MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS
Before his companion had entered the cabin, Loide had located everything
in it.
Although in the dark, he knew the exact position of all things. So he
reached the sleeper's side without a stumble or noise.
He knew where to place his hand on a towel, and he placed it. Folded it
into a sort of pad, and gripped the middle in his left hand.
He bent over the sleeper, heard his breathing, and located his mouth by
the feel of the warm breath. He paused to notice that the sleeper was
lying on his back, then he gripped his knife--saw fashion.
In another moment he had clapped the towel over his victim's mouth, and
drawn down the knife with a sawing, cutting movement.
There was just a faint, gurgling sound for a moment, a convulsive quiver
of the whole of the sleeper's body, then stillness. The towel had
stifled any possible cry--the knife had done the rest.
Loide stood there for a moment to recover his breath. He could almost
hear his own heart beating.
He tried to still it by thinking that there was not a scrap of risk,
that it was all over now, that, presently, he would possess nineteen
thousand pounds.
That last thought was not without its comfort. It is a fashion to speak
of money as if it were dross, but as a salve to the conscience, pounds,
shillings, and pence are unsurpassed.
The towel he was holding, he opened and threw it over the dead man's
head and shoulders. He was not hyper-sensitive, but he wanted to avoid
seeing what the towel would hide.
Then he turned the button of the electric light.
He looked round--not a sign of a struggle, not a drop of blood. Yet
stay--his right hand! He must wash it.
Quickly he had water in the basin and was cleaning that hateful red
stain away. While he wiped his hands, he reflected that he had but to
pull the head curtains, and the body would appear to be that of an
ordinary sleeping man.
That way the ship might get a dozen hours away from Queenstown before
discovery. He shook hands with himself over the happiness of the idea he
had--so far--carried out so cleverly.
Then he turned up the blankets and sheeting of the bunk. For obvious
reasons he preferred turning them up from the feet to turning them down
from the head.
Depew had, with an oath, told him that, sleeping or waking, the belt
would never leave him. He thought grimly that now the man was dead the
oath would be broken.
He started in surprise; the man was not wearing a belt! He stood still,
holding the bedclothes in sheer amazement.
He had expected the thing to be so easy of accomplishment--and the
object of his search was not there at all!
He stepped back, and fell rather than sat on his own berth. He was more
than surprised.
Then it occurred to him that perhaps, after all, the man had locked the
money in one of his portmanteaus. Loide was thankful that he had time
before him, in which to make search. He had been wise not to leave
things till the last moment.
He felt in the dead man's coat, vest, and ultimately in a trousers
pocket found two keys, tied together with a piece of twine. These he
presently found fitted the portmanteaus.
He inserted a key in one, turned the lock, and unbuckled the straps. The
bag contained but one thing--a huge parcel wrapped in newspapers.
He would try the other bag--did so. Found it contained five smaller
parcels, four long shaped and one something like a large football.
He picked up one of the long parcels and felt it. It had a curious half
hard feeling.
He sat on his berth again and opened it on his knees. There was no
string round the parcel.
As he held the end of the paper it unwound itself, and the contents
dropped on to the floor--a human arm and hand!
He clapped his own hand to his mouth and so stifled a scream.
It is all very well to be cool over your own murderous work, but when
you come across another man's, it is apt to startle you. Loide was the
most startled individual on the Atlantic at that particular moment.
He sat there in stony amazement and horror. He feared to open the other
parcels. Still he had to.
Qualms had to be kept down. The possession of nineteen thousand pounds
depended on his search.
He imagined that Depew had murdered some one in England, and was taking
the body out, perhaps to hide traces of his crime in the sea.
So curiously fashioned was the lawyer's intellect that he was rather
glad that he had killed Depew--looked upon himself as a kind of weapon
in the hand of justice.
There is no accounting for the kinks into which a man's intellect will
twist.
The avenger idea gave him the necessary courage to go on examining the
rest of the parcels. Not a solitary thing save of the awful kind the
first was.
The big parcel in the other portmanteau made him shudder in horror. He
was glad when he was able to shut the bags and get rid of the sight of
those horrible bundles.
Then another bag--a little hand bag--caught his attention. He felt mad
with himself that he had not examined that first.
It needed no key. A pressure of the lock opened it, and he turned the
contents on the floor; collars, handkerchiefs, shirts, and
socks--nothing else.
Once more he sat on his bunk--sat there with his chin in the palms of
his hands, thinking.
How long he sat there he never knew. He was awakened by the steamer's
gongs; the engine room was being signaled.
He clambered to the port-hole, and in the gray of the early morning he
could see they were off Queenstown, and the tender was nearly alongside.
He had no time to lose. What should he do?
Then it occurred to him that, as a measure of precaution, the man had
given his belt to the captain, to be locked up in the ship's
strong-room. That was the solution of the mystery, then.
He cursed his luck, himself, and the dead man. For absolutely nothing he
had run all this risk, and killed a man, and had yet to escape.
It was--from his point of view--perfectly monstrous. If the dead man
could have wanted revenge, surely he was having it then.
There was a screech from the tender's siren; she was coming alongside.
He put on his boots, and as he did so there was a sound of rapping at
the door. He hurriedly pulled the head curtains of his victim's berth,
and, shooting back the bolt, opened the door.
"Any letters or telegrams for shore, sir?"
"Is there time to go ashore?"
"Can if you like, sir; the tender will bring you back. You will get
about an hour ashore."
"Very well, I will go, then."
"At once, sir. The tender will leave in less than five minutes."
And the officer went on his round collecting letters and telegrams.
Loide put on his hat, flung the blood stained knife out of the
port-hole, turned the button of the electric light, and stepped outside,
closing the door after him.
Then he suddenly remembered that the most likely place of all he had
overlooked. A sleeping man would place valuables beneath his pillow.
He entered the cabin again, turned the electric light button, and slid
his hand under the dead man's pillow--nothing.
To make assurance doubly sure--much as he dreaded looking on the face of
the man he had murdered--he pulled aside the towel.
Then for a second time he was paralyzed with astonishment and horror,
and thrust his fingers in his mouth to prevent the escape of a cry. He
had never before seen the face of his victim. It was not his client
Depew.
He had killed the wrong man!