Code
Date: 2024-04-26T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Sea stories; Criminals -- Fiction; Ships -- Fiction; Radio -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Code

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Title: Code

Author: L. Paul

Release date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73468]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1927

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73468

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CODE ***

The story of a criminal ship and a warning in

CODE

By L. Paul

There was a queer feeling about the ship. “Hush,” thought the man who stood by the gangway. That was the apt word. A battered ship, a dirty craft, small, obscene, unseaworthy, of foreign register. And silent—hush! Grim faced men going about their business, sparing no word for him, though they might have talked, he guessed, had they cared to.

This man who watched wore soiled dungarees. There was a day’s stubble of beard on his thin face. His expression, when a passing man darted a look at him, was blank. His eyes fell when other eyes probed him. He looked over his shoulder at times, at the rotting dock in the small British port of Beverstock near Liverpool, where this ship, the Cora, lay. He had come aboard, nobody knew how. One moment, and the ship end of the gangway, creaking as the current swayed the little tramp, was empty. The next moment he was there. Nor did these others think it strange. They looked as if this sudden yet stealthy approach was usual, an accustomed thing, an item, strange perhaps to some, yet of little moment in their full lives.

The man in dungarees stood there till the first cheerful man he had seen aboard rolled up, the stout chief engineer.

“That’s him,” said the chief, and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man winced, turned, and saw, climbing the steep gangway, a man.

“That’s him,” repeated the stout chief. “Captain Bain.”

The man in dungarees saw a tall, glum seafarer, with graying hair, his frowsy shore going linen peeping from sleeves of shiny serge, his lapels greasy; his boots polished long after polish had become a mockery; and, topping all, a master’s cap.

This was Captain Bain, right enough. He stopped, stared at the man in dungarees and said briefly—

“Where from?”

“American Bar,” the man in dungarees replied.

“Come this way,” said the captain. “My name’s Bain. This is my cabin. We can talk here. Out on deck talk’s barred in port. Who sent you?”

He fell silent, not because he waited for the answer, but more as if he had run down, as if this long speech had been an effort, a breaking down of his accustomed reserve. The man in dungarees waited, as if expecting him to say more, then at last replied:

“Who sent me? Dip Laplace.”

He fumbled in the pocket of his dungarees and found a wad of crumpled paper.

“He sent this, too.”

The captain of the Cora took the paper, opened it, held it up to the beam of light that stole through the grimy port. The man in dungarees sat down on a locker.

“My name’s Drake,” he remarked.

His eyes were fixed on the captain. He saw a wave of color sweep up over old Bain’s weatherbeaten neck, into his cheeks, then recede again.

What the captain read, spelling out large printed words, was this:

Sparklers—they’re wise—watch.

The captain of the Cora crumpled the paper in his hand.

“You read this, of course?”

“I’m no liar. I did, of course,” the man in dungarees mimicked him. “As I said, my name’s Drake—”

“And this paper?”

“I’ve forgotten what was on it,” Drake told him.

“Dip gave it to you. Dip grows jocular,” the captain laughed harshly. “Are you another of his jokes?”

“I am a passenger.”

“I don’t carry passengers.”

“My kind? Dip sent me, remember.”

“You know then; you have money?”

Drake spread five fifty-pound notes out on his knee.

“As bad as that?” The captain whistled. “You could swank aboard a liner for that.”

“And swank off across the pond?”

The captain stroked his long jaw reflectively. His eyes wandered over Drake’s face, stopped for a moment on the wall clock above his head, dropped to the pile of treasury notes and dwelt there.

“As bad as that?” said the captain of the Cora. “Not murder?”

“No, Dip sent me. He knows. Need you?”

“Need I? God forbid. Can you swim?”

“Yes, why?”

“You’ll have to. I see you don’t know the game we play. Better learn before I take your money. You find it—convenient—to travel informally, to land on the other side incognito— No, your name may be Drake, and I don’t care if it is or not. Names don’t count here. But you wish to land as Drake, unknown to anyone. We arrange that. No immigration folk to pester you. No police. We sail for Montreal. Below that city fifty miles or so are islands. Sometimes we go slowly through them, close to land. An active swimmer, dropping overside—you have more money, have you not?”

“Yes, Captain, a little.”

“There’s a man on one island, there. He has a boat. If you give him more than five pounds, he’s robbing you. After that your movements are not my concern.”

Again, as the captain paused, Drake had that strange feeling that here was a man talking overmuch—a man more fond of silence.

“And that’s all?” Drake asked. “Simple, isn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I feared I’d have to work my passage, and I’m lazy.”

The captain of the Cora reached for the little pile of notes.

“A man must live,” he growled, as if apologizing for his delinquencies. “A man must live, and there’s no money in tramp shipping. You’ll find a small cabin on the port side—the empty one. It’s yours. We sail with the tide. If you come on deck before that and are nabbed—” he patted his pocket where he had stowed those notes—“that’s your lookout, Drake.”

Drake rose and crossed the little cabin. At the threshold he paused.

“Those other cabins—”

“You are three. The others, you won’t meet till we are at sea.”

Drake stepped out, dropped down a steep iron stair to the deck, slid into the port alley, where tiny doors formed a row, tried first one, then another, till he found one unlocked, entered, and found himself in a cabin so small that it could scarcely contain a bunk and its occupant at the same time.

Men had watched him—shadowy figures, heads out of the galley, the engine-room, the firehold. They had said nothing, betrayed no surprise at his coming. They were silent men.

“Hush!”

The salt wind drifted across the deck of the Cora. She was wallowing in the Atlantic.

