by Mark Walker
Riggs’s usually humorous eyes were dark and steely. “Let’s have a word shall we,” he said tersely. “Most murder victims are killed by someone they know and know well, but not always…” he began. He grilled the old pirate and his mate mercilessly, but in the end gleaned nothing, the Captain protesting that they had only been out to cause a little mischief, nothing serious mind you. And besides: why would he kill his “bestus friend” and his old mate? And hurt the old lady—what—me? I wouldn’t hurt no old lady! Mr. Graves seemed almost in shock, not comprehending most of what was going on.
The rain began again, pounding the Roundhouse and Black Rock Island.
In the meantime, downstairs in the Great Room, Sergeant Bellows was working at his specialty, crime scene investigation and was carefully removing Mr. Gee’s dirk from Mr. Shark’s chest and folding it into a handkerchief. After securing it and preserving the hilt, he next turned his attention to Mr. Gee, and began examining his throat. Red marks were evident, but as he looked closer, he realized that they were almost in a line, not in the spotted bruises that indicated fingers and thumbs. Indeed, to his trained eye it was the mark of some kind of ligature—a piece of rope—or twine, or something else… Using his torch, he cast about around the floor, and on the bodies themselves for something that might have caused it but found nothing. Then he enlisted Tom Melville to help him carry the bodies of Mr. Shark and Mr. Gee down to the cellar, where they were wrapped in blankets along with some of the rock salt to help preserve them… like the fish.
Kelly Riggs was now deeply concerned over the shambles of the case, and checked in with Doris Potter and Fauna Phipps, who were tending to Flora. She was still unconscious, but her heart rate and breathing were strong and steady. So, the crystal had been stolen, and another layer of mystery had been peeled off the onion. The storm continued to rage outside, and nobody seemed able to sleep, all exhausted by their night of terror. Only the night was not yet over.
Downstairs, the children huddled in the dancing shadows of the fire, feeling safer amongst the others rather than up in their room. The Potters were busy cleansing the bar, and Tom Melville tried to start up the emergency generator in the cellar, but it wasn’t working. Fortunately, he reported the water that had burst from the cask had receded, and he and the Potters marveled at how the water could have come in that way. Though more than one person now in the Great Room knew more than the Potters, and Tom Melville. Shayne ffellows doodled and scratched at his pad, but was unable to concentrate, despite the quiet attentions of Delia. Riggs and Bellows held a quiet conference over whiskeys by the back window, their faces strained in the glow of the firelight. Upstairs, the Captain and Mr. Graves remained in the lookout, and over the roar of the storm, had anyone been listening, they could have heard the Captain pacing up and down, squeaking a tattoo upon the creaking floorboards.
Kendra Danes went to check on Flora Phipps, standing just outside the door to the sisters’ room, nervously picking at the doorjamb. “No change,” whispered Doris Potter who was sitting beside the bed, where Flora lay recumbent and peaceful. Fauna Phipps lay on the other bed, in a restless slumber, occasionally twitching or making a sound. Kendra Danes stood there a few minutes, her emerald and sapphire eyes shining bright in the glowing lamplight.
Mr. Graves appeared downstairs, nervous and pale-faced, to fetch rum and ale to take up to the lookout. With Delia in tow, Shayne ffellows ambled shyly over to Mr. Graves at the bar. Delia pushed him forward. “Go on—ask him!” He began stammering until the Mr. Graves drawled, “Whadderye want?” Shayne ffellows finally got up the nerve and asked, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do, and I’m afraid with the way things are going, if I wait much longer, I won’t get my chance. I—I’ve been wanting to sketch the Captain. Oh, and you, too, of course.” Mr. Graves looked at him incredulously at first, but Shayne ffellows continued, “Look, it won’t take all that long, and I won’t bother you. We can go up to the lookout, and I can do it while you do uh, er, whatever it is you do up there. I promise not to get in the way. Perhaps we can even take a few drinks together?” Mr. Graves looked at him narrowly, but he was hooked, and the idea of having his ugly mug drawn, and getting more drink to boot was too much to resist. Soon they were ensconced with a bottle of rum in the lookout, Shayne ffellows with his sketchpad, the Captain and Mr. Graves with their drink.
