The Blind Barber

In when he did, so that we were dragged away and the crook had a clear field.'

Peggy also refused to listen to this line of argument. Warren had got out a damp package of cigarettes, and he and Peggy lit one while Morgan filled his pipe. The girl laid, between short puffs, as though she were rather angrily trying to get rid of the smoke:

'But, I say, it's going to be easy now, isn't it? It was father a dreadful bloomer on their part, wasn't it? Because We shall know that girl when we see her again, and then We've got 'em. She wasn't disguised, you know. She hardly had any make-up on, even. That reminds me — my compact. Give it me, Curt. I say I must look a sight! Anyway, We can't miss her. She's still aboard the boat.'

'Ms she?' said Morgan. 'I wonder.'

Warren, who was about to make some impatient comment, glanced up and saw the other's expression. He too the cigarette out of his mouth; his eyes grew curious! fixed.

'What — what's on your mind, General?'

'Only that Peggy's right in one sense. If that girl was an accomplice, then the thing would be too easy, much t easy for us. On the other hand, if that girl had been co ing here to try to warn you about something… I know you didn't know her, but let's suppose that's what she was doing… Then the thief gets after her and thinks he's done the business. But he hasn't. Then—'

The droning engines seemed to vibrate loud above creaking woodwork, because the wind had died outside, deep tumult was subsiding, and the Queen Victoria was rolling almost gently as though she were exhausted by th< gale. All of them were relaxed; but it did not help their nerves. Peggy jumped then as the door opened and Cap tain Valvick returned with the passenger-list in one hand and a quart of Old Rob Roy in the other.

'Ay told you ay only be a minute,' he announced, wass easy to find de ports, and den de cabin numbers from inside. One is C 51 and the other C 46. Ay t'ank. Hey?' he said, peering at the strained faces in the room 'What iss de matter, hey?'

'Nothing,' said Morgan. 'Not for a minute, anyhow Come on, now. Set your minds at rest. You wanted t know. Find out who occupies those cabins first, and then we can go on.'

With a jerk of her head, still looking at him, Peggy too the passenger-list. On the point of speaking, she said nothing, and opened the list instead. But she rose and sat o the couch this time. Under cover of Captain Valvick's tall Warren helped him take the extra glasses off the rack an pour drinks. They all glanced furtively at Morgan, who had begun to wonder whether he were merely flourishing a turnip ghost. He lit his pipe during a queer silence while Peggy ran her finger down the fist, and the ship's engine beat monotonously.

'Well?' said Warren.

'Wait a bit, old boy. This takes time… Mmmm. Oar — Gran — Gulden — Harris — mmm — Hooper, Isaacs mm, no — Jarvis, Jerome… I say, I hope I haven't missed it; Jeston, Ka-Kedler — Kennedy… Hullo!' She breathed a line of smoke past her cigarette, and glanced US with wide eyes. 'What was it, skipper? C 46? Righto! Hire it is. 'C 46 Kyle, Dr. Oliver Harrison.' Fancy that! Sr. Kyle has one of those cabins…

Warren whistled.

'Kyle, eh? Not bad. Whoa! Wait a bit,' said the diplomat, He struck the bulkhead. 'My God! wasn't he one of the suspects? Yes, I remember now. This crook is probably masquerading…

With difficulty Morgan shut him up, for more and more Was Warren impressed by the general rightness and poetic reasonableness of a crook with a taste for using the blackjack adopting the guise of a distinguished Harley Street physician. His views were based on the forthright principle that, the more respectable they looked, the more likely they were to turn out dastardly murderers. He also sited examples from the collected works of Henry Morgan in which the authors of the dirty work had proved to be (respectively) an admiral, a rose-grower, an invalid, and an archdeacon. It was only when Peggy protested that this Was merely the case in detective stories that Morgan took his side.

