'Were the four of you in this cabin on board this ship the night of the murder?'
The man did not answer, but a woman across the cabin spoke up. 'Yes,' she said. 'We was all here.'
'And who else?' asked Muldoon.
'Only Daniel,' she replied.
Muldoon turned again to the man. 'I am Inspector Muldoon of the metropolitan police force, and this gentleman on my right is United States Marshal Olson. We have come out here to investigate this murder. It will be pleasanter for all concerned if you answer our questions and answer them truthfully. None of you need answer any question that will incriminate himself.
'Now, when was this murder committed?'
'The night of September first, night before last.'
'You are here together alone much of the time, are you not?'
'We ain't seen no one since the tender was here last time.'
'When was that?'
'The second of July.'
'What was the murdered man doing the last time you saw him alive?'
'He was scrappin' with her.' Bill MacTeevor pointed toward a woman sitting near him.
'What is you name? Asked Muldoon, addressing the woman.
'Esther MacTeevor.' She was a slatternly woman clothed in a dirty calico garment that would have been called a Mother Hubbard twenty or thirty years ago; I don't know what they call them now.
'What were you and the murdered man quarrelling about? asked the Inspector.
'What we always quarreled about -- money. He was turrible tight about money -- he wouldn't give me none.'
'Why did you want money?'
'Andy wanted to go ashore when the tender come. He wanted to get a job on shore. He was sick o' livin' on a lightship. I wanted the money fer him.'
''Were you and Daniel related Esther? Inquired Muldoon.
'Yes, but we weren't no blood kin.'
'Just when did you see your sister last prior to the murder?' Muldoon has an odd way of skipping about in his questioning and suddenly asking what seem to be the most irrelevant sort of questions.
Esther MacTeevor puckered her brows in thought. 'Let's see,' she said finally, '4th o' July come on a Monday this year; an' it was jest a week before the Fourth that I seen Susan last. The husband of one of her friends owns a fishin' boat, and she come with him. She spent a week with me an' went back the Monday before the Fourth. She ain't never been married, an' she likes to gad about an' visit. Especial she likes to come an' see me, 'cause me an' her is the only ones left in our family.'
Muldoon wheeled suddenly toward a scrawny, hard-faced woman. 'What is your name?' he demanded.
The woman started nervously as though someone had suddenly stuck a pin into her. 'Ca-Carrie MacTeevor,' she stammered.
'What do you know of the happenings on this ship the night of September1?' Muldoon shot the question at her as though he were accusing her of the murder.
'I don't know nothin',' she replied sullenly. 'I never done it.' And then half hysterically, 'I swear to God I never done it!'
'I am only asking you to recall what you do know of that night,' said Muldoon, soothingly. I think it is these quick changes of manner that help to make Mullion's technique so effective; his subjects are alternately soothed or shocked into revealing more than they realize.
'Well,' commenced the woman, reminiscently, 'it was a turrible night. The wind was blowin' a gale, an' the clouds hid every star; it was dark as a pocket except when The Light flashed -- on five seconds, off fifteen. The ship was wallowin' an' pitchin', the wind was howlin' through the riggin', an' above the storm I could hear the seas breakin' on the reef. I was plumb scairt; an' I was seasick, too. I staid in my bunk from right after supper. I didn't know nothin' about Daniel until mornin', when Bill come in an' tol' me.'
'How long have you known Andy?'
'Eighteen year.'
'Did he and Daniel ever quarrel?'
'Yes. We all quarreled. There wasn't nothin' else much to do.'
'Didn't Andy quarrel with Daniel more than the rest of you?'
'No, he didn't. Andy has always been a good boy. Perhaps, bein' an only child, he's been spoiled a little; but he ain't a bad boy.'
Muldoon was silent for a moment; then he turned away from Carrie. 'Bill,' he asked, 'where was your brother sleeping the night of the murder?'
'I never had no brother,' replied Bill, 'nor sister, neither.'
'How old are you?'
'Almost forty.'
