The After House

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXIII

  FREE AGAIN

  With the submission of the case to the jury, the witnesses were giventheir freedom. McWhirter had taken a room for me for a day or two togive me time to look about; and, his own leave of absence from hishospital being for ten days, we had some time together.

  My situation was better than it had been in the summer. I had mystrength again, although the long confinement had told on me. But myposition was precarious enough. I had my pay from the Ella, andnothing else. And McWhirter, with a monthly stipend from his hospitalof twenty-five dollars, was not much better off.

  My first evening of freedom we spent at the theater. We bought thebest seats in the house, and we dressed for the occasion--being in theposition of having nothing to wear between shabby everyday wear andevening clothes.

  "It is by way of celebration," Mac said, as he put a dab ofshoe-blacking over a hole in his sock; "you having been restored tolife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's the game,Leslie--the pursuit of happiness."

  I was busy with a dress tie that I had washed and dried by pasting iton a mirror, an old trick of mine when funds ran low. I was trying toenter into Mac's festive humor, but I had not reacted yet from thehorrors of the past few months.

  "Happiness!" I said scornfully. "Do you call this happiness?"

  He put up the blacking, and, coming to me, stood eyeing me in themirror as I arranged my necktie.

  "Don't be bitter," he said. "Happiness was my word. The Good Man wasgood to you when he made you. That ought to be a source ofsatisfaction. And as for the girl--"

  "What girl?"

  "If she could only see you now. Why in thunder didn't you take thoseclothes on board? I wanted you to. Couldn't a captain wear a dresssuit on special occasions?"

  "Mac," I said gravely, "if you will think a moment, you will rememberthat the only special occasions on the Ella, after I took charge, werefunerals. Have you sat through seven days of horrors without realizingthat?"

  Mac had once gone to Europe on a liner, and, having exhausted hisfunds, returned on a cattle-boat.

  "All the captains I ever knew," he said largely, "were a fussylot--dressed to kill, and navigating the boat from the head of adinner-table. But I suppose you know. I was only regretting that shehadn't seen you the way you're looking now. That's all. I suppose Imay regret, without hurting your feelings!"

  He dropped all mention of Elsa after that, for a long time. But I sawhim looking at me, at intervals, during the evening, and sighing. Hewas still regretting!

  We enjoyed the theater, after all, with the pent-up enthusiasm of longmonths of work and strain. We laughed at the puerile fun, encored theprettiest of the girls, and swaggered in the lobby between acts, withcigarettes. There we ran across the one man I knew in Philadelphia,and had supper after the play with three or four fellows who, onhearing my story, persisted in believing that I had sailed on the Ellaas a lark or to follow a girl. My simple statement that I had done itout of necessity met with roars of laughter and finally I let it go atthat.

  It was after one when we got back to the lodging-house, being escortedthere in a racing car by a riotous crowd that stood outside the door,as I fumbled for my key, and screeched in unison: "Leslie! Leslie!Leslie! Sic 'em!" before they drove away.

  The light in the dingy lodging-house parlor was burning full, but thehall was dark. I stopped inside and lighted a cigarette.

  "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Mac!" I said. "I've gotthe first two, and the other can be had--for the pursuit."

  Mac did not reply: he was staring into the parlor. Elsa Lee wasstanding by a table, looking at me.

  She was very nervous, and tried to explain her presence in abreath--with the result that she broke down utterly and had to stop.Mac, his jovial face rather startled, was making for the stairs; but Isternly brought him back and presented him. Whereon, being utterlyconfounded, he made the tactful remark that he would have to go and putout the milk-bottles: it was almost morning!

  She had been waiting since ten o'clock, she said. A taxicab, with hermaid, was at the door. They were going back to New York in themorning, and things were terribly wrong.

  "Wrong? You need not mind Mr. McWhirter. He is as anxious as I am tobe helpful."

  "There are detectives watching Marshall; we saw one to-day at thehotel. If the jury disagrees--and the lawyers think they will--theywill arrest him."

  I thought it probable. There was nothing I could say. McWhirter madean effort to reassure her.