Drake and the fat chief sat in the lee of the funnel. They had struck up an acquaintance during the first half of the voyage. Drake had traveled; he knew things. The fat chief, a jovial rascal, had the curiosity of a child and a stout man’s zest for effortless, vicarious adventure.

The two other passengers had kept apart. There was Quayle, as yet sticking close to his cabin, save at mealtimes when he joined Drake at the captain’s table. He had given that name, Quayle, casually, as if it had just occurred to him, as if names were matters of only passing importance.

He was a tall, silent man, middle-aged.

The third passenger messed with the crew. He was a small Liverpool dock rat. He claimed that he had not killed his wife, but had only beaten her. The captain, after discreetly calling up a hospital, found that this was true. Because he had but twenty pounds they had taken him for that. He never came up on the boat deck; he viewed the ocean with ignorant terror and kept behind the high steel bulwarks of the well deck, when he came out for air.

The chief, having a romantic mind, decided that the Liverpool man’s wife would probably take a turn for the worse and die. He held that the other passenger, Quayle, was a Bolshevik.

The chief and Drake sat there and yarned through the long sea morning.

“A rum ship,” Drake hazarded.

“We are that,” the chief grinned, “at home to rum company.”

“True, but you know each other; we don’t, we passengers.”

“Five new faces in the ship’s company,” the chief laughed. “Ye see, we can’t keep ’em. We ship so many passengers that it has made their pile easy, or on the way to make it easy. It corrupts the lads. Five new faces—five old ’uns gone to do likewise—on the trail o’ easy money. Man, dear, ’tis restless labor is getting to be—”

“Eight of us, new chums, not knowing each other—for five and three is eight.”

Drake stared out to sea.

“Eight souls,” sighed the chief. “Where they comes from. Gawd only knows. Where they’re bound, Gawd don’t care; speakin’ more exact, nine. For I’d forgot Sparks.”

Drake glanced forward. The tall radio man was in his hencoop, a scant twenty feet away. The door was open.

“Why him?”

“Another bird o’ passage. D’ye notice his duds?”

“New and fancy.”

“Know what the pay is? Man, dear, if he bought them out of wages, he’s never had smoke nor drink in years. Ever see a tramp’s wireless wonder before? No. Know what I think? He’s an absconding Scot. He figured we’d soak him hard for an unconventional passage. You know what you paid, so—”

The chief closed his eyes and gave the details of his imaginative romance in a few low words:

“Sparks gets him a uniform. Eighty bob, mebbe; or steals one. He finds out we’re gettin’ a new radio man this voyage. An’ then, back in port some poor dub brass pounder is wakin’ up, mebbe in hospital. And this sport—well, he’s on the papers as Sparks, but we lose our dividend on his passage thereby.”

“So you figure him, as you might say, a jailbird of passage.”

Drake had raised his voice. The chief clutched his arm.

“Don’t ye now; don’t rile that one. Man, dear, every time that devilish contraption spits sparks I shudder. Think o’ the slander yon lad could spread and nobody knowin’.”

“Slander?”

“Slander ’bout—you—or me, M’Ginley. Oh, aye, there’s tales he could tell, even if he’s new. Would ye believe it?” The old chief rose. “Ye might not; but some o’ the lads aboard here has loose tongues. A thing I abhor, personal.” And off the old man waddled.

Drake sat there a moment. He was thinking:

“I wonder. Another little swimmer when we come to that island? Will there be four of us in the water? Will the fourth be Sparks? If so—best watch him.”

Rising, he added a codicil to this conclusion.

“There’s nine aboard, counting myself,” he thought, “nine that may be, well, anything. Best start figuring this one out. That’ll leave eight. And one of the eight is me, Drake. Wonder what I’ll be, when we come to the end of the voyage?”

He glanced aft. The stout chief engineer was there, where he had paused on the stair that led below.

“Them that don’t talk here,” said M’Ginley, “them that don’t talk on this ship—they guesses.”

Drake slipped forward till he stood by the open door of the wireless coop. The new Sparks looked up.

“Want anything?” he asked.

“Just loafing round.” Drake rolled a cigarette slowly, clumsily. “Smoke?”

“Yes.”

The wireless man reached for pouch and papers, twisted with swift fingers, struck a match and was exhaling smoke, almost before Drake himself had lighted up.

“You’ve been in the States?” Drake asked. “Learned to make a gasper there, didn’t you?”

“And you’re from the old country, calling a cig that?”

“A good country to come from—and the faster the coming the better,” Drake drawled. “Old country’s not—healthy.”

“For some.”

The wireless man bent over his complicated machinery, as it became alive. Drake looked on, wonder in his eyes, almost a childish wonder.

“But that’s marvelous,” said he. “Words coming out of the air.”

“Dot dash dot dash,” said the wireless man. “See that smoke yonder? The Paladin. She’s asking the Caradoc if they’ve met ice. Bergs drifting now, you know.”

Drake glanced at the wall clock, then drifted toward the door.

It was eleven o’clock. It was Wednesday—five days since they had left port. This old ruin of a ship was traveling with speed.

The voice of the wireless man followed him.

“I’m Cray; come again,” he called. “This packet doesn’t run to rules.”

Drake turned. He seemed uneasy.

“If—” he began.

“If what?” Cray waited.

“If you hear something with that gadget about a man named Drake, the fewer know—the better. Get me?”

“Don’t slip me money.” Cray’s hand met his, thrust it back. “You’ll need all you got. A rum lot, on a rum ship.”

“And you as rum as they come,” thought Drake, as he walked away.

