The Blind Barber

Whistler jerked himself out of his hypnotised stare. 'Yes, yes, of course. Your Lordship. I — ah — that is, I'm sure he'll be glad to come.'

'I repeat to you,' squeaked the other, snapping his linger on the Mandarin's head until the rubies winked demoniacally, 'that, as this little trial by the court may cost me fifty thousand pounds, I must insist on a direct answer. Don't quibble with me. Don't spoil my entertainment. He was the witness I especially asked for, and the only witness I especially asked for. Why didn't you bring him?'

'It was not exactly convenient….' said Whistler, his voice beginning to rise to a roar despite himself. His eye rolled round at Morgan, who could only shrug.

'Ah!' said Sturton. 'Signals, eh? Signals. Now then… '

'If you will allow me to go and find him, your Lordship—'

'Once and for all, I demand, I insist on an answer! Where is he?'

All caution boarded the Flying Dutchman and sailed away. 'He's in the brig-, you dried-up lubber!' roared Captain Whistler, exploding at last. 'He's in the brig. And now I'm going to tell you what I think of you and your ruddy elephant and your—'

Sturton was laughing again.

It was an unholy noise in that gloomy, ill-smelling place, with the rubies winking on the table and Sturton's head bobbing under the broad hat. 'Ah.' he said, 'that's better! That's more like yourself. I'd heard the news, you see. He's in the brig. Yes, yes, Exactly. Why did you put him there?'

'Because he's stark, raving mad. that's why! He attacked me with a razor. He tried to poison me. He gabbled about bears. He—'

'Indeed?' said Sturton. 'Mad, is he? Well, well. And this is the man, I think, you wished to call as a witness to: your spotless behaviour? This is your star witness, who was to testify how you lost the emerald?… Captain! Whistler, are you sure that you yourself are entirely in: your right mind?'

Peggy went over and patted the skipper on the back, j speaking soothing words to him. Her feminine instincts, were deeply aroused, for he was almost at the point where there were tears in those honest old eyes. And again he was speechless before the evil weaving of Lachesis. He ^! must now be beginning, Morgan fancied, to have a faint j conception of how Warren had felt. j

'I am waiting,' said Sturton. I

Again the mirth tickled his rusty ribs. But he was watch-lug Whistler wind himself up for a few sulphurous remark n, and forestalled him by holding up a scraggy hand.

'Rubbish rubbish rubbish. Wait. Don't say it, Commander. You'd regret it. / have something to say. It is only fair to you. The joke has been excellent, excellent, excellent. It has amused me, although, as a lawyer, Commander — tut, tut! But it is time to end it now. I have enjoyed myself long enough… Captain, there will be no suit.'

'No suit?'

'None. My secretary informed me of the rumour in the ship. That the nephew of my old friend had been imprisoned for trying to kill somebody. I could not resist amusing myself. Well! Time's ended. Joke's up. I have business… No suit. Finished, ended, done. Don't want to hear of it again.'

'But that emerald, .!'

'Oh, yes! Yes, yes. The stone, of course. Very funny things go on aboard this ship. But why should there be a suit? Maybe the thief reformed; got qualms of conscience. How should / know? Anyhow—'

He fumbled in the pocket of his dressing-gown.

He laughed again, shaking his lean shoulders.

Before their astounded eyes he held up, twisting on its gold chain and glittering as it slowly revolved, the emerald elephant.

14 — Can These Things Be?

'Don't know how it happened,' continued Sturton, rather carelessly, 'and don't care, now I've got it back. I know you didn't recover it. Ha!… Found it lying on the middle of the table there,' he stabbed his finger, 'half an hour ago. Saw nobody, heard nobody. There it was. Somebody walked in and put it down — Here's your receipt back, Commander. You won't get this elephant again.'

Again his squeaky mirth rose as he blinked at their faces. The receipt fluttered out and fell at Whistler's feet.

Morgan only half heard him. He was getting to the point where too many surprises were as deadening as too much pain. Staring at the little Mandarin-head smirking and wagging on the table, he heard Whistler gabbling something, the peer assuring him there would be no trouble, and the end of the latter's squeaky tirade:

'… find out who stole it? Go on, if you like. I won't stop you. But I've got it back, and that's all I care. I'm not going to prosecute anybody. Ha! Got enough lawsuits as it is. Let the beggar go. Why bother? Shouldn't be surprised if it got stolen by mistake, and somebody returned it. Never mind. Now get out. Get out!…'

He was flailing his arms at them like a banshee, with the emerald gleaming on its chain from one hand. They were shooed into the gangway and the door closed behind them. Then they stood in the corridor on B deck and looked at one another.

'You're quite right, Captain,' agreed Morgan, after listening thoughtfully to the skipper's rather weak-voiced comments. 'If anything, I should think the adjectives were conservative. But the question remains, who, how, and why?'

After Whistler had recovered himself, swabbing his face with a handkerchief, he was weakly jubilant. He had the

Mir of one who had endured blessed martyrdom in the arena, and suddenly sees ahead of him not the cruel countenance of Nero Ahenobarbus, but a cheering St. Peter at the head of a celestial brass band. The captain drew himself up. His face subtly altered. Taking his receipt for the emerald, he tore it into small pieces and blew them away. Over the battered face, with its plum-coloured eye, there spread a benevolent smile.

'My friends,' he said, placing an arm around the shoulders of Peggy and Morgan, 'I don't know who returned that ruddy elephant, and I don't care. Whoever it was, he did me a good turn that Hector Whistler will never forget. I could forgive him anything, I could almost forgive him' — momentarily the face darkened, but only for a moment —'this. Yes, even the foul blow, foully struck when I wasn't looking. If old Sturton doesn't care — My friends, to-morrow night, our last night at sea, is the captain's dinner. My friends, I will give such a dinner as has never been seen on blue water since the days of Francis Drake. Champagne shall bubble at every table, and every lady shall wear a corsage. And this, my friends, reminds me. I think, I say I think that I have in my locker at this moment a bottle of Pol Roger 1915. If it will now please you to come with me and accept the hospitality of an old, rough sea-dog—'

'But, hang it, Captain,' said Morgan, 'the difficulties aren't one-tenth over. Not a tenth. There's the little matter of a murder… '

'Murder?' inquired the old, rough sea-dog genially. 'What murder, lad?'

Mysterious are the ways of psychology.

'But, Captain Whistler!' cried Peggy, 'that poor girl… down in the cabin beside Curt's… that awful razor…'

'Ah, yes, my dear!' agreed the captain tolerantly benevolent. 'Yes, of course. You mean that little joke of yours. Of course. Yes. Ha-ha-ha!'

'But—'

'Now, my dear,' the other pursued, with radiant kindliness, 'you listen to me. Come! You take a bit of advice from a rough old seafaring man old enough to be your father. From the first I've liked the cut of your jib, Miss Glenn, and the swing of your spanker-boom. Aye, lassie, I might have had a daughter like you if the Mrs. W. that was hadn't been dead and gone these twenty years, rest her sweet soul. It was in a sou'wester off Cape Hatteras, I mind… But you don't want to hear of that. This is my advice, lassie. When a murder's been committed, in my experience, there's somebody dead,' Captain Whistler pointed out, with irrefutable logic. 'And if somebody's dead, that person can't be breathing heaven's free air on my deck. There's nobody missing, and nobody's complained,