  "It wouldn't be a hanging matter, anyhow," he said. "There's a lotagainst him, but hardly a jury in the country would hang a man forsomething he did, if he could prove he was delirious the next day." Shepaled at this dubious comfort, but it struck her sense of humor, too,for she threw me a fleeting smile.

  "I was to ask you to do something," she said. "None of us can, for weare being watched. I was probably followed here. The Ella is still inthe river, with only a watchman on board. We want you to go thereto-night, if you can."

  "To the Ella?"

  She was feeling in her pocketbook, and now she held out to me anenvelope addressed in a sprawling hand to Mr. Turner at his hotel.

  "Am I to open it?"

  "Please."

  I unfolded a sheet of ruled note-paper of the most ordinary variety. Ithad been opened and laid flat, and on it, in black ink, was a crudedrawing of the deck of the Ella, as one would look down on it fromaloft. Here and there were small crosses in red ink, and, overlying itall from bow to stern, a red axe. Around the border, not written, butprinted in childish letters, were the words: "NOT YET. HA, HA." In acorner was a drawing of a gallows, or what passes in the everyday mindfor a gallows, and in the opposite corner an open book.

  "You see," she said, "it was mailed downtown late this afternoon. Thehotel got it at seven o'clock. Marshall wanted to get a detective, butI thought of you. I knew--you knew the boat, and then--you had said--"

  "Anything in all the world that I can do to help you, I will do," Isaid, looking at her. And the thing that I could not keep out of myeyes made her drop hers.

  "Sweet little document!" said McWhirter, looking over my shoulder."Sent by some one with a nice disposition. What do the crosses mark?"

  "The location of the bodies when found," I explained--"these three.This looks like the place where Burns lay unconscious. That one nearthe rail I don't know about, nor this by the mainmast."

  "We thought they might mark places, clues, perhaps, that had beenoverlooked. The whole--the whole document is a taunt, isn't it? Thescaffold, and the axe, and 'not yet'; a piece of bravado!"

  "Right you are," said McWhirter admiringly. "A little escape of gleefrom somebody who's laughing too soon. One-thirty--it will soon be theproper hour for something to happen on the Ella, won't it? If that wassent by some member of the crew--and it looks like it; they are looseto-day--the quicker we follow it up, the better, if there's anything tofollow."

  "We thought if you would go early in the morning, before any of themmake an excuse to go back on board--"

  "We will go right away; but, please--don't build too much on this. It'sa good possibility, that's all. Will the watchman let us on board?"

  "We thought of that. Here is a note to him from Marshall, and--willyou do us one more kindness?"

  "I will."

  "Then--if you should find anything, bring it to us; to the police;later, if you must, but to us first."

  "When?"

  "In the morning. We will not leave until we hear from you."

  She held out her hand, first to McWhirter, then to me. I kept it alittle longer than I should have, perhaps, and she did not take it away.

  "It is such a comfort," she said, "to have you with us and not againstus! For Marshall didn't do it, Leslie--I mean--it is hard for me tothink of you as Dr. Leslie! He didn't do it. At first, we thought hemight have, and he was delirious and could not reassure us. He swearshe did not. I
think, just at first, he was afraid he had done it; buthe did not. I believe that, and you must."

  I believed her--I believed anything she said. I think that if she hadchosen to say that I had wielded the murderer's axe on the Ella, Ishould have gone to the gallows rather than gainsay her. From thatnight, I was the devil's advocate, if you like. I was determined tosave Marshall Turner.

  She wished us to take her taxicab, dropping her at her hotel; and,reckless now of everything but being with her, I would have done so.But McWhirter's discreet cough reminded me of the street-car level ofour finances, and I made the excuse of putting on more suitableclothing.

  I stood in the street, bareheaded, watching her taxicab as it rattleddown the street. McWhirter touched me on the arm.

  "Wake up!" he said. "We have work to do, my friend."

  We went upstairs together, cautiously, not to rouse the house. At thetop, Mac turned and patted me on the elbow, my shoulder being a foot orso above him.

  "Good boy!" he said. "And if that shirtfront and tie didn't knock intoeternal oblivion the deck-washing on the Ella, I'll eat them!"

