The After House
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Mary Roberts Rinehart >> The After House
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"Did you ever see the white object that terrified the crew?"
"Never. Sailors are particularly liable to such hysteria."
"During your delirium, did you ever see such a figure?"
"I do not recall any details of that part of my illness."
"Were you in favor of bringing the bodies back to port?"
"I--yes, certainly."
"Do you recall going on deck the morning after the murders were
discovered?"
"Vaguely."
"What were the men doing at that time?"
"I believe--really, I do not like to repeat so often that I was
ill that day."
"Have you any recollection of what you said to the men at that time?"
"None."
"Let me refresh your memory from the ship's log.
(Reading.) "'Mr. Turner insisted that the bodies be buried at sea,
and, on the crew opposing this, retired to his cabin, announcing
that he considered the attitude of the men a mutiny."'
"I recall being angry at the men--not much else. My position was
rational enough, however. It was midsummer, and we had a long
voyage before us."
"I wish to read something else to you. The witness Leslie testified
to sleeping in the storeroom, at the request of Mrs. Johns".
(reading), "'giving as her reason a fear of something going wrong,
as there was trouble between Mr. Turner and the captain.'"
Whatever question Mr. Goldstein had been framing, he was not
permitted to use this part of the record. The log was admissible
only as a record on the spot, made by a competent person and
witnessed by all concerned, of the actual occurrences on the Ella.
My record of Mrs. Johns's remark was ruled out; Turner was not on
trial.
Turner, pale and shaking, left the stand at two o'clock that day,
and I was recalled. My earlier testimony had merely established
the finding of the bodies. I was now to have a bad two hours. I
was an important witness, probably the most important. I had heard
the scream that had revealed the tragedy, and had been in the main
cabin of the after house only a moment or so after the murderer. I
had found the bodies, Vail still living, and had been with the
accused mate when he saw the captain prostrate at the foot of the
forward companion.
All of this, aided by skillful questions, I told as exactly as
possible. I told of the mate's strange manner on finding the bodies;
I related, to a breathless quiet, the placing of the bodies in the
jolly-boat; and the reading of the burial service over them; I told
of the little boat that followed us, like some avenging spirit,
carrying by day a small American flag, union down, and at night a
white light. I told of having to increase the length of the
towing-line as the heat grew greater, and of a fear I had that the
rope would separate, or that the mysterious hand that was the author
of the misfortunes would cut the line.
I told of the long nights without sleep, while, with our few
available men, we tried to work the Ella back to land; of guarding
the after house; of a hundred false alarms that set our nerves
quivering and our hearts leaping. And I made them feel, I think,
the horror of a situation where each man suspected his neighbor,
feared and loathed him, and yet stayed close by him because a known
danger is better than an unknown horror.
The record of my examination is particularly faulty, McWhirter
having allowed personal feeling to interfere with accuracy. Here
and there in the margins of his notebook I find unflattering
allusions to the prosecuting attorney; and after one question, an
impeachment of my motives, to which Mac took violent exception, no
answer at all is recorded, and in a furious scrawl is written: "The
little whippersnapper! Leslie could smash him between his thumb
and finger!"
I found another curious record--a leaf, torn out of the book, and
evidently designed to be sent to me, but failing its destination,
was as follows: "For Heaven's sake, don't look at the girl so much!
The newspaper men are on."
But, to resume my examination. The first questions were not of
particular interest. Then:
"Did the prisoner know you had moved to the after house?"
"I do not know. The forecastle hands knew."
"Tell what you know of the quarrel on July 31 between Captain
Richardson and the prisoner."
"I saw it from a deck window." I described it in detail.
"Why did you move to the after house?"
"At the request of Mrs. Johns. She said she was nervous."
"What reason did she give?"
"That Mr. Turner was in a dangerous mood; he had quarreled with the
captain and was quarreling with Mr. Vail."
"Did you know the arrangement of rooms in the after house? How the
people slept?"
"In a general way."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I knew Mr. Vail's room and Miss Lee's."
"Did you know where the maids slept?"
"Yes."
"You have testified that you were locked in. Was the key kept in
the lock?"
"Yes."
"Would whoever locked you in have had only to move the key from one
side of the door to the other?"
"Yes."
"Was the key left in the lock when you were fastened in?"
"No."
"Now, Dr. Leslie, we want you to tell us what the prisoner did that
night when you told him what had happened."
