The After House

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"You are sure that he mentioned Mr. Turner in that?"

"That was exactly what he said, Miss Lee. The captain came down
just then, and ordered Mr. Singleton on deck. I think he went, for
I did not hear his voice again. I thought, from the sounds, that
Mr. Vail and the captain were trying to get Mr. Turner to his room."

Mrs. Johns had been sitting back, her eyes shut, holding a bottle of
salts to her nose. Now she looked up.

"My dear woman," she said, "are you trying to tell us that we slept
through all that?"

"If you did not hear it, you must have slept," the stewardess
persisted obstinately. "The door into the main cabin was closed.
Karen came down just after. She was frightened. She said the first
mate was on deck, in a terrible humor; and that Charlie Jones, who
was at the wheel, had appealed to Burns not to leave him there--
that trouble was coming. That must have been at half-past twelve.
The bell struck as she put out the light. We both went to sleep
then, until Mrs. Turner's ringing for Karen roused us."

"But I did not ring for Karen."

The woman stared at Mrs. Turner.

"But the bell rang, Mrs. Turner. Karen got up at once and, turning
on the light, looked at the clock. 'What do you think of that?' she
said. 'Ten minutes to three, and I'd just got to sleep!' I growled
about the light, and she put it out, after she had thrown on a
wrapper. The room was dark when she opened the door. There was a
little light in the chart-room, from the binnacle lantern. The door
at the top of the companionway was always closed at night; the light
came through the window near the wheel."

She had kept up very well to this point, telling her story calmly and
keeping her voice down. But when she reached the actual killing of
the Danish maid, she went to pieces. She took to shivering
violently, and her pulse, under my fingers, was small and rapid. I
mixed some aromatic spirits with water and gave it to her, and we
waited until she could go on.

For the first time, then, I realized that I was clad only in shirt
and trousers, with a handkerchief around my head where the accident
in the hold had left me with a nasty cut. My bare feet were thrust
into down-at-the-heel slippers. I saw Miss Lee's eyes on me, and
colored.

"I had forgotten," I said uncomfortably. "I'll have time to find
my coat while she is recovering. I have been so occupied--"

"Don't be a fool," Mrs. Johns said brusquely. "No one cares how you
look. We only thank Heaven you are alive to look after us. Do you
know what we have been doing, locked in down here? We have been--"

"Please, Adele!" said Elsa Lee. And Mrs. Johns, shrugging her
shoulders, went back to her salts.

The rest of the story we got slowly. Briefly, it was this. Karen,
having made her protest at being called at such an hour, had put on
a wrapper and pinned up her hair. The light was on. The stewardess
said she heard a curious chopping sound in the main cabin, followed
by a fall, and called Karen's attention to it. The maid, impatient
and drowsy, had said it was probably Mr. Turner falling over
something, and that she hoped she would not meet him. Once or twice,
when he had been drinking, he had made overtures to her, and she
detested him.

The sound outside ceased. It was about five minutes since the bell
had rung, and Karen yawned and sat down on the bed. "I'll let her
ring again," she said. "If she gets in the habit of this sort of
thing, I'm going to leave." The stewardess asked her to put out the
light and let her sleep, and Karen did so. The two women were in
darkness, and the stewardess dozed, for a minute only. She was
awakened by Karen touching her on the shoulder and whispering close
to her ear.

"That beast is out there," she said. "I peered out, and I think he
is sitting on the companion steps. You listen, and if he tries to
stop me I'll call you."

The stewardess was wide awake by that time. She thought perhaps
the bell, instead of coming from Mrs. Turner's room, had come from
the room adjoining Turner's, where Vail slept, and which had been
originally designed for Mrs. Turner. She suggested turning on the
light again and looking at the bell register; but Karen objected.

The stewardess sat up in her bed, which was the one under the small
window opening on the deck aft. She could not see through the door
directly, but a faint light came through the doorway as Karen opened
the door.

The girl stood there, looking out. Then suddenly she threw up her
hands and screamed, and the next moment there was a blow struck.
She staggered back a step or two, and fell into the room. The
stewardess saw a white figure in the doorway as the girl fell.
Almost instantly something whizzed by her, striking the end of a
pillow and bruising her arm. She must have fainted. When she
recovered, faint daylight was coming into the room, and the body
of the Danish girl was lying as it had fallen.

She tried to get up, and fainted again.

That was her story, and it did not tell us much that we needed to
know. She showed me her right arm, which was badly bruised and
discolored at the shoulder.

