"I believe that Marcia is in grave danger," said Josh obliquely.
As he spoke, the boy returned and ushered Daisy Belle and Luther together into the room. And immediately Marcia thought they guessed; and that, therefore, incredible though it was, it was true.
Daisy Belle did not look at Marcia. Marcia was thankful for that. The Captain cleared his throat. "Close the door," he snapped, and the boy who had brought them ducked out into the passage and closed the door firmly.
Daisy Belle said quite clearly to Luther, looking up into his tired, pale face: "I was right, Luther—I was right." She took his hand in her own and suddenly, like a child, her face crumpled and she began soundlessly to cry.
Josh brought a chair and she sat down in it automatically. The Captain said: "What's this story? What's this . . . ? Look here. Cates, why did you give that diamond to Castiogne?"
Luther took a long unsteady breath. Then he moved to stand behind Daisy Belle. He looked down and said: "You were right, dear. I ought to have told them before. All right ..."
He put his hand upon her shoulder, lifted his worn, lined face and said steadily: "I gave the diamond to Gastiogne to pay him for securing our passage, as I told you. That was true. But there is something else—something my wife and I ought to have told you, perhaps. But we had hoped to forget it, eventually. It is not pleasant."
His voice stopped. Daisy Belle patted the hand on her shoulder and ignored the streaming tears on her cheeks. Luther went on: "You see, my wife and I, during the years when France was occupied were"—he swallowed hard so his corded, thin throat worked but his faded blue eyes did not waver—"we were what you could call Nazis. What everybody will call Nazis. We had to live in the home of someone who proved to be a Nazi. An old acquaintance, who offered us a refuge. We did not then know what he was; we had already taken food and shelter. But circumstances were such that, even after we suspected, we continued to take what we thought we had to have. There is no excuse for us. We realize that."
Daisy Belle cried suddenly: "It was not your fault, Luther. It was mine. You had to have drugs; you had to have digitalis. I thought you were dying."
"Don't, my dear." His thin hand pressed down upon her shoulder. "Since Castiogne's death we began to think that, in some possible way the fact could have a connection with the murders. So we had talked of telling you the truth. And it does not matter, you see, because," said Luther with sudden dignity, "in any case we can never forgive ourselves and our own weakness. We can never really forget that we've taken food and coal and medicine from bloody and shameful hands."
There was again a long silence in the cabin. Colonel Wells turned abruptly and stared out over the fo'c'sle. The Captain drummed on the table with his pipe. Josh Morgan did not move. Finally the Captain said gruffly: "Why do you think it had a connection with the murder?"
"I don't know," said Luther simply.
"According to the story I've heard, Castiogne knew that you had done this. Did he try to blackmail you?" asked the Captain bluntly.
"No. As we told you the diamond was—well, a bribe. We saw him in Lisbon. He said he could arrange it for money. We had no money, so we gave him the diamond. And he got our passage."
There was another silence; then the Captain said suddenly: "Thank you. You may go."
With unbroken dignity they left. Daisy Belle, passing Marcia, stopped for an instant beside her chair and touched her lightly with her hand. "My dear," she said. "Don't look like that. It's all right."
The door closed upon them. Colonel Wells unexpectedly and loudly blew his nose and the Captain looked at him angrily.
And Josh said suddenly: "All right. But I tell you Marcia's in danger. And I don't see . . ." He stopped, stared at the floor, suddenly seemed to take a resolution and strode over to the Captain. "There's one more thing, sir. The man traveling with Miss Colfax is not Andre Messac. I knew Andre Messac. He was my close friend. This man is a former concert pianist. I have seen him and heard him play many times. His name is Michel Banet and . . ." Josh's voice went on as hard and harsh as iron, "His hands show marks of torture which he says he received in a German prison. In fact, however, I believe him to be a fleeing Nazi war criminal."
The cabin seemed to Marcia to darken and tilt. The Captain's face, purple and swollen-looking, seemed to tilt with it. She heard him shout: "Why haven't you told me this before? Why . . . ?"
She heard Josh's answer too, quite steady and firm: "For a good reason, sir. A good reason . . ."
Even in the crazy tilting room she heard them giving orders, demanding Andre Messac. But they meant Mickey Banet— Mickey Banet—Mickey Banet . . .
The name droned through her senses like a hammer, over and over and over.
It was, however, forever too late to ask questions of Mickey Banet.
He was found on deck. He was unconscious. He had been shot apparently with a service revolver, and died shortly after, although everything possible was done to save him.
Before he died he rallied briefly and made a curious and terrible statement. A woman, he said, had shot him.
In the same full, deceptively strong voice he told them that he would explain it all later.
It was, however, the last thing he said.
It was about that time that a young second lieutenant who had been a member of one of the armed searching parties reported to his immediate superior the loss of the revolver which had been issued to him.
16
Anyone could have taken the revolver.
The young lieutenant had been assigned night duty. The revolver had been taken some time during the afternoon while he slept. Any number of people had gone along the passageway outside the quarters he shared with six others; naturally the door had not been locked. He had placed it beside his bunk; he admitted he was a sound sleeper. Although his superior officer had some words to say on the subject, it was not really a censurable act, and in any case it was spilled milk.
Unless by mere chance some witness came forward, it was almost hopeless to try to discover who had taken it. It could have been, as they knew from the beginning, anyone on the ship.
Except the Portuguese seaman, Urdiola. He was still locked up. Obviously he could not have shot Mickey Banet, either. He was not, however, absolved, for there still remained the diamond, and the extremely sound case against him in the matter of the murder of the other two Portuguese.
While it was difficult to believe that the murder of Mickey Banet had no connection with that of the two Portuguese seamen from the Lerida there was at the same time no way of dismissing the diamond in Urdiola's possession, except to accept the story he told as a true one, which on the face of it did not seem likely.
At the same time it seemed most unlikely that there were two murderers on the ship.
Also, in the case of Mickey Banet's death, there was not even an attempt on the part of Colonel Wells and Captain Svendsen to establish alibis on the part of the other Lerida passengers; that too was obviously a hopeless undertaking. The time of the shooting was uncertain, limited only by the time when the young second lieutenant had gone to sleep, which was immediately after his lunch, and the time when Mickey was found, which was about dusk.
The doctors believed it had occurred at least an hour before he was found; they could say little more than that. No one apparently had happened to visit the particular section of the deck where he was found (toward the stern, in the shadow of the rank of lifeboats, as a matter of fact, very near where he had first been attacked) during the afternoon. Again because of the fog the decks had been forbidden; they were cold, wet and slippery.