AHMM, November 2009
Page 10
Eban gave a tolerable imitation of male solidarity. “Captain Potts is right, my dear. You can't be alone with a dangerous killer."
"Nonsense!” she said. “I'm in no danger. I believe Mr. Willis said that he's manacled as well as confined. And in any case, I can't believe that he would harm me."
She was on the right tack. Her quarrel was now with Eban, not Potts, and it softened the challenge to his authority. “It still isn't proper,” he said halfheartedly.
"He's amidships in the sail locker,” she said in a reasonable tone, “so I won't be venturing alone into the crew's territory."
"When you put it that way...” Eban said with a convincing show of reluctance.
With a husband's tacit permission providing the necessary balm to his dignity, Potts dropped his objections. Lucy was halfway to the door before he could offer to escort her.
The after-hatch was just aft of the mainmast, and fortunately for Lucy, Willis had not replaced the hatch cover after locking Gilkins up. She descended the ladder into a dank darkness, and looked around at shadowy stacks of stowed cargo. The bulk cargo such as tea would be farther forward to make it more accessible to the main hatch. She located the sail locker behind a pile of crated export ware, and tapped on the door.
"Mr. Gilkins, are you in there?” she said.
"Mrs. Hale, is that you?” came the muffled reply from within.
The latch was a simple wooden bar that swiveled on a peg. The door swung open when she rotated it to the vertical. Gilkins was sitting on the floor with his back resting against the stiff folds of the spare sails, his hands fastened behind him, and his ankles tethered by a chain. He tried to get to his feet, but constrained as he was by the manacles, he failed.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hale,” he said.
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Gilkins. With luck, we'll have you out of those chains by eight bells."
"I don't see how,” he said miserably. “The captain says he has all the evidence he needs to hang me."
"We don't have much time. Tell me what happened."
"Mr. McKay's body was discovered at the start of the morning watch. He didn't come out for breakfast, and the steward knocked on his door in case he'd overslept. When there was no answer he looked inside and saw the body. He got the captain, and the captain went wild. He ordered Mr. Willis to search the forecastle, and Mr. Willis tore the place apart. He wouldn't let me help. He told the captain I was just another sailor as far as he was concerned. He's had the captain against me from the start."
"So I've gathered. What happened then?"
"Well, of course he didn't find anything. During the dogwatch yesterday, seeing that there was a gam with Alva Goodspeed and the others, they decided everyone would overhaul his chest—you know, move the shirts to the left, tobacco to the right, diaries and letters to the top, and so forth. Then rotate them back again. You may think it's foolishness, but—"
"I understand, Mr. Gilkins. It's called a comfort turn. There's little diversion on a long voyage, and sailors devise their own forms of entertainment."
"That's it exactly, Mrs. Hale. So if a man were to hide evidence of murder, he wouldn't hide it in his sea chest, when the whole forecastle had been watching him rearrange his belongings."
"So having followed the captain's orders and found nothing, Mr. Willis turned his attention to you?"
"Yes. He asked me where my sea chest was. I told him that when I was made second mate, I moved it to the space in the steerage that I shared with the carpenter. He took me by the elbow and hustled me there, and I showed him my chest."
"And surprise of surprises, when he opened the lid, there was evidence of your guilt lying in plain view on top."
Gilkins's cry of anguish was unfeigned. “I swear to you that I don't know how that stuff got in my chest, Mrs. Hale! When I last looked inside, just before the second dogwatch, everything was neat as a pin, just as it should be. Nothing could have been hidden there."
"Calm yourself, Mr. Gilkins. What exactly was there that shouldn't have been?"
"There was a big Chinese plate, broken in three pieces. And one gold coin—a Double Eagle. Worth more than my pay for an entire voyage. At a mate's wages. I've never seen a Double Eagle before, except once or twice."
"Supposedly stolen from Mr. McKay?"
"That's what Mr. Willis said."
