"And the Bermondsey Terror," said Morgan, "was up all night, and could see Kyle's door?"
"Dat iss right," agreed the captain. "And he swear nobody go down dere all night. So ay got somet'ing off my mind." He heaved a wheezy sigh.
Observing that Warren was about to construe this into further proof of Kyle's guilt, Morgan said, hastily: "You've accomplished lots of work before breakfast, Captain. Was there anything else? What's this you say about Woodcock knowing something?"
"Ah! Yes, yes. Ay almost forget!" The captain gave a mighty flip of his spoon. "But ay dunno yust what to make of it. Dat Woodcock iss a funny fallar, you bet. Efery time he talk business, he try to use de subtlety and den ay dunno what he iss talking about. But he say it iss a business proposition. He say he want to speak to Mr. Warren, and he got a deal to make if Mr. Warren will talk turkey. First, he knows what happen last night…"
"I'll bet he does," said Warren, grimly. "What's his version?"
"No, no, no! Dat iss de funny part. Ay t'ank he know most of it for sure, all except about de girl."
Warren seized the edge of the table. "You don't mean he knows about Uncle Warpus or that film?"
"Well, he knows somet'ing about a film, ay tell you dat. He iss a smart man. What all he know ay dunno, but he sort of hint he know plenty about diss crook." Valvick stroked his moustache, scowling. "You better talk to him. De point iss diss. He has invented something. It iss a bug-powder gun wit' a helectric light."
"A bug-powder gun with an electric light?" repeated Morgan, rather wildly. He dismissed the idea that this might be some singular kind of nautical metaphor. "What the hell is a bug-powder gun with an electric light? This strain is gradually sapping my mental powers. I'm going mad, I tell you. Skipper, haven't we got enough on our minds without you babbling about bug-powder guns and electric lights?"
"Ay am not babbling!" said the captain, with some heat. "Dat is yust what he tell me. Ay dunno how it vurk, but it iss somet'ing you use to kill de mosquitoes in de dark. He say it will refolutionise de bug-killing profession, and he iss going to call it de Mermaid. He say it can also be used on bedbugs, cockroaches, earwigs, caterpillars, red ants, horseflies… "
"I have no doubt," said Morgan, "that it will enable a good shot to bring down a cockroach at sixty yards. But get back to the subject. Whether or not it has something to do with us, we have more immediate concerns. Dr. Kyle, skipper, did not find the emerald in his cabin this morning. Thanks to you and the Bermondsey Terror, we've proved that the Blind Barber didn't get in to pinch it, either… That leaves the Perrigords. It's got to be the Perrigords. They're our last hope. Of course the Perrigords have got it! That's why Peggy is staying so long over there. _…"
Warren tapped his arm.
"She's giving us the high sign now," he said, in a low voice. "Don't turn round too obviously now, but have a look. No, wait a minute. It's no secret stuff. She wants us to come over to the table."
"De odder people haff got de emerald?" inquired Valvick, peering over his shoulder. "Haa! Den dat iss all right. Ay tell you ay wass worried."
"Lord! I hope so," said Morgan, fervently. "But Peggy doesn't look too pleased. Finish your breakfast, Skipper, and then join us. Get ready, Curt. Did you finish that article?"
"Sure I did," retorted Warren. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth as they moved out across the dance floor towards the other table. "And don't go making any cracks about my education either. I can tell you all about it. It seems Peggy's uncle is the goods. As a classic dramatist he is an eight-cyclindered wow, and there's been nobody like him since Moliere. If any impertinent criticism of his jewelled lines can be made by one, one would say a certain je ne sais quoi. I should possibly suggest the introduction of certain deft touches of realism into the speech of, say, so human and breathing a figure as the Knight Roland or the crafty Banhambra, Sultan of the Moors which would lend an element of graphic power…."
"An element," said the loud, concise voice of Mr. Leslie Perrigord in the flesh, "of graphic power. And that is all."
Morgan looked him over as he sat stiffly upright at the breakfast-table, holding a fork with its prongs against the cloth and e-nun-ci-a-ting his words through stiff jaws. There was nothing effeminate or lackadaisical about Mr. Leslie Perrigord, that element which most irritated Morgan in the species intellectual. Mr. Perrigord looked as though he could pull his weight in a crew or handle a skittish horse. A tall lath with thin blond hair, a hooked nose, and a mummified eye, he simply talked. He looked at nothing in particular. He seemed far away. If you had not seen the feathery blond moustache floating as in an icy breeze, you would have sworn it was an effect of ventriloquism. But (once started) he showed no disposition to leave off talking.
A measured stream of hooey flowing from Mr. Perrigord's lips in concise cadences was checked by Peggy only when it became necessary for Perrigord to wind himself up with ice-water. She said:
"Oh, I say, excuse me! I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I must present two very good friends of mine. Mr. Warren, Mr. Morgan… "
"De-do?" said Mrs. Perrigord, sepulchrally.
"Oh?" said Mr. Perrigord. He seemed vaguely annoyed. He had just kicked Shakespeare in the eye and mashed the hat of Ben Jonson; and Morgan felt he was ruffled at being interrupted. "Oh? Delighted, I'm sure. I was — ah — mentioning some of the more elementary points, en passant, in the talk I have been asked to deliver at the ship's concert to-night." He smiled thinly. "But — ah — I fear I shall bore you. It is merely a talk serving as an introductory speech to the performance of M. Fortinbras's marionettes. I fear—"
"But of course they'll be interested, Mr. Perrigord!" crowed Peggy, with enthusiasm. "Curt, I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Perrigord about the time in Dubuque when the Knight Oliver got his pants split in the battle with the Moors, and they had to lower the curtain because all the sawdust came out of him, and he had to be sewed up again before uncle would go on with the play. Mr. Perrigord said it was charming, a charming detail. Didn't you, Mr. Perrigord?"
"Quite, Miss Glenn," said the oracle, benevolently (for him), but he looked as if he wished the others would go and let him get back to literature. He showed that heavy sort of politeness which grows acutely uncomfortable in the air. "Quite charming. These little details. But surely I am boring these gentlemen, who can have no conceivable interest… ?"
"But just fancy," continued Peggy, appealing to Morgan. "Hank, you villain, I've lost my bet to you, after all. And now I'll have to stand the cocktails, and it's a terrible shame. Don't you think so, dear Mr. Perrigord?"
Warren did not like this at all.
"Bet?" he said. "What bet? Who made a bet?"
Somebody kicked him in the shins. "Because," the girl went on, "after all my tam-o'-shanter didn't blow in the porthole of Mr. Perrigord's cabin last night. It's beastly luck, because now I've probably lost it; but it didn't, and there's that. Just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully" — here she raised earnest, awed, soft eyes for a moment and kept them fixed on Perrigord's countenance.
He cleared his throat. A sort of paralytic leer passed over his face. Warren saw it. So did Mrs. Perrigord—"just before Mr. Perrigord began talking so wonderfully, he told me he'd found nothing in the cabin at all, and I'm afraid now I must have lost that nice tam of mine."
"No deu-oubt," said Mrs. Perrigord, giving Peggy a nasty look through her monocle. "It was quayte dark on deck, wasn't it, my de-ah?"
"Quayte. And, I say, these men do take such advantage of us, don't they, Mrs. Perrigord? I mean, I think it's simply awful; but after all what can one do? I mean, it's much better to submit than cause a terrible lot of fuss and bother, isn't it?"