The After House
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Mary Roberts Rinehart >> The After House
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He flung into the main cabin, and made for the forward companionway.
I stepped back to allow Miss Lee to precede me. She was standing,
her back to the dressing-stand, facing the door. She looked at me
and made a helpless gesture with her hands, as if the situation
were beyond her. Then I saw her look down. She took a quick step
or two toward the door, and, stooping picked up some small object
from almost under my foot. The incident would have passed without
notice, had she not, in attempting to wrap it in her handkerchief,
dropped it. I saw then that it was a key.
"Let me get it for you" I said. To my amazement, she put her foot
over it.
"Please see what Mr. Turner is doing," she said. "It is the key
to my jewel-case."
"Will you let me see it?"
"No."
"It is not the key to a jewel-case."
"It does not concern you what it is."
"It is the key to the storeroom door"
"You are stronger than I am. You look the brute. You can knock me
away and get it."
I knew then, of course, that it was the storeroom key. But I could
not take it by force. And so defiantly she faced me, so valiant was
every line of her slight figure, that I was ashamed of my impulse to
push her aside and take it. I loved her with every inch of my
overgrown body, and I did the thing she knew I would do. I bowed
and left the cabin. But I had no intention of losing the key. I
could not take it by force, but she knew as well as I did what
finding it there in Turner's room meant. Turner had locked me in.
But I must be able to prove it--my wits against hers, and the
advantage mine. I had the women under guard.
I went up on deck.
A curious spectacle revealed itself. Turner, purple with anger,
was haranguing the men, who stood amidships, huddled together, but
grim and determined withal. Burns, a little apart from the rest,
was standing, sullen, his arms folded. As Turner ceased, he took
a step forward.
"You are right, Mr. Turner," he said. "It's your ship, and it's
up to you to say where she goes and how she goes, sir. But some
one will hang for this, Mr. Turner,--some one that's on this deck
now; and the bodies are going back with us--likewise the axe. There
ain't going to be a mistake--the right man is going to swing."
"That's mutiny!"
"Yes, sir," Burns acknowledged, his face paling a little. "I guess
you could call it that."
Turner swung on his heel and went below, where Jones, relieved of
guard duty by Burns, reported him locked in his room, refusing
admission to his wife and Miss Lee, both of whom had knocked on the
door.
The trouble with Turner added to the general misery of the situation.
Burns got our position at noon with more or less exactness, and the
general working of the Ella went on well enough. But the situation
was indescribable. Men started if a penknife dropped, and swore if
a sail flapped. The call of the boatswain's pipe rasped their ears,
and the preparation for stowing the bodies in the jolly-boat left
them unnerved and sick. Some sort of a meal was cooked, but no one
could eat; Williams brought up, untasted, the luncheon he had carried
down to the after house.
At two o'clock all hands gathered amidships, and the bodies were
carried forward to where the boat, lowered in its davits and braced,
lay on the deck. It had been lined with canvas and tarpaulin, and
a cover of similar material lay ready to be nailed in place. All
the men were bareheaded. Many were in tears. Miss Lee came forward
with us, and it was from her prayer-book that I, too moved for
self-consciousness, read the burial-service.
"I am the resurrection and the life," I read huskily.
The figures at my feet, in their canvas shrouds, rolled gently with
the rocking of the ship; the sun beat down on the decks, on the bare
heads of the men, on the gilt edges of the prayer-book, gleaming in
the light, on the last of the land-birds, drooping in the heat on
the main cross-trees.
". . . For man walketh in a vain shadow," I read, "and disquieteth
himself in vain . . . .
"O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go
hence, and be no more seen."
CHAPTER XI
THE DEAD LINE
Mrs. Johns and the stewardess came up late in the afternoon. We had
railed off a part of the deck around the forward companionway for
them, and none of the crew except the man on guard was allowed inside
the ropes. After a consultation, finding the ship very short-handed,
and unwilling with the night coming on to trust any of the men, Burns
and I decided to take over this duty ourselves, and, by stationing
ourselves at the top of the companionway, to combine the duties of
officer on watch and guard of the after house. To make the women
doubly secure, we had Oleson nail all the windows closed, although
they were merely portholes. Jones was no longer on guard below, and
I had exchanged Singleton's worthless revolver for my own serviceable
one.
