At one o'clock in the morning I arose, dressed hurriedly, drew on a pair of felt slippers, and put a revolver in my pocket. It was then time to put Edith Metford's proposal to the proof, and she would be waiting for me on deck to hear whether I had succeeded in it. We had parted a couple of hours before on somewhat chilling terms. I had agreed to follow her suggestion, but I could not trouble my tired brain by guesses at the cause of her moods.
It was very dark. There was only enough light to enable me to find my way along the corridor, off which the state-rooms occupied by Brande and his immediate lieutenants opened. All the sleepers were restless from the terrible heat. As I stole along, a muffled word, a sigh, or a movement in the berths, made me pause at every step with a beating heart. Having listened till all was quiet, I moved on again noiselessly. I was almost at the end of the corridor. So intent had I been on preserving perfect silence, it did not sooner occur to me that I was searching for any special door. I had forgotten Brande's number!
I could no more think of it than one can recall the name of a half-forgotten acquaintance suddenly encountered in the street. It might have been fourteen, or forty-one; or a hundred and fifty. Every number was as likely as it was unlikely. I tried vainly to concentrate my mind. The result was nothing. The missing number gave no clue. To enter the wrong room in that ship at that hour meant death for me. Of that I was certain. To leave the right room unentered gave away my first chance in the unequal battle with Brande. Then, as I knew that my first chance would probably be my last, if not availed of, I turned to the nearest door and quietly tried the handle. The door was not locked. I entered the state-room.
"What do you want?" It was Halley's voice that came from the berth.
"Pardon me," I whispered, "a mistake. The heat, you know. Went on deck, and have blundered into your room."
"Oh, all right. Who are you?"
"Brande."
"Good-night. You did not blunder far;" this sleepily.
I went out and closed the door quietly. I had gained something. I was within one door of my destination, for I knew that Halley was berthed between Rockingham and Brande. But I did not know on which side Brande's room was, and I dared not ask. I tried the next door going forward. It opened like the other. I went in.
"Hallo there!" This time no sleepy or careless man challenged me. It was Rockingham's voice.
"May I not enter my own room?" I whispered.
"This is not your room. You are?" Rockingham sprang up in his berth, but before he could leave it I was upon him.
"I am Arthur Marcel. And this iron ring which I press against your left ear is the muzzle of my revolver. Speak, move, breathe above your natural breath and your brains go through that porthole. Now, loose your hold of my arm and come with me."
"You fool!" hissed Rockingham. "You dare not fire. You know you dare not."
He was about to call out, but my left hand closed on his throat, and a gurgling gasp was all that issued from him.
I laid down the revolver and turned the ear of the strangling man close to my mouth. I had little time to think; but thought flies fast when such deadly peril menaces the thinker as that which I must face if I failed to make terms with the man who was in my power. I knew that notwithstanding his intensely disagreeable nature, if he gave his promise either by spoken word or equivalent sign, I could depend upon him. There were no liars in Brande's Society. But the word I could not trust him to say. I must have his sign. I whispered:
"You know I do not wish to kill you. I shall never have another happy day if you force me to it. I have no choice. You must yield or die. If you will yield and stand by me rather than against me in what shall follow, choose life by taking your right hand from my wrist and touching my left shoulder. I will not hurt you meanwhile. If you choose death, touch me with your left."
The sweat stood on my forehead in big beads as I waited for his choice. It was soon made. He unlocked his left hand and placed it firmly on my right shoulder.
He had chosen death.
So the man was only a physical coward--or perhaps he had only made a choice of alternatives.
I said slowly and in great agony, "May God have mercy on your soul--and mine!" on which the muscles in my left arm stiffened. The big biceps--an heirloom of my athletic days--thickened up, and I turned my eyes away from the dying face, half hidden by the darkness. His struggles were very terrible, but with my weight upon his lower limbs, and my grasp upon his windpipe, that death-throe was as silent as it was horrible. The end came slowly. I could not bear the horror of it longer. I must finish it and be done with it. I put my right arm under the man's shoulders and raised the upper part of his body from the berth. Then a desperate wrench with my left arm, and there was a dull crack like the snapping of a dry stick. It was over. Rockingham's neck was broken.
I wiped away the bloody froth that oozed from the gaping mouth, and tried to compose decently the contorted figure. I covered the face. Then I started on my last mission, for now I knew the door. I had bought the knowledge dearly, and I meant to use it for my own purpose, careless of what violence might be necessary to accomplish my end.
When I entered Brande's state-room I found the electric light full on. He was seated at a writing-table with his head resting on his arms, which hung crossways over the desk. The sleeper breathed so deeply it was evident that the effect of the morphia was still strong upon him. One hand clutched a folded parchment. His fingers clasped it nervelessly, and I had only to force them open one by one in order to withdraw the manuscript. As I did this, he moaned and moved in his chair. I had no fear of his awaking. My hand shook as I unfolded the parchment which I unconsciously handled as carefully as though the thing itself were as deadly as the destruction which might be wrought by its direction.
To me the whole document was a mass of unintelligible formulae. My rusty university education could make nothing of it. But I could not waste time in trying to solve the puzzle, for I did not know what moment some other visitor might arrive to see how Brande fared. I first examined with a pocket microscope the ink of the manuscript, and then making a scratch with Brande's pen on a page of my note-book, I compared the two. The colours were identical. It was the same ink.
