Part 2

“All ships? No, not this time. The search has narrowed down,” Cray grated. “This one is:

“Ships outward bound, Beverstock. Man aboard you. Hold him.”

“Which means--” The skipper of the luckless _Cora_ waited.

“Us!” Cray’s face was tense. “Scotland Yard--they’ve got a line on us; they’re closing in on their man.”

“And when--when some detective comes up the ladder-- We’re nigh into St. Lawrence Gulf--” the Old Man stared out of the grimy port--“When the showdown comes.”

“Never such a ship for secrets as this,” Cray said. “They’ll come for one. They’ll find a heap.”

“You, for instance,” the captain suggested.

“Sure, me an’ you. Think I’m sweating over this just for fun? Think I give a damn if they get their man? Me? Hell, no! I got my reasons; so have you. They’ll come aboard with the pilot, maybe. They’ll begin poking round. Unless--”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the man’s ready for them. Then, it’s a pat on the back and a clean bill of health for you; and, ‘Thanks, my noble radio man; your message was music to our honest ears,’ for me.” Cray stopped.

“And so--”

Cray leaned closer.

“Get this. There’s two men we ain’t searched yet--Drake and Quayle. Either one, mebbe--”

The old captain rose.

“We’ll start with Quayle, eh?” He made for the door, but he stopped, turned. “You put that into my head, damn ye!”

“What if I did?” Cray cried. “What if I did? Since you have no detective aboard, what price Cray, hey?”

“What price Cray? I’ll tell ye. I’d as soon to God we had a detective aboard,” the captain growled. “That’s what price Cray!” He stumped out.

The wireless man got up slowly and idled about the cabin as if it were his own. That last remark of the skipper’s had hit him.

“A detective,” said Cray softly. “Maybe we have, at that, my brave old sea-dog. Maybe we have, at that.”

He followed the captain on deck and twitched his sleeve. He drew him into a corner.

“I’ll do this next job myself,” said Cray.

“You mean Quayle?”

“Him. You better stick to your knitting. Talk like a human being at lunch, keep that solemn-faced, secretive Quayle there, until-- You ever figure there’ll maybe be a reward for them diamonds?”

“Reward?” The old captain of the _Cora_ snorted. “Reward? If I can sleep again o’ nights, that’ll be reward enough.”

“I could do with a good sleep myself,” Cray laughed. “I might sleep through lunch hour, while Quayle’s cabin is empty.”

* * * * *

Morning again and bright sunlight on the Gulf. Tomorrow would see the pilot coming aboard at Father Point. Tomorrow would see, well, something rather ghastly to men who clutched secrets close, who feared the eye of the law.

But today the sun shone. Drake and the old engineer sat there by the funnel.

Old M’Ginley was sleepy. A bearing had been heating. He had not yet been to bed. He had come up for a whiff of fresh air. He was soon wide awake, for Drake, leaning over, whispered--

“I’ve been thinking what you said.”

“I said a heap, laddie.”

“About hiding things.”

He opened his dungaree suit. The old man saw a long thin packet of brown paper, sealed with wax, tied with many intricate knots.

“I’ve been thinking--and whispering a bit,” Drake went on.

“Oh, aye, doubtless.”

M’Ginley’s eyes glinted. A chief engineer, he knew, could hide things, where nobody, not even the man who had trusted them to him, could find them.

“Oh, aye,” he repeated, “something else has whispered, me bold lad. Fear has, I’m thinking.”

Drake’s face was blank.

“I told the person what you said. There’s been funny work. Cray and the skipper searching yesterday, today, all cabins but mine. Tomorrow--”

“Perhaps yours. Tomorrow the pilot and--”

The old man too was leaning closer. The packet passed.

“If a knot’s untied, or a seal broken--my--my friend says there’ll be no split,” Drake grated.

“Unless he goes where splittin’ is hard, save he split rocks,” M’Ginley laughed, and he drew back. “That bearin’--it needs a pile o’ lookin’ after.”

He lumbered away. Drake sat there. The man Quayle, the silent, secretive Quayle came up on deck. He walked along. He bent over Drake. He whispered something. Drake sprang to his feet. Quayle was of an age with him, taller by a head, powerfully built.