"What do you mean by a white figure?"

"It looked white: it seemed to shine."

"When I went to call you, Mrs. Sloane, the door to your room was
closed."

"I saw it closed!" she said positively. "I had forgotten that,
but now I remember. The axe fell beside me, and I tried to scream,
but I could not. I saw the door closed, very slowly and without a
sound. Then I fainted."

The thing was quite possible. Owing to the small size of the
cabin, and to the fact that it must accommodate two bunks, the door
opened out into the chart-room. Probably the woman had fainted
before I broke the lock of my door and fell into the main cabin.
But a white figure!

"Karen exclaimed," Miss Lee said slowly, "that some one was sitting
on the companion steps?"

"Yes, miss."

"And she thought that it was Mr. Turner?"

"Yes." The stewardess looked quickly at Mrs. Turner, and averted her
eyes. "It may have been all talk, miss, about his--about his
bothering her. She was a great one to fancy that men were following
her about."

Miss Lee got up and came to the door where I was standing.

"Surely we need not be prisoners any longer!" she said in an
undertone. "It is daylight. If I stay here I shall go crazy."

"The murderer is still on the ship," I protested. "And just now
the deck is--hardly a place for women. Wait until this afternoon,
Miss Lee. By that time I shall have arranged for a guard for you.
Although God knows, with every man under suspicion, where we will
find any to trust."

"You will arrange a guard!"

"The men have asked me to take charge."

"But--I don't understand. The first mate--"

"--is a prisoner of the crew."

"They accuse him!"

"They have to accuse some one. There's a sort of hysteria among
the men, and they've fixed on Singleton. They won't hurt him, I'll
see to that,--and it makes for order."

She considered for a moment. I had time then to see the havoc the
night had wrought in her. She was pale, with deep hollows around
her eyes. Her hands shook and her mouth drooped wearily. But,
although her face was lined with grief, it was not the passionate
sorrow of a loving girl. She had not loved Vail, I said to myself.
She had not loved Vail! My heart beat faster.

"Will you allow me to leave this room for five minutes?"

"If I may go with you, and if you will come back without protest."

"You are arbitrary!" she said resentfully. "I only wish to speak
to Mr. Turner."

"Then--if I may wait at the door."

"I shall not go, under those conditions."

"Miss Lee," I said desperately, "surely you must realize the state
of affairs. We must trust no one--no one. Every shadowy corner,
every closed door, may hold death in its most terrible form."

"You are right, of course. Will you wait outside? I can dress and
be ready in five minutes."

I went into the main cabin, now bright with the morning sun, which
streamed down the forward companionway. The door to Vail's room
across was open, and Williams, working in nervous haste, was putting
it in order. Walking up and down, his shrewd eyes keenly alert,
Charlie Jones was on guard, revolver in hand. He came over to me at
once.

"Turner is moving, in there," he said, jerking his thumb toward the
forward cabin. "What are you going to do? Let a drunken sot like
that give us orders, and bang us with a belaying pin when we don't
please him?"

"He is the owner. But one thing we can do, Jones. We can keep him
from more liquor. Williams!"

He came out, more dead than alive.

"Williams," I said sternly, "I give you an hour to get rid of every
ounce of liquor on the Ella. Remember, not a bottle is to be saved."

"But Mistah Turner--"

"I'll answer to Mr. Turner. Get it overboard before he gets around.
And, Williams!"

"Well?"--sullenly.

"I'm going around after you, and if I find so much as a pint, I'll
put you in that room you have just left, and lock you in."

He turned even grayer, and went into the storeroom.

A day later, and the crew would probably have resented what they
saw that morning. But that day they only looked up apathetically
from their gruesome work of sewing into bags of canvas the sheeted
bodies on the deck, while a gray-faced Negro in a white coat flung
over the rail cases of fine wines, baskets and boxes full of
bottles, dozen after dozen of brandies and liquors, all sinking
beyond salvage in the blue Atlantic.

CHAPTER IX

PRISONERS

MY first thought had been for the women, and, unluckily, to save
them a shock I had all evidences of the crime cleared away as
quickly as possible. Stains that might have been of invaluable
service in determining the murderer were washed away almost before
they were dry. I realized this now, too late. But the axe remained,
and I felt that its handle probably contained a record for more
skillful eyes than mine to read, prints that under the microscope
would reveal the murderer's identity as clearly as a photograph.

