Chapter XXXII
Things are worse than I fancied. Here are two episodes within the last
seventy-two hours. Mr. Mellaire, for instance, is going to pieces. He
cannot stand the strain of being on the same vessel with the man who has
sworn to avenge Captain Somers's murder, especially when that man is the
redoubtable Mr. Pike.
For several days Margaret and I have been remarking the second mate's
bloodshot eyes and pain-lined face and wondering if he were sick. And to-
day the secret leaked out. Wada does not like Mr. Mellaire, and this
morning, when he brought me breakfast, I saw by the wicked, gleeful gleam
in his almond eyes that he was spilling over with some fresh, delectable
ship's gossip.
For several days, I learned, he and the steward have been solving a cabin
mystery. A gallon can of wood alcohol, standing on a shelf in the after-
room, had lost quite a portion of its contents. They compared notes and
then made of themselves a Sherlock Holmes and a Doctor Watson. First, they gauged the daily diminution of alcohol. Next they gauged it several times daily, and learned that the diminution, whenever it occurred, was first apparent immediately after meal-time. This focussed their attention on two suspects--the second mate and the carpenter, who alone sat in the after-room. The rest was easy. Whenever Mr. Mellaire arrived ahead of the carpenter more alcohol was missing. When they arrived and departed together, the alcohol was undisturbed. The carpenter was never alone in the room. The syllogism was complete. And now the steward stores the alcohol under his bunk.
But wood alcohol is deadly poison. What a constitution this man of fifty
must have! Small wonder his eyes have been bloodshot. The great wonder
is that the stuff did not destroy him.
I have not whispered a word of this to Margaret; nor shall I whisper it. I should like to put Mr. Pike on his guard; and yet I know that the revealing of Mr. Mellaire's identity would precipitate another killing. And still we drive south, close-hauled on the wind, toward the inhospitable tip of the continent. To-day we are south of a line drawn between the Straits of Magellan and the Falklands, and to-morrow, if the breeze holds, we shall pick up the coast of Tierra del Fuego close to the entrance of the Straits of Le Maire, through which Captain West intends to pass if the wind favours.
The other episode occurred last night. Mr. Pike says nothing, yet he
knows the crew situation. I have been watching some time now, ever since
the death of Marinkovich; and I am certain that Mr. Pike never ventures
on the main deck after dark. Yet he holds his tongue, confides in no
man, and plays out the bitter perilous game as a commonplace matter of
course and all in the day's work.
And now to the episode. Shortly after the close of the second dog-watch
last evening I went for'ard to the chickens on the 'midship-house on an
errand for Margaret. I was to make sure that the steward had carried out
her orders. The canvas covering to the big chicken coop had to be down, the ventilation insured, and the kerosene stove burning properly. When I had proved to my satisfaction the dependableness of the steward, and just as I was on the verge of returning to the poop, I was drawn aside by the weird crying of penguins in the darkness and by the unmistakable noise of a whale blowing not far away.
I had climbed around the end of the port boat, and was standing there, quite hidden in the darkness, when I heard the unmistakable age-lag step of the mate proceed along the bridge from the poop. It was a dim starry night, and the Elsinore, in the calm ocean under the lee of Tierra del Fuego, was slipping gently and prettily through the water at an eight- knot clip.
Mr. Pike paused at the for'ard end of the housetop and stood in a
listening attitude. From the main deck below, near Number Two hatch, across the mumbling of various voices, I could recognize Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine--the three gangsters. But Steve Roberts, the cow- boy, was also there, as was Mr. Mellaire, both of whom belonged in the other watch and should have been turned in; for, at midnight, it would be their watch on deck. Especially wrong was Mr. Mellaire's presence, holding social converse with members of the crew--a breach of ship ethics most grievous.