
“A hell of a captain! Don’t you see his game? His turn to hang on to them
diamonds. He figures we’ll search his room next; likely found out I’d been
searching it. He’s desperate.”
“And a strong man, Cray, which you are not.”
Drake reached out suddenly with his left hand, caught both Cray’s thin
wrists, brought his hands together. Then with his right hand he laid his
revolver on the bunk.
“Which you are not, Cray, my man,” said Drake.
The captain heard steel jingle, then saw it flash. He heard a faint click.
Drake turned to him.
“We’ll adjourn to your cabin, Captain. This is a bit crowded.”
Glumly the old skipper obeyed. Cray stood there, handcuffed, silent now,
as if with the snapping of the steel handcuffs had gone from him his last
chance.
They stumbled out into the alleyway, Drake’s steady hand on Cray’s elbow.
As Cray walked along, men eyed him. He scowled at the first; his face was
blank as he passed a second. But when the third man stared, he smiled
cockily. He was on parade and would be on parade until Drake and his kind
had done their best, or worst. He must act out his part, confidence in
every look, every gesture. That was his code; he would follow it.
Despite the reason for his captivity, there was a certain desperate
gallantry about Cray, as Drake led him off, handcuffed, to the captain’s
cabin. He even managed to whisper, as they climbed the steep iron stairway
to the boat deck:
“A pretty job, Drake; if your feet didn’t look it, nobody’d take you for a
dick. Only thing is you got the wrong man.”
“Have I?” Drake asked. “Have I? Maybe it’s Quayle should be wearing
these.”
Cray kept silent at that, as if reluctant to tell; as if, now the enemy
had appeared in his true form, he were changing his whole tune; as if
those under the law’s suspicion must close up their ranks and stick
together.
“Quayle--there he is in the cabin,” Drake went on. “I’ll be bound, he’ll
be glad to see us. You see, Quayle’s my partner, Cray.”
* * * * *
Drake and the old captain were alone. Quayle had taken Cray away, had
locked him up, was keeping an eye on him. Drake had remained with Bain. He
was talking jerkily, as if thinking back over this business, partly
because he rather plumed himself on the way it had been managed and partly
because he feared, should he stop, what would follow. Old Captain Bain,
there, lips moving, eyes downcast was probably going over the sins of a
long and pettily wicked life. Probably, as soon as he got the chance, he’d
pour out a flood of confessions and would incriminate himself hopelessly
in a dozen dark matters.
Drake, a one idea man, busy with that one idea, didn’t have time, or, to
do him justice, inclination for the rôle of father confessor to the
captain of the _Cora_. So he talked, like a man talking against time,
elliptically, as things came into his head. And the captain half
listening, heard:
“Began at Dip’s American Bar. Bless you, we at the Yard have known your
little game for years, Captain. Began at Dip’s, when this robbery thing
broke, we traced a motor car within a mile of his place. From then on,
well, it was chance and luck and, if I may say it, psychology. We came
aboard, Quayle and I, separately. We looked about, used our eyes, wormed
in where we could. We had no idea what the man was like, what he had done
before. We just played a hunch that he was aboard. Began with you--
“Remember that little note I brought you, ostensibly from Dip? Well, that
told me a lot. Bless you, Bain, you aren’t the murdering, thieving sort. I
ruled you out, right then. But, to go on. You remember when the thing
broke aboard? That first message?”
“Yes,” the old man nodded glumly, “I won’t forget. ’Twas as if some big,
horrible eye was lookin’ all over, slow but steady. An’ I knew that sooner
or later it’d stop on us; and then, o’ course--”
“That,” Drake laughed, hastily breaking in, “that was the intention. I
arranged for that wireless. Scotland Yard? Well, we at the Yard don’t
broadcast what we know, unless we want it known for a damned good reason.
I had that wireless sent. Fixed it up in the hour I had between trailing
the car to Dip’s and coming aboard here. That was my bombshell.”
“But--” the captain stared at him, puzzled--“how’d you--you didn’t know it
was Cray you wanted?”
“What I wanted was a disturbance. If he wasn’t in the business he’d
perhaps talk. If he hadn’t talked, I could fulfill that omission and blame
it on him. I wanted every manjack aboard here to know that diamonds had
been stolen, that Scotland Yard--they don’t sign themselves that way, I
might confess--were on the trail. The rest--well, ever throw a rock into a
pool? The ripples follow each other to shore. The rest was plain Cray. I’d
struck it lucky. Those other messages--he made ’em up, every one.”
“But why--why?” The Old Man was incredulous.