Mrs. Johns, carefully dressed, surveyed the railed-off deck with
raised eyebrows.
"For--us?" she asked, looking at me. The men were gathered about
the wheel aft, and were out of ear-shot. Mrs. Sloane had dropped
into a steamer-chair, and was lying back with closed eyes.
"Yes, Mrs. Johns."
"Where have you put them?"
I pointed to where the jolly-boat, on the port side of the ship,
swung on its davits.
"And the mate, Mr. Singleton?"
"He is in the forward house."
"What did you do with the--the weapon?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Morbid curiosity," she said, with a lightness of tone that rang
false to my ears. "And then--naturally, I should like to be sure
that it is safely overboard, so it will not be"--she shivered--"
used again."
"It is not overboard, Mrs. Johns," I said gravely. "It is locked in
a safe place, where it will remain until the police come to take it."
"You are rather theatrical, aren't you?" she scoffed, and turned away.
But a second later she came back to me, and put her hand on my arm.
"Tell me where it is," she begged. "You are making a mystery of it,
and I detest mysteries."
I saw under her mask of lightness then: she wanted desperately to
know where the axe was. Her eyes fell, under my gaze.
"I am sorry. There is no mystery. It is simply locked away for
safe-keeping."
She bit her lip.
"Do you know what I think?" she said slowly. "I think you have
hypnotized the crew, as you did me--at first. Why has no one
remembered that you were in the after house last night, that you
found poor Wilmer Vail, that you raised the alarm, that you
discovered the captain and Karen? Why should I not call the men
here and remind them of all that?"
"I do not believe you will. They know I was locked in the
storeroom. The door--the lock--"
"You could have locked yourself in."
"You do not know what you are saying!"
But I had angered her, and she went on cruelly:--
"Who are you, anyhow? You are not a sailor. You came here and were
taken on because you told a hard-luck story. How do we know that
you came from a hospital? Men just out of prison look as you did.
Do you know what we called you, the first two days out? We called
you Elsa's jail-bird And now, because you have dominated the crew,
we are in your hands!"
"Do Mrs. Turner and Miss Lee think that?"
"They feel as I do. This is a picked crew men the Turner line has
employed for years."
"You are very brave, Mrs. Johns," I said. "If I were what you think
I am, I would be a dangerous enemy."
"I am not afraid of you."
I thought fast. She was right. It had not occurred to me before,
but it swept over me overwhelmingly.
"You are leaving me only one thing to do," I said. "I shall
surrender myself to the men at once." I took out my revolver and
held it out to her. "This rope is a dead-line. The crew know, and
you will have no trouble; but you must stand guard here until some
one else is sent."
She took the revolver without a word, and, somewhat dazed by this
new turn of events, I went aft. The men were gathered there, and I
surrendered myself. They listened in silence while I told them the
situation. Burns, who had been trying to sleep, sat up and stared
at me incredulously.
"It will leave you pretty short-handed, boys," I finished, "but
you'd better fasten me up somewhere. But I want to be sure of one
thing first: whatever happens, keep the guard for the women."
"We'd like to talk it over, Leslie," Burns said, after a word with
the others.
I went forward a few feet, taking care to remain where they could
see me, and very soon they called me. There had been a dispute, I
believe. Adams and McNamara stood off from the others, their faces
not unfriendly, but clearly differing from the decision. Charlie
Jones, who, by reason of long service and a sort of pious control he
had in the forecastle, was generally spokesman for the crew, took a
step or two toward me.
"We'll not do it, boy," he said. "We think we know a man when we
see one, as well as having occasion to know that you're white all
through. And we're not inclined to set the talk of women against
what we think best to do. So you stick to your job, and we're
back of you."
In spite of myself, I choked up. I tried to tell them what their
loyalty meant to me; but I could only hold out my hand, and, one by
one, they came up and shook it solemnly.
"We think," McNamara said, when, last of all, he and Adams came up,
"that it would be best, lad, if we put down in the log-book all that
has happened last night and to-day, and this just now, too. It's
fresh in our minds now, and it will be something to go by."
So Burns and I got the log-book from the captain's cabin. The axe
was there, where we had placed it earlier in the day, lying on the
white cover of the bed. The room was untouched, as the dead man had
left it--a collar on the stand, brushes put down hastily, a
half-smoked cigar which had burned a long scar on the wood before
it had gone out. We went out silently, Burns carrying the book, I
locking the door behind us.
