The Blind Barber (26 page)

“Ay not be surprised. Ay not be surprised at anyt’ing. Sh-h-h, now! Here is where we turn off. Listen!”

At a dim side-passage off the main corridor they stopped and peered down. All the noises of the ship were away from them, in the dim tumult of the throng milling up on B deck towards the concert-hall. Here it was so quiet the sea’s rush and murmur became again discernible, and the low creaking of woodwork. But there were voices somewhere. They listened a moment before they could place them as coming from behind the closed door of C 47 in the passage.

“It iss all right,” whispered the captain, nodding. “Dat iss ony Sparks and hiss cousin, de Bermondsey Terror. Ay haff start de Bermondsey Terror off on Old Rob Roy, and ay bet he don’t want to stop. But don’t disturb ’em, or we haff to explain. Walk soft … !”

C 46, Dr. Kyle’s cabin, had its door closed. They tiptoed down, and Morgan felt his heart rise in his throat, growing to an enormous pounding, as he softly turned the knob. He pushed it open …

Nobody inside.

One danger passed. If there had been somebody …

Again he felt hot fear as he switched on the light, but there was nobody. It was a large cabin, with what he supposed to be a bathroom attached, and now in a wild state of confusion. Not even a private detective could have called Warren’s methods in the least subtle.

Under the porthole stood a large wardrobe trunk with its leaves apart, its lid propped up and top shelf streaming ties. He pointed.

“Look there, Skipper. If that steel box were thrown in
this
porthole last night, it would land behind that trunk and nobody would ever see it unless the trunk were moved … ”

Valvick closed the door softly. He was peering at two valises open on the floor, and an unlocked brief-case lying across the berth.

“Come on,” he said; “we haff to work fast. Take a handful of these papers and shove ’em somew’ere. Coroosh! Ay feel like a crook! Ay don’t like diss. What you doing?”

Morgan was groping behind the trunk. His fingers touched metal, and he withdrew the circular box with the hinged lid. He stared at it a moment, and handed it to Valvick.

“There it is, Skipper. And here’s the elephant”—he stared at Warren’s trophy in his hand and shivered. “Come on; let’s put it back. The less we have to do … ”

“Listen!”
said Valvick, cocking his head.

Nothing. The porthole was open; they heard the curtain thrumming in the breeze, and the multitudinous rustlings of the sea. Also, very faintly, they could hear the murmur of voices from the gangway opposite, where sat Sparks and the Bermondsey Terror. Nothing else.

“Come on,” whispered Morgan. “You’re getting nerves, Skipper. Stuff those things away somewhere, and let’s get out of here. We’ll put this little job through without any hitch, and they’ll never suspect us … ”

A voice said:

“You think so?”

Morgan felt his skin crawl, and his head bump forward against the trunk as he knelt. The voice was not loud, but it brought the universe to a standstill like a dead clock. After it the silence was so heavy that he seemed unable to hear the sea or the thrumming curtain.

He looked up.

The door to the bathroom, previously closed, was standing open. Captain Whistler stood with one hand on the knob and the other on a trigger. He was wearing full-dress uniform, an arabesque of gold braid against the blue, from which the breeze (Morgan noticed even in that glassy, frozen moment) brought a wave of Swat Number 2 Liquid Insect Exterminator. Captain Whistler’s good eye had a malignant gleam as at the realisation of some obvious fact that had hitherto escaped him … Behind him, Second-Officer Baldwin was looking over his shoulder …

His glance travelled to the emerald in Morgan’s hand.

“So you two,” said Captain Whistler, “
were
the real thieves, after all. I might have known it. I was a fool not to see it first off last night … Don’t move! All right, Mr. Baldwin. Move out and see if they’re armed. Steady now … ”

T
HERE WERE, AS THEY
afterwards reflected, several courses that thoughtful men might have pursued. Even thoughtful men, however, would have conceded that these two conspirators were fairly in the soup. If at one time explanations might have been made to Captain Whistler, both Morgan and Valvick realised that by this time the Parcæ had so tangled matters up that it was practically impossible to explain
anything
. Morgan himself doubted whether even half an hour’s lucid thought would enable him to explain the situation to himself. Yet there are certain courses which thoughtful men deplore—those courses are elementary, like a reflex action, and spring to the muscles from a prompting older than reason. Captain Valvick, for instance, might have held out the steel box. He might have thrown the box on the floor at Whistler’s feet, and surrendered in explanation.

Captain Valvick did nothing of the kind.