The Captain was standing rather unsteadily in front of one of the lookout windows, whose double shutters he had managed to open. The icy wind rushed into the room and he closed the window, whose panes rattled unnervingly. Smuggleguts was now laced with rum to the eyeballs and peered slightly unfocused through his spyglass for what seemed the hundredth time. There! Not his imagination this time. He was sure of it now, far out to sea on the edge of the horizon he had spotted the Amanda Lee. It appeared, faintly illuminated by an occasional burst of distant lightning, riding slightly high above the churning sea due to the Anti-Gravity field. On board, a powerful lamp signaled its coded message. The captain clumsily set his spyglass aside and raised one of the candlesticks, and using his hand, signaled back. The ship moved in slightly closer yet stayed a respectful distance from the shore and island, and from the hidden rocks under the black water. The lights flashed back and forth for several minutes, then, the ship’s light went out and it seemed to disappear into the darkness. The mottled reflection in the glass of the lookout showed a satisfied expression on the face of Captain Smuggleguts. He reached for the candle and his tankard of rum. “Oh, I didn’t hear ye there…”
Now that things were more or less out in the open, Kelly Riggs decided to let Dinky Potter and Tom Melville in on what he and Bellows had discovered about the tunnel, and the secret of the cask. They took them down to the cellar, and Tom tried the emergency generator again, yet it still failed to start. It appeared the seawater (for surely that is what it must have been) had done little damage to the cellar itself and had receded to the point their torches found little trace of it left inside the cask. They even discovered the secret of the hidden door to the cask, which simply had been a tightly fitted door, with two obscure bent nails on opposite sides that when pulled by two people would open the end of the cask. Dinky Potter was dumbfounded to think he had been sitting on top of a pirate’s treasure for the past year and half. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings,” called Riggs shining his torch down into the cavern from the other end of the keg, “but it appears the parts of the treasure we found earlier have been completely swept away.”
When they returned from the cellar, Shayne ffellows had returned from the lookout and was showing his portrait of the Captain round. It was really quite good, the Captain looking exactly like himself and the room around him complete in every detail. He had started a sketchy version of Mr. Graves, but Shayne ffellows confided that he wasn’t a very good subject due to the liquor he’d consumed, and the rigors of the day.
“That was a fast job. You really work quickly,” noted Riggs admiringly. But no one was more admiring than Delia, though again Shayne ffellows seemed shy, and almost aloof. The children asked Kendra Danes if she would play for the them, but she had already taken her case upstairs to her room, and besides, she confided, considering all that had occurred in might be in “bad taste,” that brought more questions from Jen as to what it had to do with food. But she was thus reassured, and with the children calmed down, Kendra Danes again left the Great Room and carrying a lamp climbed the spiral stairs to the Phipps sister’s room. She peered past the doorway. Now Doris Potter was nodding in her chair, and Fauna Phipps seemed to sleeping peacefully. She crept into the room and stood for several minutes looking down into the face of Flora Phipps, searching deeply for the answer to some mystery there.
There was a slight smile on her lips when she went back downstairs.
The children had finally started to settle down, with little Jen actually nodding off against Mandy’s shoulder, and for the first time that terrible night a brief calm seemed to come over the in
n, despite the gale winds that still tore against them.
8
A BANGING AT THE BACK OF THE INN indicated one of the shutters had come loose, and Dinky Potter and Tom Melville rushed to the backdoor. “Blackie, can you be ready to hold, and close the door behind us?” Riggs nodded, and Dinky said, “We’ll knock when we come back,” and opened the door sending in a cold blast of air and sparks flying in the fireplace. Shayne ffellows got up and stretched, telling Delia he was going back up to the turret. Kendra Danes was rather subdued and sat contentedly with the children who had begun to stir due the latest activity. Then, there was pounding at the backdoor, and Riggs opened it as a shivering Dinky and Tom rushed back in and over to the fire.