I sent for Burns, who reported that he had locked the axe in the
captain's cabin. He gave me the key, which I fastened to a string
and hung around my neck under my shirt. He also reported that, as
I had suggested, the crew had gone, two at a time, into the
forecastle, and had brought up what they needed to stay on deck.
The forecastle had been closed and locked in the presence of the
crew, and the key given to Burns, who fastened it to his watch-chain.
The two hatchways leading to the hold had been fastened down also,
and Oleson, who was ship's carpenter, had nailed them fast.

The crew had been instructed to stay aft of the wheel, except when
on watch. Thus the helmsman need not be alone. As I have said, the
door at the top of the companion steps, near the wheel, was closed
and locked, and entrance to the after house was to be gained only
by the forward companion. It was the intention of Burns and myself
to keep watch here, amidships.

Burns had probably suffered more than any of us. Whatever his
relation to the Hansen woman had been, he had been with her only
three hours before her death, and she was wearing a ring of his,
a silver rope tied in a sailor's knot, when she died. And Burns
had been fond of Captain Richardson, in a crew where respect rather
than affection toward the chief officer was the rule.

When Burns gave me the key to the captain's room Charlie Jones had
reached the other end of the long cabin, and was staring through
into the chartroom. It was a time to trust no one, and I assured
myself that Jones was not looking before I thrust it into my shirt.

"They're--all ready, Leslie," Burns said, his face working. "What
are we going to do with them?"

"We'll have to take them back."

"But we can't do that. It's a two weeks' matter, and in this
weather--"

"We will take them back, Burns," I said shortly, and he assented
mechanically:--

"Aye, aye, sir."

Just how it was to be done was a difficult thing to decide. Miss
Lee had not appeared yet, and the three of us, Jones, Burns, and I,
talked it over. Jones suggested that we put them in one of the
life boats, and nail over it a canvas and tarpaulin cover.

"It ain't my own idea," he said modestly. "I seen it done once, on
the Argentina. It worked all right for a while, and after a week or
so we lowered the jolly-boat and towed it astern."

I shuddered; but the idea was a good one, and I asked Burns to go
up and get the boat ready.

"We must let the women up this afternoon," I said, "and, if it is
possible, try to keep them from learning where the bodies are. We
can rope off a part of the deck for them, and ask them not to leave
it."

Miss Lee came out then, and Burns went on deck.

The girl was looking better. The exertion of dressing had brought
back her color, and her lips, although firmly set, were not drawn.
She stood just outside the door and drew a deep breath.

"You must not keep us prisoners any longer, Leslie," she said.
"Put a guard over us, if you must, but let us up in the air."

"This afternoon, Miss Lee," I said. "This morning you are better
below."

She understood me, but she had no conception of the brutality of
the crime, even then.

"I am not a child. I wish to see them. I shall have to testify--"

"You will not see them, Miss Lee."

She stood twisting her handkerchief in her hands. She saw Charlie
Jones pacing the length of the cabin, revolver in hand. From the
chartroom came the sound of hammering, where the after companion
door, already locked, was being additionally secured with strips
of wood nailed across.

"I understand," she said finally. "Will you take me to Karen's
room?"

I could see no reason for objecting; but so thorough was the panic
that had infected us all that I would not allow her in until I had
preceded her, and had searched in the clothes closet and under the
two bunks. Williams had not reached this room yet, and there was a
pool of blood on the floor.

She had a great deal of courage. She glanced at the stain, and
looked away again quickly.

"I--think I shall not come in. Will you look at the bell register
for me? What bell is registered?"

"Three."

"Three!" she said. "Are you sure?"

I looked again. "It is three."

"Then it was not my sister's bell that rang. It was Mr. Vail's!"

"It must be a mistake. Perhaps the wires--"

"Mrs. Turner's room is number one. Please go back and ask her to
ring her bell, while I see how it registers."

But I would not leave her there alone. I went with her to her
sister's door, and together we returned to the maids' cabin. Mrs.
Turner had rung as we requested, and her bell had registered "One."

"He rang for help!" she cried, and broke down utterly. She dropped
into a chair in the chart-room and cried softly, helplessly, while
I stood by, unable to think of anything to do or say. I think now
that it was the best thing she could have done, though at the time
I was alarmed. I ventured, finally, to put my hand on her shoulder.

"Please!" I said.