He threw that steel box, in fact, straight at the light in the roof of Cabin C 46, where it spattered glass and extinguished the same in one reverberating pop. Then he nearly yanked Morgan’s arm from his socket swinging him out before himself into the passage and slamming the door behind.

Morgan dimly heard Whistler’s avenging yell. Flung against the opposite bulkhead, he bounced back in time to hear a weight of bodies thud against the door inside.

“Dat old Barnacle!” roared Valvick, whose powerful hands were firmly clamped on the knob of the door as he held it. “Dat!&—£/&???(!!
ay show him!
He t’ank we iss t’ieves, eh? By yumping Yudas, ay show him; Nobody effer tell me dat before;
NOBODY
! Ay show him. Qvick, lad; rope! Ve got to get rope and tie de door shut … ”

“Wassermarrer?”
inquired a voice behind Morgan.

The voice had to speak loudly and hoarsely, because insane riot banged at the door inside, mingled with baffled bellowings from the
Queen Victoria
’s skipper. Morgan spun round, to see that the door of Cabin C 47 was open. Framed in the doorway, his shoulders filling it and wriggling out at either side, stood a young man who was likewise so tall that he had to bend his head to peer out. He had a flattened countenance and a ruminating jaw like a philosophical cow.

“Coroosh!” roared Valvick, with a blast of thankfulness. He panted. “Bermondsey! Iss dat you?”

“Ho!” said the Bermondsey Terror, his face lighting up. “Sir!”

“Bermondsey—qvick—dere is no time to argue. Ay haff done you a good turn wit’ de toot’ache, eh?”

“Ho!” said the Bermondsey Terror.

“And you say you like to do me a good turn? Good! Den you do diss, eh? You hold diss door for me until we can go for help and get aw—can get rope to tie dem up. Here, you hold … ”

Uttering his significant monosyllable, the other leaped from the door with a crack of his head on the doorpost which he seemed to mind not at all, and leant his weight to the knob.

“Wot’s up?” he inquired.

“Dey iss robbers,” said Captain Valvick.

“Ho?”

“Dey steal my pearl cuff-links,” rumbled Captain Valvick, with rapid pantomime, “and de platinum studs which my old mudder gave me. Dey steal dis yentleman’s watch and his pocket-book wit’ all de money … ”

“Robbed
you
?”

“Yess. All ay want you to do iss hold de door v’ile—”

“Ho!” said the Bermondsey Terror, letting go the door to hitch up his belt. “Lemme at ’em!”

“No!” roared the captain, with a hideous insight of what he had done with his burst of poetic fancy. “No! Not dat! Only hold de door! Ay tell you it is de capt—”

The Bermondsey Terror’s somewhat diminutive mind was concentrated on business. He hurled his fifteen stone at the door without pausing for explanation or protest. There was a thud and crackle; then a sound suggesting that two rather heavy bodies had been catapulted back across the cabin like bowling-pins. Then Bermondsey plunged into the dark cabin.

“We’ve got to stop him!” panted Morgan, trying to get through the door. He was stopped by Valvick’s arm. “Listen! he’ll—”

“Ay don’t t’ink we can do not’ing but run,” said Valvick. “
No!
Stay back. Ay am sorry for old Barnacle, but—”

From the cabin issued hideous muffled noises, language reminiscent of King Kong, and the clean inspiriting crack of knuckles against bone and flesh. A large suit-case sailed out of the darkness, as though from a lively spiritualist seance; banged against the opposite wall and showered underwear, socks, shirts, and papers. The passage began to be inundated with Dr. Kyle’s possessions. Morgan, breaking loose, made another effort to dive in at the door. It was a gallant attempt, which might have succeeded if at that moment somebody had not thrown a chair.

Then he had a vague impression that somebody was dragging him away. Dimly he heard the Bermondsey Terror’s hoarse voice announcing in muffled accents, between cracks, that he would teach people to steal pearl cuff-links and gold watches that their mothers gave them. When Morgan’s wits cleared a second or more later, he was some distance from the scene of tumult. A new sound struck him—a deepening, gathering buzz and laughter. They were in the passage leading to the back stairs of the concert-hall.

“You ain’t hurt!” Valvick was saying in his ear. “It yust bump you. Brace up! Qvick, now! De hunt be up in a second, and we got to find a place to hide if we don’t want to be put in irons … Sh-h-h! Walk careless! Here iss somebody … ”

Morgan straightened up, feeling his eyes crossed in a buzzing head, as somebody stalked round the corner into the narrow gangway. It was a steward bearing a large tray on which there were six tall gilt-foil bottles. Paying no attention to them, the steward swung past and knocked at the door of the dressing-room. In response to his knock there was poked out a face of such appalling hideousness that Morgan blinked. It was a brown face with tangled black hair, murderous squint-eyes, and whiskers.

