Chapter XLVII: An Attack in the Night

The doctor was in his surgery when the bottle was brought in, and Bill told him of his suspicions.

“We needn’t experiment on anything living,” said the officer, as he poured a little of the water into a test tube. “I pretty well know the contents of the glass in Bullott’s cabin.”

He named a drug which was unknown to Holbrook.

“And I hope it will remain unknown to the world,” said the doctor. “It is aconitine, one of the swiftest and deadliest poisons known. The tiniest dose, the fraction of a grain, causes death in a few hours. In fact, it is so powerful and deadly a drug that no safe dose is given in the British Pharmacopœia, while the nearest step that has been taken to mark its value as a poisoning agent is to name the dose that can be given with safety as the two-hundredth part of a grain.”

He lifted up the bottle.

“Yes, that’s sugar,” he pointed to a filmy substance at the bottom. “Aconitine can only be given when it is triturated with some gritty powder.”

Bill waited while he made the rough test.

“Aconitine,” said the doctor briefly, as he put the bubbling test tube into a stand. “Now, who on earth is distributing that poison?”

“Is it difficult to come by?”

“It would be humanly impossible for you to get as much as a grain from any chemist. In fact, few chemists stock it--in proof of which I have none on board this ship, though this is the best-equipped ocean-going surgery I’ve ever seen.”

The steward had been dismissed after the doctor had taken the test in hand, and was waiting hopefully in the alleyway for news of the experiment and for that praise which he had every reason to think was his due. Bill compromised by slipping him a couple of bills as he passed, refusing to satisfy his curiosity.

“I’ll take it kindly if you’ll keep an eye on my cabin and see who goes in and comes out,” he said. “There’ll be fifty dollars for you at the end of the voyage, and another hundred if you catch the man who doped the water.”

He had only slept very fitfully that afternoon, and realised, after he had taken up his post on the landing that it would require all his resolution to remain awake until the early hours of the morning. In his watch of the night before he had learned a few things which he did not know; he had made friends with one of the stewards who were on duty all night, with the consequence that he was served at intervals with strong, almost nauseatingly strong coffee, and this kept him alert until he heard four bells strike and corrected his watch.

Whether the bells had some somniferous effect, or whether the mere movement to examine his watch had set in motion those toxins which produce slumber, no sooner had the last vibration of the bell droned beyond his limit of hearing, than he found himself nodding. Twice he woke with a start, under the impression that somebody was coming down the stairs from the upper deck. He looked up and could have sworn he saw a head suddenly withdrawn from the rail of the upper landing. Should he go up and see for himself? If he did, he would be deserting his post.

The port side doorway was open. D. deck corresponded with a lower promenade deck, and he would have loved to have gone out and freshened himself with the cold winds of the morning. But he had set himself a task from which he could not deviate, and stolidly he sat, his eyes glued to the door of Betty Carew’s state-room.

He heard a slight movement above and, looking up quickly, this time saw a face. A wild-looking brute of a man, with unkempt hair; a face which had not touched razor for weeks was glaring down at him, the hands clasping the polished rails were big and grimy. Even from where he stood, Bill could see the broken nails.

For a second they looked eye to eye, and then the man’s head vanished. Bill was on his feet and one foot on the stair when he was recalled to his self-imposed duty by the sound of a tapping noise. It seemed to come from Betty’s cabin. He crept along and listened; the noise was not repeated for a while, and then:

_Tap, tap!_

It was farther along, near to Stone’s door.

He tried the handle; it was locked. Then he rapped on the panel; there was no answer.

“Are you all right, Mr. Stone?” he called.

He heard the sound of a crash inside the cabin, and a voice crying:

“Help!”

Bracing himself against the bulwarks, he put up his foot and kicked at the lock, but the door had been obviously bolted on the inside. And now hands were clawing at the panel. He heard the slow movement of a bolt being drawn, and as he pushed open the door, Stone fell into his arms. His face was covered with blood, his silk pyjama jacket was clawed into rags.

“For God’s sake what has happened?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know,” said the other dully. “See if Betty is all right.”

Bill turned on the lights and ran into the private saloon. On the opposite side was the door which opened into Betty’s room, and this was unlocked. He flung open the door and she sat up in bed in alarm.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her hand at her throat. “Oh, is it you, Billy? What is wrong?”

“Will you come in to Mr. Stone?”

She stopped only to pull on a dressing-gown and was with him almost as soon as he had reached the wounded man. Stone was lying on his bed, recovering his breath.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “No, I’m not hurt very badly. I wakened with somebody’s hands at my throat. They were jerking me down into the pillow, and I think I should have died if someone hadn’t interrupted--I suppose it was you?”

“Who attacked you?”

“I don’t know. There seemed to be two of them, but perhaps it was only one. I can’t tell you; the cabin was in darkness.”