Mrs. Johns, sitting near the companionway with the revolver on her
knee, looked up and eyed me coolly.
"So they would not do it!"
"I am sorry to disappoint you--they would not."
She held up my revolver to me, and smiled cynically.
"Remember," she said, "I only said you were a possibility."
"Thank you; I shall remember."
By unanimous consent, the task of putting down what had happened was
given to me. I have a copy of the log-book before me now, the one
that was used at the trial. The men read it through before they
signed it.
August thirteenth.
This morning, between two-thirty and three o'clock, three murders
were committed on the yacht Ella. At the request of Mrs. Johns, one
of the party on board, I had moved to the after house to sleep,
putting my blanket and pillow in the storeroom and sleeping on the
floor there. Mrs. Johns gave, as her reason, a fear of something
going wrong, as there was trouble between Mr. Turner and the captain.
I slept with a revolver beside me and with the door of the storeroom
open.
At some time shortly before three o'clock I wakened with a feeling
of suffocation, and found that the door was closed and locked on the
outside. I suspected a joke among the crew, and set to work with my
pen-knife to unscrew the lock. When I had two screws out, a woman
screamed, and I broke down the door.
As the main cabin was dark, I saw no one and could not tell where
the cry came from. I ran into Mr. Vail's cabin, next the storeroom,
and called him. His door was standing open. I heard him breathing
heavily. Then the breathing stopped. I struck a match, and found
him dead. His head had been crushed in with an axe, the left hand
cut off, and there were gashes on the right shoulder and the abdomen.
I knew the helmsman would be at the wheel, and ran up the after
companionway to him and told him. Then I ran forward and called the
first mate, Mr. Singleton, who was on duty. He had been drinking.
I asked him to call the captain, but he did not. He got his revolver,
and we hurried down the forward companion. The body of the captain
was lying at the foot of the steps, his head on the lowest stair. He
had been killed like Mr. Vail. His cap had been placed over his face.
The mate collapsed on the steps. I found the light switch and turned
it on. There was no one in the cabin or in the chart-room. I ran to
Mr. Turner's room, going through Mr. Vail's and through the bathroom.
Mr. Turner was in bed, fully dressed. I could not rouse him. Like
the mate, he had been drinking.
The mate had roused the crew, and they gathered in the chart-room.
I told them what had happened, and that the murderer must be among
us. I suggested that they stay together, and that they submit to
being searched for weapons.
They went on deck in a body, and I roused the women and told them.
Mrs. Turner asked me to tell the two maids, who slept in a cabin off
the chartroom. I found their door unlocked, and, receiving no answer,
opened it. Karen Hansen, the lady's-maid, was on the floor, dead,
with her skull crushed in. The stewardess, Henrietta Sloane, was
fainting in her bunk. An axe had been hurled through the doorway as
the Hansen woman fell, and was found in the stewardess's bunk.
Dawn coming by that time, I suggested a guard at the two
companionways, and this was done. The men were searched and all
weapons taken from them. Mr. Singleton was under suspicion, it
being known that he had threatened the captain's life, and Oleson,
a lookout, claiming to have seen him forward where the axe was kept.
The crew insisted that Singleton be put in irons. He made no
objection, and we locked him in his own room in the forward house.
Owing to the loss of Schwartz, the second mate, already recorded in
this log-book (see entry for August ninth), the death of the captain,
and the imprisonment of the first mate, the ship was left without
officers. Until Mr. Turner could make an arrangement, the crew
nominated Burns, one of themselves, as mate, and asked me to assume
command. I protested that I knew nothing of navigation, but agreed
on its being represented that, as I was not one of them, there could
be ill feeling.
The ship was searched, on the possibility of finding a stowaway in
the hold. But nothing was found. I divided the men into two
watches, Burns taking one and I the other. We nailed up the after
companionway, and forbade any member of the crew to enter the after
house. The forecastle was also locked, the men bringing their
belongings on deck. The stewardess recovered and told her story,
which, in her own writing, will be added to this record.
The bodies of the dead were brought on deck and sewed into canvas,
and later, with appropriate services, placed in the jolly-boat, it
being the intention, later on, to tow the boat behind us. 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
position of the men a mutiny.
