The Dark Star

But Neeland, a clever observer of externals, was no reader of character. The passenger list never seemed to confirm any conclusions he arrived at concerning any of the passengers on the Volhynia. A gentleman he mistook for an overfed broker turned out to be a popular clergyman with outdoor proclivities; a slim, poetic-looking youth who carried a copy of “Words and Wind” about the deck travelled for the Gold Leaf Lard Company.

Taking them all in all, Neeland concluded that they were as harmless a collection of reconcentrados as he had ever observed; and he was strongly tempted to leave the box in his locked stateroom.

He decided to do so one afternoon after luncheon, and, lugging his box, started to return to his stateroom with that intention, instead of 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 a white serge skirt vanishing into the stateroom opposite to his, and heard the door close and the noise of a key turned quickly.

His steward, being questioned on the first day out, had told him that this stateroom was occupied by an invalid gentleman travelling alone, who preferred to remain there instead of trusting to his crutches on a temperamental deck.

Neeland, passing the closed and curtained door, wondered whether the invalid had made a hit, or whether he had a relative aboard who wore a white serge skirt, white stockings and shoes, and was further endowed with agreeable ankles.

He fitted his key to his door, turned it, withdrew the key to pocket it; and immediately became aware that the end of the key was sticky.

He entered the stateroom, however, and bolted the door, then he sat down on his sofa and examined his fingers and his door key attentively. There was wax sticking to both.

When he had fully digested this fact he wiped and pocketed his key and cast a rather vacant look around the little stateroom. And immediately his eye was arrested by a white object lying on the carpet between the bed 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, he put it in his pocket and began an uneasy tour of his room.

If it had been entered and ransacked, everything had been replaced exactly as he had left it, as well as he could remember. Nothing excepting this handkerchief and the wax on the key indicated intrusion; nothing, apparently, had been disturbed; and yet there was the 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 his steward.

The man came – a cockney, dense as his native fog – who maintained that nobody could have entered the stateroom without his knowledge or the knowledge 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 of West Indian blood in her, denied entering his stateroom. Shown the handkerchief and invited to sniff it, she professed utter ignorance concerning it, assured him that no lady in her section used that perfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of other sections on the chance of their identifying the perfume or the handkerchief.

“All right,” said Neeland; “take it. But bring it back. And here’s a sovereign. 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 door again and said to the steward:

“Keep an eye on my door. I am positive that somebody has taken a wax impression of the keyhole. What I said to that stewardess also holds good 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 newly minted 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 understand that 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. Find out 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 white shoes and stockings?”

“No, sir, not as I knows of.”

“Oh! Suppose you step across to his door, knock, and ask him if he rang. 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 corridor and 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 man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage creak open a little way, then close again, stealthily.

He possessed his soul in patience, believing that Mr. Hawks or his fair friend in the white skirt had merely taken a preliminary survey of the passage and perhaps also of his closed door. But the vigil was vain; the door did not reopen; no sound came from the stateroom across the passageway.

To make certain that the owner of the white shoes and stockings did not leave that stateroom without his knowledge, he opened his door with many precautions and left it on the crack, stretching a rubber band from knob to bolt, so that the wind from the open port in the passage should not blow it shut. Then, drawing his curtain, he sat down to wait.