Cray watched him go.

“Wonder if he knew what was on the air just now,” he scowled. “If I shove it to the Old Man will he—well, this time I’m a wireless man. Next time we’ll see.”

To him, too, this strange ship was saying, “Hush!” Yet his pencil slid over flimsy paper. He rose with a message, took it to the captain on the bridge.

“Rum lot aboard, sir.” He handed the message over, winked.

The captain started, backed away into a wing of the bridge, scanned that message.

“You are right,” he replied. “This came in code, I presume?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why not leave it in code. We don’t want the world knowing.”

“Nobody’s seen it, sir, but me.”

“Damn you! That’s an order. Anything else comes, leave it in code.”

Cray went white and was about to speak. Then he checked himself. He walked away; he was thinking.

“Him, too—the Old Man. Wonder what he knows that the world don’t, that he’s afraid of the world learning? I’ll, maybe, find out. I’ll see. Tonight, maybe. He might work in. Who knows?”

The captain, staring at the retreating back was staring at words that floated before his eyes.

For that message had read:

All ships. All ships. All ships.
Varnavosk necklace stolen. Suspect at sea.
Watch passengers. Stand by for more.

—Scotland Yard.

The urgency of the thrice repeated “All ships”—that stabbed him, made him wince. Trouble, trouble in large consignments, coming out of the air. Other messages, and the field of search might narrow, perhaps, till it centered on an old tramp wallowing across the Western Ocean; till some swift offshore craft might draw alongside, and some officious jackanapes would climb up the ladder and ask fool questions about eight new faces aboard the Cora.

There was trouble on the ship that said, “Hush.”

The captain walked stiffly across the bridge and down to his cabin. Cray, on the boat deck, watched him go.

“Yes, we’ll use you, my bucko,” said Cray. “Now I wonder—” and he stared down on the well deck, forward, where the little Liverpool passenger sprawled on a hatch cover.

“You’ve got a shiner on your eye, my lad,” thought Cray, “and you mess with the crew. They’ll be eating any moment now. I think we’d better not wait. We’ll begin with you.”

He followed the old captain of the Cora to his cabin.

When the passengers who messed with the skipper came in to lunch, that worthy’s chair was vacant. Cray it was who greeted them, smiling at Drake, bowing stiffly to tall Quayle.

“Old Man’s busy,” said Cray. “Don’t wait for him, gentlemen.”

That was Wednesday. On Thursday the fat engineer M’Ginley sought the warm lee of the funnel once more. Drake was there, waiting.

“I made my peace with Cray. If he was mad about what I said, he didn’t show it.”

“A bad case,” the fat old chief growled. “There’s more in this ship than ballast. There’s a mystery.”

“Eight little mysteries,” Drake jeered, “of which one is my humble self. Maybe nine, counting Cray. Or ten—”

“What you alludin’ to now?”

“You, honest old M’Ginley.”

“Me? Man could see clean through me.” The chief winked at him. “But look at this code; and all that pencilin’ under it is writ by the most talented engineer on the Western Ocean.”

Drake glanced down at the flimsy bit of paper. He saw first a jumble of phrases and part words. But below that a penciled legend made sense.

All ships.
Varnavosk dying. Look for strong man capable killing bare-handed.

No signature this time.

“Where’d you get this?”

Drake stiffened. He glanced forward uneasily; but Cray’s blind was drawn on the little window of his cabin. Cray’s door was shut.

“Where’d you think? Notice the Old Man yesterday and today?” the old chief asked. “Well, he’s fair wild. He come down this mornin’ an’ asks me to trot along, confidential. We goes to that wife beatin’ runt’s cabin. The runt is out on deck. Old Man and me, we rip up the floorboards, we pry apart the bunk.”

“Looking for what?”

“He wouldn’t tell at first. Then, when we found nothin’, he begun to rave about jewelry. Him, that’s carried such downan’-outs before, lookin’ for jewelry in that cabin. Told me to shut up. Left me standin’ on air, like. So I mooched. Half an hour ago Cray comes down with this. Old Man looks her over, puzzles her out. He was standin’ by his cabin. Next he dives in, grabs somethin’, pockets it—an’ comes out again. Know what he grabbed?”

“No.”

“His gun. Me, I grabs somethin’ else. This. Now you know as much as I do, unless you know more.”

Drake stared at him, then dropped his eyes.

“And if I do?”

“Cray and the Old Man know a heap. My guess is there’s been robbery; and now it looks like murder. Like as not the search’ll narrer down. Scotland Yard ain’t manned by fools. Like as not there’ll be other messages. Liverpool runt’s been cleared. He don’t pack no valuables. There’s seven new faces aboard beside him, leavin’ Cray out. If things gets hot and they start to search the lot—well—him that has them jewels is like to swing.”

“Unless—” Drake seemed to be master of himself now—“unless!”

“Unless the lad slipped ’em to a good natur’d old fool of an engineer. There’s places below.” Old M’Ginley winked. “Well, if you meet the man aboard here, you tell him.”

“Thanks, I will. Cray’s blind’s gone up.” Drake rose. “I’m going to have a chin with him.”

“If there’s one thing more’n another has hanged fool men, it’s words,” M’Ginley warned, and left him.

Cray grinned as Drake opened the door.

“You—you heard anything?” Drake asked, nervously.

“Nothing.”

“Thought, maybe, some message might have drifted in; seen you writing a while back.”

“There was,” Cray laughed. “Fool operator on the Jessamine was askin’ me if I’d bought my girl that diamond yet.”