'That's just where you're wrong, old girl,' he said. 'It's In real life that the crooks and killers always go in the most solidly respectable dress. Only, you see them at the wrong end — in the dock. You think of them as a murderer, not as the erstwhile churchgoing occupant of Number 13 Laburnum Grove. Whisper softly to yourself the names of the most distinguished croakers of a century, and observe that nearly all of them were highly esteemed by the vicar. Constance Kent? Dr. Pritchard? Christina Edmunds? Dr. Lamson? Dr. Crippen—'

'And nearly all of 'em doctors, eh?' inquired Warren, with an air of sinister enlightenment. He seemed to brood over this incorrigible tendency among members of the

medical profession to go about murdering people. 'You < see, Peggy? Hank's right.' '

'Don't be a lop-eared ass,' said Morgan. 'Wash out this idea of Dr. Kyle's being a crook, will you? He's a j very well-known figure… oh, and get rid of the notion, too, that somebody may be impersonating him while the real Dr. Kyle is dead. That may be all right for some person who never comes in contact with anybody; but a public figure like an eminent physician won't do… Go on, Peggy. Tell us who's in C 51, and then we can forget it and get down to real business.'

She wrinkled her forehead.

'Here we are, and this is odd, too. 'C 51. Perrigord, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie.' So- ho!'

'What's odd about that? Who are they?'

'You remember my telling you about a very, very great highbrow and aesthete who was aboard, and had written reams of ecstatic articles about Uncle Jules's genius? And I said I hoped for his sake as well as the kids who wanted to see the fighting that there'd be a performance tomorrow night?'

'Ah! Perrigord?'

'Yes. Both he and she are awfully aesthetic, you know. He writes poetry — you know, the kind you can't understand, all about his soul being like a busted fencer-rail or something. And I believe he's a dramatic critic, too, although you can't make much sense out of what he writes there, either. I can't anyway. But he says the only dramatists are the French dramatists. He says Uncle Jules has the greatest classic genius since Moliere. Maybe you've seen him about? Tall, thin chap with flat, blond hair, and his wife wears a monocle?' She giggled. 'They do about two hundred circuits of the promenade-deck every morning, and never speak to anybody, those people!'

'H'm!' said Morgan, remembering the dinner-table that night. 'Oh, yes. But I didn't know you knew them. II this fellow has written all that stuff about your uncle—'

'Oh, I don't know them,' she disclaimed, opening her eyes wide. 'They're English, you see. They'll write volumes about you, and discuss every one of your good and

bad points minutely; but they won't say how-de-do unless you've been properly introduced.'

All this analysis was over the head of the good Captain Valvick, who had grown restive and was puffing through hi* moustache with strange noises, as though he wanted to I if admitted through a closed door.

'Ay got de whisky poured out,' he vouchsafed. 'And you put in de soda. Iss it decided what we are going to do? What iss decided, anyway? Sometime we got to go to bed.'

'I'll tell you what we're going to do,' said Warren, with energy, 'and we can sketch out the plan of battle now. Tomorrow morning we're going to comb the boat for that gill who pulled the fainting-act in here. That's the only lead we've got, and we're going after it as hard as Whistler goes after the emerald. That is—' He turned round abruptly. 'Let's have it out, Hank. Were you only trying to scare us or were you serious when you made that suggestion?'

Obviously this had been at the back of his mind from the beginning, and he did not like to face it. His hands were clenched. There was a silence while Peggy put the passenger-list aside and also looked up.

'What iss de suggestion?' asked Captain Valvick.

'It's a queer thing,' said Morgan. 'We don't want our pleasant farce to turn into something else, do we? But why «l«* you think new sheets and maybe blankets were put on Unit berth?'

'All right,' said Warren, quietly. 'Why?'

'Because there may have been more blood afterwards limn we saw there. Steady, now.'

There was a silence. Morgan heard the breath whistling through Captain Valvick's nostrils. With a jerk Warren turned round; he regarded the berth for a moment and then began tearing off the bedclothes.

The cabin creaked faintly…