CHAPTER XVII
A WHITE SKIRT
It was in mid-ocean that Neeland finally came to the conclusion thatnobody on board the _Volhynia_ was likely to bother him or his box.
The July weather had been magnificent--blue skies, a gentle wind, anda sea scarcely silvered by a comber.
Assorted denizens of the Atlantic took part in the traditionalvaudeville performance for the benefit of the _Volhynia_ passengers;gulls followed the wake to mid-ocean; Mother Carey's chickens skimmedthe baby billows; dolphins turned watery flip-flaps under the bows;and even a distant whale consented to oblige.
Everybody pervaded the decks morning, noon, and evening; the mostsqueamish recovered confidence in twenty-four hours; and everyconstitutional lubber concluded he was a born sailor.
Neeland really was one; no nausea born from the bad adjustment of thatanatomical auricular gyroscope recently discovered in man everdisturbed his abdominal nerves. Short of shipwreck, he enjoyed anyentertainment the Atlantic offered him.
So he was always on deck, tranquilly happy and with nothing in theworld to disturb him except his responsibility for the olive-woodbox.
He dared not leave it in his locked cabin; he dared not entrust it toanybody; he lugged it about with him wherever he went. On deck itstood beside his steamer chair; it dangled from his hand when hepromenaded, exciting the amazement and curiosity of others; itreposed on the floor under the table and beneath his attentive feetwhen he was at meals.
These elaborate precautions indicated his wholesome respect for thepersistence of Scheherazade and her friends; he was forever scanninghis fellow-voyagers at table, in the smoking room, and as theystrolled to and fro in front of his steamer chair, trying to make uphis mind concerning them.
But Neeland, a clever observer of externals, was no reader ofcharacter. The passenger list never seemed to confirm any conclusionshe arrived at concerning any of the passengers on the _Volhynia_. Agentleman he mistook for an overfed broker turned out to be a popularclergyman with outdoor proclivities; a slim, poetic-looking youth whocarried a copy of "Words and Wind" about the deck travelled for theGold Leaf Lard Company.
Taking them all in all, Neeland concluded that they were as harmless acollection of _reconcentrados_ as he had ever observed; and he wasstrongly tempted to leave the box in his locked stateroom.
He decided to do so one afternoon after luncheon, and, lugging hisbox, started to return to his stateroom with that intention, insteadof going on deck, as usual, for a postprandial cigarette.
There was nobody in the main corridor as he passed, but in the short,carpeted passage leading to his stateroom he caught a glimpse of awhite serge skirt vanishing into the stateroom opposite to his, andheard the door close and the noise of a key turned quickly.
His steward, being questioned on the first day out, had told him thatthis stateroom was occupied by an invalid gentleman travelling alone,who preferred to remain there instead of trusting to his crutches ona temperamental deck.
Neeland, passing the closed and curtained door, wondered whether theinvalid had made a hit, or whether he had a relative aboard who wore awhite serge skirt, white stockings and shoes, and was further endowedwith agreeable ankles.
He fitted his key to his door, turned it, withdrew the key to pocketit; and immediately became aware that the end of the key was sticky.
He entered the stateroom, however, and bolted the door, then he satdown on his sofa and examined his fingers and his door keyattentively. There was wax sticking to both.
When he had fully digested this fact he wiped and pocketed his key andcast a rather vacant look around the little stateroom. And immediatelyhis eye was arrested by a white object lying on the carpet between thebed and the sofa--a woman's handkerchief, without crest or initials,but faintly scented.
After he became tired of alternately examining it and sniffing it, heput it in his pocket and began an uneasy tour of his room.
If it had been entered and ransacked, everything had been replacedexactly as he had left it, as well as he could remember. Nothingexcepting this handkerchief and the wax on the key indicatedintrusion; nothing, apparently, had been disturbed; and yet there wasthe handkerchief; and there was the wax on the end of his door key.
"Here's a fine business!" he muttered to himself; and rang for hissteward.
The man came--a cockney, dense as his native fog--who maintained thatnobody could have entered the stateroom without his knowledge or theknowledge of the stewardess.
"Do you think _she's_ been in my cabin?"
"No, sir."
"Call her."
The stewardess, an alert, intelligent little woman with a trace ofWest Indian blood in her, denied entering his stateroom. Shown thehandkerchief and invited to sniff it, she professed utter ignoranceconcerning it, assured him that no lady in her section used thatperfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of other sectionson the chance of their identifying the perfume or the handkerchief.
"All right," said Neeland; "take it. But bring it back. And here's asovereign. And--one thing more. If anybody pays you to deceive me,come to me and I'll outbid them. Is that a bargain?"
"Yes, sir," she said unblushingly.
When she had gone away with the handkerchief, Neeland closed the dooragain and said to the steward:
"Keep an eye on my door. I am positive that somebody has taken a waximpression of the keyhole. What I said to that stewardess also holdsgood with you. I'll outbid anybody who bribes you."
"Very good, sir."
"Sure it's good! It's devilish good. Here's a beautiful and newlyminted gold sovereign. Isn't it artistic? It's yours, steward."
"Thanky, sir."
"Not at all. And, by the way, what's that invalid gentleman's name?"
"'Awks, sir."
"Hawks?"
"Yes, sir; Mr. 'Erbert 'Awks."