"But Mr. McKay traded all his gold to Woo Lin for the stolen Chinese antiquities. And Captain Potts paid Woo Lin in gold as well. Presumably Woo Lin had all the gold. McKay would have been left with the unspent portion of the usual silver specie. If you were robbing Mr. McKay, why didn't you take the silver Liberties as well? They would have been easier to dispose of. For that matter, why just one Double Eagle? It doesn't make sense."
"I didn't ... I didn't..."
"I know, I know. You didn't steal anything. I believe you. But why the one solitary coin?"
A sob escaped Gilkins. “Mrs. Hale..."
"I'll tell you why. It was solely to throw suspicion on you. It was worth sacrificing one Double Eagle to point the finger of blame in your direction. But stupid and greedy. It would have been convincing to plant two or three of the gold pieces if it had been any captain but Potts. He was already primed to think the worst of you."
She paused, thinking of the big empty bottom drawer in McKay's sea chest, and what it must have held. A surmise began to grow in her brain.
"And the broken china plate,” she went on. “What was that supposed to prove? The same thing. That you were the one who killed McKay. Everybody knew the plate belonged to him. But it's another example of a stupid person not thinking it through. What were you supposed to do with a white elephant like that? Even unbroken, it would take a confidence man like McKay, with shady confederates in the States, to know how to dispose of that kind of illicit treasure."
He was not following her, but he looked at her hopefully anyway. “I don't know about the platter, Mrs. Hale. But what about my knife?"
"Ah yes, the knife."
"After he found the platter and the gold piece, he confiscated my knife. He told the captain that there was blood on it, and that it clinched the case against me. But, Mrs. Hale, I swear there was no blood on the blade when I gave it to him. I'd just been using it to splice a line."
She straightened up to leave. “What did the captain do with all this so-called evidence?"
"I suppose it's still in the steerage."
"Don't despair, Mr. Gilkins. Your case is not hopeless."
She left him locked up as she had found him. She threaded her way through mountains of cargo and found the warren where Gilkins and the carpenter slept. There were two sea charts at opposite ends of the space, and the donkey's breakfast that served as Gilkins's bed was next to one of them.
The lid of the chest had been left open and the three pieces of the broken platter were displayed on top of Gilkins's clothing. Displayed was the only word that Lucy could think of; the pieces were arranged too carefully to be the product of accidental breakage. Gilkins's ditty box had been emptied of its contents and used as a receptacle for the gold Double Eagle and Gilkins's clasp knife.
She picked up the knife and examined it. The point of the knife was broken off, as she had known it would be. The blunted end could not have been the cause of the wound that had killed McKay. It would have left a ragged tear instead of the clean puncture she had seen. She turned the knife over in her hand. The bloodstain that was supposed to hang Gilkins was there—a dried oval smear that had been carelessly applied at the center of the blade, nowhere near any possible cutting edge.
"A lubberly job,” she muttered contemptuously under her breath.
She replaced the knife and found her way back to the ladder leading to the after hatch. When she emerged on deck, she saw Dawson coming out of the forecastle. He was followed by Alvah Goodspeed, who wasn't supposed to be aboard the ship. Willis was close behind him. He and Dawson were having some kind of altercation, to judge by all the angry arm-waving.
Dawson saw her, and hurried across the deck to her side. “What was all that about, Mr. Dawson?” she asked.
"Goodspeed got tired of waiting, and climbed aboard to be with his friends in the forecastle. I found him there and had a little talk with him. Willis came by, and was some mad to find that Goodspeed had been talking to the crew. He was going to beat him up. I told him that if anyone was going to beat up my men, it would be me. He didn't like that."
Lucy laughed. “Good for Goodspeed. The boy has initiative."
"He found out some interesting things. For one thing, Willis and McKay had a shouting match a few days ago. They could hear it all the way from the forward house. For another, though Willis had the crew generally terrorized, he left the cook pretty much alone, since the cook isn't part of either watch. That is, until the ship stopped at Foochow and there was all that pother about that Chinese passenger. About then he started picking on the cook, and the crew had the idea that the old man was frightened out of his wits about something. That Willis was somehow threatening him."
"Very interesting, Mr. Dawson."