After just having left the group a few moments before, Shayne ffellows flopped back down the stairs complaining, “What’s up with the lookout? He’s got the door fast bolted, and I can’t budge it.”
“Locked from the inside?” asked Dinky Potter. “We’ll see what we can do, but if it’s bolted, even the key won’t work.” And he went upstairs to examine the door. But shortly he returned pale and sweating, and asked for Riggs, who along with Sergeant Bellows accompanied him to the lookout.
Riggs knelt at the door and peered through the keyhole. He hitched his position to obtain a better view. Lightning lit the center of the room from the skylight, and he could clearly make out the figure of Captain Liam Smuggleguts in profile, sitting bolt upright in the captain’s chair, rigidly pointing at something off to the right. There was a horrific expression on his frozen face. He turned grimly to Sergeant Bellows who took his turn at the keyhole. They then endeavored for several minutes to open the door, but their attempts ended in failure. The only recourse was to breach it, but Bellows had another suggestion. “What about trying to get through one of the windows from the balcony?”
Despite the winds and the lightning cracking overhead, this proved to be the solution, and Riggs, with the assistance of Tom Melville, found a ladder, and used it from the outside balcony to reach the window Smuggleguts had used earlier, the window whose shutters now stood open. With the wind tugging at him he was able to trip the latch, and the window opened inward gaining him entrance. He closed the window to the icy air, and the room, lit by the single sagging remains of a taper and flashes of lightning was silent. Then he turned on his torch.
He was greeted by another surreal death scene. After a cursory look at the Captain, he observed the body of Mr. Graves slumped on the floor near a table by the wall. He took it all in, as he crossed to the door, the immediate source of his concern. The sliding bolt was in, and this is what had prevented their entering. Below the door, lay a long piece of thread and a knitting needle. Also, on the floor were traces of some kind of sticky powder. “Rosin,” he noted aloud. Riggs examined the doorjamb minutely with his pocket lens and found several small punctures beside the lock. Carefully watching for fingerprints, he unbolted the door to admit the anxious Sergeant Bellows, who had his crime scene kit at the ready.
Riggs went and knelt down next to the body of Mr. Graves.
“Dead?” Bellows inquired.
“Dead drunk,” he stated flatly. Riggs sniffed the pungent odor of liquor, and then he heard the raspy, heavy breathing. He pulled up an eyelid.
Then, they turned their attention to Captain Smuggleguts. “Almost looks like he died of fright,” murmured the Sergeant.
The eyes bulged and mouth gaped, the tongue slightly protruding under the bushy mustache between his slack jaws. His right elbow rested on the arm of the chair, his index finger pointing at something in front of him. Beside him on the left sat a small table and on it an empty mug. His left hand clutched at the arm of the chair. There was no sign of violence or any disturbance around him. Dinky Potter waited anxiously outside the door on the landing, with Tom Melville, Shayne ffellows, and the children crowding up anxiously behind him. They were mostly glad to leave the police work to the policemen, but the children wanted to see the dead body of the Captain and were allowed a brief glimpse before being ushered downstairs. The position of the body might have led one to imagine all sorts of mysterious ends for him, most concerning the ghost of the Sea Ghost.
But the detectives knew better.
Dinky Potter had been sent for a pitcher of water, which he returned with shortly. Riggs thanked him and took it and splashed some over Digger Graves, but it had no immediate effect, so he poured out the remains of the pitcher, finally getting the desired reaction. When he came to, Mr. Graves did not take the news at all well. Now the only one of the four pirates remaining, his face turned white with terror upon seeing the condition of his captain. When queried by Riggs all he could manage was a harsh whisper, “It’s the Ghost! He muster sawer the Ghost! He’s real I tell ya, the Ghost is real!”
They left him to mutter to himself, huddled by the wall. When it came time to move the body, they had to pry the Captain’s left hand from the chair arm, and it took Sergeant Bellows’ firm hand to clamp his clenched jaws shut. Then again with the assistance of Tom Melville, the body of the late Captain Liam Smuggleguts was removed, and carried down the spiral stairs to the makeshift morgue in the cellar to join that of Mr. Shark, and Mr. Gee. When they returned to the Great Room, Riggs found everyone there but the Phipps sisters, and Doris Potter. He turned and addressed them, all those who were left that is…
“Let’s adjourn to the lookout, and I think we can be done with this business once and for all.”
