The Blind Barber

whisking upwards at the corners, and with the furrows deepening round his mouth, Morgan thought uncomfortably that he looked a little too much like Sherlock Holmes. 'And I'll put in a word of warning gratis. You're a clever young lady, Miss Glenn. But don't pull Captain Whistler's leg too hard. He'd be a bad man to have on the wrong side of anybody. Please pass the salt.'

The dining-saloon soared up on another swell, and tilted amid sour notes from the orchestra. 'But, really,' said Peggy, 'I mean, it's perfectly true about poor old Curt… '

'Oh, ah!' said Dr. Kyle. 'Was he sober?'

'Doctor,' she told him, lowering her voice confidentially, 'I hate to tell it, but he was terribly, terribly drunk, poor boy. I mean, it's all right to speak of these things to a medical man, isn't it? But I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, poor boy, when I saw…'

Morgan got her away from the table after a brief and telegraphic exchange of kicks. They navigated the big staircase and stood in a breezy, lurching hall upstairs while Morgan said things. But Peggy, her prim little face beaming, only chortled with pleasure. She said she must go to her cabin and get a wrap, if they were going to watch with the others; also that she ought to look in on her Uncle Jules.

'By the way,' she said, doubtfully, 'I don't suppose you'd care to be a Moorish warrior, would you?'

'Not particularly,' said Morgan, with conviction. 'Is this relevant to the issue?'

'All you'd have to do, you know, would be blacken your face and put on some gilt armour and shawls and things; and stand at one side of the stage with a spear while Uncle Jules speaks the prologue… I wonder if you're tall enough, though? I say, Captain Valvick would make a ripping Moorish warrior, wouldn't he?'

'Oh, unquestionably.'

'You see, there have to be two extras, a French warrior and a Moor, who stand on either side of the stage for effect. The stage isn't high enough for them to be on it; they're outside, on a little platform… When the play begins they go backstage, and sometimes they help move the figures — the unimportant ones that have nothing to do. Only my uncle and Abdul (that's his assistant) move the chief figures; they're the only ones with speaking parts… I say, it would be simply awful if Uncle Jules can't play. There's a professor or somebody aboard who's written all kinds of articles about his art. Abdul's all right and he could take the main part in place of uncle. But I'm the only other one, and I couldn't very well say the men's lines, could I?'

They had gone down into a tangle of passages on D deck, and Peggy knocked at a door. In response to a spectral groan, she pushed the door open. The cabin was dark except for a faint light over the washstand. That scene— with the cabin twisting sideways, and rain slashing the porthole — gave Morgan a slight shiver. Two or three witless-looking dummies were sprawled against the bulkhead in a seated position, and swayed with the motion as though they were moving their heads in a horrible chorus. The straps and hooks for their wires rattled eerily; they were solid lumps about four and a half feet tall; they glittered with gilt armour, red cloaks, and gaudy jewelled accoutrements. Their faces, bearded formidably in dark wool, smirked from under spiked helmets. While they swayed, a powerful-looking man with a flattish dark face sat on the couch with another dummy across his knee. In the dim light he was mending the figures cloak with a long needle and blue thread. Occasionally he glanced towards the dark berth where something heavy was burrowing and groaning.

'Je meurs!' whispered a voice from the berth, dramatically. 'Ah, mon Dieu, je meurs! Oooool Abdul, je t'implore…

Abdul shrugged, squinted at his needle, shrugged again, and spat on the floor. Peggy closed the door.

'He's no better,' she said, unnecessarily, and they started back to the cabin where Warren was waiting. Morgan, in fact, was not eager for more than a glimpse into that cabin. Whether it was merely night and the rain in the middle of a shouting Atlantic, or merely that dull after-dinner feeling which is not dispelled on shipboard without bibulous hilarity, still he did not like the look of those smirking dummies. Moreover, such an irrelevant impression as that had given him another impression — of trouble ahead. There was no Q.E.D. about it, or even a rational subtlety. But he glanced round rather sharply when they reached the side passage that led to Warren's cabin.