Some feeling having arisen among the women of the party that I might
know more of the crimes than was generally supposed, having been in
the after house at the time they were committed, and having no
references, I this afternoon voluntarily surrendered myself to Burns,
acting first mate. The men, however, refused to accept this surrender,
only two, Adams and McNamara, favoring it. I expect to give myself up
to the police at the nearest port, until the matter is thoroughly probed.
The axe is locked in the captain's cabin.
(Signed) RALPH LESLIE.
John Robert Burns
Charles Klineordlinger (Jones)
William McNamara
Witnesses Carl L. Clarke
Joseph Q. Adams
John Oleson
Tom MacKenzie
Obadiah Williams
CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST MATE TALKS
Williams came up on deck late that afternoon, with a scared face,
and announced that Mr. Turner had locked himself in his cabin, and
was raving in delirium on the other side of the door. I sent Burns
down having decided, in view of Mrs. Johns's accusation, to keep
away from the living quarters of the family. Burns's report
corroborated what Williams had said. Turner was in the grip of
delirium tremens, and the Ella was without owner or officers.
Turner refused to open either door for us. As well as we could make
out, he was moving rapidly but almost noiselessly up and down the
room, muttering to himself, now and then throwing himself on the bed,
only to get up at once. He rang his bell a dozen times, and summoned
Williams, only, in reply to the butler's palpitating knock, to stand
beyond the door and refuse to open it or to voice any request. The
situation became so urgent that finally I was forced to go down,
with no better success.
Mrs. Turner dragged herself across, on the state of affairs being
reported to her, and, after two or three abortive attempts, succeeded
in getting a reply from him.
"Marsh!" she called. "I want to talk to you. Let me in."
"They'll get us," he said craftily.
"Us? Who is with you?"
"Vail," he replied promptly. "He's here talking. He won't let me
sleep."
"Tell him to give you the key and you will keep it for him so no
one can get him," I prompted. I had had some experience with such
cases in the hospital.
She tried it without any particular hope, but it succeeded
immediately. He pushed the key out under the door, and almost at
once we heard him throw himself on the bed, as if satisfied that
the problem of his security was solved.
Mrs. Turner held the key out to me, but I would not take it.
"Give it to Williams," I said. "You must understand, Mrs. Turner,
that I cannot take it."
She was a woman of few words, and after a glance at my determined
face she turned to the butler.
"You will have to look after Mr. Turner, Williams. See that he is
comfortable, and try to keep him in bed."
Williams put out a trembling hand, but, before he took the key,
Turner's voice rose petulantly on the other side of the door.
"For God's sake, Wilmer," he cried plaintively, "get out and let
me sleep I haven't slept for a month."
Williams gave a whoop of fear, and ran out of the cabin, crying
that the ship was haunted and that Vail had come back. From that
moment, I believe, the after house was the safest spot on the ship.
To my knowledge, no member of the crew so much as passed it on the
starboard side, where Vail's and Turner's cabins were situated. It
was the one good turn the owner of the Ella did us on that hideous
return journey; for, during most of the sixteen days that it took
us to get back, he lay in his cabin, alternating the wild frenzy of
delirium tremens with quieter moments when he glared at us with
crafty, murderous eyes, and picked incessantly at the bandages that
tied him down. Not an instant did he sleep, that we could discover;
and always, day or night, Vail was with him, and they were quarreling.
The four women took care of him as best they could. For a time they
gave him the bromides I prepared, taking my medical knowledge without
question. In the horror of the situation, curiosity had no place,
and class distinctions were forgotten. That great leveler, a common
trouble, put Henrietta Sloane, the stewardess, and the women of the
party at the same table in the after house, where none ate, and
placed the responsibility for the ship, although, I was nominally
in command, on the shoulders of all the men. And there sprang up
among them a sort of esprit de corps, curious under the circumstances,
and partly explained, perhaps, by the belief that in imprisoning
Singleton they had the murderer safely in hand. What they thought
of Turner's possible connection with the crime, I do not know.