"But Goodspeed being a clever sort of lad, he somehow got the old man to talk. Maybe the old man thought that since Goodspeed was not a member of the crew, and would soon be off the ship, he could risk talking to him."
"It must have been an interesting conversation. Goodspeed doesn't speak Chinese, and I gather that the cook's fund of pidgin English was limited."
"Just so. But Goodspeed wormed out of the old man the fact that he had not seen Woo Lin leave the ship the night he disappeared. In fact, Willis had coerced him to say so. What he said to Goodspeed as near as Goodspeed could reproduce it was something like ‘Suppose my tellee cap'n Woo Lin go way on sampan chop-chop, suppose no makee my killee.’”
"A death threat?"
"Looks like it."
"Thank you, Mr. Dawson. Now I know exactly what happened and how. Let's go see Captain Potts."
Dawson kept pace with her as she hurried back to the afterhouse. They found Potts still deep in conversation with Eban. Mrs. Potts was sipping tea, listening but not trying to join them.
Potts was doing his best to ignore her. Lucy said sharply, “Captain, there's a killer aboard, and it isn't Gilkins. You must be ready to move quickly."
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Hale?"
"Do you have a gun?"
That got his attention. “I keep one in my quarters. Why are we talking about guns?"
"You had better get it. And you had better put Mrs. Potts in a safe place."
That threatened to send Mrs. Potts off into another attack of the vapors, so Lucy took her by the hand and said, “There's going to be some unpleasantness, my dear. It's for your own safety."
Mrs. Potts surprised both her and the captain by rising to her feet without any fuss and saying, “I shall lock myself in the privacy. No, don't come with me, Phineas. Do as Mrs. Hale says, and get your pistol."
Potts shook his head in bewilderment, and retrieved a Colt revolver from his desk drawer. He put it in the pocket of his frock coat, the long barrel making it an awkward fit.
Eban and Dawson unobtrusively moved closer together, making a protective triangle around her with Potts. It would have to do. She had known it was going to be dangerous.
The timing was close. Willis returned just then from bullying the men in the forecastle or intimidating the cook or whatever else he thought might do him some good. His eyes darted from Lucy to Eban to Dawson to Potts, whose tense posture had alerted him to his position. “Captain—” he began.
"Don't bother, Mr. Willis,” Lucy said firmly. “We've unraveled the details of Mr. McKay's death, and they exonerate Mr. Gilkins."
Willis attempted to dominate the situation in the way he always had. “Captain, we don't have time for any foolishness. There's a light breeze starting from the west. It won't last long. I've got to get all hands aloft and hoist canvas. And we've got to get these people off the ship."
He turned to leave, and found Eban standing in his way. “Stay where you are, Mr. Willis,” Captain Potts said. “We'll listen to Mrs. Hale."
"First of all,” Lucy said, “you and McKay were in collusion, weren't you? He knew that Woo Lin had all that gold, and he wasn't going to let it get away from him. He killed Woo Lin in his cabin and took the gold, after arranging with you to dispose of the body during the night. What did he promise you? A half share of the loot?"
"I don't have to listen to this,” Willis said, and made another attempt to leave. He found Eban blocking his way again.
Lucy continued. “He needed you to get rid of the body for him because he had no business on deck at night. There was no helmsman because the ship was at anchor, but he couldn't risk being seen by a member of the crew. You, on the other hand, could order the men about, forbid going on deck for a smoke, and so forth. It wasn't far from the afterhouse companionway to the rail, and you could keep a mast or a corner of the galley deckhouse between you and the forecastle. Then splash!"
Willis showed the dangerous stillness of a trapped bull. Lucy regarded him thoughtfully before going on.
"But the galley deckhouse was the problem. The cook should have been asleep, but he wasn't. And he saw you dump Woo Lin's body overboard. No doubt weighed down by some heavy object not as precious as gold. Mr. McKay had all the gold by that time."
An animal growl escaped Willis, and Eban and Dawson shifted position slightly to keep him boxed in. Lucy plunged on more confidently.
