Part 32 (1/2)

”A skipper on one of the bigger pa.s.senger lines would be just as keen as you could be not to have his s.h.i.+p mixed up with anything discreditable.

But pa.s.sengers are an impious lot. They are just bursting for want of a job, most of them; they revel in anything like an accident to break the monotony; and if they can spot a bit of foul play--or say they helped to spot it--why, there they are, supplied with one good solid never-stale yarn for all the rest of their natural lives. So you see they've every inducement to do a lot of ferreting that a s.h.i.+p's officers (with other work on hand) would not dream about.”

Captain Kettle pulled thoughtfully at his neat red pointed beard.

”You're putting the thing in a new light, sir, and I thank you for what you've said. I see my course plain before me. So soon as we have dropped the pilot, I shall go straight to this Mr. Cranze, and tell him that from information received I hear he's going to put Mr. Hamilton over the side. And then I shall say: 'Into irons you go, my man, so soon as ever Hamilton's missing.'”

Lupton laughed rather angrily. ”And what would be the result of that, do you think?”

”Cranze will get mad. He'll probably talk a good deal, and that I shall allow within limits. But he'll not hit me. I'm not the kind of a man that other people see fit to raise their hands to.”

”You don't look it. But, my good sir, don't you see that if you speak out like that, you'll probably scare the beggar off his game altogether?”

”And why not? Do you think my s.h.i.+p's a blessed detective novel that's to be run just for your amus.e.m.e.nt?”

Lupton tapped the table slowly with his fingers. ”Now look here, Captain,” he said, ”there's a chance here of our putting a stop to a murderous game that's been going on too long, by catching a rogue red-handed. It's to our interest to get a conviction and make an example. It's to your interest to keep your s.h.i.+p free from a fuss.”

”All the way.”

”Quite so. My Company's prepared to buy your interest up.”

”You must put it plainer than that.”

”I'll put it as definitely as you like. I'll give you 20 to keep your eye on these men, and say nothing about what I've told you, but just watch. If you catch Cranze so clearly trying it on that the Courts give a conviction, the Company will pay you 200.”

”It's a lot of money.”

”My Company will find it a lot cheaper than paying out 20,000, and that's what Hamilton's insured for.”

”Phew! I didn't know we were dealing with such big figures. Well, Mr.

Cranze has got his inducements to murder the man, anyway.”

”I told you that from the first. Now, Captain, are you going to take my check for that preliminary 20?”

”Hand it over,” said Kettle. ”I see no objections. And you may as well give me a bit of a letter about the balance.”

”I'll do both,” said Lupton, and took out his stylograph, and called a waiter to bring him hotel writing paper.

Now Captain Owen Kettle, once he had taken up this piece of employment, entered into it with a kind of chastened joy. The Life Insurance Company's agent had rather sneered at s.h.i.+p-captains as a cla.s.s (so he considered), and though the man did his best to be outwardly civil, it was plain that he considered a mob of pa.s.sengers the intellectual superiors of any master mariner. So Kettle intended to prove himself the ”complete detective” out of sheer _esprit de corps_.

As he had surmised, Messrs. Hamilton and Cranze remained the _Flamingo's_ only two pa.s.sengers, and so he considered he might devote full attention to them without being remarkable. If he had been a steward making sure of his tips he could not have been more solicitous for their welfare; and to say he watched them like a cat is putting the thing feebly. Any man with an uneasy conscience must have grasped from the very first that the plot had been guessed at, and that this awkward little skipper, with his oppressive civilities, was merely waiting his chance to act as Nemesis.

But either Mr. Cranze had an easy mind, and Lupton had unjustly maligned him, or he was a fellow of the most brazen a.s.surance. He refused to take the least vestige of a warning. He came on board with a dozen cases of champagne and four of liqueur brandy as a part of his personal luggage, and his first question to every official he came across was how much he would have to pay per bottle for corkage.

As he made these inquiries from a donkey-man, two deck hands, three mates, a trimmer, the third engineer, two stewards, and Captain Kettle himself, the answers he received were various, and some of them were profane. He seemed to take a delight in advertising his chronic drunkenness, and between-whiles he made a silly show of the fact that he carried a loaded revolver in his hip pocket. ”Lots fellows do't now,” he explained. ”Never know who-you-may-meet. S' a mos' useful habit.”

Now Captain Kettle, in his inmost heart, considered that Cranze was nerving himself up with drink to the committal of his horrid deed, and so he took a very natural precaution. Before they had dropped the Irish coast he had managed to borrow the revolver, unbeknown to its owner, and carefully extracted the powder from the cartridges, replacing the bullets for the sake of appearances. And as it happened, the chief engineer, who was a married man as well as a humorist, though working independently of his skipper, carried the matter still further. He, too, got hold of the weapon, and brazed up the breech-block immovably, so that it could not be surrept.i.tiously reloaded. He said that his wife had instructed him to take no chances, and that meanwhile, as a fool's pendant, the revolver was as good as ever it had been.

The revolver became the joke of the s.h.i.+p. Cranze kept up a steady soak on king's peg--putting in a good three fingers of the liqueur brandy before filling up the tumbler with champagne--and was naturally inclined to be argumentative. Any one of the s.h.i.+p's company who happened to be near him with a little time to spare would get up a discussion on any matter that came to his mind, work things gently to a climax, and then contradict Cranze flatly. Upon which, out would come the revolver, and down would go the humorist on his knees, pitifully begging for pardon and life, to the vast amus.e.m.e.nt of the onlookers.

Pratt, the chief engineer, was the inventor of this game, but he openly renounced all patent rights. He said that everybody on board ought to take the stage in turn--he himself was quite content to retire on his early laurels. So all hands took pains to contradict Cranze and to cower with a fine show of dramatic fright before his spiked revolver.