Before they could recover from the shock of stupefaction and horror, he laughed a low, satisfied, swaggering laugh.
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, and the Bermondsey Terror said he didn't care, and if any games tiled 011 him—Peggy slammed the door. "Goroosh!" said Captain Valvick, wiping his forehead. He* shook
his head despondently. "Ay tell you ay seen roughneck ships before, but diss one of Old Barnacle's iss de worst. It iss hawful. Ay haff a cook once on de old old Betsy Yee which get mad and chase de whole fo'csl round and round de deck wit' a carving-knife; and ay t'ank now ay could get him a job on diss ship and he be right at home, Coroosh! what iss going to happen next?"
A faint, pleasant, gurgling noise behind them caused them to turn. The neck of a bottle had been tilted up among a brush of savage red whiskers. It descended. Red-whiskered and black-wigged, Curtis Warren regarded them affably,
"Good for the old Bermondsey Terror!" he said. "I'd like to meet that fellow. He'd make a good addition to our crowd. It reminds me a little of the way I served old Charley Woodcock about an hour ago… What does Abdul weigh, Peggy? Woodcock's fairly light."
Cool despair settled on Morgan, so that he felt pleasant Mini collected now. Nothing more, he was certain, could happen. They might as well bow before the Parcae and enjoy the gyrations of those relentless sisters.
"Ha ha-ha!" he said. "Well, old boy, what did you do In Woodcock? What's Woodcock got to do with this?"
"Now do you think I got out of the jug, anyhow?" demanded Warren. "It was a stratagem, I'm telling you, and i damned good stratagem, if you ask me. I asked you before, What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? And I'll tell you. The trick was this. If they thought he was safely locked up, then he could prowl as he liked and get the evidence that would hang the guilty man. That was my position… So I had to have a substitute to take my place in they wouldn't suspect anything. And if I do say it myself, I worked it pretty well — though I'll have to hand the teal credit to you, Hank." He removed his whiskers to talk the better.
"Woodcock was definitely the one person I could summon to me so that he'd come any time I liked, wasn't he? Right. Well I carefully prepared my ground by seeming to sleep all afternoon, so they'd get used to it; I refused dinner and everything. Then I wrote a note to Woodcock. I said I had news from my Uncle Warpus, and to come down to the brig at exactly seven o'clock. Just before this, I told him to have a message sent in the captain's name to the sailor on guard — I'd learned his name — to get him away for ten minutes, so there'd be nobody to hear when we talked business. I asked the sailor whether I could send a message, and he said he supposed it was all right, but he couldn't leave to take it; so they sent a pageboy. The only thing was, I was afraid somebody might read it, so—" Warren glanced round with triumphant glee, rubbing his hands.
"Masterly," said Morgan in a hollow voice.
"So what did I do? I ripped the book apart. There's always the heavy mucilage sticking the cover to the inside flaps of the book; and I tore out one of the flaps and sealed it. And it worked! Good old Charley came through. The sailor didn't like to leave when the fake message came through; but he saw there were bolts on the outside of the door I couldn't move, and I was asleep, anyway." Warren made a gesture. "Down comes Woodcock and says, 'You've got it, have you?' And I said, 'Yes; just pull back those bolts and open the door for a second; I don't want to get out, but I'll have to give you this.' So he opened the door. And I said, 'Look here, old man, I'm damned sorry, but you know how it is,' and I let him have it in the jaw… "
"Darling!" said Peggy. "Oh, you poor dear idiot. Why didn't you make him tell before you hit him?… Oh, confound it all, if you'd only done what I wanted you to, if you'd only tortured him before you hit him! Oh, dear… and now look what's happened, with all this nasty fighting and torturing!" She wrung her hands. "Abdul and Uncle Jules, look at them! And unless we can get them on their feet there'll be no performance. Listen! I can hear the crowd upstairs already… "
She snatched the bottle from Warren's hand and strengthened herself with a draught. A wheel seemed to go round behind her eyes. "The n-nasty d-drunken b-beasts!" said Peggy; "the—"
"My deah!" said Mrs. Perrigord, "Oh, I say, I don't know what has kick-happened, but I think it was most owfully clevah of Mr. Joyce to torture oil those people, and get out of gaol, I do, reolly, especially as it was Henry's idea, and I think we reolly might have the courtesy to offer Mi, Lawrence a glass of champagne… "
"Silence!" roared Morgan. "Listen, Peggy, the performance doesn't matter now; hasn't that occurred to you? Have you realised that we're saddled again with that blasted emerald… which Curt swears he got out of Kyle's cabin? Curt, come to your senses. You couldn't have got it out of Kyle's cabin, I tell you! Lord Sturton—"
Warren shook his head tolerantly, agitating the curls of the savage black wig that was jammed over one ear.
"No, no, old man," he said. "You don't understand. Not Lord Sturton — Lord Derreval. Lord Gerald Derreval. If you don't believe me, go down to Kyle's cabin — it isn't Mi from here — and look behind the wardrobe trunk just under the porthole. The steel box is there; I left the box there so the crook would maybe think the emerald was still In it…
Valvick whirled on Morgan.