Drake stood by the table, his lean fingers clasped about its beveled edge. Cray, watching covertly, smiled. That table was shaking, though it was fastened to the floor.

“You’re a strong man, ain’t you?” Cray asked.

“There’s stronger aboard this packet,” Drake answered tonelessly. “Where’d the Old Man dig up those new sailormen? Two of them I saw this morning, ramming at that bent stanchion that supports this deck. Take four of me to make one of them.”

“That’s an idea,” Cray smiled, as if relishing his chance to play with this man.

“What is?” Drake frowned. “Makin’ one of them from four of me?”

“Then there’s Quayle; he’s husky, too. Well, beef don’t count with me.” Cray shoved a chair forward. “Want to listen in?”

He reached for an extra headset, plugged in, adjusted it for Drake, then watched him, keenly, as some faint message came.

“So that’s what it sounds like?” Drake looked up. “I’ve often wondered.”

But Cray was busy, writing. His pencil fairly shook as it sped over the paper.

“What’s that?”

Drake looked over his shoulder. Too late, Cray shoved a hand over what he had written, for Drake had seen, seen plainly, the uncompleted sentences:

All ships.
Varnavosk died this morning.
Communicate with us if....

“You seen, hey?” Cray fidgeted, seemed annoyed; yet he might be pretending. He was, at any rate, ill at ease.

“You seen? Well, what’s a Russky more or less to you or me? Don’t tell the Old Man I showed you. The others came in code. This one’s plain English. Best beat it; I’ve got to take this to the Old Man.”

Drake got up and walked silently out. On the threshold Cray stopped him with:

“Ever know any Russians, Drake? Some of them is big men—hard fighters. Take a powerful man to handle them.”

“Meaning—” Drake spun about fiercely— “Meaning—”

“You know more’n you let on,” Cray laughed. “Thought I’d catch you. You know who Varnavosk was, owner of the Varnavosk necklace? You know why he’s dead—”

Drake rolled a cigaret with his usual clumsiness.

“What mobsman doesn’t know?” he asked. “Come, come, Cray. You know what sort we passengers are on this dirty little ship. Know Varnavosk and his necklace? Who does not, in my walk of life? What gang but has had their eyes on him and his jewels? And now, that a cleverer man than myself has pulled the trick—”

“So you’re a crook,” Cray jeered. “So—”

Drake smiled pleasantly.

“Did you think me a lily?” Drake was composed now. “Imagination’s a grand thing, Cray. Sometimes it leads men into trouble, though. You’ve been reading dime novels.”

Drake walked away. Cray watched him go aft along the boat deck and down the steep stairs.

“You’ll worry, my man,” growled Cray. “Now, what’s next. Liverpool swine is ruled out. That fool of a skipper—a child could see through him. He’s ripped that dub’s cabin to pieces. At this rate he’ll have the whole ship torn apart, every manjack on edge. Not one’ll get by him without him poking and prying. And he’s fool enough to make a bad break. So, we’re five days from port, and—”

He stared at that last message, which he had left incomplete. With a swift pencil he ended it.

All ships, westbound. Communicate with us if you have news. Proceed with caution.

—Scotland Yard

“And that,” said Cray to himself, as he took the message to the captain of the Cora, “that’ll hold him for a while. This ship is jammed full of strong men.”

“So you can’t find him, the thief,” Cray jeered.

There was no deference in his tone, no respect. Here he sat in the Old Man’s cabin and yarned away as if such a thing as discipline had ceased to exist.

“The thief? He’s been a murderer for two days.” Old Bain scowled at him. “You have me nigh crazy. First we rip up that little rat’s cabin—”

“That was you; I just hinted—” Cray began.

“Hinted like you did when that message came about lookin’ for a strong man who could kill barehanded!”

“A strong man; you’ve found several,” Cray retorted. “Was it me said it might be one of those two sailors? Oh, yes. I admit I didn’t contradict you. I’ll say I let you have your way, do your own crude sleuthing, searching that forecastle. Don’t you know that sailormen are a neat lot, even such scum as this? They know this moment that you have been prodding about. And now you say—”

“You put things into my mind, damn you!” The Old Man glowered at him. “I thinks things, and says things, and there ain’t no reason to them when said and thought. They ain’t my thoughts; they ain’t my actions, an’—”

“Mine, of course, hey? I do it all? Mebbe I did this. This came today.” Cray shoved a sheet of paper at him. The Old Man ran his eye over a jumble of code, then reached for his book, translated.

“You know what it is?” He lifted his head and stared at Cray. “You know—”

“All ships? No, not this time. The search has narrowed down,” Cray grated. “This one is:

“Ships outward bound, Beverstock. Man aboard you. Hold him.”

“Which means—” The skipper of the luckless Cora waited.

“Us!” Cray’s face was tense. “Scotland Yard—they’ve got a line on us; they’re closing in on their man.”

“And when—when some detective comes up the ladder— We’re nigh into St. Lawrence Gulf—” the Old Man stared out of the grimy port—“When the showdown comes.”

“Never such a ship for secrets as this,” Cray said. “They’ll come for one. They’ll find a heap.”

“You, for instance,” the captain suggested.

“Sure, me an’ you. Think I’m sweating over this just for fun? Think I give a damn if they get their man? Me? Hell, no! I got my reasons; so have you. They’ll come aboard with the pilot, maybe. They’ll begin poking round. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the man’s ready for them. Then, it’s a pat on the back and a clean bill of health for you; and, ‘Thanks, my noble radio man; your message was music to our honest ears,’ for me.” Cray stopped.

“And so—”

Cray leaned closer.