"I called to him to come below, for God's sake. He seemed dazed
and at a loss to know what to do. I told him to get his revolver
and call the captain. He went into the forward house and got his
revolver, but he did not call the captain. We went below and
stumbled over the captain's body."
"What was the mate's condition?"
"When we found the body?"
"His general condition."
"He was intoxicated. He collapsed on the steps when we found the
captain. We both almost collapsed."
"What was his mental condition?"
"If you mean, was he frightened, we both were."
"Was he pale?"
"I did not notice then. He was pale and looked ill later, when the
crew had gathered."
"About this key: was it ever found? The key to the storeroom?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"That same morning."
"Where? And by whom?"
"Miss Lee found it on the floor in Mr. Turner's room."
The prosecution was totally unprepared for this reply, and
proceedings were delayed for a moment while the attorneys consulted.
On the resumption of my examination, they made a desperate attempt
to impeach my character as a witness, trying to show that I had
sailed under false pretenses; that I was so feared in the after
house that the women refused to allow me below, or to administer
to Mr. Turner the remedies I prepared; and, finally, that I had
surrendered myself to the crew as a suspect, of my own accord.
Against this the cross-examination threw all its weight. The
prosecuting attorneys having dropped the question of the key, the
shrewd young lawyer for the defense followed it up:--
"This key, Dr. Leslie, do you know where it is now?"
"Yes; I have it."
"Will you tell how it came into your possession?"
"Certainly. I picked it up on the deck, a night or so after the
murders. Miss Lee had dropped it." I caught Elsa Lee's eye, and
she gave me a warm glance of gratitude.
"Have you the key with you?"
"Yes." I produced it.
"Are you a football player, Doctor?"
"I was."
"I thought I recalled you. I have seen you play several times.
In spite of our friend the attorney for the commonwealth, I do not
believe we will need to call character witnesses for you. Did you
see Miss Lee pick up the key to the storeroom in Mr. Turner's room?"
"Yes."
"Did it occur to you at the time that the key had any significance?"
"I wondered how it got there."
"You say you listened inside the locked door, and heard no sound,
but felt a board rise up under your knee. A moment or two later,
when you called the prisoner, he was intoxicated, and reeled. Do
you mean to tell us that a drunken man could have made his way in
the darkness, through a cabin filled with chairs, tables, and a
piano, in absolute silence?"
The prosecuting attorney was on his feet in an instant, and the
objection was sustained. I was next shown the keys, club, and file
taken from Singleton's mattress. "You have identified these objects
as having been found concealed in the prisoner's mattress. Do any
of these keys fit the captain's cabin?"
"No."
"Who saw the prisoner during the days he was locked in his cabin?"
"I saw him occasionally. The cook saw him when he carried him his meals."
"Did you ever tell the prisoner where the axe was kept?"
"No."
"Did the members of the crew know?"
"I believe so. Yes."
"Was the fact that Burns carried the key to the captain's cabin a
matter of general knowledge?"
"No. The crew knew that Burns and I carried the keys; they did not
know which one each carried, unless--"
"Go on, please."
"If any one had seen Burns take Mrs. Johns forward and show her the
axe, he would have known."
"Who were on deck at that time?"
"All the crew were on deck, the forecastle being closed. In the
crow's-nest was McNamara; Jones was at the wheel."
"From the crow's-nest could the lookout have seen Burns and Mrs.
Johns going forward?"
"No. The two houses were connected by an awning."
"What could the helmsman see?"
"Nothing forward of the after house."
The prosecution closed its case with me. The defense, having
virtually conducted its case by cross-examination of the witnesses
already called, contented itself with producing a few character
witnesses, and "rested." Goldstein made an eloquent plea of "no
case," and asked the judge so to instruct the jury.
This was refused, and the case went to the jury on the seventh
day--a surprisingly short trial, considering the magnitude of the
crimes.
The jury disagreed. But, while they wrangled, McWhirter and I
were already on the right track. At the very hour that the
jurymen were being discharged and steps taken for a retrial, we
had the murderer locked in my room in a cheap lodging-house off
Chestnut Street.
CHAPTER XXIII
FREE AGAIN
With the submission of the case to the jury, the witnesses were
given their freedom. McWhirter had taken a room for me for a day
or two to give me time to look about; and, his own leave of absence
from his hospital being for ten days, we had some time together.
