The Blind Barber

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew it forth and held up, winking and glittering on its gold chain, the emerald elephant.

'I've got it back!' he announced triumphantly.

16 — Danger in Cabin C46

Morgan said nothing. Like Captain Whistler on several occasions too well known to cite, he was incapable of speech. His first sharp fear—viz., that his eyes were deriving him, and that this might be a grotesque fantasy of champagne and weariness — was dispelled by sombre reality, Warren was here. He was here, and he had the emerald elephant. What he might have been up to was a vision which Morgan, for the moment, did not care to face. All he distinctly remembered afterwards was Valvick saying, hoarsely, 'Lock dat door!'

'As for you—' continued Warren, and made a withering gesture at Peggy. 'As for you — that's all the faith and trust you put in me, is it? That's the help I get, Baby! Ha! t put through a deep-laid plan; but do you trust me when I'm shamming sleep? No! You go rushing off in a tantrum… '

'Darling!' said Peggy, and rushed, weeping into his arms.

'Well, now—' said Warren, somewhat mollified. 'Have i drink!' he added, with an air of inspiration, and drew f ft Mil his pocket a bottle of Old Rob Roy depleted by exactly one pint.

Morgan pressed his fists to his throbbing temples. He swallowed hard. Trying to get a grip on himself, he approached Warren as warily as you would approach a captured orang-outang, and tried to speak in a sensible tone.

'To begin with,' he said, 'it is no use wasting time in futile recriminations. Beyond pointing out that you are into* lulled as well as off your onion, I will say nothing. But I want you to try, if possible, to collect yourself sufficiently to give me a coherent account of your movements.' A horrible suspicion struck him. 'You didn't haul off and paste the captain again, did you?' he demanded. 'O God!

you didn't assault Captain Whistler for the third time, did you? No? Well, that's something. Then what have you been up to?'

'You're asking me?' queried Warren. He patted Peggy with one hand and passed the bottle to Morgan with the other. Morgan instantly took a healing pull at it. 'You're asking me? What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? It was your own idea. What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine?'

To the other's bemused wits this was on a par with that cryptic query touching the manifesto said to have been thundered forth by W. E. Gladstone in the year 1886.

'Now, hold on,' said Morgan, soothingly. 'We'll take it bit by bit. First, where did you pinch that emerald again?'

'From Kyle, the dastardly villain! I lifted it out of his cabin not five minutes ago. Oh, he had it, all right! We've got him now; and if Captain Whistler doesn't have me a medal… '

'From Kyle?… Don't gibber, my dear Curt,' commanded Morgan, pressing his hands to his temples again. 'I can't stand any more gibbering. You couldn't have got it from Kyle's cabin. It was returned to Lord—'

'Now, Hank, old man,' interposed Warren with an air of friendly reasonableness. 'I ought to know where I got it, oughtn't I? You'll at least admit that? Well, it was in Kyle's cabin. I sneaked in there to get the goods on the villain, the way Lord Gerald did when Sir Geoffrey's gang thought they had him imprisoned in the house at Moorfens. And I've got the goods on him… Oh, by the way,' said Warren, remembering something exultantly. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and drew out a thick bundle. 'I also got all his private papers, too.'

'You did what?'

'Well, I sort of opened all his bags and trunk and briefcases and things… '

'But, I say, howevah did the deah boy get out of gaol?' inquired Mrs. Perrigord. She had dried her tears, adjusted her monocle again, and she watched breathlessly with her

hands against her breast. 'I think it's most, owfully, screamingly, delightfully clevah of him to…'

There was a quick knock at the door.