“Get this. There’s two men we ain’t searched yet—Drake and Quayle. Either one, mebbe—”

The old captain rose.

“We’ll start with Quayle, eh?” He made for the door, but he stopped, turned. “You put that into my head, damn ye!”

“What if I did?” Cray cried. “What if I did? Since you have no detective aboard, what price Cray, hey?”

“What price Cray? I’ll tell ye. I’d as soon to God we had a detective aboard,” the captain growled. “That’s what price Cray!” He stumped out.

The wireless man got up slowly and idled about the cabin as if it were his own. That last remark of the skipper’s had hit him.

“A detective,” said Cray softly. “Maybe we have, at that, my brave old sea-dog. Maybe we have, at that.”

He followed the captain on deck and twitched his sleeve. He drew him into a corner.

“I’ll do this next job myself,” said Cray.

“You mean Quayle?”

“Him. You better stick to your knitting. Talk like a human being at lunch, keep that solemn-faced, secretive Quayle there, until— You ever figure there’ll maybe be a reward for them diamonds?”

“Reward?” The old captain of the Cora snorted. “Reward? If I can sleep again o’ nights, that’ll be reward enough.”

“I could do with a good sleep myself,” Cray laughed. “I might sleep through lunch hour, while Quayle’s cabin is empty.”

Morning again and bright sunlight on the Gulf. Tomorrow would see the pilot coming aboard at Father Point. Tomorrow would see, well, something rather ghastly to men who clutched secrets close, who feared the eye of the law.

But today the sun shone. Drake and the old engineer sat there by the funnel.

Old M’Ginley was sleepy. A bearing had been heating. He had not yet been to bed. He had come up for a whiff of fresh air. He was soon wide awake, for Drake, leaning over, whispered—

“I’ve been thinking what you said.”

“I said a heap, laddie.”

“About hiding things.”

He opened his dungaree suit. The old man saw a long thin packet of brown paper, sealed with wax, tied with many intricate knots.

“I’ve been thinking—and whispering a bit,” Drake went on.

“Oh, aye, doubtless.”

M’Ginley’s eyes glinted. A chief engineer, he knew, could hide things, where nobody, not even the man who had trusted them to him, could find them.

“Oh, aye,” he repeated, “something else has whispered, me bold lad. Fear has, I’m thinking.”

Drake’s face was blank.

“I told the person what you said. There’s been funny work. Cray and the skipper searching yesterday, today, all cabins but mine. Tomorrow—”

“Perhaps yours. Tomorrow the pilot and—”

The old man too was leaning closer. The packet passed.

“If a knot’s untied, or a seal broken—my—my friend says there’ll be no split,” Drake grated.

“Unless he goes where splittin’ is hard, save he split rocks,” M’Ginley laughed, and he drew back. “That bearin’—it needs a pile o’ lookin’ after.”

He lumbered away. Drake sat there. The man Quayle, the silent, secretive Quayle came up on deck. He walked along. He bent over Drake. He whispered something. Drake sprang to his feet. Quayle was of an age with him, taller by a head, powerfully built.

Both the captain, staring down from the bridge, and Cray, peering out of his little window, saw Drake’s fist shoot out—a blow that seemed but to glance off Quayle’s jaw. Yet Quayle fell, lay there, knocked out.

Drake walked forward. He beat on Cray’s door with his fists, crying:

“What kind of a ship’s this? What sort o’ man are you? Blabbin’—blabbin’—”

The captain, clutching the bridge rail, leaned over and bawled:

“You keep still, mister. What’s wrong with ye? One more crack like that and—”

He paused. Tomorrow, when the pilot and whoever else was waiting came aboard, he would no longer have the power, save to stand dumbly by and watch.

But now, now Cray had his door open and was talking to the enraged Drake. And Drake, calming himself by an effort, was being drawn inside. The captain wished that this strange man Cray would leave that door open. He hoped, at least, that afterward he would tell him frankly what now was going on.

Inside, Cray was talking swiftly:

“What’d he say? Did he tell you I was blabbing?”

“Blabbing. What talking’s been done—” Drake paused, as if uncertain. “Forget it. A man don’t like to be told he’s like to swing. I’m hot headed. I figured mebbe you’d told him what was in that cablegram—the one about Varnavosk bein’ dead—mebbe more, too. But—”

“Forget it is right.”

Cray was acting strangely. Yesterday he had told the captain that the murderer, supposedly on their ship, must be either Quayle or Drake. Now he seemed to have shifted his views, unless he wished to lull Drake into a state of false security.

“Forget it is right,” he grinned, reaching for the spare headset, already adjusted to fit Drake. “Want to listen in a spell? I’m goin’ out for a breather. If you hear anything funny call me.”

Drake hesitated.

“What you planning to do?”

“Nothing,” Cray answered. “Be a sport. Most men’d get hot if you come ravin’ at ’em; but me, I’m different. You set there. Forget it!”

“I’ll try,” Drake scowled. “If the Old Man says anything about that row with Quayle, you tell him it’s an old score we were settling.”

“Right!”

Cray crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut. Drake listened as he walked down the deck; he heard other footsteps. Out of the window he caught a glimpse of the captain’s gray head, then the boatswain, supporting a limp Quayle toward the stair.

“I wonder—” Drake frowned at the wireless set—“what’s their next move. And old M’Ginley—what’s he doing?”

Old M’Ginley, cutting loose cord after cord, breaking through wax seals, was opening that brown paper parcel.

What he found turned him into a covetous old man, who thought furiously. Finally, one hand fondling his pocket, he climbed heavily down ladders to his own peculiar domain.