My situation was better than it had been in the summer. I had my
strength again, although the long confinement had told on me. But
my position was precarious enough. I had my pay from the Ella,
and nothing else. And McWhirter, with a monthly stipend from his
hospital of twenty-five dollars, was not much better off.
My first evening of freedom we spent at the theater. We bought the
best seats in the house, and we dressed for the occasion--being in
the position of having nothing to wear between shabby everyday wear
and evening clothes.
"It is by way of celebration," Mac said, as he put a dab of
shoe-blacking over a hole in his sock; "you having been restored to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's the game, Leslie
--the pursuit of happiness."
I was busy with a dress tie that I had washed and dried by pasting
it on a mirror, an old trick of mine when funds ran low. I was
trying to enter into Mac's festive humor, but I had not reacted yet
from the horrors of the past few months.
"Happiness!" I said scornfully. "Do you call this happiness?"
He put up the blacking, and, coming to me, stood eyeing me in the
mirror as I arranged my necktie.
"Don't be bitter," he said. "Happiness was my word. The Good Man
was good to you when he made you. That ought to be a source of
satisfaction. And as for the girl--"
"What girl?"
"If she could only see you now. Why in thunder didn't you take
those clothes on board? I wanted you to. Couldn't a captain wear
a dress suit on special occasions?"
"Mac," I said gravely, "if you will think a moment, you will
remember that the only special occasions on the Ella, after I
took charge, were funerals. Have you sat through seven days of
horrors without realizing that?"
Mac had once gone to Europe on a liner, and, having exhausted his
funds, returned on a cattle-boat.
"All the captains I ever knew," he said largely, "were a fussy lot
--dressed to kill, and navigating the boat from the head of a
dinner-table. But I suppose you know. I was only regretting that
she hadn't seen you the way you're looking now. That's all. I
suppose I may regret, without hurting your feelings!"
He dropped all mention of Elsa after that, for a long time. But
I saw him looking at me, at intervals, during the evening, and
sighing. He was still regretting!
We enjoyed the theater, after all, with the pent-up enthusiasm of
long months of work and strain. We laughed at the puerile fun,
encored the prettiest of the girls, and swaggered in the lobby
between acts, with cigarettes. There we ran across the one man I
knew in Philadelphia, and had supper after the play with three or
four fellows who, on hearing my story, persisted in believing that
I had sailed on the Ella as a lark or to follow a girl. My simple
statement that I had done it out of necessity met with roars of
laughter and finally I let it go at that.
It was after one when we got back to the lodging-house, being
escorted there in a racing car by a riotous crowd that stood
outside the door, as I fumbled for my key, and screeched in unison:
"Leslie! Leslie! Leslie! Sic 'em!" before they drove away.
The light in the dingy lodging-house parlor was burning full, but
the hall was dark. I stopped inside and lighted a cigarette.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Mac!" I said. "I've
got the first two, and the other can be had--for the pursuit."
Mac did not reply: he was staring into the parlor. Elsa Lee was
standing by a table, looking at me.
She was very nervous, and tried to explain her presence in a breath
--with the result that she broke down utterly and had to stop. Mac,
his jovial face rather startled, was making for the stairs; but I
sternly brought him back and presented him. Whereon, being utterly
confounded, he made the tactful remark that he would have to go and
put out the milk-bottles: it was almost morning!
She had been waiting since ten o'clock, she said. A taxicab, with
her maid, was at the door. They were going back to New York in the
morning, and things were terribly wrong.
"Wrong? You need not mind Mr. McWhirter. He is as anxious as I am
to be helpful."
"There are detectives watching Marshall; we saw one to-day at the
hotel. If the jury disagrees--and the lawyers think they will--they
will arrest him."
I thought it probable. There was nothing I could say. McWhirter
made an effort to reassure her.
"It wouldn't be a hanging matter, anyhow," he said. "There's a lot
against him, but hardly a jury in the country would hang a man for
something he did, if he could prove he was delirious the next day."
She paled at this dubious comfort, but it struck her sense of humor,
too, for she threw me a fleeting smile.
"I was to ask you to do something," she said. "None of us can, for
we are being watched. I was probably followed here. The Ella is
still in the river, with only a watchman on board. We want you to
go there to-night, if you can."
"To the Ella?"
She was feeling in her pocketbook, and now she held out to me an
envelope addressed in a sprawling hand to Mr. Turner at his hotel.
