It was Charlie Jones.

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

He thought himself a priest of heaven, appointed to make ghastly sacrifices at certain signals from on high.  The signals I am not sure of; he turned taciturn after his capture and would not talk.  I am inclined to think that a shooting star, perhaps in a particular quarter of the heavens, was his signal.  This is distinctly possible, and is made probable by the stars which he had painted with tar on his sacrificial 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-disposed individual.  During the afternoon before, he had read prayers for the soul 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 one to remove the wicked and the oppressor, and Schwartz hardly coming under either classification.

He was at the wheel from midnight until four in the morning on the night of the murders.  At certain hours we believe that he went forward to the forecastle-head, and performed, clad in his priestly robe, such devotions as his disordered mind dictated.  It is my idea that he looked, at these times, for a heavenly signal, either a meteor or some strange appearance of the heavens.  It was known that he was a poor sleeper, and spent much time at night wandering around.

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

He locked me in, slipping down from the wheel to do so, and pocketing the 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 a slow-thinking Swede who notoriously slept on his watch.  He found the axe, not where he had left it, but back in the case.  But the case was only closed, not locked—­Singleton’s error.

Armed with the axe, Jones slipped back to the wheel and waited.  He had plenty of time.  He had taken his robe from its hiding-place in the boat, and had it concealed near him with the axe.  He was ready, but he was waiting for another signal.  He got it at half-past two.  He admitted the signal and the time, but concealed its nature—­I think it was 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 to the Hansen girl’s door.  He did not know about the bell, and probably rang it by accident as he leaned over to listen if Vail still breathed.