In several places where a narrow space had been left vacant, I put 1 in front of the figures which followed. I had no reason for making this particular alteration, save that the figure 1 is more easily forged than any other, and the forgery is consequently more difficult to detect. My additions, when the ink was dry, could only have been discovered by one who was informed that the document had been tampered with. It was probable that a drawer which stood open with the keys in the lock was the place where Brande kept this paper; where he would look for it on awaking. I locked it in the drawer and put the keys into his pocket.
There was something still to do with the sleeping man, whose brain compassed such marvellous powers. His telepathic faculty must be destroyed. I must keep him seriously ill, without killing him. As long as he remained alive his friends would never question his calculations, and the fiasco which was possible under any circumstances would then be assured. I had with me an Eastern drug, which I had bought from an Indian fakir once in Murzapoor. The man was an impostor, whose tricks did not impose on me. But the drug, however he came by it, was reliable. It was a poison which produced a mild form of cerebritis that dulled but did not deaden the mental powers. It acted almost identically whether administered sub-cutaneously or, of course in a larger dose, internally. I brought it home with the intention of giving it to a friend who was interested in vivisection. I did not think that I myself should be the first and last to experiment with it. It served my purpose well.
The moment I pricked his skin, Brande moved in his seat. My hand was on his throat. He nestled his head down again upon his arms, and drew a deep breath. Had he moved again that breath would have been his last. I had been so wrought upon by what I had already done that night, I would have taken his life without the slightest hesitation, if the sacrifice seemed necessary.
When my operation was over, I left the room and moved silently along the corridor till I came to the ladder leading to the deck. Edith Metford was waiting for me as we had arranged. She was shivering in spite of the awful heat.
"Have you done it?" she whispered.
"I have," I answered, without saying how much I had done. "Now you must retire--and rest easy. The formula won't work. I have put both it and Brande himself out of gear."
"Thank God!" she gasped, and then a sudden faintness came over her. It passed quickly, and as soon as she was sufficiently restored, I begged her to go below. She pleaded that she could not sleep, and asked me to remain with her upon the deck. "It would be absurd to suppose that either of us could sleep this night," she very truly said. On which I was obliged to tell her plainly that she must go below. I had more to do.
"Can I help?" she asked anxiously.
"No. If you could, I would ask you, for you are a brave girl. I have something now to get through which is not woman's work."
"Your work is my work," she answered. "What is it?"
"I have to lower a body overboard without anyone observing me."
There was no time for discussion, so I told her at once, knowing that she would not give way otherwise. She started at my words, but said firmly:
"How will you do that unobserved by the 'watch'? Go down and bring up your--bring it up. I will keep the men employed." She went forward, and I turned again to the companion.
When I got back to Rockingham's cabin I took a sheet of paper and wrote, "Heat--Mad!" making no attempt to imitate his writing. I simply scrawled the words with a rough pen in the hope that they would pass as a message from a man who was hysterical when he wrote them. Then I turned to the berth and took up the body. It was not a pleasant thing to do. But it must be done.
I was a long time reaching the deck, for the arms and legs swung to and fro, and I had to move cautiously lest they should knock against the woodwork I had to pass. I got it safely up and hurried aft with it. Edith, I knew, would contrive to keep the men on watch engaged until I had disposed of my burden. I picked up a coil of rope and made it fast to the dead man's neck. Taking one turn of the rope round a boat-davit, I pushed the thing over the rail. I intended to let go the rope the moment the weight attached to it was safely in the sea, and so lowered away silently, paying out the line without excessive strain owing to the support of the davit round which I had wound it. I had not to wait so long as that, for just as the body was dangling over the foaming wake of the steamer, a little streak of moonlight shot out from behind a bank of cloud and lighted the vessel with a sudden gleam. I was startled by this, and held on, fearing that some watching eye might see my curious movements. For a minute I leaned over the rail and watched the track of the steamer as though I had come on deck for the air. There was a quick rush near the vessel's quarter. Something dark leaped out of the water, and there was a sharp snap--a crunch. The lower limbs were gone in the jaws of a shark. I let go the rope in horror, and the body dropped splashing into that hideous fishing-ground. Sick to death I turned away.
"Get below quickly," Edith Metford said in my ear. "They heard the splash, slight as it was, and are coming this way." Her warning was nearly a sob.
We hurried down the companion as fast as we dared, and listened to the comments of the watch above. They were soon satisfied that nothing of importance had occurred, and resumed their stations.
Before we parted on that horrible night, Edith said in a trembling voice, "You have done your work like a brave man."
"Say rather, like a forger and murderer," I answered.
"No," she maintained. "Many men before you have done much worse in a good cause. You are not a forger. You are a diplomat. You are not a murderer. You are a hero."
But I, being new to this work of slaughter and deception, could only deprecate her sympathy and draw away. I felt that my very presence near her was pollution. I was unclean, and I told her that I was so. Whereupon, without hesitation, she put her arms round my neck, and said clinging closely to me:
"You are not unclean--you are free from guilt. And--Arthur--I will kiss you now."