"Am I to open it?"
"Please."
I unfolded a sheet of ruled note-paper of the most ordinary variety.
It had been opened and laid flat, and on it, in black ink, was a
crude drawing of the deck of the Ella, as one would look down on it
from aloft. Here and there were small crosses in red ink, and,
overlying it all from bow to stern, a red axe. Around the border,
not written, but printed in childish letters, were the words: "NOT
YET. HA, HA." In a corner was a drawing of a gallows, or what
passes in the everyday mind for a gallows, and in the opposite corner
an open book.
"You see," she said, "it was mailed downtown late this afternoon.
The hotel got it at seven o'clock. Marshall wanted to get a
detective, but I thought of you. I knew--you knew the boat, and
then--you had said--"
"Anything in all the world that I can do to help you, I will do,"
I said, looking at her. And the thing that I could not keep out
of my eyes made her drop hers.
"Sweet little document!" said McWhirter, looking over my shoulder.
"Sent by some one with a nice disposition. What do the crosses
mark?"
"The location of the bodies when found," I explained--"these three.
This looks like the place where Burns lay unconscious. That one
near the rail I don't know about, nor this by the mainmast."
"We thought they might mark places, clues, perhaps, that had been
overlooked. The whole--the whole document is a taunt, isn't it?
The scaffold, and the axe, and 'not yet'; a piece of bravado!"
"Right you are," said McWhirter admiringly. "A little escape of
glee from somebody who's laughing too soon. One-thirty--it will
soon be the proper hour for something to happen on the Ella, won't
it? If that was sent by some member of the crew--and it looks like
it; they are loose to-day--the quicker we follow it up, the better,
if there's anything to follow."
"We thought if you would go early in the morning, before any of
them make an excuse to go back on board--"
"We will go right away; but, please--don't build too much on this.
It's a good possibility, that's all. Will the watchman let us on
board?"
"We thought of that. Here is a note to him from Marshall, and--
will you do us one more kindness?"
"I will."
"Then--if you should find anything, bring it to us; to the police;
later, if you must, but to us first."
"When?"
"In the morning. We will not leave until we hear from you."
She held out her hand, first to McWhirter, then to me. I kept it
a little longer than I should have, perhaps, and she did not take
it away.
"It is such a comfort," she said, "to have you with us and not
against us! For Marshall didn't do it, Leslie--I mean--it is hard
for me to think of you as Dr. Leslie! He didn't do it. At first,
we thought he might have, and he was delirious and could not
reassure us. He swears he did not. I think, just at first, he was
afraid he had done it; but he did not. I believe that, and you must."
I believed her--I believed anything she said. I think that if she
had chosen to say that I had wielded the murderer's axe on the Ella,
I should have gone to the gallows rather than gainsay her. From
that night, I was the devil's advocate, if you like. I was
determined to save Marshall Turner.
She wished us to take her taxicab, dropping her at her hotel; and,
reckless now of everything but being with her, I would have done
so. But McWhirter's discreet cough reminded me of the street-car
level of our finances, and I made the excuse of putting on more
suitable clothing.
I stood in the street, bareheaded, watching her taxicab as it
rattled down the street. McWhirter touched me on the arm.
"Wake up!" he said. "We have work to do, my friend."
We went upstairs together, cautiously, not to rouse the house.
At the top, Mac turned and patted me on the elbow, my shoulder
being a foot or so above him.
"Good boy!" he said. "And if that shirtfront and tie didn't knock
into eternal oblivion the deck-washing on the Ella, I'll eat them!"
CHAPTER XXIV
THE THING
I deserve no credit for the solution of the Ella's mystery. I have
a certain quality of force, perhaps, and I am not lacking in
physical courage; but I have no finesse of intellect. McWhirter, a
foot shorter than I, round of face, jovial and stocky, has as much
subtlety in his little finger as I have in my six feet and a
fraction of body.
All the way to the river, therefore, he was poring over the drawing.
He named the paper at once.
"Ought to know it," he said, in reply to my surprise. "Sold enough
paper at the drugstore to qualify as a stationery engineer." He
writhed as was his habit over his jokes, and then fell to work at
the drawing again. "A book," he said, "and an axe, and a gibbet or
gallows. B-a-g--that makes 'bag.' Doesn't go far, does it?
Humorous duck, isn't he? Any one who can write 'ha! ha!' under a
gallows has real humor. G-a-b, b-a-g!"
