interested in the couple than in others of the people who sat on either
hand. The chief mate of the ship, however, Mr. Small, who occupied a seat
on my left, concluded that my interest was sufficiently keen to justify
him in talking to me about them; and in a low voice he told me that they
were Captain and Mrs. Norton-Savage; he didn’t quite know what he was
captain of, but he had gathered from some source he couldn’t recollect
that he had made a fortune in South America, in Lima or Callao, and had
been married a few weeks only, and was going to live in Australia, as
his wife’s health was not good, and the doctors believed the Australian
climate would suit her.
Early next morning the rest of the passengers came on board, the tug
again took us in tow, and under a dark blue sky, mountainous with masses
of white cloud, the _Chiliman_ floated in tow of the tug into Channel
waters, where a long flowing heave despatched a great number of us to our
cabins.
We met with nothing but head winds and chopping seas down Channel. The
ship lurched and sprang consumedly, and the straining noises of bulkheads
and strong fastenings were so swift and furious in that part of the
vessel where I slept that I’d sometimes think the fabric was going to
pieces at my end of her. I was very sea-sick, but happily my services
were never required in that time.
I think we were five days in beating clear of the Channel; the weather
then changed, the sky brightened into a clear azure, delicately shaded
by clouds; a soft wind blew out of the west, and when I made my first
appearance on deck I found the ship clothed in swelling canvas from
truck to waterway; her sand-white decks were lively with people in
motion and the swaying shadows of the rigging; a number of ladies and
gentlemen walked the poop, and the captain, with a telescope at his eye,
was looking at a small steamer that was passing us at about a mile with
a colour flying; Captain and Mrs. Norton-Savage stood beside him, also
looking at the steamer; the foam spun along the ship’s side in wool-white
wreaths, and every bubble shone like a bit of rainbow, and the streak of
the vessel’s wake gleamed upon the flowing lines of the ocean astern as
though she trailed a length of mother-o’-pearl.
All sights and sounds were beautiful and refreshing. I breathed deep,
with exquisite enjoyment of the ocean air after my spell of confinement
in my apothecary-shop of a cabin, and with growing admiration of the
spectacle of the noble ship, slightly heeling from the breeze, and
curtsying stately as she went, till you’d think she kept time to some
solemn music rising up round about her from the deep, and audible to her
only, such a hearkening look as she took from the yearning lift of her
jibs and staysails.
Presently the captain observed me, called me to him, and we stood in
conversation for some twenty minutes, I begged his leave to take a
look round the ship, and he ordered a midshipman to accompany me. I
peeped into the galley or ship’s kitchen, then into the forecastle, a
gloomy cave, dully lighted by a lamp whose vapour was poisonous with
the slush that fed it, and complicated to the landlubber’s eye by the
glimmering outlines of hammocks, and the dark, coffin-like shapes of
bunks and seamen’s chests. I then descended into the ’tween-decks by
way of the main-hatch, and took a view of the accommodation there, and
found the cabins formed of planks roughly shaped into bulkheads with
partitions which made mere pigeon-holes of the places. In truth the poor
third-class folk were always badly treated in those days at sea. They
were ill-housed; they were half starved; they were elbowed, sworn at, and
generally tyrannized over by all hands, from the captain to the cook’s
mate; and in heavy weather, when the hatches were battened down, they
were almost suffocated. Yet they were better off than the sailors, who
were not only equally half starved, half suffocated, and sworn at, but
were forced to do the treadmill work of the ship also.
I regained the deck, glad to get out of this gloomy region of crying
babies and quarrelling children, and grimy groups in corners shuffling
greasy cards, and women with shawls over their heads mixing flour and
water for a pudding, or conversing shrilly in provincial accents, some
looking very white indeed, and all as though it was quite time they
changed their country.
As I went along the quarter-deck on my way to the cuddy, I saw a young
man standing in the recess formed by the projection of the foremost cuddy
cabins and the over-hanging ledge or break of the poop. I looked at him
with some attention; he was a particularly handsome young fellow, chiefly
remarkable for the contrast between the lifeless pallor of his face and
the vitality of his large bright, dark eyes. His hair was cropped close
in military fashion; he wore a cloth cap with a naval peak. His dress was
a large, loose monkey-jacket and blue cloth trousers cut in the flowing
nautical style. On the beach of Southsea or the sands of Ramsgate he
might have passed for a yachtsman; on the high seas and on the deck of a
full-rigged ship with plenty of hairy sailors about to compare him with,
nothing mortal could have looked less nautical.