"American?"
"I don't know, sir."
"British?"
"Shall I inquire, sir?" starting to go.
"Not of _him_! Don't be a lunatic, steward! Please try to understandthat I want nothing said about this matter or about my inquiries."
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, then! Find out, if you can, who Mr. Herbert Hawks is. Findout all you can concerning him. It's easy money, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, sir----"
"Wait a moment. Has he any friends or relatives on board?"
"Not that I know, sir."
"Oh, no friends, eh? No ladies who wear white serge skirts and whiteshoes and stockings?"
"No, sir, not as I knows of."
"Oh! Suppose you step across to his door, knock, and ask him if herang. And, if the door is opened, take a quick slant at the room."
"Very good, sir."
Neeland, his door at the crack, watched the steward cross the corridorand knock at the door of Mr. Herbert Hawks.
"Well, what iss it?" came a heavy voice from within.
"Mr. 'Awks, sir, did you ring?"
"No, I did not."
"Oh, beg pardon, sir----"
The steward was starting to return to Neeland, but that young manmotioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then,listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in thepassage creak open a little way, then close again, stealthily.
He possessed his soul in patience, believing that Mr. Hawks or hisfair friend in the white skirt had merely taken a preliminary surveyof the passage and perhaps also of his closed door. But the vigil wasvain; the door did not reopen; no sound came from the stateroom acrossthe passageway.
To make certain that the owner of the white shoes and stockings didnot leave that stateroom without his knowledge, he opened his doorwith many precautions and left it on the crack, stretching a rubberband from knob to bolt, so that the wind from the open port in thepassage should not blow it shut. Then, drawing his curtain, he satdown to wait.
He had a book, one of those slobbering American novels which serve upfalsehood thickly buttered wit
h righteousness and are consumed by themorally sterilised.
And, as he smoked he read; and, as he read he listened. One eye alwaysremained on duty; one ear was alert; he meant to see who was the ownerof the white shoes if it took the remainder of the voyage to findout.
The book aided him as a commonplace accompaniment aids asoloist--alternately boring and exasperating him.
It was an "uplift" book, where the heroine receives whacks withpatient smiles. Fate boots her from pillar to post and she blessesFate and is much obliged. That most deadly reproach to degeneratehuman nature--the accidental fact of sex--had been so skilfullyextirpated from those pages that, like chaste amoebae, the charactersmerely multiplied by immaculate subdivision; and millions of linealdescendants of the American Dodo were made gleeful for $1.50 net.
It was hard work waiting, harder work reading, but between the two anda cigarette now and then Neeland managed to do his sentry go untildinner time approached and the corridors resounded with the trample ofthe hungry.
The stewardess reappeared a little later and returned to him hishandkerchief and the following information:
Mr. Hawks, it appeared, travelled with a trained nurse, whosestateroom was on another deck. That nurse was not in her stateroom,but a similar handkerchief was, scented with similar perfume.
"You're a wonder," said Neeland, placing some more sovereigns in herpalm and closing her fingers over them. "What is the nurse's name?"
"Miss White."
"Very suitable name. Has she ever before visited Herr--I mean_Mr._--Hawks in his stateroom?"
"Her stewardess says she has been indisposed since we left New York."
"Hasn't been out of her cabin?"
"No."
"I see. Did you inquire what she looked like?"
"Her stewardess couldn't be certain. The stateroom was kept dark andthe tray containing her meals was left at the bedside. Miss Whitesmokes."
"Yes," said Neeland reflectively, "she smokes Red Light cigarettes, Ibelieve. Thank you, very much. More sovereigns if you are discreet.And say to my steward that I'll dine in my stateroom. Soup, fish,meat, any old thing you can think of. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly, sir."
When she had withdrawn he kneeled down on his sofa and looked outthrough the port at the sunset sea.
There was a possibility that Scheherazade and her friends might be onboard the _Volhynia_. Who else would be likely to take wax impressionsof his keyhole and leave a scented scrap of a handkerchief on hisstateroom floor?
That they had kept themselves not only out of sight but off thepassenger list merely corroborated suspicion. That's what they'd belikely to do.
And now there was no question in his mind of leaving the box in hiscabin. He'd cling to it like a good woman to alimony. Death alonecould separate his box from him.
As he knelt there, sniffing the salt perfume of the sea, his ears onduty detected the sound of a tray in the corridor.
"Leave it on the camp-table outside my door!" he said over hisshoulder.
"Very good, sir."
He was not hungry; he was thinking too hard.
"Confound it," he thought to himself, "am I to squat here in ambushfor the rest of the trip?"
The prospect was not agreeable for a man who loved the sea. All dayand most of the starry night the hurricane deck called to him, and hiswhole anatomy responded. And now to sit hunched up here like a rat inthe hold was not to his taste. Suppose he should continue to frequentthe deck, carrying with him his box, of course. He might neverdiscover who owned the white serge skirt or who owned the voice whichpronounced is as "iss."
Meanwhile, it occurred to him that for a quarter of an hour or morehis dinner outside his door had been growing colder and colder. So heslid from the sofa, unstrapped the rubber band, opened the door,lifted table and tray into his stateroom with a sharp glance at theopposite door, and, readjusting the rubber band, composed himself toeat.