Once more Cray faced the old skipper in his cabin.

“You saw that?” Bain was eager. He sensed, at last, the end of this mystery. “You saw that Drake and heard him howl about blabbing!”

“Yes,” Cray scoffed. “Heard a heap; but I’m not taking that for gospel.”

“It must be him. You found nothing in Quayle’s cabin?”

“Not yet,” Cray answered. “I’m figuring on looking again. Know what I think? They’re both in the theft, if not the murder. Take those names. Both birds’ names—Quayle and Drake—ain’t they? Sort of funny, them both choosing the same sort of monikers for this trip. Like one had thought of one, and the other had followed suit. Crooks are like that.”

The captain gazed at him speculatively.

“Cray—crayfish—another zoölogical name. Well, go on. You don’t pass as an honest man, Cray. Lay to that. You’re no better, if no worse, than the rest aboard this packet. What were you going to say?”

“I got an idea they been passing that necklace from one to t’other,” Cray explained. “They had hard words. What if Quayle had it last, after I searched his dump? What if he wouldn’t hand over, an’ Drake—I been working on him, scaring him—if Drake, I say, figured Quayle was goin’ to gyp him? How about that? Mebbe Quayle ain’t scared of getting caught. I searched his dump careful. He may figure he ain’t suspected no more. He may think, if he is suspected, that we don’t know how to search right. And Drake, figurin’ he’s losin’ out, gets mad.”

The captain shook his head. Father Point was getting closer. Morning and the pilot would come, and with them—well, iron bars, perhaps; certainly a lost ticket and a lot of trouble. A man couldn’t account for three extra men on his ship—and such men.

“I don’t know. If we miss this time—” He paused.

“We’ll search both cabins,” Gray broke in, “and both at once. You take Quayle’s; I’ll go for Drake’s. We’ll win this time.”

The captain stared at him.

“We’ll do it; but how?”

“Easy,” Cray smiled. “That worthless old chief engineer—let him tag on to Drake. They are thick, anyway. As for Quayle—he’s battered up, ain’t he? Or if he ain’t exactly battered, he’s shook. Take a couple of men, drag him out, say you’re givin’ him your room, more light an’ air. Sure, he’ll suspect, but what can he do? Take them two big sailormen.”

“It might be; but when? Drake sticks below of afternoons.”

“Tomorrow morning we got a couple of hours,” Cray went on. “When we find that necklace—”

“We give it up, and get clear of—”

“Like hell! We keep it!” Cray corrected him. “Or I keep it. Never mind how. I’ll pin the job on one of them. Don’t you worry.”

The captain stared at him, aghast.

“But they’ll search the ship.”

“Let ’em. They won’t find it.” Cray got up. “I left Drake in my monkey- house. Best get him out of there. Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow.”

The captain looked out the door, as Cray opened it. The hills of the south shore of the Gulf stood out grim and gray, somber, all shadow. Tomorrow. Well, sooner it comes, sooner over.

The two big sailors dragged Quayle, protesting, out of his cabin. A strangely ungrateful man he seemed. Up on the boat deck Drake heard the row.

“What’s that?” he asked.

The old chief, M’Ginley, leaned closer.

“Them—them diamonds,” he whispered.

“How’d you know. You’ve broke the seals,” Drake accused.

M’Ginley shrank back.

“Me? What you think? Ain’t I acted straight with you?”

“You’d better.”

Drake thrust one hand inside his dungaree suit. Something bulged under his arm. M’Ginley wasn’t looking at a paper packet this time.

“You go heeled; don’t blame ye,” he blustered. “Why pull a gun on me? They’re searchin’ your cabin.”

He told this with the air of one revealing a previous secret.

“They won’t find nothin’.”

“Not in mine,” Drake grated, “but elsewhere, perhaps. You sit still. We’ve been playing blind man’s buff overlong. You sit still. This is loaded, you old fraud. You figure on holding out, hey? Look me in the eye, in ten minutes, and maybe you’ll change your mind.”

M’Ginley quivered. He was gross mountain of a man, and shaking like jelly.

“Ten minutes. What you mean? Why—”

Drake rose.

“If you value your health, sit tight. If you don’t, I play a hard game. I’ve an ace in the hole. A neat little ace, isn’t it, in its shoulder holster. Sit where you are.”

The old man watched him as he walked, cat footed, to the stair, and as he slowly disappeared down it.

“Some one is goin’ to catch plain hell,” said he, “but it won’t be me, M’Ginley. Mebbe, when they finish their rough stuff there’ll be a nice corpse for Scotland Yard and—what’s hid below for M’Ginley.”

But M’Ginley was not down in the alleyway; and it was there that things were due to happen.

First the old captain’s voice, as he cried through the thin partition between Drake’s cabin and Quayle’s:

“Come here, for God’s sake, Cray! I found somethin’...”

Cray, running in from Drake’s cabin, saw a velvet covered case, long, narrow, bound with precious metal.

The captain laughed in relief.

“Got our man.”

“Where—where’d you find that?”

“There!” The captain kicked a disreputable handbag. “In the lining, sewn in. I felt it, first shot. Now—”

“Open it, open it,” Cray urged. “Let’s see.”