I paused when in the cuddy to glance at him again through the window. He
leaned in the corner of the recess with his arms clasped upon his breast
and his fine and sparkling eyes fixed upon the blue line of the horizon
that was visible above the lee bulwark-rail. My gaze had lighted upon
many faces whilst I looked over the ship, but on none had it lingered. It
lingered now, and I wondered who the youth was. His age might have been
twenty; handsome he was, as I have said, but his expression was hard,
almost fierce, and certainly repellant. Whilst I watched him his lips
twitched or writhed three or four times and exposed a grin of flashing
white teeth that was anything but mirthful, I can assure you. His clothes
were good, his appearance refined, and I concluded that he was one of the
cuddy passengers who had come on board at Gravesend. He turned his face
and saw me looking, and instantly made a step which carried him out of
sight, past the cabin projection.
The steward came up out of the steerage at that moment, and wishing to
know who was who in the ship I asked him to peep through the door and
tell me who the melancholy pale-faced young gentleman in the nautical
clothes was. He popped his head out and then said—
“He’s a young gent named John Burgess, one of the steerage people. He
occupies the foremost cabin to starboard beside the foot of them steps,”
said he, pointing to the hatch.
“Is he alone in the ship?” said I.
“All alone, sir.”
“Where do those steerage people take their meals?”
“Why, in the steerage, at the table that stops short abreast of your
cabin.”
Nothing in any way memorable happened for a considerable time. The
ship drove through the Atlantic impelled by strong beam and quartering
winds which sometimes blew with the weight of half a gale and veiled
her forecastle with glittering lifts of foam and heeled her till her
lee-channels ripped through the seas in flashings fierce as the white
water which leaps from the strokes of the thrasher’s flails. The
passengers had settled down to the routine of shipboard life. They played
the piano, they sang, they hove the deck quoit, they formed themselves
into whist parties. Both Captain Norton-Savage and his wife promised
to become exceedingly popular with all the people who lived aft. The
lady sang sweetly; she sang Spanish, English, and French songs. It was
understood that she was a South American, of pure Spanish blood on one
side. Captain Norton-Savage told a good story. He smoked excellent
cigars and was liberal with them. He came to me one day and talked
about his wife, told me there was consumption in her family, and asked
what I thought of a sea voyage for her and of the climate of Australia.
I could find nothing to object to in the man except his stare. There
was something defiant in his manner of looking at you; his speech was
significant with it even when nothing more was meant than met the ear.
I was misled at first, and sometimes troubled myself to look under his
words for his mind; then I found out that it was his stare which was
responsible for what his language seemed to carry, and so, with the rest
of us, took him as he offered himself.
And still I never felt quite easy with him, though no man laughed louder
at his humorous stories.
I was going one morning from my berth to the cuddy when, at the foot of
the steps which conducted to the hatch, I met the young man called John
Burgess. I had seen nothing of him for days. He came out of his cabin
holding his cap. Plenty of light flowed through the hatch; he was very
pale, and I thought seemed ill, and his eyes had a wild look. He was
handsome, as I have said—at least, to my way of thinking; but there was
an evil spirit in the delicate structure and lineaments of his face. I
said “Good morning.” He answered “Good morning” in a low voice, but with
a manner of impatience, as though he wished me to pass on or get out of
his road.
“Are you going to Australia for your health?” said I, for the sake of
saying something.
“No,” he answered.
“Are you English?”
“Pray who are you?” he exclaimed with a foreign accent.
“I am Dr. Harris,” I answered, smiling.
He looked uneasy on my pronouncing the word _doctor_, stepped back and
grasped the handle of his cabin door, yet paused to say, “Are you a
passenger, sir?”
“I am the ship’s doctor,” I answered.
Without another word he entered his cabin and shut the door upon himself.
