on — er — ma'am' he said, with a kind of wild, coaxing note, 'take some of this liquor… Up you go!… Come on!'
His face wore a rather weird encouraging smile as he clicked the glass against her locked teeth. A shudder went over the white face. The
They were silent amid the rattling of the cabin. Warren, who had been cursing in a whisper when the contents of the glass splashed wide, turned round sharply. His face, under the wild goblin hair, wore a look of triumphant malevolence. Clinging to furniture, they waited…
Somebody was trying the latch-hook of the cabin next door.
There was an elaborate pantomime of communication. Morgan's lips elaborately writhed to frame, 'Let him get inside,' as he jerked his thumb at the next cabin. Valvick and Warren nodded; they were all making fierce gestures, and nodding to one another, and trying to reach the passage-door without sprawling full-length. Warren glared at Peggy, and his lips formed, 'You stay
The light in the next room was switched on…
Here on the floor, the whisky-bottle was rolling and bumping wildly. Captain Valvick made a dart for it, as a man chases his hat in a gale. The pantomime still went on, grotesque against the dim light in the berth, where that pale-faced figure was twisting…
The door of the next cabin slammed.
Whether or not it was the wind, they could not tell. Warren tore open the door of his state-room, the sticking-plaster on his head going before like a banner, and lurched into the passage. Plunging out after Valvick's big figure, Morgan seized the handrail in the passage just in time to steady himself as the ship plunged once more.
Either he had been too quick for them or he had been frightened away. With a rather satiric wink, the rubber edging of the door caught and contracted; the gilt piston closed softly. Over the tortured wrenching and bone- cracking of the woodwork, when the whole ship seemed to be heeling over down a colossal chute, Warren let out a howl and charged for the door. The inrush of wind smashed over them as he got it open; they were whirled sideways in the trough of the wave, and the wind carried away something Captain Valvick was crying, about 'be careful,' and 'hold de rail,' and 'close to water line.'
The spray took Morgan in the face as he clambered out into darkness. Between spray and bellowing wind, he was momentarily blind. The wind cut through him with paralysing chill, and his foot slipped on the wet iron plates. A whistle and drumming went by in the halloo of the blast. A few lights from high up in the ship gleamed out across a darkness shot with ghostly white. The lights shone on creaming white flickers; on a curl of grey-black swell that shone like grained wood, and then a mist of spray as the wet deck tilted sickeningly and the crash of water rose high in a spectral mane. Morgan seized at the bulkhead rail, steadied himself, and shaded his eyes.
They were on the windward side. D deck was long, rather narrow, and very dimly lighted. He saw it go up before them on the rise — and he saw their man. A little way ahead, not holding to the rail, but, head down, a figure was hurrying towards the bows. Even in the dull yellow flicker in the roof they could see that this figure carried something under its arm. And this was a circular black box, flattish, and about ten inches in diameter…
'Steady, boys!' said Warren, exultantly, and flapped against the rail. 'Steady, boys! Here we go down again. Hang on!' He stabbed his finger ahead. 'And
The rest of the sentence was lost, although he seemed to keep on speaking. They were after him. Far ahead,
Morgan could see the lamp on the tall foremast swing up, rear, and swerve like a diver. He thought (and thinks to this day) that they did not so much run down that deck as hook their elbows to the rail and sail down it like a stupendous water-chute. They were going so fast, in fact, that he wondered whether they could stop in time, or whether they would go straight at the big enclosure of glass that protected the fore part of the deck from the wind's full violence. Their quarry heard them now. He had reached the turn of the deck by the glass enclosure when he heard the clatter of pursuit; he was almost in darkness, and he whirled round towards them. Juggled on flying water, the liner crested another rise…
'Haaa!' screamed Warren, and charged.
To say that Warren hit the man would be a powerful understatement. Morgan afterwards wondered why that crack did not jar the other's head loose from his spine. Warren landed on his quarry's jaw, with the weight of his own thirteen stone and the catapult-start of the Atlantic Ocean behind. It was the most terrific, reverberating smack since Mr. William Henry Harrison Dempsey pasted Mr. Luis Angel Firpo clean over the ropes into the newspapermen's laps; and it is to be recorded that, when the other hit the glass enclosure, he bounced. Warren did not afterwards even give him time to fall. 'You'll go around smacking people with a blackjack, will you?' he demanded — a purely rhetorical question. 'You'll come into a guy's cabin, hey! and crack him one with a lead pipe? Oh, you will, will you?' inquired Mr. Warren, and waded in.
Both Captain Vavick and Morgan, who had been ready to lend assistance, clutched the rail and stared. The circular tin box slid from the victim's arms, clattered on the deck, and rolled. Valvick caught it as the deck was carrying it overboard.
'Yumping Yudas!' said the captain, his eyeballs bulging. 'Ho! Hey! Go easy! Ay t'ank you going to kill him if you keep on…'
'Whee!' said a voice behind them. 'Darling! Sock him again!'
Reeling, Morgan turned round to see Peggy Glenn, without hat or coat, capering in the middle of the spray- drenched deck. Her hair was blowing wildly, and she beamed as she spun to keep her footing. She had the whisky- bottle in one hand ('in case somebody needed it,' as she afterwards explained), and she was waving it, encouragingly.
'You blasted little fool,' yelled Morgan, 'go back!' He seized her arm and dragged her to the inside rail, but she broke loose and stuck out her tongue at him. 'Go back, I tell you! Here, take this—' he got the tin box from Valvick, and thrust it into her hands—'take this and go back. We'll be there. It's all over… '
It was, and had been for some seconds. By the time she was persuaded to work her way back some distance. Warren had arranged his tie, smoothed the hair over his sticking-plaster, and come up to them with the deprecating air of a person who regrets having caused a fuss.
'Well, boys,' he said, 'I feel a little better. Now we can examine this blackjacker-user and see if he's carrying the first part of the film on him. If not, we can easily find out his cabin.' He drew a deep breath. A high wave careered, swung and broke close to the deck, drenching him; but he only adjusted his tie and wiped the water from his eyes in a negligent fashion. He was beaming. 'This isn't a bad night's work. As a member of the Diplomatic Service, I feel that I have earned considerable thanks from Uncle Warpus, and — What the devil's the matter with —!'
The girl had screamed. Even with the sea noises, it went up shrill and thin above them, paralysing on the darkened liner.
Morgan whirled round. She had taken the lid off the tin box, and Morgan noted in fascinated horror that the lid had a hasp and a hinge, which he did not remember having seen… Holding tight to the rail, he wove his way to where the girl, under a sickly electric bulb, was holding the box out and staring into it.
'Coroosh!' said Captain Valvick.
The box was not tin; it was thin steel. Inside, it was padded and lined with gleaming white satin. Bedded into a depression in the middle was a glow of green brilliancy which shifted and burned under the moving light. There were two rubies for eyes in the exquisitely carven thing; a piece of subtle Persian workmanship somewhat larger than a Vesta matchbox, and wound with gold links into a pendant.
He swallowed hard, and a nauseating suspicion struck him as he peered over his shoulder.