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE THING

  I deserve no credit for the solution of the Ella's mystery. I have acertain quality of force, perhaps, and I am not lacking in physicalcourage; but I have no finesse of intellect. McWhirter, a foot shorterthan I, round of face, jovial and stocky, has as much subtlety in hislittle finger as I have in my six feet and a fraction of body.

  All the way to the river, therefore, he was poring over the drawing. Henamed the paper at once.

  "Ought to know it," he said, in reply to my surprise. "Sold enoughpaper at the drugstore to qualify as a stationery engineer." Hewrithed as was his habit over his jokes, and then fell to work at thedrawing again. "A book," he said, "and an axe, and a gibbet orgallows. B-a-g--that makes 'bag.' Doesn't go far, does it? Humorousduck, isn't he? Any one who can write 'ha! ha!' under a gallows hasreal humor. G-a-b, b-a-g!"

  The Ella still lay in the Delaware, half a mile or so from her originalmoorings. She carried the usual riding-lights--a white one in the bow,another at the stern, and the two vertical red lights which showed hernot under command. In reply to repeated signals, we were unable torouse the watchman. I had brought an electric flash with me, and byits aid we found a rope ladder over the side, with a small boat at itsfoot.

  Although the boat indicated the presence of the watchman on board, wemade our way to the deck without challenge. Here McWhirter suggestedthat the situation might be disagreeable, were the man to waken and getat us with a gun.

  We stood by the top of the ladder, therefore, and made another effortto rouse him. "Hey, watchman!" I called. And McWhirter, in a deepbass, sang lustily: "Watchman, what of the night?" Neither of us made,any perceptible impression on the silence and gloom of the Ella.

  McWhirter grew less gay. The deserted decks of the ship, her tragichistory, her isolation, the darkness, which my small flash seemed onlyto intensify, all had their effect on him.

  "It's got my goat," he admitted. "It smells like a tomb."

  "Don't be an ass."

  "Turn the light over the side, and see if we fastened that boat. Wedon't want to be left here indefinitely."

  "That's folly, Mac," I said, but I obeyed him. "The watchman's boatis there, so we--"

  But he caught me suddenly by the arm and shook me.

  "My God!" he said. "What is that over there?"

  It was a moment before my eyes, after the flashlight, could discernanything in the darkness. Mac was pointing forward. When I could see,Mac was ready to laugh at himself.

  "I told you the place had my goat!" he said sheepishly. "I thought Isaw something duck around the corner of that building; but I think itwas a ray from a searchlight on one of those boats."

  "The watchman, probably," I said quietly. But my heart beat a littlefaster. "The watchman taking a look at us and gone for his gun."

  I thought rapidly. If Mac had seen anything, I did not believe it wasthe watchman. But there should be a watchman on board--in the forwardhouse, probably. I gave Mac my revolver and put the light in mypocket. I might want both hands that night. I saw better without theflash, and, guided partly by the bow light, partly by my knowledge ofthe yacht, I led the way across the deck. The forward house was closedand locked, and no knocking produced any indication of life. The afterhouse we found not only locked, but barred across with strips of woodnailed into place. The forecastle was likewise closed. It was a deadship.

  No figure reappearing to alarm him, Mac took the drawing out of hispocket and focused the flashlight on it.

  "This cross by the mainmast," he said "that would be where?"

  "Right behind you, there."

  He walked to the mast, and examined carefully around its base. Therewas nothing there, and even now I do not know to what that crossalluded, unless poor Schwartz--!

  "Then this other one--forward, you call it, don't you? Suppose welocate that."

  All expectation of the watchman having now died, we went forward on theport side to the approximate location of the cross. This being in theneighborhood where Mac had thought he saw something move, we approachedwith extreme caution. But nothing more ominous was discovered than theport lifeboat, nothing more ghostly heard than the occasional creakwith which it rocked in its davits.

  The lifeboat seemed to be indicated by the cross. It swung almostshoulder-high on McWhirter. We looked under and around it, with agrowing feeling that we had misread the significance of the crosses, orthat the sinister record extended to a time before the "she devil" ofthe Turner line was dressed in white and turned into a lady.