Charlie Jones came to the door of the chartroom, and retreated with
instinctive good taste. She stopped crying after a time, and I
knew the exact instant when she realized my touch. I felt her
stiffen; without looking up, she drew away from my hand; and I
stepped back, hurt and angry--the hurt for her, the anger that I
could not remember that I was her hired servant.

When she got up, she did not look at me, nor I at her--at least not
consciously. But when, in those days, was I not looking at her,
seeing her, even when my eyes were averted, feeling her presence
before any ordinary sense told me she was near? The sound of her
voice in the early mornings, when I was washing down the deck, had
been enough to set my blood pounding in my ears. The last thing I
saw at night, when I took myself to the storeroom to sleep, was her
door across the main cabin; and in the morning, stumbling out with
my pillow and blanket, I gave it a foolish little sign of greeting.

What she would not see the men had seen, and, in their need, they
had made me their leader. To her I was Leslie, the common sailor.
I registered a vow, that morning, that I would be the common sailor
until the end of the voyage.

"Mr. Turner is awake, I believe," I said stiffly.

"Very well."

She turned back into the main cabin; but she paused at the storeroom
door.

"It is curious that you heard nothing," she said slowly. "You slept
with this door open, didn't you?"

"I was locked in."

She stooped quickly and looked at the lock.

"You broke it open?"

"Partly, at the last. I heard--" I stopped. I did not want to
tell her what I had heard. But she knew.

"You heard--Karen, when she screamed?"

"Yes. I was aroused before that,--I do not know how,--and found
I was locked in. I thought it might be a joke--forecastle hands
are fond of joking, and they resented my being brought here to sleep.
I took out some of the screws with my knife, and--then I broke the
door."

"You saw no one?"

"It was dark; I saw and heard no one."

"But, surely--the man at the wheel--"

"Hush," I warned her; "he is there. He heard something, but the
helmsman cannot leave the wheel."

She was stooping to the lock again.

"You are sure it was locked?"

"The bolt is still shot." I showed her.

"Then--where is the key?"

"The key!"

"Certainly. Find the key, and you will find the man who locked you
in."

"Unless," I reminded her, "it flew out when I broke the lock."

"In that case, it will be on the floor."

But an exhaustive search of the cabin floor discovered no key.
Jones, seeing us searching, helped, his revolver in one hand and a
lighted match in the other, handling both with an abandon of ease
that threatened us alternately with fire and a bullet. But there
was no key.

"It stands to reason, miss," he said, when we had given up, "that,
since the key isn't here, it isn't on the ship. That there key is
a sort of red-hot give-away. No one is going to carry a thing like
that around. Either it's here in this cabin--which it isn't--or
it's overboard."

"Very likely, Jones. But I shall ask Mr. Turner to search the men."

She went toward Turner's door, and Jones leaned over me, putting a
hand on my arm.

"She's right, boy," he said quickly. "Don't let 'em know what
you're after, but go through their pockets. And their shoes!" he
called after me. "A key slips into a shoe mighty easy."

But, after all, it was not necessary. The key was to be found,
and very soon.

CHAPTER X

"THAT'S MUTINY "

Exactly what occurred during Elsa Lee's visit to her brother-in-law's
cabin I have never learned. He was sober, I know, and somewhat dazed,
with no recollection whatever of the previous night, except a hazy
idea that he had quarreled with Richardson.

Jones and I waited outside. He suggested that we have prayers over
the bodies when we placed them in the boat, and I agreed to read the
burial service from the Episcopal Prayer Book. The voices from Turner's
cabin came steadily, Miss Lee's low tones, Turner's heavy bass only
now and then. Once I heard her give a startled exclamation, and both
Jones and I leaped to the door. But the next moment she was talking
again quietly.

Ten minutes--fifteen--passed. I grew restless and took to wandering
about the cabin. Mrs. Johns came to the door opposite, and asked to
have tea sent down to the stewardess. I called the request up the
companionway, unwilling to leave the cabin for a moment. When I came
back, Jones was standing at the door of Vail's cabin, looking in. His
face was pale.

"Look there!" he said hoarsely. "Look at the bell. He must have
tried to push the button!"

I stared in. Williams had put the cabin to rights, as nearly as
he could. The soaked mattress was gone, and a clean linen sheet
was spread over the bunk. Poor Vail's clothing, as he had taken it
off the night before, hung on a mahogany stand beside the bed, and
above, almost concealed by his coat, was the bell. Jones's eyes
were fixed on the darkish smear, over and around the bell, on the
white paint.