"The cook was easy to take care of. He was scared half to death. It was no trouble at all to get him to say that he had seen Woo Lin go ashore in one of the sampans surrounding the ship. The sampan inhabitants had seen Woo Lin's body go over the rail too. But that was no problem. They were frightened also. They didn't want to be found anywhere near this ship. And they were never going to say a word to the Chinese authorities. It didn't matter. You were going to leave Foochow with the first land breeze anyway."
Potts had decided on a show of indignation. “Is this true, Mr. Willis?” he said. Willis gave him a look of contempt, reserving a black scowl for Lucy.
"But McKay kept putting you off about the sharing of the gold, didn't he?” Lucy went on, undeterred. “The ship continued its coastal stops down the South China Sea, and finally made its passage through the Sunda Straits and set an eastward course for home. And still no sharing of the loot. Very imprudent of McKay. Perhaps he thought he could keep putting you off until it was too late, and get you to settle for a pittance. In the meantime, you had the job of keeping the cook quiet. McKay had committed the murder but you were the one at risk. I can imagine the rage that must have been building up in you."
Lucy kept one eye on Willis's right hand. The fingers kept flexing minutely, though Willis himself seemed to be unconscious of it.
"When poor Mr. Gilkins became second mate somewhere past Samoa, you took out some of your rage on him, didn't you? But your real anger was reserved for McKay. A few days ago it reached the boiling point, and you had a set-to with him. If he'd had any sense, he'd have settled with you then, but he didn't. So last night, toward the morning watch, you let yourself into his cabin and started beating him up. I saw the marks of the brass knuckles. I don't know what happened then. Perhaps he tried to fight back. Perhaps your rage spilled over. Perhaps you'd intended to kill him all along. So you finished him off by stabbing him.
"The gold was in the bottom drawer of McKay's steamer trunk, wasn't it? Once you had it, you had to move quickly. There was no time to bother about the petty cash in silver, or about McKay's other valuables. You thought quickly but not intelligently. You grabbed the first thing that might link Mr. Gillis to McKay's murder—the Chinese serving platter that everyone had seen. And since there was a lot of broken crockery on the floor from the str
uggle, you smashed the platter into three big pieces. The gold Double Eagle was an afterthought. It would have been smarter to scoop up a handful of the silver coins, but you weren't thinking clearly. At that point no one but you knew about McKay's cache of gold, so you were opening a door that it would have been safer to keep closed."
She gave a weary sigh. Willis had controlled himself longer than she had expected, but he was near his breaking point. But she had done what she had set out to do. Captain Potts was thoroughly absorbed in her account and she could almost see a little window opening in his brain to let in the light.
"But you made a mistake,” she told Willis. “Gilkins's knife could not possibly have killed McKay, not with the clean wound I saw, because you'd broken the point off. Just as you'd clipped the knives of the rest of the crew. You told us that yourself at dinner last night. And if the stabbing took place during the beating, how is it that you were able to switch from brass knuckles to a knife in the same hand without a pause? You gave us the answer to that too."
"Damn you to hell!” Willis lunged at Lucy with the Peavey weapon in his hand, knife point forward.
She did not move. Dawson rapped Willis on the side of the head with the barrel of his revolver before he could reach her. Willis went down like a stone. Captain Potts was still struggling to free his pistol from the lining of his pocket.
Eban was kneeling beside Willis. “He's out. Do you have a pair of manacles here? We'll trice him up and carry him down to the sail locker. Mr. Gilkins will be glad to be set free."
Potts was acting stunned. “I'll...” And then he remembered that he had no mate to carry out his orders.
"Mr. Dawson and I will see to it,” Eban said. “He picked up the Peavey weapon and turned it over in his hands. “There's still blood on the knife blade,” he said. “We'll add that to our depositions."
Mrs. Potts emerged from the convenience. She must have heard most of it from there. “I won't have that man on the ship,” she quavered. “Not even for one night. I wouldn't sleep a wink. Please, Phineas!” She was in fluttery mode again.
Poor Captain Potts was at a loss. “What am I do to do? It will be at least a week before we reach the Marquesas.” A new thought struck him. “And I don't have a first mate to see to the working of the ship."