Both the captain, staring down from the bridge, and Cray, peering out of his little window, saw Drake’s fist shoot out--a blow that seemed but to glance off Quayle’s jaw. Yet Quayle fell, lay there, knocked out.

Drake walked forward. He beat on Cray’s door with his fists, crying:

“What kind of a ship’s this? What sort o’ man are you? Blabbin’--blabbin’--”

The captain, clutching the bridge rail, leaned over and bawled:

“You keep still, mister. What’s wrong with ye? One more crack like that and--”

He paused. Tomorrow, when the pilot and whoever else was waiting came aboard, he would no longer have the power, save to stand dumbly by and watch.

But now, now Cray had his door open and was talking to the enraged Drake. And Drake, calming himself by an effort, was being drawn inside. The captain wished that this strange man Cray would leave that door open. He hoped, at least, that afterward he would tell him frankly what now was going on.

Inside, Cray was talking swiftly:

“What’d he say? Did he tell you I was blabbing?”

“Blabbing. What talking’s been done--” Drake paused, as if uncertain. “Forget it. A man don’t like to be told he’s like to swing. I’m hot headed. I figured mebbe you’d told him what was in that cablegram--the one about Varnavosk bein’ dead--mebbe more, too. But--”

“_Forget it_ is right.”

Cray was acting strangely. Yesterday he had told the captain that the murderer, supposedly on their ship, must be either Quayle or Drake. Now he seemed to have shifted his views, unless he wished to lull Drake into a state of false security.

“Forget it is right,” he grinned, reaching for the spare headset, already adjusted to fit Drake. “Want to listen in a spell? I’m goin’ out for a breather. If you hear anything funny call me.”

Drake hesitated.

“What you planning to do?”

“Nothing,” Cray answered. “Be a sport. Most men’d get hot if you come ravin’ at ’em; but me, I’m different. You set there. Forget it!”

“I’ll try,” Drake scowled. “If the Old Man says anything about that row with Quayle, you tell him it’s an old score we were settling.”

“Right!”

Cray crossed the threshold and slammed the door shut. Drake listened as he walked down the deck; he heard other footsteps. Out of the window he caught a glimpse of the captain’s gray head, then the boatswain, supporting a limp Quayle toward the stair.

“I wonder--” Drake frowned at the wireless set--“what’s their next move. And old M’Ginley--what’s he doing?”

Old M’Ginley, cutting loose cord after cord, breaking through wax seals, was opening that brown paper parcel.

What he found turned him into a covetous old man, who thought furiously. Finally, one hand fondling his pocket, he climbed heavily down ladders to his own peculiar domain.

* * * * *

Once more Cray faced the old skipper in his cabin.

“You saw that?” Bain was eager. He sensed, at last, the end of this mystery. “You saw that Drake and heard him howl about blabbing!”

“Yes,” Cray scoffed. “Heard a heap; but I’m not taking that for gospel.”

“It must be him. You found nothing in Quayle’s cabin?”

“Not yet,” Cray answered. “I’m figuring on looking again. Know what I think? They’re both in the theft, if not the murder. Take those names. Both birds’ names--Quayle and Drake--ain’t they? Sort of funny, them both choosing the same sort of monikers for this trip. Like one had thought of one, and the other had followed suit. Crooks are like that.”

The captain gazed at him speculatively.

“Cray--crayfish--another zoölogical name. Well, go on. You don’t pass as an honest man, Cray. Lay to that. You’re no better, if no worse, than the rest aboard this packet. What were you going to say?”

“I got an idea they been passing that necklace from one to t’other,” Cray explained. “They had hard words. What if Quayle had it last, after I searched his dump? What if he wouldn’t hand over, an’ Drake--I been working on him, scaring him--if Drake, I say, figured Quayle was goin’ to gyp him? How about that? Mebbe Quayle ain’t scared of getting caught. I searched his dump careful. He may figure he ain’t suspected no more. He may think, if he is suspected, that we don’t know how to search right. And Drake, figurin’ he’s losin’ out, gets mad.”

The captain shook his head. Father Point was getting closer. Morning and the pilot would come, and with them--well, iron bars, perhaps; certainly a lost ticket and a lot of trouble. A man couldn’t account for three extra men on his ship--and such men.