I measured the height of the bell from the bed. It was well above,
and to one side--a smear rather than a print, too indeterminate
to be of any value, sinister, cruel.

"He didn't do that, Charlie," I said. "He couldn't have got up
to it after--That is the murderer's mark. He leaned there, one
hand against the wall, to look down at his work. And, without
knowing it, he pressed the button that roused the two women."

He had not heard the story of Henrietta Sloane, and, as we waited,
I told him. Some of the tension was relaxing. He tried, in his
argumentative German way, to drag me into a discussion as to the
foreordination of a death that resulted from an accidental ringing
of a bell. But my ears were alert for the voices near by, and soon
Miss Lee opened the door.

Turner was sitting on his bunk. He had made an attempt to shave,
and had cut his chin severely. He was in a dressing-gown, and was
holding a handkerchief to his face; he peered at me over it with
red-rimmed eyes.

"This--this is horrible, Leslie," he said. "I can hardly believe
it."

"It is true, Mr. Turner."

He took the handkerchief away and looked to see if the bleeding had
stopped. I believe he intended to impress us both with his coolness,
but it was an unfortunate attempt. His lips, relieved of the pressure,
were twitching; his nerveless fingers could hardly refold the
handkerchief.

"Wh-why was I not--called at once?" he demanded.

"I notified you. You were--you must have gone to sleep again."

"I don't believe you called me. You're--lying, aren't you?" He
got up, steadying himself by the wall, and swaying dizzily to the
motion of the ship. "You shut me off down here, and then run things
your own damned way." He turned on Miss Lee. "Where's Helen?"

"In her room, Marsh. She has one of her headaches. Please don't
disturb her."

"Where's Williams?" He turned to me.

"I can get him for you."

"Tell him to bring me a highball. My mouth's sticky." He ran his
tongue over his dry lips. "And--take a message from me to
Richardson--" He stopped, startled. Indeed, Miss Lee and I had
both started. "To who's running the boat, anyhow? Singleton?"

"Mr. Singleton is a prisoner in the forward house," I said gravely.

The effect of this was astonishing. He stared at us both, and,
finding corroboration in Miss Lee's face, his own took on an instant
expression of relief. He dropped to the side of the bed, and his
color came slowly back. He even smiled--a crafty grin that was
inexpressibly horrible.

"Singleton!" he said. "Why do they--how do they know it was he?"

"He had quarreled with the captain last night, and he was on duty
at the time of the when the thing happened. The man at the wheel
claims to have seen him in the chartroom just before, and there was
other evidence, I believe. The lookout saw him forward, with
something--possibly the axe. Not decisive, of course, but enough
to justify putting him in irons. Somebody did it, and the murderer
is on board, Mr. Turner."

His grin had faded, but the crafty look in his pale-blue eyes
remained.

"The chart-room was dark. How could the steersman--" He checked
himself abruptly, and looked at us both quickly. "Where are--they?"
he asked in a different tone.

"On deck."

"We can't keep them in this weather."

"We must," I said. "We will have to get to the nearest port as
quickly as we can, and surrender ourselves and the bodies. This
thing will have to be sifted to the bottom, Mr. Turner. The
innocent must not suffer for the guilty, and every one on the ship
is under suspicion."

He fell into a passion at that, insisting that the bodies be buried
at once, asserting his ownership of the vessel as his authority,
demanding to know what I, a forecastle hand, had to say about it,
flinging up and down the small room, showering me with invective and
threats, and shoving Miss Lee aside when she laid a calming hand on
his arm. The cut on his chin was bleeding again, adding to his wild
and sinister expression. He ended by demanding Williams.

I opened the door and called to Charlie Jones to send the butler,
and stood by, waiting for the fresh explosion that was coming.
Williams shakily confessed that there was no whiskey on board.

"Where is it?" Turner thundered.

Williams looked at me. He was in a state of inarticulate fright.

"I ordered it overboard," I said.

Turner whirled on me, incredulity and rage in his face.

"You!"

I put the best face I could on the matter, and eyed him steadily.
"There has been too much drinking on this ship," I said. "If you
doubt it, go up and look at the three bodies on the deck."

"What have you to do about it?" His eyes were narrowed; there was
menace in every line of his face.

"With Schwartz gone, Captain Richardson dead, and Singleton in irons,
the crew had no officers. They asked me to take charge."

"So! And you used your authority to meddle with what does not
concern you The ship has an officer while I am on it. And there
will be no mutiny."

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