Crawshay acknowledged the difficulties of the supposition.
“As regards the physician,” he said thoughtfully, “I must confess that I am without information concerning him, a fact which increases my suspicion of Robins, for I should have had his dossier, and also that of the man Phillips, by wireless twenty-four hours ago.”
“What about Miss Beverley then?” the captain enquired. “Her family is not only one of the oldest in America, but they are real Puritan, Anglo-Saxon stock, white through and through. She has a dozen relatives in Congress, who have all been working for war with Germany for the last two years. She also has, as she told me herself, a brother and four cousins fighting on the French front — the brother in the Canadian Flying Corps, and the cousins in the English Army.”
“There I must confess that you have me,” Crawshay admitted. “What you say is perfectly true. That is one of the mysteries. No plot would be worth solving, you know, if it hadn’t a few mysteries in it.”
“If you will allow me a word, Mr. Crawshay,” the purser intervened, “I think you will have to leave Doctor Gant and his patient and Miss Beverley out of your speculations. I have our own ship doctor’s word for it that Mr. Phillips’ condition is exactly as has been stated. Mr. Jocelyn Thew may or may not be a suspicious character. Anything you suggest in the way of watching him can be done. But as regards the other three, I trust that you will not wish their comfort interfered with in any respect.”
“Beyond the search to which every one on board will have to be subjected,” Crawshay replied, “I shall not interfere in any respect with the three people in question. Mr. Jocelyn Thew, however, is different. He is a man who has led a most adventurous life. He seems to have travelled in every part of the globe, wherever there was trouble brewing or a little fighting to be done.”
“Why do you connect him with the present enterprise?” the captain asked.
“Because,” Crawshay answered, “the wireless message of which your man Robins took no record, and concerning which you have kept silence at my request, was delivered to Mr. Jocelyn Thew. Because, too,” he went on, “it is my very earnest belief that at somewhere in the small hours of this morning there will be another message, and Mr. Jocelyn Thew will be on deck to receive it.”
The captain knocked out the ashes of his pipe a little apprehensively.
“If half what you suspect is true, Mr. Crawshay,” he said, “you will forgive my saying so, but Jocelyn Thew is not a man you ought to tackle without assistance.”
There was a peculiar glitter in Crawshay’s deep-set eyes. For a single moment a new-born strength seemed to deepen the lines in his face — a transforming change.
“You needn’t worry, Captain,” he remarked coolly. “I am not taking too many chances, and if our friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew should turn out to be the man I believe him to be, I would rather tackle him alone.”
“Why,” Mr. Dix demanded, “should anything in the shape of violence take place? The ship can be searched, every article of baggage ransacked, and every passenger made to run the gauntlet.”
Crawshay smiled.
“The search you speak of is already arranged for, Mr. Dix,” he said; “long cables from my friend Hobson have already reached Liverpool — but the efficacy of such a proposed search would depend a little, would it not, upon whether we reach Liverpool?” “But if we were submarined,” the captain pointed out, “the papers would go to the bottom.”
Crawshay leaned forward and whispered one word in the captain’s ear. The latter sat for a moment as though paralysed.
“What’s to prevent that fellow Robins bringing her right on to our track?” Crawshay demanded. “That is the reason I spent last night listening for the wireless. It’s the reason I’m going to do the same to-night.”
The captain sprang to his feet.
“We’ll run no risks about this,” he declared firmly. “We’ll dismantle the apparatus. I’d never hold up my head again if the Von Blucher got us!”
Crawshay held out his hand.
“Forgive me, Captain,” he said, “but we want proof. Leave it to me, and if things are as I suspect, we’ll have that proof — probably before to-morrow morning,” he added, glancing at the chart.
There was a call down the deck, a knock at the door. The captain took up his oilskins regretfully.
“You will remember,” Crawshay enjoined, “that little mandate I showed you?”
The captain nodded grimly.
“I am in your hands,” he admitted. “Don’t forget that the safety of the ship may be in your hands, too!”
“Perhaps,” Crawshay whispered, “even more than the safety of the ship.”
.
CHAPTER IX
Robins, the wireless operator, bent closer over his instrument, and the blue fires flashed from the masthead of the steamer, cutting their way through the darkness into the black spaces beyond. The little room was lit by a dull oil light, the door was fast-closed and locked. Away into the night sped one continual message.
“Steamship City of Boston, lat…. long…. lying four points to northward of usual course. Reply.”
A time came when the young man ceased from his labours and sat up with a yawn. He stretched out his hand and lit a cigarette, walked to the little round window which commanded the deck, gazed out of it steadily, and turned back once more to his chair before the instrument. Then something happened. A greater shock than any that lay in the blue lightning which he had been generating was awaiting him. His right hand was suddenly gripped and held on to the table. He found himself gazing straight down the black bore of a small but uncommonly ugly-looking revolver. A voice which seemed remarkable for its convincing qualities, addressed him.
“If you speak a word, Robins, move, or show signs of any attempt to struggle, I shall shoot you. I have the right and the power.” Robins, a young man of nerve, whose name stood high on an official list of those who might be relied upon for any desperate enterprise, sat like a numbed thing. Dim visions of the face of this man, only a few feet away from his own, assailed him under some very different guise. It was Crawshay the man, stripped for action, whose lean, strong fingers were gripping the butt of that revolver, and whose eyes were holding him like gimlets.
“Now, if you are wise, answer me a few questions,” Crawshay began. “I’d have brought the captain with me, but I thought we might do better business alone. You’ve been advertising the ship’s whereabouts. Why?”
“I’ve only been giving the usual calls,” the young man muttered.
“Don’t lie to me,” was the grim reply. “Your wireless was supposed to be silent from yesterday midday except for the purpose of receiving calls. I ask you again, why and to whom were you advertising our whereabouts and course?”
Robins looked at the revolver, looked at Crawshay, and was dimly conscious of a damp feeling about his forehead. Nevertheless, his lips were screwed together, and he remained silent.
“Come,” Crawshay went on, “we’ll have a common-sense talk. I am an agent of the British Secret Service. I have unlimited powers upon this ship, power to put a bullet through your head if I choose, and not a soul to question it. The game’s up so far as you are concerned. You have received messages on this steamer of which you have kept no record, but which you have delivered secretly to a certain passenger. Of that I may or may not speak later on. At present I am more interested in your operations of to-night. You are signalling the information of our whereabouts for some definite reason. What is it? Were you trying to pick up the Blucher?”