The Blind Barber

Woodcock had told the truth about it, and could have exhibited a pardonable pride in its response. From the nozzle a fine stream of liquid insect exterminator shot with the force and violence of a fire-hose. Nor could Mr. Woodcock have in the least complained of its accuracy. In fact, it sizzled across the cabin full and true into the face of Commander Sir Hector Whistler just as he opened the door.

Morgan shut his eyes. In that moment of blasting and appalled silence he did not wish to look upon Captain Whistler's countenance. He would sooner have tried to outstare Medusa. Moreover, he wished he could summon his muscles to dive out of the room and run. But he could hear the Mermaid still hissing on the door-post beside the captain's head; and he risked one eye to look, not at Whistler, but at Warren.

Warren found his voice.

'I couldn't help it, Skipper!' he yelled. 'I swear by all that's holy I couldn't help it. I tried everything. I pressed every button, but it wouldn't stop. Look! See, I'll show you! Look…!'

There was a sharp click. Instantly the stream gurgled, fell, and died away from the Mermaid's nozzle. It stopped. The Mermaid was as innocuous as she had been before.

Morgan afterwards realised that only one thing saved them then. Peering over the captain's shoulder in the doorway he had seen the startled countenance of Captain Valvick. Only the strangled words, 'So — it's— you!' issued from the quivering lungs of the Queen Victoria's commander before Valvick had shot a big hand over his mouth. With one hand over his mouth and the other impelling him by the sack of the trousers, he hustled the insane skipper into the cabin and kicked the door shut.

'Qvick!' rumbled Valvick. 'You get somet'ing to gag him wit' till he cool down, or he call de chief mate and den maybe we iss all in de brig. Ay am hawful sorry, Barnacle, but ay got to do diss… ' Frowning, he turned a glance of angry reproachfulness on Warren. 'What you want to playing for, anyway, eh? Diss iss no time for playing, ay tell you. After ay take al de time to smoot' old Barnacle down and tell him what we are doing, den it iss no time for playing. Coroosh! What iss dat stuff ay smell in de air?'

'It's only bug-powder, Skipper,' insisted Warren. 'After all, it's only bug-powder!'

A spasm racked the stout frame of Captain Whistler; his good eye bulged, but his internal noises beat in vain against the Gibraltar of Valvick's hand across his mouth. Nevertheless, Valvick had to use two hands to keep him quiet.

'Honest, Barnacle, diss iss for your own good!' Valvick begged, dragging him over to the chair before his desk and pushing him in. He was answered by a variety of muffled sounds like a steam-calliope heard underground. 'Odder-wise you are going to do somet'ing you regret. Dese yentle-men can explain; ay know it! If you promise to do not'ing, ay let you loose. Ay mean, you kin svear all you like if it reliefs your mind, but you are not to do not'ing. Odderwise we got to gag you, eh?… Ay tell you it iss for your own good!… Now! You iss a man of your word. What about it, eh?'

A noise of assent and an inclination of the head like the Dying Gladiator answered him. Valvick stepped back, removing his hand.

The ensuing half-hour is one of the things in Morgan's life that he likes to forget. To say that it was nerve- racking would be to employ a spiritless word, and one without those nuances which Mr. Leslie Perrigord declares are essential to the power of classic drama. There was much classic fire at one point in the captain's remarks — that at which he frequently clutched his throat, stabbed a shaking finger at Warren like Macbeth seeing the ghost, and kept repeating 'He's mad, I tell you! He tried to poison me! He's a homicidal maniac! Do you want him to murder my passengers? Why don't you let me lock him up?'

If, eventually, more sober counsels prevailed, it was due to a circumstance which Morgan did not at the moment understand. Captain Whistler, he was compelled to admit, had certain reasonable grounds for protest. Aside from all questions of personal dignity (the Mermaid's aim had gone straight as Locksley's good clothyard shaft into the skipper's damaged left eye), there was reason for complaint in the general omnipresence of bug-powder. The cabin was haunted by bug-powder. It rose in ghostly waves from his dress uniform; it soaked his berth, pervaded his linen, clung round his shoes, made fragrant his log-book, and whispered sweet nothings from his correspondence. In short, you could safely have wagered that not for months would even the most reckless cockroach be daredevil enough to venture within smelling-distance of anything that was Captain Whistler's.