“His game.” Drake laughed. “First half of the voyage, well, Cray was lying
low. He knew his job, you see. He figured on passing as the regular
wireless man; but he didn’t know his ship, or its company, and he didn’t
like that company, when he looked ’em over. So he carried the necklace in
his pocket, like a pipe or a handkerchief. Well, the day after that first
bombshell of a message came, he felt for the diamonds--and they were
gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, never mind how.”
Drake got up, walked across to the old skipper of the _Cora_, flipped one
agile hand across his vest and dangled his watch, chain and seals before
his eyes.
“Like that,” Drake laughed. “Well, to get on, there he was, this Cray,
with those jewels gone and nothing for his pains. So he began to get
mysterious messages. Bit by bit suspicion formed, centered, first on this
one, then on that one. You played right into his hands, Captain. You had
me worried. I was afraid you two would run out of suspects before we made
our landfall.”
“You mean he deliberately had me on?” The captain shook his head. “No--if
’twas just theft--but murder--You mean this man let me think we had a
murderer aboard, let me know it, when he could have kept it dark--and him
the guilty one? Man don’t tie his own hang-man’s knot, mister, not even to
get back diamonds.”
“There was no murder.” Drake laughed, again. “That was just his artistic
touch. No fool, Cray. He knew you’d rise to it. But you worried him. He
wanted to search every last cabin, but he also wanted to make the job hang
out till the last moment, in case you might show a rush of brain to the
head and get to suspecting him. Well, you did it as he planned, between
you. Until, well, there were two of us left, Quayle and myself. Cray was
getting scared by now. So, when he searched Quayle’s cabin yesterday, he
planted the box that those diamonds had been in when he lifted them. Then
he worked things so that you would find it, not him.”
“But why?”
Drake stared at him. What use going on like this? How could this man, who
but half listened, understand, when even he saw some things but vaguely?
You threw a straw into the water, then a dozen more. If one of them taught
you anything of drift or eddy, you were content. When he spoke again his
voice was crisp and incisive.
“That fight. A fake of Quayle and me, in case Cray suspected us of working
together, as he did, eh? Just a precaution. It bothered him, as other
things did, too. His problem was twofold. Those stories, you see; the
wireless messages he was making up--they worked on him in the end, as well
as on you. He almost believed them, believed that they might have some
accidental truth in them. And, of course, he wanted his loot back. Safety
and loot; two ends to gain. If you had it, it was as good as his, for he’s
smooth and you--well, the thing’s plain, isn’t it? Notice how he gave in
at the end? No gunplay. Clever men don’t go in for that. Amateurish, that
sort of thing. Watch the papers later on and you’ll see how Cray fights
through his mouthpiece. Good criminal lawyers are rich men.”
“But why all this?” the captain growled. “You knew in mid-Atlantic that he
was your man. You had the stuff and could have nabbed him easily then and
there.”
“In my game a man never stops learning,” Drake told him. “You may believe
me, or not. Your ship said, ‘Hush.’ I wanted to make her talk, and Cray
did it for me, eh? I wanted to see what he’d do and how he’d do it. A
clever rogue he proved, but too imaginative.”
“So you raised hell with us, with me. Let me run round like a fool.”
The captain of the _Cora_ bit his lip, for who was he, standing in a
slippery place, to antagonize this detective. Drake looked at him
pityingly for a moment.
“You’re worried. You’re saying, ‘Now Drake’ll begin on me.’ The answer is,
of course, Drake won’t. I’ve known and the Yard’s known, for years. If
we’d wanted to, we could fill a gaol with you and your like; but what’s it
to us if now and then some petty thief gets away? Men like that Liverpool
rat. It’s the big, fat, long whiskered, clever rats we’re after. When they
come drifting along, flying the country, we know where to look.”
He turned toward the door.
“You run our rat trap, Captain. Why in the world should we spring it?”
The door opened as he put his hand on the knob. The fat engineer,
M’Ginley, crowded in. He laid something that gleamed and glittered on the
little table. Beside this he methodically piled brown paper, broken wax
seals, bits of cut and knotted string.
“Ye’ll bear witness,” said M’Ginley to the captain, “ye’ll bear witness,
I’m an honest man. There it all is, Mr. Drake, everything ye gave me. I’m
an honest man; and besides, there’s a ship comin’ up astern flyin’ the
blue ensign, with the Canadian coat-of-arms in the fly of it. I’m an
honest man. When they board us, ye’ll tell ’em so, doubtless?”
But Drake was not listening. Bending over the table, he was brushing coal
dust from the Varnavosk necklace.
THE END
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 15, 1927 issue of
_Adventure_ magazine.]
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