'They're after him!' breathed Peggy, whirling round with wide eyes. 'Oh, they're a-after the p-poor darling to t him back in that horrible brig. Oh, don't let them

'Sh-h-h!' rumbled Valvick, and made a mighty gesture, He blinked round. 'Ay dunno what he done, but he got to

The knock was repeated…

'Dere iss no cupboard — dere iss no — Coroosh! Ay got HI Hi hass got to put on de false whiskers. Come here. Come here, ay tell you, or ay bust you one! You iss cuckoo! Don't argu wit' me,' he boomed as a spluttering Warren was hauled across the cabin. 'Here iss a pair of fid whiskers wit' de wires for de ears. Here iss a wig. Mr. Morgan, get a robe or something out of dat locker… '

'Hut why, I ask you?' demanded Warren. He spoke with a difficult attempt at dignity from behind a threatening bush of red whiskers with curled ends, and a black wig with long curls which Valvick had jammed over one eye. When he began to shake one arm and declaim, Morgan wrapped round him a scarlet bejewelled robe. 'I've got proof! I can prove Kyle is a crook. All I've got to do is to || In Whistler and say, 'Look here, you old porpoise—' '

'Shut up!' hissed Valvick, clapping a hand over the whiskers. 'Now. We iss ready. Open dat door… '

They stared tensely, but the sight, as Morgan opened (Hi door, was not very alarming. Under ordinary circumstances they would have deduced that their visitor was, if Anything, a shade more nervous than they. A stocky A.B. In dungarees and a striped jersey was pulling at his forelock, shifting his feet, and flashing the whites of his eyes, Before anybody could speak, the A.B. burst out rapidly, In n hoarse confidential voice.

'Miss! Wot we want to 'ave clearly understood, my mates and me, which I was delegyted 'ere to sy, is that my mates and me is in naow wy responsible. Miss! Stryke me blind, so 'elp me, miss, if we're responsible! Like this. Not that we didn't feel like it, wot with 'im ordering us abaht like we wos dirt, and 'im only a ruddy Turk, yer see — but it's abaht that bloke Abdul, miss—'

'Abdul?' said Peggy. 'Abdul! Where is he?'

'Right 'ere, miss, yer see. I've got 'im outside, miss. In a wheelbarrow, miss.'

'In a wheelbarrow?'

'Like this, miss. So 'elp me! All dy me and my mates wos a-working wheeling them ruddy dummies, miss, and a-working 'ard, so 'elp me. And Bill Pottle, my mate, says to me, 'e says, 'Gawd lummy, Tom, d'you know 'oo we've got on this 'ere tub?' 'e says. 'It's the Bermondsey Terror, Tom, the bloke we see knock out Texas Willie larst year.' So all of us thought we'd go and tyke a look at 'im, and a real top-notch good sport 'e wos, miss, 'oo said 'ed been a-drinking, wiv a Swede, and, 'Come in,' 'e says, 'all of yer!' So 'e begins a- telling us 'ow 'e beat the Dublin Smasher in eighteen seconds. And just when we wos all interested, miss, in walks this 'ere Abdul, yer see, miss, and starts rysing a row. And somebody says, 'Gorn' yer ruddy frog-eater,' 'e says, 'gorn back to yer ruddy 'arem,' 'e says. Then Abdul gets narsty and says, 'Ow, well, 'e'd rather be

a frog-eater than a-Britisher a-stuffing fuller roast

beef,' 'e says. And the Bermondsey Terror gets up and says, 'Ow, yerce?' And Abdul says, 'Yerce.' So Bermondsey sorter reaches out and taps him a couple, yersee, miss…'

'But he's all right, isn't he?' cried Peggy.

'Sure, 'e's all right, miss!' the other hastened to assure her, with a gesture of heavy heartiness. 'Except 'e can't talk, yer see. Bermondsey 'it 'im in the vocal cords, once, yer see, miss… '

With her eyes brimming over, Peggy glared. 'Oooh, you — oh, you nasty, brawling fighting… Can't talkl You take him back, do you hear? You work over him, do you hear? If he isn't in shape in half an hour I'll walk straight up and tell the captain, and I'll—'

She herself was incapable of speech. She dashed at the door, the thoroughly scared A.B. ducking out before her wrath. He was mumbling something rather defiantly to the effect that that was what Abdul had croaked out,