His behaviour was so abrupt, discourteous, that I suspected his brain was
at fault. Indeed, I made up my mind, in the interests of the passengers,
and for the security of the ship, to keep my eye upon him—that is, by
accosting him from time to time, and by watching him without seeming to
watch whenever we should happen to be on deck together. And yet I was not
altogether satisfied with my suspicion of his not being right-headed,
either; I found my puzzlement going another way, but in a direction that
I could by no means make clear to myself.
However, not to refine upon this matter: I think it was next day that,
happening to come along from the forecastle where I had been visiting a
sick sailor, I spied the young fellow standing before the mainmast in
a sort of peeping posture; his eyes were directed aft; he was watching
the people walking on the poop. I stopped to look at him, struck by his
attitude. The great body of the mast effectually concealed him from all
observers aft. He turned his head and saw me; his face was ghastly white,
the expression wonderful for the tragic wrath of it. On meeting my eyes
he coloured up, I never could have credited so swift a transformation of
hue; his blush was deep and dark and his eyes shone like fire. He scowled
angrily, stepped round the mast, and disappeared through the cuddy door.
After this I saw no more of him for a week. I questioned the steward, who
told me the youth was keeping his cabin.
“What’s his name again?” said I.
“John Burgess, sir.”
“That’s an English name, but he’s not an Englishman,” said I.
“We don’t trouble ourselves about names on board ship, sir,” he answered.
“There be pursers’ names aft as well as forrard.”
“Does he ever talk to you?”
“No, sir, he might be a funeral mute for talk.”
“Does he come to the table for his meals?”
“No, sir; his grub’s carried in to him.”
“When did you see him last?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Does he seem well?”
“Well as I am, sir.”
I asked no more questions. There was a cheerfulness in the steward’s way
of answering which promised me he saw nothing peculiar in the lad. This
was reassuring, for I knew he was often in and out of the young man’s
berth, and anything eccentric in his conduct would strike him. As for me,
it was no part of my duty to intrude upon the passengers in their privacy.
We took the north-east trade wind, made noble progress down the North
Atlantic, lost the commercial gale in eight or ten degrees north of the
equator, and then lay “humbugging,” as the forecastle saying is, on
plains of greasy blue water, scarcely crisped by the catspaw, and often,
for hours at a time, without air enough to wag the fly of the vane at
the masthead. One very hot night after a day of roasting calm I lingered
on the poop for some while after my customary hour of retiring to rest
for the refreshment of the dew-cooled atmosphere and the cold breath
lifting off the black surface of ocean. The awning was spread over the
poop; a few shadowy figures moved slowly under it; here and there a red
star indicated a smoker sucking at a cigar; the water alongside was full
of smoky fire rolling in dim green bursts of cloud from the bends of the
ship as she leaned with the swell. But the stars were few and faint; down
in the south-west was a little play of silent lightning; the noises of
the night were rare and weak, scarce more than the flap of some pinion of
cloth up in the gloom, or the jerk of a wheel chain, or the subdued moan
of water washing under the counter.
I smoked out my pipe and still lingered; it was very hot and I did not
love the fancy of my bunk on such a night. The passengers went below one
by one after the cabin lamps were turned down. Six bells were struck,
eleven o’clock. I took a few turns with the officer of the watch, then
went on to the quarter-deck, where I found Captain Norton-Savage smoking
and chatting with two or three of the passengers under the little clock
against the cuddy front. The captain offered me a cigar, our companions
presently withdrew, and we were left alone.
I observed a note of excitement in Captain Savage’s speech, and guessed
that the heat had coaxed him into draining more seltzer and brandy than
was good for him. We were together till half-past eleven; his talk was
mainly anecdotic and wholly concerned others. I asked him how his wife
bore the heat. He answered very well, he thought. Did I not think the
voyage was doing her good? I answered I had observed her at dinner that
day and thought she looked very well in spite of her pallor. These were
the last words I spoke before wishing him good night. He threw the end of
his cigar overboard and went to his cabin, which was situated on the port
side just over against the hatch down which I went to my quarters in the
steerage.
All was silent in this part. The hush upon the deep worked in the ship
like a spirit; at long intervals only arose the faint sounds of cargo
lightly strained in the hold. Much time passed before I slept. Through
the open porthole over my bunk I could hear the mellow chimes of the
ship’s bell as it was struck. It was as though the land lay close aboard
with a church clock chiming. The hot atmosphere was rendered doubly
disgusting by the smell of the drugs. Yea, more than drugs, methought,
went to the combined flavour. I seemed to sniff bilgewater and the odour
of the cockroach.
