We picked up a pilot outside the Lewes breakwater a man of few words.
I told him only the outlines of our story, and I believe he half
discredited me at first. God knows, I was not a creditable object.
When I took him aft and showed him the jolly-boat, he realized, at
last, that he was face to face with a great tragedy, and paid it the
tribute of throwing away his cigar.
He suggested our raising the yellow plague flag; and this we did,
with a ready response from the quarantine officer. The quarantine
officer came out in a power-boat, and mounted the ladder; and from
that moment my command of the Ella ceased. Turner, immaculately
dressed, pale, distinguished, member of the yacht club and partner
in the Turner line, met him at the rail, and conducted him, with a
sort of chastened affability, to the cabin.
Exhausted from lack of sleep, terrified with what had gone by and
what was yet to come, unshaven and unkempt, the men gathered on the
forecastle-head and waited.
The conference below lasted perhaps an hour. At the end of that
time the quarantine officer came up and shouted a direction from
below, as a result of which the jolly-boat was cut loose, and,
towed by the tug, taken to the quarantine station. There was an
argument, I believe, between Turner and the officer, as to allowing
us to proceed up the river without waiting for the police. Turner
prevailed, however, and, from the time we hoisted the yellow flag,
we were on our way to the city, a tug panting beside us, urging
the broad and comfortable lines of the old cargo boat to a
semblance of speed.
The quarantine officer, a dapper little man, remained on the boat,
and busied himself officiously, getting the names of the men, peering
at Singleton through his barred window, and expressing disappointment
at my lack of foresight in having the bloodstains cleared away.
"Every stain is a clue, my man, to the trained eye," he chirruped.
"With an axe, too! What a brutal method! Brutal! Where is the axe?"
"Gone," I said patiently. "It was stolen out of the captain's cabin."
He eyed me over his glasses.
"That's very strange," he commented. "No stains, no axe! You
fellows have been mighty careful to destroy the evidence, haven't
you?"
All that long day we made our deliberate progress up the river.
The luggage from the after house was carried up on deck by Adams
and Clarke, and stood waiting for the customhouse.
Turner, his hands behind him, paced the deck hour by hour, his
heavy face colorless. His wife, dark, repressed, with a look of
being always on guard, watched him furtively. Mrs. Johns, dressed
in black, talked to the doctor; and, from the notes he made, I
knew she was telling the story of the tragedy. And here, there,
and everywhere, efficient, normal, and so lovely that it hurt me
to look at her, was Elsa. Williams, the butler, had emerged from
his chrysalis of fright, and was ostentatiously looking after the
family's comfort. No clearer indication could have been given of
the new status of affairs than his changed attitude toward me. He
came up to me, early in the afternoon, and demanded that I wash
down the deck before the women came up.