The Ella still lay in the Delaware, half a mile or so from her
original moorings. She carried the usual riding-lights--a white
one in the bow, another at the stern, and the two vertical red
lights which showed her not under command. In reply to repeated
signals, we were unable to rouse the watchman. I had brought an
electric flash with me, and by its aid we found a rope ladder over
the side, with a small boat at its foot.
Although the boat indicated the presence of the watchman on board,
we made our way to the deck without challenge. Here McWhirter
suggested that the situation might be disagreeable, were the man to
waken and get at us with a gun.
We stood by the top of the ladder, therefore, and made another
effort to rouse him. "Hey, watchman!" I called. And McWhirter, in
a deep bass, sang lustily: "Watchman, what of the night?" Neither
of us made, any perceptible impression on the silence and gloom of
the Ella.
McWhirter grew less gay. The deserted decks of the ship, her tragic
history, her isolation, the darkness, which my small flash seemed
only to intensify, all had their effect on him.
"It's got my goat," he admitted. "It smells like a tomb."
"Don't be an ass."
"Turn the light over the side, and see if we fastened that boat.
We don't want to be left here indefinitely."
"That's folly, Mac," I said, but I obeyed him. "The watchman's boat
is there, so we--"
But he caught me suddenly by the arm and shook me.
"My God!" he said. "What is that over there?"
It was a moment before my eyes, after the flashlight, could
discern anything in the darkness. Mac was pointing forward. When
I could see, Mac was ready to laugh at himself.
"I told you the place had my goat!" he said sheepishly. "I thought
I saw something duck around the corner of that building; but I think
it was a ray from a searchlight on one of those boats."
"The watchman, probably," I said quietly. But my heart beat a
little faster. "The watchman taking a look at us and gone for his
gun."
I thought rapidly. If Mac had seen anything, I did not believe it
was the watchman. But there should be a watchman on board--in the
forward house, probably. I gave Mac my revolver and put the light
in my pocket. I might want both hands that night. I saw better
without the flash, and, guided partly by the bow light, partly by
my knowledge of the yacht, I led the way across the deck. The
forward house was closed and locked, and no knocking produced any
indication of life. The after house we found not only locked, but
barred across with strips of wood nailed into place. The forecastle
was likewise closed. It was a dead ship.
No figure reappearing to alarm him, Mac took the drawing out of his
pocket and focused the flashlight on it.
"This cross by the mainmast," he said "that would be where?"
"Right behind you, there."
He walked to the mast, and examined carefully around its base.
There was nothing there, and even now I do not know to what that
cross alluded, unless poor Schwartz--!
"Then this other one--forward, you call it, don't you? Suppose we
locate that."
All expectation of the watchman having now died, we went forward
on the port side to the approximate location of the cross. This
being in the neighborhood where Mac had thought he saw something
move, we approached with extreme caution. But nothing more ominous
was discovered than the port lifeboat, nothing more ghostly heard
than the occasional creak with which it rocked in its davits.
The lifeboat seemed to be indicated by the cross. It swung almost
shoulder-high on McWhirter. We looked under and around it, with a
growing feeling that we had misread the significance of the crosses,
or that the sinister record extended to a time before the "she devil"
of the Turner line was dressed in white and turned into a lady.
I was feeling underneath the boat, with a sense of absurdity that
McWhirter put into words. "I only hope," he said, "that the
watchman does not wake up now and see us. He'd be justified in
filling us with lead, or putting us in straitjackets."
But I had discovered something.
"Mac," I said, "some one has been at this boat within the last few
minutes."
"Why?"
"Take your revolver and watch the deck. One of the barecas--"
"What's that?"
"One of the water-barrels has been upset, and the plug is out. It
is leaking into the boat. It is leaking fast, and there's only a
gallon or so in the bottom! Give me the light."
The contents of the boat revealed the truth of what I had said.
The boat was in confusion. Its cover had been thrown back, and tins
of biscuit, bailers, boathooks and extra rowlocks were jumbled
together in confusion. The barecas lay on its side, and its plug
had been either knocked or drawn out.
McWhirter was for turning to inspect the boat; but I ordered him
sternly to watch the deck. He was inclined to laugh at my caution,
which he claimed was a quality in me he had not suspected. He
lounged against the rail near me, and, in spite of his chaff, kept
a keen enough lookout.
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