Troy stepped back to the stateroom door then and tried to open it, but found the lock had snapped shut behind him.
“Who is it?” Clara’s voice hinted at hysteria.
“Jim.”
Her face appeared at the cabin window, peering fearfully through the louvers. Troy stepped obligingly under the deck light, and when she identified him, she turned the lock and he entered.
“Take this, Clara,” he said pushing his Derringer into her hand. “It only has one shot, but it’s enough to discourage even Nate Mitchell. I’m going to my stateroom to get my revolver.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Ferris. It seemes you made a conquest.”
“I’m afraid of him and of the preacher, too.”
“Just stay that way. I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry, Jim.”
As the cabin door closed behind him, he heard Clara snap the lock, and to make sure he tried the door, then strode quickly down the deck forward to his stateroom. Inside his cabin he lit the oil lamp swinging in gimbals over the wash-stand, but had barely time to unlock his suitcase before a knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” he said, and was surprised to see the preacher, Winter, enter. There was something wrong with the man. His features looked sharpened to a razor’s edge, his eyes glittered, and Troy could see droplets of sweat on his pale high forehead.
“Mr. Troy,” the preacher said in a tight, breathless voice, “when you took the trouble to speak to me in the waiting room earlier this evening, I though you must be a kind man, one who would not turn away from a direct supplication from God.”
Troy’s eyes narrowed. “I haven’t much time right now, Mr. Winter.”
“Enough, I hope, to hear one or two words. I am a champion against sin, because God has chosen me to be his warrior. Even when it seems I interfere with private affairs, nevertheless I—”
All the while he spoke, Winter shuffled step by step closer to Troy.
“Stand where you are, Winter,” Troy snapped.
The preacher, close to a chair, dropped into it like a puppet whose master had loosened the strings. He breathed gustily, his eyes gleaming brighter than ever.
“I wanted to speak to you especially about Miss Berg.”
“What about her?”
“Obviously you are not married to her. I saw no ring upon her finger.”
“No, we are not married.”
“And yet you act towards her as if you were her husband.”
Troy snorted. “So much so, we occupy separate cabins.”
“But you are possessive!”
“Let’s just call it protective. And now I’ll ask you to get out.”
The preacher rose stiffly, like a spring coiled, ready to release itself. “You will not listen to what I have to say?”
Troy, about to make a sharp retort, caught a faint glimmer of anguished pleading behind the strange man’s eyes, and relaxed suddenly with a capitulatory laugh.
“Look, Reverend. Right now I’ve got my hands full with a very frightened lady, and I’ve got to get back to her. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be glad to talk about my sins to you a little later.”
The preacher stared at him wordlessly, his eyes blinking, and Troy could see the passion or determination, or whatever it was, recede like a neap tide, until in just a few seconds Winter stood there wilted and spiritless.
“Very well, Mr. Troy,” he murmured and went slowly out of the cabin.
Troy looked after him with a thoughtful frown, then with renewed haste, dug into his suitcase for the revolver with the rosewood stock. As he loaded it, the Delta King tooted twice in greeting to another river boat bound upstream. Troy could hear the wash of her side paddles and the weary creak of her superstructure close by, and then a strident return greeting from her whistle.
The Capital City, probably. He wished fleetingly that he were on it, sweeping in the winnings from a well-established game, then shrugged away the wish guiltily. He was only making a just payment. A man didn’t get something for nothing in this world.
Leaving his lamp burning, Troy put the pistol in his pocket and stepped out of her door. That was the last thing he knew. A blow from a heavy object swung out of the darkness, striking him upon the forehead, and he crashed back insensible and fell full length upon the deck of his cabin.
The sun had been shining dimly in a strange sky for aeons before Troy became aware that it was his own cabin lamp, seen against a blue-tinted, tongue-ingroove bulkhead. He lay upon his back on the deck, his body trembling with the vibration of the ship, and felt a heavy weight lying across his legs. He raised his head slowly, feeling agonizing stabs in it that splayed bars of blackness across his vision. But what he saw cleared his mind instantly of its dark fog.
It was Clara, lying face down across his legs, and she was dead.
Her face, turned towards him, with one cheek pressed pitifully against the deck, was dark and twisted.
With a cry of instinctive dread, Troy pulled himself frantically from under the dreadful weight, and sat shaking upon his bunk. For five minutes he sat there, drawing on all his resources to keep himself from running in panic out of the cabin. But then suddenly his shaking stopped and his mind was his own again.
He got up and went to the washstand mirror to look at his wound. He’d been struck above the hair line, so the swelling did not show, but a small smear of blood stretched diagonally across his forehead. He dabbed at it, with a moistened towel, after which he took a bottle of whiskey out of his suitcase, tilted it twice and then sat quietly as he felt with gratification the spread of its analgesic warmth.
He glanced at his watch. Ten thirty-five. So far as he could judge, he’d come to get his gun around nine-thirty. Winter had detained him at least five minutes. That meant he’d been unconscious a full hour! What had happened meanwhile? Why was Clara here?
He went over and lifted Clara gently from the floor and laid her in his bunk, seeking in vain for a trace of pulse or the faintest breath. As his hands passed over her, a paper crackled at her bosom, and reaching down he pulled out a crumpled yellow sheet covered with small, compact writing.
Clara,
I want you to remember these things. The night at Hardwick’s Hotel in Scranton, when I found you in the arms of another man. How I told you I was going to bring divorce, and you ran to your mother’s home to capture and run away with our little son. You didn’t want him, really — you never wanted children — but you knew how I loved him. You tried to hide him at your sister’s in Harrisburg, but from the icy weather and the draughty trains our little boy died. You killed him.
And now I’ve found you at last, Clara, and I shall kill you. But first I shall let your shallow heart know anguish — a different kind from mine, who anguished over my little son — but anguish is anguish nonetheless, even when it is selfish.
Until I come to you, Clara, or you come to me.
Troy folded the letter and put it thoughtfully into his pocket. Slowly, like ice forming crystals, he reconstructed what had happened. Clara had probably received this letter shortly after the first Levinson warning. She would not show it to Troy because Nate’s words would make it clear she was lying about her relationship with her husband. But it would account for her being so sure Mitchell was after her.
Then tonight Clara’s murderer had wanted him out of the way, so he could be free to attack Clara. But the murderer had barely finished slugging Troy, perhaps was standing over him to make sure he would stay out of the picture long enough, when Clara herself, impatient at Troy’s delay, had left the safety of her cabin and come to his.