It opened off a main corridor, and its short length contained two cabins on either side. Warren's was an end one on the left, beside a door opening out on C deck. It was dark, and the white-painted door was hooked open. Morgan knocked in the manner agreed on at the door beside it, and they slipped inside.

Only the light inside the lower berth was on. Warren sat gingerly on the edge of the berth. And he looked worried.

Morgan said sharply, but in a low voice, 'Anything wrong?'

'Plenty,' said the other. 'Sit down and keep as quiet as you can. I think we've got a long time to wait, but you never can tell what this joker will be up to. Valvick's gone for some soda-water. And we're set now.' He nodded towards the ventilator high in the wall, communicating with the next cabin. 'If anybody goes in there, we can hear him in a second. Then we nab him. Moreover, I've got the hook on the door wedged so that, no matter how quiet he tries to be, he'll make a racket as loud as an alarm clock.'

Warren paused, rubbing his jaw rather nervously and peering about the dim-lit state-room. He had discarded the towel round his head, but absorbent gauze and sticking-plaster along the back of the skull still made his dark hair stand up in a goblin-like way. The glow in the berth illumined one side of his face, and they could see a vein beating in his temple.

'Curt,' said the girl, 'what is wrong?'

'All hell, I'm afraid. Old Valvick went to see Captain Whistler before dinner… '

'Yes?'

'Well, I don't know how much in earnest you people were when we were sitting in there piling up theories about fancy crooks. But the impossible happened. We were right. There's a very badly wanted little joker aboard, and no joke about it. He's after old Sturton's emerald. And — he's a killer.'

Morgan felt in the pit of his stomach an uneasy sensation which was partly the motion of the ship. He said:

'Are you serious, or is this—?'

'You bet I'm serious. So is Whistler. Valvick got the information from him, because Whistler badly needs advice. Old Valvick's story is pretty muddled; but that much is clear. Whistler wonders whether to keep it dark or broadcast the news to the ship. Valvick advised the latter: it's customary. But Whistler says this is a respectable boat, a family boat, and the rest of that stuff… '

Morgan whistled. Peggy went over and sat down beside Warren. She protested stoutly that it was nonsense and she didn't believe it.

'Who is he, Curt? What do they know about him?' she demanded.

'That's just it. Nobody seems to know, except that he's travelling under an alias. You remember, I told you this afternoon that when I was in the radio-room old Whistler seemed to be having a row with the wireless operator?… Well, that was it. He'd got a radiogram. Fortunately, Valvik had the sense to persuade Whistler to let him take a copy of it. Have a look.'

From his inside pocket he took an envelope, on the back of which was sprawled in crooked handwriting:

Commander S.S. Queen Victoria, at sea. Suspect Man responsible for Stelly job in Washington and Mac-gee killing here sailed under alias your ship. Federal officer arriving to-night from Washington and will send fuller information. Look out for smooth customers and advise if any suspects.

Arnold, Commissioner N.Y.P.D.

'I don't know anything about this MacGee killing, whatever it is, in New York,' Warren went on, 'but I know a little about the Stelly business because it raised such a row and looked like magic. It was tied up with the British Embassy. Stelly seems to have been a pretty well-

known English jewel-cutter and appraiser…….'

'Hold on!' said Morgan. 'D'you mean that Bond Street fellow, the one who's always designing the necklaces for royalty and having pictures of his work in the newspapers?'

Warren grunted. 'Probably. Because it seems he was staying in Washington, and the wife of the British ambassador asked him to reset or redesign a necklace for her. I don't know the details of it — nobody knows much about it. But he left the British Embassy with the necklace one night, as safe as you please, and about four hours later they found him somewhere out Connecticut Avenue way. He was sitting on the kerbstone with his back propped up against a street lamp, and the back of his head smashed in. He didn't die, but he'll be a paralysed moron for the rest of his life, and never speak a word. That seems to be a quaint habit of this joker. He doesn't