The Blind Barber

exactly kill; but he has a knack of softening their heads ho that they're worse than dead…

'By the Lord!' said Warren, clenching and unclenching his hands, 'I'm wondering whether that's what / nearly got in the other cabin, only the fellow missed his aim when the ship rolled.'

There was a silence, made portentous by creaking bulkheads and the blustering roar outside.

'I say, Peggy,' Morgan observed, thoughtfully, 'you'd better get out of this, old girl. It isn't funny. Go up to the bar and entice some gullibles into a bridge game. If this basher comes along and tries to pinch the rest of the film, we'll let you know. Meantime—'

The girl said, with vehemence, 'Bah! You can't scare mc. You are a cheerful lot, though. Why don't you start telling ghost stories? If you start off by being afraid of this chap—'

'Who's afraid of him?' shouted Warren. 'Listen, Baby. I've got something to settle, I have. When I get at him—' Satirically he watched her jump a little when there was a knock at the door. Captain Valvick bearing two large siphons of soda-water, bent his head under the door and closed it behind him with a mysterious air.

Morgan always remembered the ensuing two hours (or possibly three) on account of the interminable game of Geography that was played to pass away the time. Captain Valvick — cheerfully twinkling, in no whit disturbed — insisted that they should turn out the light, hook the door partly open, and get enough light from the dim bulb in the passage. First he administered to each a hair-raising peg of whisky, which made them feel anew the excellence of the adventure; then he placed them in a weird circle on the floor, with the bottle in the middle like a camp fire; finally, he filled up the glasses again.

'Skoal!' said the captain, raising his glass in the dim light. 'Ay tell you, diss iss de life. Coroosh! But ay got to feel bad about Captain Whistler. Ho-ho! Dat poor old barnacle iss near crazy, you bet, on account of de crook which like to steal de jewellery. He iss afraid diss crook going to rob de English duke, and he try to persuade de duke to let him lock up de hemereld helephant in de captain's safe. But dat duke only give him de bird. He say, 'It be safer wit' me dan in your safe, or wit' de purser or anybody.' De captain say no. De duke say yes. De captain say no. De duke say yes… '

'Look here, you can omit the element of suspense,' said Morgan, taking another drink. 'What did they decide?'

'Ay dunno yust what dey decide. But ay got to feel bad about dat poor old barnacle. Come on, now; we play Geography.'

This game was trying, but in many senses lively. As the whisky diminished, it led to long and bitter arguments between Warren and the captain. The latter, when stumped for a place-name, would always introduce some such place as Ymorgenickenburg or the River Skoof, in Norway. Warren would heatedly cast slurs on his veracity. Then the captain would say he had an aunt living there. As this was not considered prima facie evidence, he would embark on a long and complicated anecdote about the relative in question, with accounts of such other members of his family as happened to occur to him. Morgan's watch ticked on, and the stir about the boat gradually died away into a roaring night, as they heard about the captain's brother, August, his Cousin Ole, his niece Gretta, and his grandfather who was a beadle. Footsteps went by in the main corridor, but none of them turned into the side passage. It was growing stuffy in the cabin…

'I–I think he probably won't come,' Peggy whispered, reverting to the subject for the first, time. There was an uneasy hopefulness in the way she said it.

'It's hotter than hell in here,' muttered Warren. Glassware rattled faintly. 'I'm tired of the game, anyhow. I think—'

'Listen!' said Morgan.

He had scrambled up and was holding to the side of the berth. They all felt it — a terrific draught blowing through the passage outside, rattling the hooks of the doors, and they heard the deeper tumult of the sea boiling more loudly. The door to D deck had been pushed open.

But it did not close. They were all standing up now, waiting to hear the swish and slam of that door as it closed against the compressed-air valve. Those doors were heavy; and in a wind you dodged inside quickly. But for an interminable time something seemed to be holding it partly open, while the draught whistled. The Queen Victoria rose, pitched, and went over in a long roll to starboard, but still the door stayed open. It was impossible to distinguish smaller noises above the crazy wickerwork creaking, but yet Morgan had an eerie sense that the door did not close because it could not; that there was something caught there, trapped in a snare and in pain, between the black sea and warm security inside.

They heard a moan. A faint voice seemed to be muttering something, muttering and repeating thinly in the passage. 'Warren!' they thought it said. And again, 'Warren….' until it died off in pain.

5 — Enter the Emerald Elephant

Morgan almost pitched head foremost into the wardrobe as his clumsy fingers fumbled at the hook on the door. He righted himself, squeezed outside, and called to Valvick to follow.

There was something caught there. It was small and broken-looking, snapped between the jamb and the heavy door — a woman fallen forward across a sill six inches high. She wore no hat, and her dishevelled brown hair, which had tumbled down along one side, blew wildly in the draught. They could not see her face. Her hands, flung forward out of the sleeves of a green, fur-edged coat, were groping in weak movements — horribly, as though she were tapping at the keys of a piano. The head and body rolled with the ship. As they did, a splashing of blood ran thinly along the rubber matting of the floor.

With his shoulder, Morgan forced the door wide while Captain Valvick picked the woman up. Then the door boomed shut once more with a cessation of draught that made them shiver.

'Dat blood,' said Valvick, suddenly, in a low voice. 'Look! It iss from her nose. She been hit on de back off de head… '

Her head lay limply in the crook of the captain's arm; and he moved his arm as though with a notion he must not touch her there. She was a sturdy, wiry girl with thick eyebrows and long lashes — not unattractive under a pallor that made her rouge stand out, but with one of those straight Greek-coin faces which have a look of heaviness rather than beauty. Her throat quivered as the head lolled over. Breathing raspingly, with eyes squeezed shut, she seemed to be trying to move her lips.

'In here,' Warren's voice said in a whisper from the door of the dark cabin. They carried her in, a trembling

Peggy making way for them, laid her down on the berth, and switched on the dim lamp inside. Morgan closed the door.

Peggy was very pale, but with some sudden mechanical Impulse she seized a towel off the rack and wiped the blood from the nose and mouth of the inert girl.

'Who — who is she? What—?'

'Get some whisky,' said the captain, curtly. Blinking his pale blue eyes, he puffed slowly through his moustache; there was a scowl on his face as he ran one finger along the base of the woman's skull. 'Ay dunno, but she may be hurt bad. Ha! Turn her on de side, and you wet de cloths. Ay haff to know somet'ing of what de doctor know because dere is no doctor on de cargo-boat… Ha! Maybe—'

'I've seen her before,' said Warren. He steadily poured out whisky and put it to the girl's lips as the captain eased up her head. 'Hold it… I'll see if I can force her teeth apart. Damn it! she's jerking like a mule… She was the girl in the wireless-room this afternoon, the one who was there when I got my cable. You think her skull's fractured?'

'She might—' Peggy observed, in a small voice—'she might have fallen—'

'Haaaah!' growled the captain, jerking his neck. 'She fall like Mr. Warren fall in de next cabin, you bet.' His fingers were still exploring; his face looked heavy and puzzled. 'Ho! Ay dunn, but ay don't t'ink she got de skull fractured; don't feel like it. See, it pain her when ay feel, eh? And dat iss not de way dey act if dey are bad 'urt… ' He drew a wheezing breath. 'Try de whisky again. So.'

'I'll swear I heard her saying my name,' Warren whispered,' 'Got those wet towels, Hank? Put 'em on. Come