I was awakened by a hand upon my shoulder.
“Rouse up, for God’s sake, doctor! There’s a man stabbed in the cuddy!”
I instantly got my wits, and threw my legs over the edge of the bunk.
“What’s this about a man stabbed?” I exclaimed, pulling on my clothes.
The person who had called me was the second mate, Mr. Storey. He told
me that he was officer of the watch; a few minutes since one of the
passengers who slept next the berth occupied by the Savages was awakened
by a shriek. He ran into the cuddy, and at that moment Mrs. Savage put
her head out and said that her husband lay dead with a knife buried in
his heart. The passenger rushed on deck, and Mr. Storey came to fetch me
before arousing the captain.
I found several people in the cuddy. The shriek of the wife had awakened
others besides the passenger who had raised the alarm. Captain Smallport,
the commander of the ship, hastily ran out of his cabin as I passed
through the steerage hatch. Some one had turned the cabin lamp full
on, and the light was abundant. The captain came to me, and I stepped
at once to the Savages’ berth and entered it. There was no light here,
and the cuddy lamp threw no illumination into this cabin. I called
for a box of matches and lighted the bracket-lamp, and then there was
revealed this picture: In the upper bunk, clothed in a sleeping costume
of pyjamas and light jacket, lay the figure of Captain Norton-Savage,
with the cross-shaped hilt of a dagger standing up out of his breast over
the heart and a dark stain of blood showing under it like its shadow.
In the right-hand corner, beside the door, stood Mrs. Savage, in her
night-dress; her face was of the whiteness of her bedgown, her black eyes
looked double their usual size. I noticed blood upon her right hand and a
stain of blood upon her night-dress over the right hip. All this was the
impression of a swift glance. In a step I was at Captain Savage’s side
and found him dead.
“Here is murder, captain,” said I, turning to the commander of the ship.
He closed the door to shut out the prying passengers, and exclaimed—
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Savage shrieked. I observed her dressing-gown hanging beside the
door and put it on her, again noticing the blood stains upon her hands
and night-dress. She looked horribly frightened and trembled violently.
“What can you tell us about this?” said Captain Smallport.
In her foreign accent, strongly defined by the passion of terror or
grief, she answered, but in such broken, tremulous, hysteric sentences
as I should be unable to communicate in writing, that being suddenly
awakened by a noise as of her cabin door opened or shut, she called to
Captain Savage, but received no answer. She called again, then, not
knowing whether he had yet come to bed, and the cabin being in darkness,
she got out of her bunk and felt over the upper one for him. Her hand
touched the hilt of the dagger, she shook him and called his name,
touched the dagger again, then uttered the shriek that had alarmed the
ship.
“Is it suicide?” said the captain, turning to me.
I looked at the body, at the posture of the hands, and answered
emphatically, “No.”
I found terror rather than grief in Mrs. Savage’s manner; whenever she
directed her eyes at the corpse I noticed the straining of panic fear in
them. The captain opened the cabin door, and called for the stewardess.
She was in waiting outside, as you may believe. The cuddy, indeed, was
full of people, and whilst the door was open I heard the grumbling hum
of the voices of ’tween-deck passengers and seamen crowding at the cuddy
front. The news had spread that one of the first-class passengers had
been murdered, and every tongue was asking who had done it.
The stewardess took Mrs. Savage to a spare cabin. When the women were
gone and the door again shut, Captain Smallport still remaining with me,
I drew the dagger out of the breast of the body and took it to the light.
It was more properly a dagger-shaped knife than a dagger, the point sharp
as a needle, the edge razor-like. The handle was of fretted ivory; to it
was affixed a thin slip of silver plate, on which was engraved “Charles
Winthrop Sheringham to Leonora Dunbar.”
“Is it the wife’s doing, do you think?” said the captain, looking at the
dagger.
“I would not say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to that question yet,” said I.
“She might have done it in her sleep.”
“Look at his hands,” said I. “He did not stab himself. Will you take
charge of this dagger, captain?”
“All bloody like that!” cried he, recoiling.
I cleansed it, and then he took it.
