I believed her—I believed anything she
said. I think that if she had chosen to say
that I had wielded the murderer’s axe on the
Ella, I should have gone to the gallows rather than
gainsay her. From that night, I was the devil’s
advocate, if you like. I was determined to save
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
of our finances, and I made the excuse of putting on
more suitable clothing.
I stood in the street, bareheaded, watching her taxicab
as it rattled down 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 the top, Mac turned and patted
me on the elbow, my shoulder being a foot or so above
him.
“Good boy!” he said. “And
if that shirtfront and tie didn’t knock into
eternal oblivion the deck-washing on the Ella, I’ll
eat them!”
THE THING
I deserve no credit for the solution of the Ella’s
mystery. I have a certain quality of force,
perhaps, and I am not lacking in physical courage;
but I have no finesse of intellect. McWhirter,
a foot shorter than I, round of face, jovial and stocky,
has as much subtlety in his little 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. He named the paper at once.
“Ought to know it,” he said, in reply
to my surprise. “Sold enough paper at
the drugstore to qualify as a stationery engineer.”
He writhed as was his habit over his jokes, and then
fell to work at the drawing again. “A
book,” he said, “and an axe, and a gibbet
or gallows. B-a-g—that makes ‘bag.’
Doesn’t go far, does it? Humorous duck,
isn’t he? Any one who can write ‘ha!
ha!’ under a gallows has real humor. G-a-b,
b-a-g!”
The Ella still lay in the Delaware, half a mile or
so from her original moorings. She carried the
usual riding-lights—a white one in the
bow, another at the stern, and the two vertical red
lights which showed her not under command. In
reply to repeated signals, we were unable to rouse
the watchman. I had brought an electric flash
with me, and by its aid we found a rope ladder over
the side, with a small boat at its foot.
Although the boat indicated the presence of the watchman
on board, we made our way to the deck without challenge.
Here McWhirter suggested that the situation might
be disagreeable, were the man to waken and get at
us with a gun.
We stood by the top of the ladder, therefore, and
made another effort to rouse him. “Hey,
watchman!” I called. And McWhirter, in
a deep bass, sang lustily: “Watchman, what
of the night?” Neither of us made, any perceptible
impression on the silence and gloom of the Ella.
