Sic volvere parcae! To solace him in captivity they could not share, Peggy Glenn presented him with a bottle of whisky (full size) and Henry Morgan with one of his old detective-novels.
Thereby, incidentally, they showed their own characters. If anybody says Morgan should have known better, it will shortly be indicated how much he had on his mind. Morgan was fighting mad at the perverse orneriness of the Parcae, and his own none-too-good sense reduced to a minimum Besides — as he agreed with Peggy — if that stormy petrel Curtis Warren, were not safe from causing trouble when locked and bolted in a padded cell, where the devil would he be safe?
Now let's quit this philosophising and get down to business.
There had been an almost touching scene of farewell after Warren had been shot into the padded cell by three sturdy seamen, of whom two had to undergo considerable repairs in the doctor's office immediately afterwards. It would also take too much time to dwell on their progress down from the captain's cabin to D deck, which resembled | an erratic Catharine wheel of arms and legs whirling down companionways and causing pale-faced passengers to bolt like rabbits. With a last heave he was fired into the cell and the door slammed; yet, damaged but undaunted, he still continued to shake the bars and hurl raspberries at the exhausted sailors.
Peggy, in a tearful frenzy, refused to leave him. If they would not let her stay with him, she made a loyal attempt to kick Captain Whistler in a vital spot and get locked up herself. Morgan and Valvick also loyally insisted that, if the old sea-cow thought Warren off his onion, they were loony, too, and demanded their rights of being imprisoned. But this Warren — either with a glimmer of sense or a desire to make a gallant gesture — would not hear of.
"Carry on, old man!" he said, grimly and heroically, shaking hands with Morgan through the bars of the cell. "The Barber's still loose, and you've got to find him. Besides, Peggy's got to help her uncle with those marionettes. Carry on, and we'll nail Kyle yet."
That Whistler did not accede to their demands for a uniform imprisonment, both demand and consent being made in the heat of rage, Morgan afterwards attributed solely to his desire to produce them as witness to Lord Sturton that he had been treacherously attacked. This did not occur to him at the time, or he would have made use of it as a threat; and Captain Whistler would have been saved trouble, as shall be seen, with the choleric peer. All the three conspirators knew was that their ally had been locked away in the bowels of the ship: down a dark companionway. through a steel-plated corridor pungent with oil and lit by one sickly electric bulb which quivered to the pounding of the ship's engines, and behind a door with a steel grill through which he stared out like King Richard in exile. A sailor with a whistle, reading Hollywood Romances, had been stolidly posted on a chair outside, so that the possibility of a jail-break was nil.
There was, however, one consolation. The rather sardonic ship's doctor — who believed not at all in Warren's Insanity, but found it prudent from long experience not to cross Captain Whistler before his temper subsided — made no objection to supplying the maniac with cigarettes and reading-matter. If he saw the bottle of whisky which Peggy smuggled through in a roll of magazines, he made no sign.
Morgan's contributions to the captive were a box of Gold Flake and a copy of one of his earlier novels called, Played, Partner! Now, if you are a very prolific writer of detective-stories, you will be aware that the details of earlier ones tend to fade from your mind even more quickly than they do from the reader's. Morgan remembered in a general way what the book was about. Played, Partner! was the tale of Lord Gerald Derreval, known to West End clubland as a wealthy idler, dilettante, and sportsman; but known to Scotland Yard under the enigmatic and terrible pseudonym of The Will-o'-the-Wisp. As a gentleman burglar, Lord Gerald was hot stuff. His thrilling escapes from captivity under heavy guard made Mr. Harry Houdini look like a bungler who had got out of clink only with a writ of habeas corpus. Of course, there was never anything really crooked about Lord Gerald. All he did was pinch the shirt off any old reprobate who had been low-minded enough to get rich, thereby qualifying Lord Gerald for a high place in the Socialist literature which is so popular nowadays. Besides, he was redeemed by his love for the beautiful Sardinia Trelawney. In the end he trapped the real villain who had tried to saddle a murder on him; and made it up with Inspector Daniels, the man who had sworn to get him and was in general so: weak-minded and got the bird so often that even in the? midst of pitying him you wondered how he contrived to hold his job.
These were the details that had faded from Morgan's! mind, but such was the dynamite placed in the hands of J Mr. Curtis Warren along with an imperial-quart of Old J Rob Roy. It would, perhaps, have been wiser to give him a Bradshaw or a volume of sermons; but the moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on; and, besides, philosophical remarks on this question have already been made. After Peggy had bidden him a tearful good-bye, and Morgan and Valvick had shaken hands with him, they { went up in a thunder-fraught mood to see the captain. 1
"Honest, now," said Valvick rather broodingly, as they crossed the boat-deck in the sunlight that Warren was forbidden to see, "do you t'ank we are right, or iss dere a mistake? Dat wass no yoke, what dey tell us. If dey say dere is nobody missing, den ay don't see how dere is somebody missing. Maybe we talk about a murder and dere is no murder."
"I tell you we're right!" snapped Morgan. "We're right, and it's got to be proved somehow. First thing, I'll tackle Whistler in as cool a frame of mind as I can. I'll challenge him to get that blood on the razor and in the berth tested. The ship's doctor can do it, or maybe Dr. Kyle… "
"Kyle?" said Peggy, staring at him. "But Dr. Kyle—"
"Will you get your mind off that tedious joke?" said Morgan, wearily. "Let's dispose of it once and for all. Don't you realise that Kyle is the one person on the whole ship who can't possibly be guilty?"
"Why?"
"Because he's the one man who's got an alibi, old girl.; Look here, Skipper. You're pretty sure your friend with; the toothache, the Bermondsey Terror, is honest; aren't you? — all right. And what did he say? He said that he didn't lose sight of Kyle's door all night; that he heard the row on deck from title beginning…. Wait a bit. You, didn't know about that, did you, Peggy?" He rapidly sketched out the Bermondsey Terror's information, and also gave Valvick the evidence of the Perrigords. "So what? The Blind Barber stole the rest of that film and killed the
girl while the row was going on out on deck. Nobody went n or out of Kyle's door all night. So how did Kyle get out and back? It won't wash, I tell you."irl while the row was going on out on deck. Nobody went n or out of Kyle's door all night. So how did Kyle get out and back? It won't wash, I tell you."
"It's you that's the blind one, Hank," she informed him, scornfully. "He needn't have been in his cabin at all, need he? Alibis! Bah! What's the good of an alibi. They always turn out to be fakes, anyway."
Morgan gestured.
"All right. It's easily settled. We're going into action at once, and by the Lord we're going to prove our case. Here's a commission for you, Skipper. Go down and see your friend the Bermondsey Terror and question him. Also sec the cabin steward and make any inquiries you think of… "
"Now?" asked Valvick, scratching his head.
"Now. We'll prove it one way or another. To continue," lie said to Peggy, as the other muttered a few reflections and lumbered off, "I'll tackle Whistler about that blood. I'll swear it's human blood; and, if it is, we can safely point out to him that nobody could have lost so much and still show no sign of being hurt this morning. Nobody, old girl! Then we'll make the whole round of the ship ourselves, If necessary. And we'll show 'em."