“I don’t know. If we miss this time--” He paused.

“We’ll search both cabins,” Gray broke in, “and both at once. You take Quayle’s; I’ll go for Drake’s. We’ll win this time.”

The captain stared at him.

“We’ll do it; but how?”

“Easy,” Cray smiled. “That worthless old chief engineer--let him tag on to Drake. They are thick, anyway. As for Quayle--he’s battered up, ain’t he? Or if he ain’t exactly battered, he’s shook. Take a couple of men, drag him out, say you’re givin’ him your room, more light an’ air. Sure, he’ll suspect, but what can he do? Take them two big sailormen.”

“It might be; but when? Drake sticks below of afternoons.”

“Tomorrow morning we got a couple of hours,” Cray went on. “When we find that necklace--”

“We give it up, and get clear of--”

“Like hell! We keep it!” Cray corrected him. “Or I keep it. Never mind how. I’ll pin the job on one of them. Don’t you worry.”

The captain stared at him, aghast.

“But they’ll search the ship.”

“Let ’em. They won’t find it.” Cray got up. “I left Drake in my monkey- house. Best get him out of there. Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow.”

The captain looked out the door, as Cray opened it. The hills of the south shore of the Gulf stood out grim and gray, somber, all shadow. Tomorrow. Well, sooner it comes, sooner over.

* * * * *

The two big sailors dragged Quayle, protesting, out of his cabin. A strangely ungrateful man he seemed. Up on the boat deck Drake heard the row.

“What’s that?” he asked.

The old chief, M’Ginley, leaned closer.

“Them--them diamonds,” he whispered.

“How’d you know. You’ve broke the seals,” Drake accused.

M’Ginley shrank back.

“Me? What you think? Ain’t I acted straight with you?”

“You’d better.”

Drake thrust one hand inside his dungaree suit. Something bulged under his arm. M’Ginley wasn’t looking at a paper packet this time.

“You go heeled; don’t blame ye,” he blustered. “Why pull a gun on me? They’re searchin’ your cabin.”

He told this with the air of one revealing a previous secret.

“They won’t find nothin’.”

“Not in mine,” Drake grated, “but elsewhere, perhaps. You sit still. We’ve been playing blind man’s buff overlong. You sit still. This is loaded, you old fraud. You figure on holding out, hey? Look me in the eye, in ten minutes, and maybe you’ll change your mind.”

M’Ginley quivered. He was gross mountain of a man, and shaking like jelly.

“Ten minutes. What you mean? Why--”

Drake rose.

“If you value your health, sit tight. If you don’t, I play a hard game. I’ve an ace in the hole. A neat little ace, isn’t it, in its shoulder holster. Sit where you are.”

The old man watched him as he walked, cat footed, to the stair, and as he slowly disappeared down it.

“Some one is goin’ to catch plain hell,” said he, “but it won’t be me, M’Ginley. Mebbe, when they finish their rough stuff there’ll be a nice corpse for Scotland Yard and--what’s hid below for M’Ginley.”

But M’Ginley was not down in the alleyway; and it was there that things were due to happen.

First the old captain’s voice, as he cried through the thin partition between Drake’s cabin and Quayle’s:

“Come here, for God’s sake, Cray! I found somethin’...”

Cray, running in from Drake’s cabin, saw a velvet covered case, long, narrow, bound with precious metal.

The captain laughed in relief.

“Got our man.”

“Where--where’d you find that?”

“There!” The captain kicked a disreputable handbag. “In the lining, sewn in. I felt it, first shot. Now--”

“Open it, open it,” Cray urged. “Let’s see.”

“It’s locked some way; but--”

Old Bain’s strong fingers wrapped themselves about the slim thing of metal and velvet. The cords of his wrists stood out for a moment. Then the case was open, cracked like a walnut shell. It was empty. The captain glared at the fragments in his hands. Cray, leaning closer, muttered:

“Never mind. Hang on to that. It’s evidence, ain’t it? Quayle--he’ll tell more, when them detectives get after him. He’ll talk. Man can shorten his stretch that way. Unless--” he thrust his face close to the captain’s --“unless we find them diamonds, ourselves. Then, this’d do for Quayle; they’d take him on the strength of this. And we’d--”

“To hell with the diamonds!” In the old skipper’s voice was relief. “This’ll do for me. You keep your gab shut, mister. The least you know the best, I’ve got Quayle locked in my cabin. He’ll stay there. If trouble comes aboard, it comes for him, personal. Not me, nor you, if you’re wise. You stop snooping round for them diamonds. I won’t have it, I tell you. First thing there’ll be a murder--another murder.”