Personally, I was convinced that Turner was guilty. Perhaps,
lulled into a false security by the incarceration of the two men,
we unconsciously relaxed our vigilance. But by the first night the
crew were somewhat calmer. Here and there a pipe was lighted, and
a plug of tobacco went the rounds. The forecastle supper, served
on deck, was eaten; and Charlie Jones, securing a permission that I
thought it best to grant, went forward and painted a large black
cross on the side of the jolly-boat, and below it the date, August
13, 1911. The crew watched in respectful silence.
The weather was in our favor, the wind on our quarter, a blue sky
heaped with white cloud masses, with the sunset fringed with the
deepest rose. The Ella made no great way, but sailed easily. Burns
and I alternated at the forward companionway, and, although the men
were divided into watches, the entire crew was on duty virtually
all the time.
I find, on consulting the book in which I recorded, beginning with
that day, the incidents of the return voyage, that two things
happened that evening. One was my interview with Singleton; the
other was my curious and depressing clash with Elsa Lee, on the deck
that night.
Turner being quiet and Burns on watch at the beginning of the second
dog watch, six o'clock, I went forward to the room where Singleton
was imprisoned. Burns gave me the key, and advised me to take a
weapon. I did not, however, nor was it needed.
The first mate was sitting on the edge of his bunk, in his attitude
of the morning, his head in his hands. As I entered, he looked up
and nodded. His color was still bad; he looked ill and nervous, as
might have been expected after his condition the night before.
"For God's sake, Leslie," he said, "tell them to open the window.
I'm choking!"
He was right: the room was stifling. I opened the door behind me,
and stood in the doorway, against a rush for freedom. But he did
not move. He sank back into his dejected attitude.
"Will you eat some soup, if I send it?"
He shook his head.
"Is there anything you care for?"
"Better let me starve; I'm gone, anyhow."
"Singleton," I said, "I wish you would tell me about last night.
If you did it, we've got you. If you didn't, you'd better let me
take your own account of what happened, while it's fresh in your
mind. Or, better still, write it yourself."
He held out his right hand. I saw that it was shaking violently.
"Couldn't hold a pen," he said tersely. "Wouldn't be believed,
anyhow."
The air being somewhat better, I closed and locked the door again,
and, coming in, took out my notebook and pencil. He watched me
craftily. "You can write it," he said, "if you'll give it to me to
keep. I'm not going to put the rope around my own neck. If it's
all right, my lawyers will use it. If it isn't--" He shrugged his
shoulders.
I had never liked the man, and his tacit acknowledgment that he
might incriminate himself made me eye him with shuddering distaste.
But I took down his story, and reproduce it here, minus the
technicalities and profanity with which it was interlarded.
Briefly, Singleton's watch began at midnight. The captain, who had
been complaining of lumbago, had had the cook prepare him a mustard
poultice, and had retired early. Burns was on watch from eight to
twelve, and, on coming into the forward house at a quarter after
eleven o'clock to eat his night lunch, reported to Singleton that
the captain was in bed and that Mr. Turner had been asking for him.
Singleton, therefore, took his cap and went on deck. This was about
twenty minutes after eleven. He had had a drink or two earlier in
the evening, and he took another in his cabin when he got his cap.
He found Turner in the chart-house, playing solitaire and drinking.
He was alone, and he asked Singleton to join him. The first mate
looked at his watch and accepted the invitation, but decided to look
around the forward house to be sure the captain was asleep. He went
on deck. He could hear Burns and the lookout talking. The forward
house was dark. He listened outside the captain's door, and heard
him breathing heavily, as if asleep. He stood there for a moment.
He had an uneasy feeling that some one was watching him. He thought
of Schwartz, and was uncomfortable. He did not feel the whiskey at
all.
He struck a light and looked around. There was no one in sight.
He could hear Charlie Jones in the forecastle drumming on his banjo,
and Burns whistling the same tune as he went aft to strike the bell.
(It was the duty of the officer on watch to strike the hour.) It
was then half after eleven. As he passed the captain's door again,
his foot struck something, and it fell to the floor. He was afraid
the captain had been roused, and stood still until he heard him
breathing regularly again. Then he stooped down. His foot had
struck an axe upright against the captain's door, and had knocked
it down.
The axe belonged on the outer wall of the forward house. It was a
rule that it must not be removed from its place except in emergency,
and the first mate carried it out and leaned it against the forward
port corner of the after house when he went below. Later, on his
watch, he carried it forward and put it where it belonged.
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