  I was feeling underneath the boat, with a sense of absurdity thatMcWhirter put into words. "I only hope," he said, "that the watchmandoes not wake up now and see us. He'd be justified in filling us withlead, or putting us in straitjackets."

  But I had discovered something.

  "Mac," I said, "some one has been at this boat within the last fewminutes."

  "Why?"

  "Take your revolver and watch the deck. One of the barecas--"

  "What's that?"

  "One of the water-barrels has been upset, and the plug is out. It isleaking into the boat. It is leaking fast, and there's only a gallonor so in the bottom! Give me the light."

  The contents of the boat revealed the truth of what I had said. Theboat was in confusion. Its cover had been thrown back, and tins ofbiscuit, bailers, boathooks and extra rowlocks were jumbled together inconfusion. The barecas lay on its side, and its plug had been eitherknocked or drawn out.

  McWhirter was for turning to inspect the boat; but I ordered himsternly to watch the deck. He was inclined to laugh at my caution,which he claimed was a quality in me he had not suspected. He loungedagainst the rail near me, and, in spite of his chaff, kept a keenenough lookout.

  The barecas of water were lashed amidships. In the bow and stern weresmall air-tight compartments, and in the stern was also a small lockerfrom which the biscuit tins had been taken. I was about to abandon mysearch, when I saw something gleaming in the locker, and reached in anddrew it out. It appeared to be an ordinary white sheet, but itspresence there was curious. I turned the light on it. It was coveredwith dark-brown stains.

  Even now the memory of that sheet turns me ill. I shook it out, andMac, at my exclamation, came to me. It was not a sheet at all, thatis, not a whole one. It was a circular piece of white cloth, on which,in black, were curious marks--a six-pointed star predominating. Therewere others--a crescent, a crude attempt to draw what might be either adog or a lamb, and a cross. From edge to edge it was smeared withblood.

  Of what followed just after, both McWhirter and I are vague. Thereseemed to be, simultaneously, a yell of fury from the rigging overhead,and the crash of a falling body on the deck near us. Then we wereclosing with a kicking, biting, screaming thing, that bore me to theground, extinguishing the little electric flash, and that
, risingsuddenly from under me, had McWhirter in the air, and almost overboardbefore I caught him. So dazed were we by the onslaught that thething--whatever it was--could have escaped, and left us none the wiser.But, although it eluded us in the darkness, it did not leave. It wasthere, whimpering to itself, searching for something--the sheet. As Isteadied Mac, it passed me. I caught at it. Immediately the strugglebegan all over again. But this time we had the advantage, and kept it.After a battle that seemed to last all night, and that was actuallyfought all over that part of the deck, we held the creature subdued,and Mac, getting a hand free, struck a match.

  It was Charlie Jones.

  That, after all, is the story. Jones was a madman, a homicidal maniacof the worst type. Always a madman, the homicidal element of hisdisease was recurrent and of a curious nature.

  He thought himself a priest of heaven, appointed to make ghastlysacrifices at certain signals from on high. The signals I am not sureof; he turned taciturn after his capture and would not talk. I aminclined to think that a shooting star, perhaps in a particular quarterof the heavens, was his signal. This is distinctly possible, and ismade probable by the stars which he had painted with tar on hissacrificial robe.

  The story of the early morning of August 12 will never be fully known;but much of it, in view of our knowledge, we were able to reconstruct.Thus--Jones ate his supper that night, a mild and well-disposedindividual. During the afternoon before, he had read prayers for thesoul of Schwartz, in whose departure he may or may not have had a part.I am inclined to think not, Jones construing his mission as being oneto remove the wicked and the oppressor, and Schwartz hardly comingunder either classification.

  He was at the wheel from midnight until four in the morning on thenight of the murders. At certain hours we believe that he went forwardto the forecastle-head, and performed, clad in his priestly robe, suchdevotions as his disordered mind dictated. It is my idea that helooked, at these times, for a heavenly signal, either a meteor or somestrange appearance of the heavens. It was known that he was a poorsleeper, and spent much time at night wandering around.