Cray, his voice edged, face pale, sneered:

“Changed your tune, hey? Now you found this useless junk, you figure you’ll let them diamonds go, hey? But you figure without Cray. I’ll have this ship apart, if need be, but I’ll lay hands on them stones. I’ll--”

“You’ll go easy!” Captain Bain thundered. He was becoming himself rapidly now. “You’ll keep quiet. There’s others besides Quayle can be locked in their cabins, and nothing said of it. And I’m master of this ship, by God!”

“And if--” Cray smiled, though he was still under tension, although that smile was not a pleasant one. “If I told you the truth, would you sing small, I wonder?”

“Truth? My God! Truth?” the badgered skipper rasped. “You tell the truth? What in hell are you, to tell the truth?”

“A detective,” said Cray softly, “a detective.”

The captain stared, at first unbelieving; then he wilted. Too many little things on Cray’s side. The chances were that he might be. Certainly he’d acted like one at times. And if he were, what of the _ Cora_, of her secret sins?

“A detective?” he gasped.

From behind Cray came another voice; the cabin door swung open.

“A detective? That’s fine; for there are two of us, then, my dear Cray.”

It was Drake. He had his gun. In that tiny cabin a gun in the hand meant mastery. Drake closed the door after him. His gun covered Cray. He disregarded the old captain. Indeed, old Bain hadn’t an ounce of trouble making left in him. He was a crushed man. Not one detective, but two! Not one man, who might conceivably be bribed, but two, each knowing his little immigrant game, and, what was worse, each knowing that the other knew. He slumped down on the single bunk. He stared from Cray to Drake, from Drake to Cray. He shook his gray head sadly.

Cray, snarling, turned on him.

“A hell of a captain! Don’t you see his game? His turn to hang on to them diamonds. He figures we’ll search his room next; likely found out I’d been searching it. He’s desperate.”

“And a strong man, Cray, which you are not.”

Drake reached out suddenly with his left hand, caught both Cray’s thin wrists, brought his hands together. Then with his right hand he laid his revolver on the bunk.

“Which you are not, Cray, my man,” said Drake.

The captain heard steel jingle, then saw it flash. He heard a faint click. Drake turned to him.

“We’ll adjourn to your cabin, Captain. This is a bit crowded.”

Glumly the old skipper obeyed. Cray stood there, handcuffed, silent now, as if with the snapping of the steel handcuffs had gone from him his last chance.

They stumbled out into the alleyway, Drake’s steady hand on Cray’s elbow. As Cray walked along, men eyed him. He scowled at the first; his face was blank as he passed a second. But when the third man stared, he smiled cockily. He was on parade and would be on parade until Drake and his kind had done their best, or worst. He must act out his part, confidence in every look, every gesture. That was his code; he would follow it.

Despite the reason for his captivity, there was a certain desperate gallantry about Cray, as Drake led him off, handcuffed, to the captain’s cabin. He even managed to whisper, as they climbed the steep iron stairway to the boat deck:

“A pretty job, Drake; if your feet didn’t look it, nobody’d take you for a dick. Only thing is you got the wrong man.”

“Have I?” Drake asked. “Have I? Maybe it’s Quayle should be wearing these.”

Cray kept silent at that, as if reluctant to tell; as if, now the enemy had appeared in his true form, he were changing his whole tune; as if those under the law’s suspicion must close up their ranks and stick together.

“Quayle--there he is in the cabin,” Drake went on. “I’ll be bound, he’ll be glad to see us. You see, Quayle’s my partner, Cray.”

* * * * *

Drake and the old captain were alone. Quayle had taken Cray away, had locked him up, was keeping an eye on him. Drake had remained with Bain. He was talking jerkily, as if thinking back over this business, partly because he rather plumed himself on the way it had been managed and partly because he feared, should he stop, what would follow. Old Captain Bain, there, lips moving, eyes downcast was probably going over the sins of a long and pettily wicked life. Probably, as soon as he got the chance, he’d pour out a flood of confessions and would incriminate himself hopelessly in a dozen dark matters.