“Champagne, sir,” said the steward crisply, “for a Mr. D. H. Lawrence. That’ll be six pounds six, sir.”

The cut-throat leered. On his head he placed rather rakishly a spiked helmet of brass set with emeralds and rubies; so that he could the better reach under an elaborate green robe, where he fumbled a moment, and then laid on the tray two American twenty-dollar bills. The bottles were mysteriously whisked inside by what appeared to be feminine hands behind the warrior. Then, as the steward hastened away, the warrior drew from its scabbard a broad curved scimitar and squinted evilly up and down the passage. Seeing Valvick and Morgan, he beckoned.

“Well?” inquired the voice of Curtis Warren, as the two conspirators tumbled into the dressing-room and Valvick locked the door. “Did you get it back all right? Did you … ?” The warrior stared. Thoughtfully he pushed his helmet forward and scratched his wig. “What’s the idea, Hank? You’ve still got the emerald! Look … ”

Morgan nodded wearily. He glanced round. Uncle Jules was on the couch again, sprawled wide, while Peggy was trying to raise his head and insinuate a second dose of baking-soda under his twitching nose. There was a sharp plob as Mrs. Perrigord dexterously opened a bottle of champagne.

“You explain, Skipper,” said Morgan, sadly juggling the emerald in his palm. “Suffice it to say that the game is up. U-up. Go on, Captain.”

Valvick sketched out a rough outline. “You mean,” said Warren, quakes and bubbles beginning to show under his ferocious moustache—”you mean the Ber-mondsey Terror is down there murdering the old sardine for stealing Hank’s watch? Why, oh
why
wasn’t I there to see it? Yee-ow! I’d have given anything to see it! Curse the rotten luck, why do I have to miss every good thing … ?”

Tears had come into Peggy’s eyes again.

“But,” she protested, “why, oh
why
can’t you lay off the poor old captain? What have you got against him, anyway? Why must you go about assaulting the poor dear captain every time you get out of my sight? It isn’t fair. It isn’t just, after he said he almost had a daughter like me off Cape Hatteras. It—”

“Owful!” said Mrs. Perrigord, clucking her tongue reprovingly. “You owful, naughty boys, you. Have some champagne.”

“Well, why hass he got to
be
dere, anyway?” demanded Valvick, hotly. “Ay tell you de old Barnacle call me a t’ief, and now ay am mad. Ay going to find out who iss at de bottom of dis business if ay haff to sving from de yardarm for it. And ay mean it.”

“He was only trying to do his duty, Skipper,” said Morgan. “We ought to have been warned. You heard what he said this afternoon: he wanted to have the honour of nabbing Kyle for himself. He and the second officer were probably there searching the cabin when they heard us coming. They ducked into the bathroom and when they opened the door and saw us they thought … well, what would
you
have thought? Skipper, it’s no go. They’ll be having a search party out for us in five minutes. The only thing to do is to go to Whistler, try to explain, and take our medicine. God knows what they’ll do to us; plenty, I should think. But … there you are.”

Valvick brought his arm down in a mighty gesture. “Ay will not! Ay am mad now, and ay will
NOT
! Barnacle iss not going to put me in de brig like a drunken A.B. while diss crook laughs ha-ha. We are going to hide somewhere, dat iss what, so he don’t catch us, and den—”

“What’s the good of that?” Morgan wanted to know. “Calm yourself, Skipper. Even if we could hide, which I doubt, what good would it do? We land day after tomorrow, and they’d be bound to catch us. We couldn’t stay on the ship … ”

“Haff you forgotten dat de New York detective iss coming aboard at Southampton to identify diss crook, eh?”

“Yes, but—”

“And de charge we got to avoid iss stealing de emerald … ”

“With others, including Curt’s jail-break, assault and battery of Woodcock; to say nothing of—”

“Bah! What iss Woodcock? All you got to do iss promise him de bug-powder testimonial and he be all right. As for de odders, what iss dey? When dat detective point out de right man, do you t’ink Whistler going to get away wit’ accusing us of stealing? Ay bet you not. Dey only t’ink he iss cuckoo, and den we threaten to tell de newspapers about dat bug-powder gun and dey will giff him de bird something hawful if he open his mouth about de rest! Coroosh! It iss easy. Ay will not be put in dat brig! Dat iss my last word.
‘For God. For de cause! For de Church! For de laws!’
Liberty for ever, hooray! Are you wit’ me, Mr. Warren?”