  On the night of the crimes it is probable that he performed hisdevotions early, and then got the signal. This is evidenced bySingleton's finding the axe against the captain's door before midnight.He had evidently been disturbed. We believe that he intended to killthe captain and Mr. Turner, but made a mistake in the rooms. Heclearly intended to kill the Danish girl. Several passages in hisBible, marked with a red cross, showed his inflamed hatred of loosewomen; and he believed Karen Hansen to be of that type.

  He locked me in, slipping down from the wheel to do so, and pocketingthe key. The night was fairly quiet. He could lash the wheel safely,and he had in his favor the fact that Oleson, the lookout, was aslow-thinking Swede who notoriously slept on his watch. He found theaxe, not where he had left it, but back in the case. But the case wasonly closed, not locked--Singleton's error.

  Armed with the axe, Jones slipped back to the wheel and waited. He hadplenty of time. He had taken his robe from its hiding-place in theboat, and had it concealed near him with the axe. He was ready, but hewas waiting for another signal. He got it at half-past two. Headmitted the signal and the time, but concealed its nature--I think itwas a shooting star. He killed Vail first, believing it to be Turner,and making with his axe, the four signs of the cross. Then he went tothe Hansen girl's door. He did not know about the bell, and probablyrang it by accident as he leaned over to listen if Vail still breathed.

  The captain, in the mean time, had been watching Singleton. He hadforbidden his entering the after house; if he caught him disobeying, hemeant to put him in irons. He was without shoes or coat, and he satwaiting on the after companion steps for developments.

  It was the captain, probably, whom Karen Hansen mistook for Turner.Later he went back to the forward companionway, either on his way backto his cabin, or still with an eye to Singleton's movements.

  To the captain there must have appeared this grisly figure in flowingwhite, smeared with blood and armed with an axe. The sheet was wornover Jones's head--a long, narrow slit serving him to see through, andtwo other slits freeing his arms. The captain was a brave man, but theapparition, gleaming in the almost complete darkness, had been on himbefore he could do more than throw up his hands.

  Jones had not finished. He went back to the chart-room and possiblyeven went on deck and took a look at the wheel. Then he went downagain and killed the Hansen woman.

  He was exceedingly cunning. He flung the axe into the room, and was upand at the wheel again, all within a few seconds. To tear off and foldup the sheet, to hide it under near-by cordage, to strike the ship'sbell and light his pipe--all this was a matter of two or three minutes.I had only time to look at Vail. When I got up to the wheel, Jones wassmoking quietly.

  I believe he tried to get Singleton later, and failed. But hecontinued his devotions on the forward deck, visible when clad in hisrobe, invisible when he took it off. It was Jones, of course, whoattacked Burns and secured the key to the captain's cabin; Jones whothrew the axe overboard after hearing the crew tell that on its handlewere finger-prints to identify the murderer; Jones who, while on guardin the after house below, had pushed the key to the storeroom underTurner's door; Jones who hung the marlinespike over the side, waitingperhaps for another chance at Singleton; Jones, in his devotionalattire, who had frightened the crew into hysteria, and who, discoveredby Mrs. Johns in the captain's cabin, had rushed by her, and out, withthe axe. It is noticeable that he made no attempt to attack her. Hekilled only in obedience to his signal, and he had had no signal.

  Perhaps the most curious thing, after the murderer was known, was thestory of the people in the after house. It was months before I gotthat in full. The belief among the women was that Turner, maddened bydrink and unreasoning jealousy, had killed Vail, and then, runningamuck or discovered by the other victims, had killed them. This wasborne out by Turner's condition. His hands and parts of his clothingwere blood-stained.

  Their condition was pitiable. Unable to speak for himself, he layraving in his room, talking to Vail and complaining of a white figurethat bothered him. The key that Elsa Lee picked up was another clue,and in their attempt to get rid of it I had foiled them. Mrs. Johns,an old friend and, as I have said, an ardent partisan, undertook to getrid of the axe, with the result that we know. Even Turner's recoverybrought little courage. He could only recall that he had gone intoVail's room and tried to wake him, without result; that he did not knowof the blood until the next day, or that Vail was dead; and that he hada vague recollection of something white and ghostly that night--he wasnot sure where he had seen it.