Drake, a one idea man, busy with that one idea, didn’t have time, or, to do him justice, inclination for the rôle of father confessor to the captain of the _Cora_. So he talked, like a man talking against time, elliptically, as things came into his head. And the captain half listening, heard:

“Began at Dip’s American Bar. Bless you, we at the Yard have known your little game for years, Captain. Began at Dip’s, when this robbery thing broke, we traced a motor car within a mile of his place. From then on, well, it was chance and luck and, if I may say it, psychology. We came aboard, Quayle and I, separately. We looked about, used our eyes, wormed in where we could. We had no idea what the man was like, what he had done before. We just played a hunch that he was aboard. Began with you--

“Remember that little note I brought you, ostensibly from Dip? Well, that told me a lot. Bless you, Bain, you aren’t the murdering, thieving sort. I ruled you out, right then. But, to go on. You remember when the thing broke aboard? That first message?”

“Yes,” the old man nodded glumly, “I won’t forget. ’Twas as if some big, horrible eye was lookin’ all over, slow but steady. An’ I knew that sooner or later it’d stop on us; and then, o’ course--”

“That,” Drake laughed, hastily breaking in, “that was the intention. I arranged for that wireless. Scotland Yard? Well, we at the Yard don’t broadcast what we know, unless we want it known for a damned good reason. I had that wireless sent. Fixed it up in the hour I had between trailing the car to Dip’s and coming aboard here. That was my bombshell.”

“But--” the captain stared at him, puzzled--“how’d you--you didn’t know it was Cray you wanted?”

“What I wanted was a disturbance. If he wasn’t in the business he’d perhaps talk. If he hadn’t talked, I could fulfill that omission and blame it on him. I wanted every manjack aboard here to know that diamonds had been stolen, that Scotland Yard--they don’t sign themselves that way, I might confess--were on the trail. The rest--well, ever throw a rock into a pool? The ripples follow each other to shore. The rest was plain Cray. I’d struck it lucky. Those other messages--he made ’em up, every one.”

“But why--why?” The Old Man was incredulous.

“His game.” Drake laughed. “First half of the voyage, well, Cray was lying low. He knew his job, you see. He figured on passing as the regular wireless man; but he didn’t know his ship, or its company, and he didn’t like that company, when he looked ’em over. So he carried the necklace in his pocket, like a pipe or a handkerchief. Well, the day after that first bombshell of a message came, he felt for the diamonds--and they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, never mind how.”

Drake got up, walked across to the old skipper of the _Cora_, flipped one agile hand across his vest and dangled his watch, chain and seals before his eyes.

“Like that,” Drake laughed. “Well, to get on, there he was, this Cray, with those jewels gone and nothing for his pains. So he began to get mysterious messages. Bit by bit suspicion formed, centered, first on this one, then on that one. You played right into his hands, Captain. You had me worried. I was afraid you two would run out of suspects before we made our landfall.”

“You mean he deliberately had me on?” The captain shook his head. “No--if ’twas just theft--but murder--You mean this man let me think we had a murderer aboard, let me know it, when he could have kept it dark--and him the guilty one? Man don’t tie his own hang-man’s knot, mister, not even to get back diamonds.”

“There was no murder.” Drake laughed, again. “That was just his artistic touch. No fool, Cray. He knew you’d rise to it. But you worried him. He wanted to search every last cabin, but he also wanted to make the job hang out till the last moment, in case you might show a rush of brain to the head and get to suspecting him. Well, you did it as he planned, between you. Until, well, there were two of us left, Quayle and myself. Cray was getting scared by now. So, when he searched Quayle’s cabin yesterday, he planted the box that those diamonds had been in when he lifted them. Then he worked things so that you would find it, not him.”

“But why?”

Drake stared at him. What use going on like this? How could this man, who but half listened, understand, when even he saw some things but vaguely? You threw a straw into the water, then a dozen more. If one of them taught you anything of drift or eddy, you were content. When he spoke again his voice was crisp and incisive.