“That is the way they came,” Bill pointed to the porthole, larger than was to be found in most cabins. It was wide open and swinging.

He searched the floor, and presently uttered an exclamation. Underneath the bed was a short sheath-knife, the handle well worn, the edge stained red with newly shed blood.

There was a roughly-scrawled monogram on the handle, evidently cut by an amateur who had wearied of his work before it was completed. Bill carried the knife to the light and examined the markings.

“There is an ‘H’ here, and half of another ‘H.’ Who is H.H.?”

“Nobody I know,” said Stone, shaking his head. “I thought you were being a little romantic when you decided to sit up all night, Holbrook. In future you’ll sleep in the spare cabin; I’ll have a bed made for you.”

“What do you mean?” asked Betty, wide-eyed. “‘Romantic to sit up’? Have you been sitting up at night, Mr. Holbrook?”

“I’ve been just loafing around,” he said.

“He’s been sitting up on the landing outside, because he thought there was some danger to you from Laffin. There is no sense in pretending that he isn’t on board.”

“Dr. Laffin here!” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “I knew it, I knew it!”

“Holbrook saw him the first night out, and he’s been keeping observation on the cabin ever since.”

“That is why you slept in the afternoon, of course?” She dropped her cool hand on Bill’s. “You’re a dear!”

Had Bill suddenly found himself invested with the Congressional Medal and the Victoria Cross, he could not have experienced a more poignant emotion.

“You are a dear,” she nodded, “and I never dreamt--does Clive know?”

“No, I didn’t tell Clive,” said Stone. “It was at Holbrook’s suggestion. He thought that Clive would wish to share his watch.”

“And I wanted all the kudos myself,” said Bill. “I’m strong for kudos. It is the only word of Greek I know.”

The steward, who had come at last to the repeated ringing of the bell, went in search of the doctor, and by the time the medico came, Betty was dressed.

“I’m going on the deck. Will you come with me?”

Bill was almost used to the aspect of the dawn, but to Betty the first loveliness of daybreak came with a magic spell.

“The deck chairs are not put out,” he warned her, when she was looking around for somewhere to sit.

He found a deck chair, opened it and spread his overcoat upon it, but she stopped him.

“I want to know something,” she said, “and you’ve got to tell me the truth, Billy--you don’t mind my calling you Billy? I feel I know you ever so well, and I can’t understand why I didn’t call you Billy from the first.”

“You didn’t want to call me Billy at first,” said Holbrook grimly. “I don’t know what variety of language a lady uses when she tries to describe somebody very objectionable, but I guess you wished to call me that!”

“I’m calling you Billy now. Where is the doctor?”

“I haven’t the least idea. I’m certain that he is somewhere around.”

“Does the captain know that he’s on the ship?”

“The captain has been told, yes.”

“The ship has been searched?”

“Yes--from keel to--whatever they search it to, I can’t think of the word,” said Bill. “Nauticalisms were never my specialty.”

She bit her lip thoughtfully and sat for a long time.

“I knew the doctor would be here. He is going to America, of course?”

“I think so.”

“I told Clive he would come, but Clive wouldn’t believe it. But perhaps he knew?”

“He knew, but I don’t think he wanted to tell you. You were the victim of a very small and very innocent conspiracy of silence.”

“I knew. He could not be on the same ship or in the same house and I wouldn’t know.”

It was only by the clasp of her hands one in the other that he realised the intensity of her horror and hatred of the man she called husband.

“I have lived all my life under his shadow,” she said. “He has been an oppression to every joy, a cloud to every ray of sunlight that has made my path a little more pleasant. To escape him I have toured almost every town in England, playing in the worst kind of musical comedies, enduring you’ll never guess how many insults, living in lodgings that I don’t want to think about. They were hateful, but I preferred them to the house in Camden Road. Why is he on the ship?”

“You have already suggested that he’s going to America.”

She shook her head.

“It isn’t that. Whatever happens, will happen on board the _Escorial_. The climax is coming here”--she pointed to the deck. “When do we reach New York?”

“On Friday?”

“Three more days,” she said in despair, “almost four! Mr. Billy Holbrook”--she laid her hand on his--“it was wonderful of you to guard me. Will you go on doing it?”

He nodded, finding a difficulty in speaking.

“Your uncle suggested I should use the spare room in your suite,” he said, when he had recovered his voice.

“I don’t want you to do that; I don’t want anybody to sleep; I don’t think I shall sleep either. Why have all the passengers been asked to hand their revolvers to the purser?”

“It is a new American law,” he said in surprise. “Our people are always jumping in quick with new laws. I suppose there’s been an epidemic of hold-ups.…”

“Billy,” she said quietly, “there is no such law.”

“But the purser had a wireless----”

“I don’t care what the purser has had, there is no such law compelling passengers to surrender their revolvers. If there was a wireless, it was a fake, and its object is to disarm the men on the ship.”