Part Four
1
THEY WERE SOON GATHERED TOGETHER, crammed into the lookout, the easels and canvases pushed aside. However, Captain Smuggleguts’ chair, and the table beside it, remained in the center of the room on the model’s platform, a grim reminder of what had taken place. Riggs stood before it, addressing the group who fanned out before him, their backs to the broad windows.
“Mr. ffellows, may I see your sketchbook? This is the sketch you drew just tonight?” inquired Riggs as he took the sketchpad. He looked over the drawing of the late Captain Smuggleguts, and a small spark appeared in his dark pewter eyes. Sergeant Bellows noticed the expression as Riggs’s eyes brightened and knew Riggs had hit upon a significant clue. But Riggs kept a poker face and said, addressing the group, “By the way, the reason the Captain took to the lookout here most nights was to watch for his ship, and be able to signal his mates. Sergeant Bellows and I spotted the ship from the air late this afternoon. Right, so let’s get down to cases:
“Here,” he indicated the table, “are some exhibits left behind by our killer—who was not the Sea Ghost, by the way. There’s nothing supernatural here. The knitting needle, thread, and traces of rosin. They were left as a blind, just to trick us. They weren’t used to bolt the door from outside at all. They were simply left to confuse the issue. We found traces of wax on the inside of the lock, and it matches perfectly the wax from the special waxed thread that sailors use to mend their nets.” Here, Tom Melville started, but Riggs continued:
“The killer cleverly tried to show the waxed thread was looped over the bolt to pull it into place, run ‘round a sailors’ sewing needle stuck into the door jamb, used as a fulcrum, and pulled it through the keyhole. Then using a simple slipknot, pull hard enough after the bolt was in place to slip the knot, and pull the thread through to the outside. The small needle falls to the floor, where a piece of paper is waiting to catch it, slide it under the door, and remove it. It’s quite clever actually—taken from a mystery novel, one that I happen to have read—and they even made into a film—which was quite good by the way, but that trick wasn’t used at all. As a matter of fact, all these clues are simply window-dressing, especially designed to throw suspicion all round.”
Here, he held up small sewing needle, and placed it near the bolt, let it go, and it immediately fastened itself to the bolt.
“The drawn bolt was actually accomplished with a magnet. The bolt had been previously magnetized—as you’ve just seen, and the murderer, after closing the door, used a p
owerful magnet to pull the bolt in place. It was that simple. All this shows a person who had a practical nature for the art of crime.
“So did the strange, ghost-like figure some of us saw the other night. It was not a ghost or course, but a real flesh and blood man dressed in a set of luminous clothes. These had been painted with this large brush.” He indicated Sergeant Bellows who produced a large brush whose bristles luminesced. “When exposed to light, the paint glows in the dark, as you see here. Isn’t that right, Mr. Digger Graves?”
He turned to Mr. Graves, who blubbered something unintelligible, and quivered like a small child in the corner. Riggs turned back to the others and continued:
“And when we were exploring the caves and tunnels, we found skulls painted with the same stuff—oh, and the big skull banner gave Sergeant Bellows here quite a fright.
“The other night, the pirates used the back stairs, and the reason none of the rest of you saw their wonderful charade is because you’d been drugged. Remember feeling tired after dinner? Well, Sergeant Bellows found traces of pentobarbitone, a barbiturate, which is a sedative by the way, in the cups that hadn’t yet been washed. And we know the pentobarbitone could be purchased and was available from the chemists’ shop in town. Of course, in too high a dose, pentobarbitone is lethal.”
There was a gasp all round.
“But in the end, the murderer became desperate. It was perfect cover to have our friends here bumping each other off, but that wasn’t enough. The murderer tried to throw suspicion anywhere he could: On the Potters, the Phipps sisters, on Miss Danes, and even on the blasted Ghost!”
