“Very well. Then I’ll tell you what
happened after I went off watch. No, I wasn’t
spying. I know the woman, that’s all.
She said you looked tired, and wouldn’t it
be all right if you sat down for a moment and talked
to her.”
“No; she said she was nervous.”
“The same thing—only better.
Then she persisted in talking of the crime, and finally
she said she would like to see the axe. It wouldn’t
do any harm. She, wouldn’t touch it.”
He watched me uneasily.
“She didn’t either,” he said.
“I’ll swear to that, Leslie. She
didn’t go near the bunk. She covered her
face with her hands, and leaned against the door.
I thought she was going to faint.”
“Against the door, of course! And got
an impression of the key. The door opens in.
She could take out the key, press it against a cake
of wax or even a cake of soap in her hand, and slip
it back into the lock again while you—What
were you doing while she was doing all that?”
“She dropped her salts. I picked them
up.”
“Exactly! Well, the axe is gone.”
He started up on his elbow.
“Gone!”
“Thrown overboard, probably. It is not
in the cabin.”
It was brutal, perhaps; but the situation was all
of that. As Burns fell back, colorless, Tom,
the cook, brought into the tent the wire key that
Singleton had made.
That morning I took from inside of Singleton’s
mattress a bunch of keys, a long steel file, and the
leg of one of his chairs, carefully unscrewed and
wrapped at the end with wire a formidable club.
One of the keys opened Singleton’s door.
That was on Saturday. Early Monday morning we
sighted land.
A BAD COMBINATION
We picked up a pilot outside the Lewes breakwater
a man of few words. I told him only the outlines
of our story, and I believe he half discredited me
at first. God knows, I was not a creditable object.
When I took him aft and showed him the jolly-boat,
he realized, at last, that he was face to face with
a great tragedy, and paid it the tribute of throwing
away his cigar.
He suggested our raising the yellow plague flag; and
this we did, with a ready response from the quarantine
officer. The quarantine officer came out in
a power-boat, and mounted the ladder; and from that
moment my command of the Ella ceased. Turner,
immaculately dressed, pale, distinguished, member
of the yacht club and partner in the Turner line,
met him at the rail, and conducted him, with a sort
of chastened affability, to the cabin.
Exhausted from lack of sleep, terrified with what
had gone by and what was yet to come, unshaven and
unkempt, the men gathered on the forecastle-head and
waited.