  The failure of their attempt to get rid of the storeroom key wasmatched by their failure to smuggle Turner's linen off the ship.Singleton suspected Turner, and, with the skillful and not overscrupulous aid of his lawyer, had succeeded in finding in Mrs. Sloane'strunk the incriminating pieces.

  As to the meaning of the keys, file, and club in Singleton's mattress,I believe the explanation is simple enough. He saw against him astrong case. He had little money and no influence, while Turner hadboth. I have every reason to believe that he hoped to make his escapebefore the ship anchored, and was frustrated by my discovery of thekeys and by an extra bolt I put on his door and window.

  The murders on the schooner-yacht Ella were solved.

  McWhirter went back to his hospital, the day after our struggle,wearing a strip of plaster over the bridge of his nose and a new air ofimportance. The Turners went to New York soon after, and I was alone.I tried to put Elsa Lee out of my thoughts, as she had gone out of mylife, and, receiving the hoped-for hospital appointment at that time, Itried to make up by hard work for a happiness that I had not lostbecause it had never been mine.

  A curious thing has happened to me. I had thought this recordfinished, but perhaps--

  Turner's health is bad. He and his wife and Miss Lee are going toEurope. He has asked me
to go with him in my professional capacity!

  It is more than a year since I have seen her.

  The year has brought some changes. Singleton is again a member of theTurner forces, having signed a contract and a temperance pledge at thesame sitting. Jones is in a hospital for the insane, where in thedaytime he is a cheery old tar with twinkling eyes and a huge mustache,and where now and then, on Christmas and holidays, I send him a supplyof tobacco. At night he sleeps in a room with opaque glass windowsthrough which no heavenly signals can penetrate. He will not talk ofhis crimes,--not that he so regards them,--but now and then in thenight he wraps the drapery of his couch about him and performs strangeorisons in the little room that is his. And at such times an attendantwatches outside his door.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE SEA AGAIN

  Once more the swish of spray against the side of a ship, the tang ofsalt, the lift and fall of the rail against the sea-line on thehorizon. And once more a girl, in white from neck to heel, facing intothe wind as if she loved it, her crisp skirts flying, her hair blownback from her forehead in damp curls.

  And I am not washing down the deck. With all the poise of whiteflannels and a good cigar, I am lounging in a deck-chair, watching her.Then--

  "Come here!" I say.

  "I am busy."

  "You are not busy. You are disgracefully idle."

  "Why do you want me?"

  She comes closer, and looks down at me. She likes me to sit, so shemay look superior and scornful, this being impossible when one looksup. When she has approached--

  "Just to show that I can order you about."

  "I shall go back!"--with raised chin. How I remember that raised chin,and how (whisper it) I used to fear it!

  "You cannot. I am holding the edge of your skirt."

  "Ralph! And all the other passengers looking!"

  "Then sit down--and, before you do, tuck that rug under my feet, willyou?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Under my feet!"

  She does it, under protest, whereon I release her skirts. She issulky, quite distinctly sulky. I slide my hand under the rug into herlap. She ignores it.

  "Now," I say calmly, "we are even. And you might as well hold my hand.Every one thinks you are."

  She brings her hands hastily from under her rug and puts them over herhead. "I don't know what has got into you," she says coldly. "And whyare we even?"

  "For the day you told me the deck was not clean."

  "It wasn't clean."

  "I think I am going to kiss you."

  "Ralph!"

  "It is coming on. About the time that the bishop gets here, I shalllean over and--"

  She eyes me, and sees determination in my face. She changes color.

  "You wouldn't!"

  "Wouldn't I!"

  She rises hastily, and stands looking down at me. I am quite sure atthat moment that she detests me, and I rather like it. There arealways times when we detest the people we love.

  "If you are going to be arbitrary just because you can--"

  "Yes?"

  "Marsh and the rest are in the smoking room. Their sitting-room isempty."

  Quite calmly, as if we are going below for a clean handkerchief or aveil or a cigarette, we stroll down the great staircase of the liner tothe Turners' sitting-room, and close the door.

  And--I kiss her.