Cardigan did not smile, merely nodded, saying, “Stearns will relieve you” — and moved down the ladder to the main companion.
Upon reaching Black Michael’s door he entered without knocking. In the vague half-light supplied by the porthole he could make out the skipper’s huge body sprawled full length in the berth. The odor of rum was heavy on the air.
“Captain!” he called, gripping one shoulder and shaking it. “Captain, wake up!... Hullo!”
The latter exclamation was brought forth as his hand accidentally brushed the cheek of the recumbent man] It was cold, clammy. He quickly felt the heart. An oath left his tongue.
He fumbled in the pocket of his pea-jacket and withdrew a box of matches. Igniting one he lit the slush-lamp and in the better light examined the body.
“Dead,” he muttered to himself with a semi-professional air. “Two incisions—one just below the heart, the other above...”
Though Cardigan was not yet thirty-five, there were times when he seemed at least forty. This was such an occasion. About his lips was a grim tightness, a truculence that suggested inflexible metal beneath the bronzed exterior.
“Struck in the dark, I’ll wager,” he said to himself, running his fingers through his gray-shot hair whilst he continued his investigation. “Dead about an hour or I’m... And two distinctly different instruments, one a straight blade, the other curved.”
At one time he had studied surgery — in the days before the gray appeared in his hair. He... But that was an ancient story, a sheaf torn out of his life and laid away in a crevice of his memory.
After the first surprise caused by the discovery, he experienced a feeling that bordered on satisfaction. No love had ever existed between him and the master of the brig, and after The Boy was shanghaied at Melbourne there was open antagonism, a hostility that resulted in Cardigan’s decision to leave the Libertine at the end of the return voyage.
So Black Michael was dead, he mused, murdered—
At this juncture his eyes, involuntarily lowered, were captured by a bright object on the floor. He stooped, picked it up and perceived that it was a small, curved blade—a murderous Malay knife that bore ugly stains. As he recognized it he felt a shock like nothing short of a volt of electricity — for the weapon was his own, a relic of the days before the gray appeared among his dark hairs.
There was a slim, dark-eyed Malay girl, down on the drowsy shores of the Archipelago where the restless surf drums to the tune of lawless love, and... But that, too, was an ancient tale, laid away in lavender with the other poignant recollections. She had given him the knife, this brown maiden, as she lay dying in his arms, and it was the only tangible remembrance of a still smouldering passion...
His face settled into sterner lines. This was undoubtedly the blade with which the incision was made. But how had it been obtained from his cabin and why was it used? The most logical answer for both was: treachery.
His first impulse was to wipe the soiled blade upon his handkerchief, but he refrained, for Cardigan and discretion were synonymous. Blood-stains often proved incriminating.
No, innocent though he was, he decided, he dared leave no evidence where it might be discovered and used against him. This weapon was sufficient proof that he had an enemy aboard.
He first considered throwing the knife into the sea, but this proposed means of disposal he immediately dismissed; he would sooner separate himself from an arm than the weapon. He would hide it; there were many places on the ship where so small an object would never be found—and the place that appealed to him as one less frequented was the paint-locker.
After covering the body with a sheet, he quitted the cabin, locked the door and made his way to the paint-locker. A moment later the Malay knife lay hidden behind a pile of cans and Cardigan went up on deck.
An impalpable mist was drifting in from the dark waste of waters, smoothing out the sharp lines of the Libertine and giving to her the look of a phantom craft as she rode the steadily increasing swell, her lights burning hazily, like nebula-belted planets in the fog.
Near the forward hatch Cardigan encountered Stearns, the midshipman, a sallow youth of twenty-one or less.
“Go below and send the hands aft, Mr. Stearns,” the mate ordered, “every man Jack of them...” Then he moved to the poop-deck where Bjornsen stood as one petrified at the wheel.
“Bjornsen,” he began, “the captain has been murdered, stabbed twice. I have sent for the crew to notify them. I’m in command now and I want your hearty support.”
The Norwegian nodded, his stolid face unaltered.
Five minutes later the crew was assembled below the poop, a nervous, shuffling crowd, looking up with uneasy eyes at the first mate. Scum of the East and West they were, washed together on the tides of the Seven Seas.
“Are they all here, Mr. Stearns?” inquired Cardigan of the midshipman, who was climbing to the poop-deck.
“All but the cabin boy, sir; he’s down in the fo’c’s’le drunk as—”
“I’ll see him later,” interposed the first mate. Then he cupped his hands about his mouth to make himself heard about the wind and sea. “Men, I’ll be brief. A crime has been committed aboard this brig. Just before six bells I was in the skipper’s quarters—and when I returned a few minutes ago I found him dead—murdered.”
He paused to observe the effect of this announcement upon the men. Rows of sullen eyes looked up at him—eyes in which there was mingled fear and questioning. What a ghastly lot they looked, huddled there in the mist, thought Cardigan!
“One of you” — he made a sweeping gesture with his bronzed hand — “one of you killed him. And I’ve called you here to ask if the guilty man is willing to confess and thus lighten his punishment, or, in the event a confession isn’t forthcoming, if anyone knows anything that might be instrumental in locating the murderer.”
After a long silence England Charlie, third mate, a big, gaunt cockney, with a red face and red hands, spoke up: “You said one o’ us wus th’ murderer, sir, but ’ow d’ we know you didn’t croak ’im?”
At this there was a murmur from the men. Encouraged, the cockney continued. “You’d be th’ one to benefit by ’is snuffin’ it—an Hi arsks, ’ow d’ we know you didn’t send ’im orf?”
Cardigan met his gaze coolly and smiled.
“You’re justified in saying that,” he admitted. “But I was at the wheel from six bells to four bells—and if any man aboard understands post mortem conditions he can examine the body and see that the skipper has been dead just about an hour—”
“But you could ’ave lashed th’ wheel,” persisted English Charlie.
Cardigan’s jaw shot forward at an ugly angle. “Are you trying to accuse me, Charlie?” he demanded. There came no reply and he went on, “More than ever I’m determined to leave nothing undone to find the man who killed the captain—and as a first step every one shall submit to a search for evidence—now. I’m in command here and I intend to assert my authority. Sykes, you and Stearns help me. Meanwhile, no one will leave the deck.”
As Cardigan started to descend the ladder he heard a savage oath, and, pausing, fastened his eyes upon the men.
“Did someone speak?” he rapped.
Ladd, a seaman, answered — “Jim Hickey here said he’d be damned if he was searched—”
“That’s a lie, sir!” broke in the bullet-headed mulatto, the great muscles in his arms standing out like whipcords.
Cardigan moved down and confronted the mulatto. “Did you say that?”
The boatswain, a Creole, stepped forward. “Eet ees so, m’sieur; I, ’Poleon Moncrief, hear’ heem. W’at ees more” — he cast a malicious glance at the mulatto, who stood with clinched fists, glaring at him — “I know w’y zat nigger he not want to be search’. I was een my bunk trying to go to sleep w’en ze cabanne boy he come below an’ drink a dam’ lot of rum. An’ w’en ze boy he fall asleep zat nigger he sink I not ’wake an’ get up an’ go to ze bunk of ze cabanne boy an’—”