“It’s locked some way; but—”

Old Bain’s strong fingers wrapped themselves about the slim thing of metal and velvet. The cords of his wrists stood out for a moment. Then the case was open, cracked like a walnut shell. It was empty. The captain glared at the fragments in his hands. Cray, leaning closer, muttered:

“Never mind. Hang on to that. It’s evidence, ain’t it? Quayle—he’ll tell more, when them detectives get after him. He’ll talk. Man can shorten his stretch that way. Unless—” he thrust his face close to the captain’s —“unless we find them diamonds, ourselves. Then, this’d do for Quayle; they’d take him on the strength of this. And we’d—”

“To hell with the diamonds!” In the old skipper’s voice was relief. “This’ll do for me. You keep your gab shut, mister. The least you know the best, I’ve got Quayle locked in my cabin. He’ll stay there. If trouble comes aboard, it comes for him, personal. Not me, nor you, if you’re wise. You stop snooping round for them diamonds. I won’t have it, I tell you. First thing there’ll be a murder—another murder.”

Cray, his voice edged, face pale, sneered:

“Changed your tune, hey? Now you found this useless junk, you figure you’ll let them diamonds go, hey? But you figure without Cray. I’ll have this ship apart, if need be, but I’ll lay hands on them stones. I’ll—”

“You’ll go easy!” Captain Bain thundered. He was becoming himself rapidly now. “You’ll keep quiet. There’s others besides Quayle can be locked in their cabins, and nothing said of it. And I’m master of this ship, by God!”

“And if—” Cray smiled, though he was still under tension, although that smile was not a pleasant one. “If I told you the truth, would you sing small, I wonder?”

“Truth? My God! Truth?” the badgered skipper rasped. “You tell the truth? What in hell are you, to tell the truth?”

“A detective,” said Cray softly, “a detective.”

The captain stared, at first unbelieving; then he wilted. Too many little things on Cray’s side. The chances were that he might be. Certainly he’d acted like one at times. And if he were, what of the Cora, of her secret sins?

“A detective?” he gasped.

From behind Cray came another voice; the cabin door swung open.

“A detective? That’s fine; for there are two of us, then, my dear Cray.”

It was Drake. He had his gun. In that tiny cabin a gun in the hand meant mastery. Drake closed the door after him. His gun covered Cray. He disregarded the old captain. Indeed, old Bain hadn’t an ounce of trouble making left in him. He was a crushed man. Not one detective, but two! Not one man, who might conceivably be bribed, but two, each knowing his little immigrant game, and, what was worse, each knowing that the other knew. He slumped down on the single bunk. He stared from Cray to Drake, from Drake to Cray. He shook his gray head sadly.

Cray, snarling, turned on him.

“A hell of a captain! Don’t you see his game? His turn to hang on to them diamonds. He figures we’ll search his room next; likely found out I’d been searching it. He’s desperate.”

“And a strong man, Cray, which you are not.”

Drake reached out suddenly with his left hand, caught both Cray’s thin wrists, brought his hands together. Then with his right hand he laid his revolver on the bunk.

“Which you are not, Cray, my man,” said Drake.

The captain heard steel jingle, then saw it flash. He heard a faint click. Drake turned to him.

“We’ll adjourn to your cabin, Captain. This is a bit crowded.”

Glumly the old skipper obeyed. Cray stood there, handcuffed, silent now, as if with the snapping of the steel handcuffs had gone from him his last chance.

They stumbled out into the alleyway, Drake’s steady hand on Cray’s elbow. As Cray walked along, men eyed him. He scowled at the first; his face was blank as he passed a second. But when the third man stared, he smiled cockily. He was on parade and would be on parade until Drake and his kind had done their best, or worst. He must act out his part, confidence in every look, every gesture. That was his code; he would follow it.

Despite the reason for his captivity, there was a certain desperate gallantry about Cray, as Drake led him off, handcuffed, to the captain’s cabin. He even managed to whisper, as they climbed the steep iron stairway to the boat deck:

“A pretty job, Drake; if your feet didn’t look it, nobody’d take you for a dick. Only thing is you got the wrong man.”

“Have I?” Drake asked. “Have I? Maybe it’s Quayle should be wearing these.”

Cray kept silent at that, as if reluctant to tell; as if, now the enemy had appeared in his true form, he were changing his whole tune; as if those under the law’s suspicion must close up their ranks and stick together.

“Quayle—there he is in the cabin,” Drake went on. “I’ll be bound, he’ll be glad to see us. You see, Quayle’s my partner, Cray.”

Drake and the old captain were alone. Quayle had taken Cray away, had locked him up, was keeping an eye on him. Drake had remained with Bain. He was talking jerkily, as if thinking back over this business, partly because he rather plumed himself on the way it had been managed and partly because he feared, should he stop, what would follow. Old Captain Bain, there, lips moving, eyes downcast was probably going over the sins of a long and pettily wicked life. Probably, as soon as he got the chance, he’d pour out a flood of confessions and would incriminate himself hopelessly in a dozen dark matters.

Drake, a one idea man, busy with that one idea, didn’t have time, or, to do him justice, inclination for the rôle of father confessor to the captain of the Cora. So he talked, like a man talking against time, elliptically, as things came into his head. And the captain half listening, heard:

“Began at Dip’s American Bar. Bless you, we at the Yard have known your little game for years, Captain. Began at Dip’s, when this robbery thing broke, we traced a motor car within a mile of his place. From then on, well, it was chance and luck and, if I may say it, psychology. We came aboard, Quayle and I, separately. We looked about, used our eyes, wormed in where we could. We had no idea what the man was like, what he had done before. We just played a hunch that he was aboard. Began with you—

“Remember that little note I brought you, ostensibly from Dip? Well, that told me a lot. Bless you, Bain, you aren’t the murdering, thieving sort. I ruled you out, right then. But, to go on. You remember when the thing broke aboard? That first message?”