Therefore it considerably astonished Morgan that in the short space of half an hour he was prevailed on to accept their explanations. True, he placed the Mermaid Automatic Electric Mosquito Gun in the middle of the floor and jumped on it. True, he no whit retreated from his declaration that Curtis Warren was a dangerous lunatic who would shortly be cutting somebody's throat if not placed under observation. But (whether due to Peggy's blandishments or to another cause shortly to be indicated, you shall decide) he consented to give Warren just one more chance.

'Just one more chance,' he proclaimed, leaning forward in the chair and bringing his hand down on his desk, 'and that's all. If there's one more suspicious move out of not only him, but any of you— Any of you, do you understand? — then he goes to the brig under guard. That's my last word.' Glaring he sat back and sipped the healing whisky-and-soda that had been brought him. 'Now, if you don't mind, we'll get down to business. And first I'll tell you this. I promised to share any information I might get, Mr. Morgan, because I considered you at least a sane man. Well, I have some information, although I admit it puzzles me. But before I tell you, there's something I want to point out. The young maniac, and you three as well, have caused me more trouble than anybody I ever had aboard a craft of mine. I could murder all four of you! You've caused me more trouble than anybody except the man who stole that emerald; and, in a way, you're involved in that… '

('Steady,' thought Morgan.)

'But that's more important. And, if you liked, you could, I say, you could, help me a little in return… Are you sure there's nobody listening at that door?'

His tone was so gruffly and uneasily conspiratorial that Valvick peered out the door and closed all the portholes. Peggy said, earnestly:

'I don't think, Captain, you have the least idea how glad we'd be to make it up to you. If there's anything we can do—'

Whistler hesitated. He took another sip of whisky.

'I've just seen his lordship,' he went on, as though he hated to make a confession, but that Hector Whistler was a desperate man. 'He's — haaa — up in the air, because the emerald wasn't insured. He had the cheek to say I was drunk or careless, the??!!!?!!!/???% Vz YaV^Mold?!!!??<?%!—that's what he said! He said it would never have happened if I had left it with him… '

'You haven't found it, by any chance, have you?' asked Morgan.

'No! I have searched this ship with fifteen picked men from fo'c's'le-head to rudder, and I have not found it, young man. Now, then, be quiet and listen. I don't think he'll sue the line. But there's a question of law to be considered. That question is: Was I, or was I not, guilty of careless conduct? The emerald was technically in my possession, although I had not locked it in my safe. Show me the lubber,' snarled Captain Whistler, glaring from one to the other of them, 'who says I was guilty of careless conduct — contributory negligence — just show him to me, that's all. Let me so much as glimpse his sky-s'ls, and I'll make him regret the day his father first went courting. Am I guilty of careless conduct if four armed Dagoes take me from behind and give me the marlinspike with a bottle? Am I? No,' was Captain Whistler's reply, delivered with a gesture like that of the late Marcus Tullius Cicero, 'no, I am not. Well, then. If somebody would tell old Sturton that I was murderously set on without a chance to defend myself… Mind, I don't want you to tell him you saw me attacked. If there's any lying to be done, sink me! I can do it myself. But if you could tell him you are able to swear, from your own observation at the time, that you believed me to be the victim of a ruthless attack… well, the money don't count much with him, and I'm pretty certain he won't sue… How about it?' inquired the captain, suddenly lowering his voice to a startlingly more normal tone.

There was a chorus of assent.

'You'll do it?' Whistler demanded.

'I'll do more than that, Skipper,' said Warren, eagerly. 'I'll tell you the name of the son of a bachelor who's got that emerald right now.'

'Eh?'