"Maybe," he said, "maybe it been dere all de time! Coroosh! You t'ink dere is two emeralds, and one of dem a fake, and somebody hass returned de fake to dat English duke, eh?"
"Impossible, Skipper," returned Morgan, who was feeling queerly light-headed. "Don't you think Sturton would know a real emerald from a fake? Unless, somehow, the Will emerald was returned to him… I don't know! The thing's driving me insane. Go on, Curt. Go on from the consummation of your crafty scheme to entice Woodcock In the brig. What then?"
"Well, 1 got in a neat upper-cut, you see… "
"Yes, yes, we know that. But afterwards?"
"I tore the sheet up, bound and gagged him securely, and tied him to the berth so he couldn't move; then I put a blanket over him, so when the sailor came back he'd only look into the cell and think I was there… Neat, eh?"
"I have no doubt," agreed Morgan, "that at the present moment Mr. Woodcock thinks very highly of your forethought. If the idea had ever previously occurred to him to tip over the beams concerning your Uncle Warpus. I should think it would recommend itself strongly to him now. You're a wonder, you are. Carry on."
"So I sneaked away and made straight for Kyle's cabin to get the goods on him. I wasn't afraid of running into Kyle because I looked through a porthole and saw him in the bar; besides, I knew he was due at the concert. And— there you are. The proof! Also, I've got his papers. All I was afraid of was what Captain Whistler had said about maybe catching Kyle, but everything was fine. Now all we've got to do is examine his papers, and we'll find evidence that he's really the crook who's impersonating Dr. Kyle____"
"Yess, dere is de papers, too," rumbled Captain Valvick. "It is a hawful offence, ay tell you. Worst offence on de high seas to steal a man's papers. What we going to do now?"
Morgan stalked up and down the cabin, slapping his hand against the back of his head.
"There's only one thing. We've got to get Curt back to the brig before the captain learns he's on the loose. I don't see how it's to be done without—Mrs. Perrigord" he said whirling round, "what are you doing?"
"But, my own Henry," protested Mrs. Perrigord, jumping involuntarily. Her face wrinkled up in anguish. "Oh, I do so hope I didn't offend you! Reolly, I was only ringing the bell for the steward. Pierre Louys wants a bottle of champagne, you know, and you know it would be dreadfully rude if we didn't kick-offer… But I reolly didn't know which was the b-bell, so what could I do but ring oil the bells, you see… "
Morgan reeled. He dived and caught her arm just as she
was about to press a last push-button, hitherto overlooked, and labelled "Fire Alarm."
"Peggy," he said, "if you ever showed any sense and speed, show 'em now. If those bells don't bring down a Blob, at least there'll be a crowd of highbrows swarming in ire If things are all ready for the performance. At the moment, this is the safest place on the ship for Curt if you'll do as I tell you. Black his face — fit him out in wig Mild whiskers… "
"I will, Captain!" said Peggy grimly. "The poor darling sha'n't go back to that horrible ol
d brig if 1 can help it. But what—?"
Morgan took her hands and looked her steadily in the aye.
"Can i trust you and Curt here for just five Minutes — just five minutes, that's all I ask — without your getting in more trouble. You can stay out of more trouble for live minutes, can't you?"
"I swear it, Hank! But what are you going to do?" " The skipper and I are going to take those papers back to that cabin before anybody discovers they're gone. There's no chance of being caught; the only chance and danger is here. Give me that emerald, Curt. I don't know What's happened or what it is, but we'll take it back and be quit of the responsibility. Hand it over!"
"Are you stark, raving crazy?" shouted Warren. "I risk life and limb and my position in the Diplomatic Service to get the goods on a murdering crook, and now you ask me lo hand back—"
Morgan lowered his voice, perceiving this was the only Way of handling the matter, and fixed him with a hypnotic
eye.
"This is subtle, Curt. A subtle, deep scheme, you see. We only pretend to do it. But the moth is in our net now. A pin, a cork, and a card, and we add him to our Baker Street collection! You see? You trusted the wit and resource of Lord Gerald in a tight spot; now trust it again.
… Eh? Ah, that's it. That's it, old chap. Papers all here? Good! And — er — go light on the whisky, will you, or what there is left of it, until we get back? Stout fellow… Now, remember, Peggy, you've promised there'll be no trouble. I rely on you. Come on, Skipper… "
He backed away gingerly, as a lion-tamer might swerve to get out of a cage. Mrs. Perrigord said she wanted to go with Henry. She insisted on going with Henry. Exactly how she was dissuaded from this intention Morgan never knew, since he and Valvick slid out a fraction of a second before the closing door.
The gangway was empty, although a more confused buzzing and laughing, mingled with the deep note of people shuffling chairs, swept down from the staircase up to the stage.
The Blind Barber dgf-4 Page 19