We stood conversing awhile. I examined the body again; which done, the
pair of us went out, first extinguishing the lamp, and then locking the
door.
The passengers sat up for the remainder of the night, and the ship was
as full of life as though the sun had risen. In every corner of the
vessel was there a hum of talk in the subdued note into which the horror
of murder depresses the voice. The captain called his chief officer and
myself to his cabin; we inspected the dagger afresh, and talked the
dreadful thing over. Who was the assassin? Both the captain and mate
cried, “Who but the wife?” I said I could not be satisfied of that yet;
who was Charles Winthrop Sheringham? who was Leonora Dunbar? It was some
comfort anyhow to feel that, whoever the wretch might be, he or she was
in the ship. There were no doors to rush through, no windows to leap
from, no country to scour _here_. The assassin was a prisoner with us all
in the ship; our business was to find out who of the whole crowd of us
had murdered the man, and we had many weeks before us.
In the small hours the sailmaker and his mate stitched up the body
ready for the toss over the side before noon. We waited until the sun
had arisen, then, our resolution having been formed, the captain and I
entered the berth which had been occupied by the Savages and examined
such baggage as we found there. The keys were in a bag; our search lasted
an hour. At the expiration of the hour we had found out, mainly through
the agency of a large bundle of letters, but in part also through other
direct proofs, that the name of the murdered man was Charles Winthrop
Sheringham; that the name of the lady whom he had known as Mrs. Savage
was Leonora Dunbar; that this Miss Dunbar had been an intimate friend
of Mrs. Sheringham, and that the husband had eloped with her and taken
a passage from Melbourne in the ship _Chiliman_, promising marriage in
twenty solemn protestations on their arrival in Australia, the ceremony
to be repeated should Mrs. Sheringham die.
This story we got together out of the letters and other conclusive
evidence. The captain was now rootedly of opinion that Miss Dunbar had
killed Sheringham.
“It’s not only the dagger,” said he, “with her name on it, which was
therefore hers, and in her keeping when the murder was done; for, suppose
some one else the assassin, are you to believe that he entered the
Savages’ berth and rummaged for this particular weapon instead of using
a knife of his own? How would he know of the dagger or where to find it?
It’s not the dagger only; there’s the stains on her hand and bedgown,
and mightn’t she have killed him in a fit of madness owing to remorse,
and thoughts of a lifelong banishment from England, and horror of the
disgrace and shame he’s brought her to?”
I listened in silence; but not yet could I make up my mind.
I met the stewardess coming to the captain with the key of the Savages’
cabin; she wanted clothes for the lady. I asked how Mrs. Savage did,
giving the unhappy woman the name she was known by on board.
“She won’t speak, sir,” answered the stewardess. “She’s fallen into a
stony silence. She sits with her hands clasped and her eyes cast down,
and I can’t get a word out of her.”
“I’ll look in upon her by-and-by,” said I.
The body was buried at ten o’clock in the morning. The captain read the
funeral service, and the quarter-deck was crowded with the passengers
and crew. I don’t think there was the least doubt throughout the whole
body of the people that Mrs. Savage, as they supposed her, had murdered
Sheringham. It was the murder that put into this funeral service the
wild, tragic significance everybody seemed to find in it, to judge at
least by the looks on the faces I glanced at.
When the ceremony was ended I called for the stewardess, and went with
her to Miss Dunbar’s cabin. On entering I requested the stewardess to
leave me. The lady was seated, and did not lift her eyes, nor exhibit any
signs of life whilst I stood looking. Her complexion had turned into a
dull pale yellow, and her face, with its expression of hard, almost blank
repose, might have passed for marble wantonly tinctured a dim primrose.
She had exchanged her dressing-gown for a robe, and appeared attired as
usual. I asked some questions, but got no answer. I then took a seat by
her side, and called her by the name of Leonora Dunbar. She now looked at
me steadily, but I did not remark any expression of strong surprise, of
the alarm and amazement I had supposed the utterance of that name would
excite.
I said softly, “The captain and I have discovered who you are, and your
relation with Charles Winthrop Sheringham. Was it you who stabbed him?
Tell me if you did it. Your sufferings will be the lighter when you have
eased your conscience of the weight of the dreadful secret.”