“Yes,” the old man nodded glumly, “I won’t forget. ’Twas as if some big, horrible eye was lookin’ all over, slow but steady. An’ I knew that sooner or later it’d stop on us; and then, o’ course—”

“That,” Drake laughed, hastily breaking in, “that was the intention. I arranged for that wireless. Scotland Yard? Well, we at the Yard don’t broadcast what we know, unless we want it known for a damned good reason. I had that wireless sent. Fixed it up in the hour I had between trailing the car to Dip’s and coming aboard here. That was my bombshell.”

“But—” the captain stared at him, puzzled—“how’d you—you didn’t know it was Cray you wanted?”

“What I wanted was a disturbance. If he wasn’t in the business he’d perhaps talk. If he hadn’t talked, I could fulfill that omission and blame it on him. I wanted every manjack aboard here to know that diamonds had been stolen, that Scotland Yard—they don’t sign themselves that way, I might confess—were on the trail. The rest—well, ever throw a rock into a pool? The ripples follow each other to shore. The rest was plain Cray. I’d struck it lucky. Those other messages—he made ’em up, every one.”

“But why—why?” The Old Man was incredulous.

“His game.” Drake laughed. “First half of the voyage, well, Cray was lying low. He knew his job, you see. He figured on passing as the regular wireless man; but he didn’t know his ship, or its company, and he didn’t like that company, when he looked ’em over. So he carried the necklace in his pocket, like a pipe or a handkerchief. Well, the day after that first bombshell of a message came, he felt for the diamonds—and they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, never mind how.”

Drake got up, walked across to the old skipper of the Cora, flipped one agile hand across his vest and dangled his watch, chain and seals before his eyes.

“Like that,” Drake laughed. “Well, to get on, there he was, this Cray, with those jewels gone and nothing for his pains. So he began to get mysterious messages. Bit by bit suspicion formed, centered, first on this one, then on that one. You played right into his hands, Captain. You had me worried. I was afraid you two would run out of suspects before we made our landfall.”

“You mean he deliberately had me on?” The captain shook his head. “No—if ’twas just theft—but murder—You mean this man let me think we had a murderer aboard, let me know it, when he could have kept it dark—and him the guilty one? Man don’t tie his own hang-man’s knot, mister, not even to get back diamonds.”

“There was no murder.” Drake laughed, again. “That was just his artistic touch. No fool, Cray. He knew you’d rise to it. But you worried him. He wanted to search every last cabin, but he also wanted to make the job hang out till the last moment, in case you might show a rush of brain to the head and get to suspecting him. Well, you did it as he planned, between you. Until, well, there were two of us left, Quayle and myself. Cray was getting scared by now. So, when he searched Quayle’s cabin yesterday, he planted the box that those diamonds had been in when he lifted them. Then he worked things so that you would find it, not him.”

“But why?”

Drake stared at him. What use going on like this? How could this man, who but half listened, understand, when even he saw some things but vaguely? You threw a straw into the water, then a dozen more. If one of them taught you anything of drift or eddy, you were content. When he spoke again his voice was crisp and incisive.

“That fight. A fake of Quayle and me, in case Cray suspected us of working together, as he did, eh? Just a precaution. It bothered him, as other things did, too. His problem was twofold. Those stories, you see; the wireless messages he was making up—they worked on him in the end, as well as on you. He almost believed them, believed that they might have some accidental truth in them. And, of course, he wanted his loot back. Safety and loot; two ends to gain. If you had it, it was as good as his, for he’s smooth and you—well, the thing’s plain, isn’t it? Notice how he gave in at the end? No gunplay. Clever men don’t go in for that. Amateurish, that sort of thing. Watch the papers later on and you’ll see how Cray fights through his mouthpiece. Good criminal lawyers are rich men.”

“But why all this?” the captain growled. “You knew in mid-Atlantic that he was your man. You had the stuff and could have nabbed him easily then and there.”

“In my game a man never stops learning,” Drake told him. “You may believe me, or not. Your ship said, ‘Hush.’ I wanted to make her talk, and Cray did it for me, eh? I wanted to see what he’d do and how he’d do it. A clever rogue he proved, but too imaginative.”

“So you raised hell with us, with me. Let me run round like a fool.”

The captain of the Cora bit his lip, for who was he, standing in a slippery place, to antagonize this detective. Drake looked at him pityingly for a moment.

“You’re worried. You’re saying, ‘Now Drake’ll begin on me.’ The answer is, of course, Drake won’t. I’ve known and the Yard’s known, for years. If we’d wanted to, we could fill a gaol with you and your like; but what’s it to us if now and then some petty thief gets away? Men like that Liverpool rat. It’s the big, fat, long whiskered, clever rats we’re after. When they come drifting along, flying the country, we know where to look.”

He turned toward the door.

“You run our rat trap, Captain. Why in the world should we spring it?”

The door opened as he put his hand on the knob. The fat engineer, M’Ginley, crowded in. He laid something that gleamed and glittered on the little table. Beside this he methodically piled brown paper, broken wax seals, bits of cut and knotted string.

“Ye’ll bear witness,” said M’Ginley to the captain, “ye’ll bear witness, I’m an honest man. There it all is, Mr. Drake, everything ye gave me. I’m an honest man; and besides, there’s a ship comin’ up astern flyin’ the blue ensign, with the Canadian coat-of-arms in the fly of it. I’m an honest man. When they board us, ye’ll tell ’em so, doubtless?”

But Drake was not listening. Bending over the table, he was brushing coal dust from the Varnavosk necklace.

THE END

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 15, 1927 issue of Adventure magazine.

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