The After House Part 7

She looked at me strangely, and, leaving the door, went into her sister's room, next. I heard Miss Lee's low cry of horror, and almost immediately the two women came to the doorway.

"Have you seen Mr. Turner?" Miss Lee demanded.

"Just now."

"Has Mrs. Johns been told?"

"Not yet."

She went herself to Mrs. Johns's cabin, and knocked. She got an immediate answer, and Mrs. Johns, partly dressed, opened the door.

"What's the matter?" she demanded. "The whole crew is tramping outside my windows. I hope we haven't struck an iceberg."

"Adele, don't faint, please. Something awful has happened."

"Turner! He has killed some one finally!"

"Hush, for Heaven's sake! Wilmer has been murdered, Adele--and the captain."

Mrs. Johns had less control than the other women. She stood for an instant, with a sort of horrible grin on her face. Then she went down on the floor, full length, with a crash. Elsa Lee knelt beside her and slid a pillow under her head.

"Call the maids, Leslie," she said quietly. "Karen has something for this sort of thing. Tell her to bring it quickly."

I went the length of the cabin and into the chartroom. The maids' room was here, on the port-side, and thus aft of Mrs. Turner's and Miss Lee's rooms. It had one door only, and two small barred windows, one above each of the two bunks.

I turned on the chart-room lights. At the top of the after companionway the crew had been a.s.sembled, and Burns was haranguing them. I knocked at the maids' door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it an inch or so.

"Karen!" I called--and, receiving no answer: "Mrs. Sloane!" (the stewardess).

I opened the door wide and glanced in. Karen Hansen, the maid, was on the floor, dead. The stewardess, in collapse from terror, was in her bunk, uninjured.

CHAPTER VII

WE FIND THE AXE

I went to the after companionway and called up to the men to send the first mate down; but Burns came instead.

"Singleton's sick," he explained. "He's up there in a corner, with Oleson and McNamara holding him."

"Burns," I said cautiously--"I've found another!"

"G.o.d, not one of the women!"

"One of the maids--Karen."

Burns was a young fellow about my own age, and to this point he had stood up well. But he had been having a sort of flirtation with the girl, and I saw him go sick with horror. He wanted to see her, when he had got command of himself; but I would not let him enter the room. He stood outside, while I went in and carried out the stewardess, who was coming to and moaning. I took her forward, and told the three women there what I had found.

Mrs. Johns was better, and I found them all huddled in her room. I put the stewardess on the bed, and locked the door into the next room.

Then, after examining the window, I gave Elsa Lee my revolver.

"Don't let any one in," I said. "I'll put a guard at the two companionways, and we'll let no one down. But keep the door locked also."

She took the revolver from me, and examined it with the air of one familiar with firearms. Then she looked up at me, her lips as white as her face.

"We are relying on you, Leslie," she said.

And, at her words, the storm of self-contempt and bitterness that I had been holding in abeyance for the last half hour swept over me like a flood. I could have wept for fury.

"Why should you trust me?" I demanded. "I slept through the time when I was needed. And when I wakened and found myself locked in the storeroom, I waited to take the lock off instead of breaking down the door! I ought to jump overboard."

"We are relying on you," she said again, simply; and I heard her fasten the door behind me as I went out.

Dawn was coming as I joined the crew, huddled around the wheel. There were nine men, counting Singleton. But Singleton hardly counted. He was in a state of profound mental and physical collapse. The Ella was without an accredited officer, and, for lack of orders to the contrary, the helmsman--McNamara now--was holding her to her course. Burns had taken Schwartz's place as second mate, but the situation was clearly beyond him. Turner's condition was known and frankly discussed. It was clear that, for a time at least, we would have to get along without him.

Charlie Jones, always an influence among the men, voiced the situation as we all stood together in the chill morning air:

"What we want to do, boys," he said, "is to make for the nearest port.

This here is a police matter."

"And a hanging matter," someone else put in.

"We've got to remember, boys, that this ain't like a crime on land.

We've got the fellow that did it. He's on the boat all right."

There was a stirring among the men, and some of them looked aft to where, guarded by the Swede Oleson, Singleton was sitting, his head in his hands.

"And, what's more," Charlie Jones went on, "I'm for putting Leslie here in charge--for now, anyhow. That's agreeable to you, is it, Burns?"

"But I don't know anything about a s.h.i.+p," I objected. "I'm willing enough, but I'm not competent."

I believe the thing had been discussed before I went up, for McNamara spoke up from the wheel.

"We'll manage that somehow or other, Leslie," he said. "We want somebody to take charge, somebody with a head, that's all. And since you ain't, in a manner of speaking, been one of us, n.o.body's feelings can't be hurt. Ain't that it, boys?"

"That, and a matter of brains," said Burns.

"But Singleton?" I glanced aft.

"Singleton is going in irons," was the reply I got.

The light was stronger now, and I could see their faces. It was clear that the crew, or a majority of the crew, believed him guilty, and that, as far as Singleton was concerned, my authority did not exist.

"All right," I said. "I'll do the best I can. First of all, I want every man to give up his weapons. Burns!"

"Aye, aye."