After Whistler had recovered himself, swabbing his face with a handkerchief, he was weakly jubilant. He had the
Mir of one who had endured blessed martyrdom in the arena, and suddenly sees ahead of him not the cruel countenance of Nero Ahenobarbus, but a cheering St. Peter at the head of a celestial brass band. The captain drew himself up. His face subtly altered. Taking his receipt for the emerald, he tore it into small pieces and blew them away. Over the battered face, with its plum-coloured eye, there spread a benevolent smile.
"My friends," he said, placing an arm around the shoulders of Peggy and Morgan, "I don't know who returned that ruddy elephant, and I don't care. Whoever it was, he did me a good turn that Hector Whistler will never forget. I could forgive him anything, I could almost forgive him" — momentarily the face darkened, but only for a moment— "this. Yes, even the foul blow, foully struck when I wasn't looking. If old Sturton doesn't care — My friends, to-morrow night, our last night at sea, is the captain's dinner. My friends, I will give such a dinner as has never been seen on blue water since the days of Francis Drake. Champagne shall bubble at every table, and every lady shall wear a corsage. And this, my friends, reminds me. I think, I say I think that I have in my locker at this moment a bottle of Pol Roger 1915. If it will now please you to come with me and accept the hospitality of an old, rough sea-dog—"
"But, hang it, Captain," said Morgan, "the difficulties aren't one-tenth over. Not a tenth. There's the little matter of a murder… "
"Murder?" inquired the old, rough sea-dog genially. "What murder, lad?"
Mysterious are the ways of psychology.
"But, Captain Whistler!" cried Peggy, "that poor girl… down in the cabin beside Curt's… that awful razor…"
"Ah, yes, my dear!" agreed the captain tolerantly benevolent. "Yes, of course. You mean that little joke of yours. Of course. Yes. Ha-ha-ha!"
"But—"
"Now, my dear," the other pursued, with radiant kindliness, "you listen to me. Come! You take a bit of advice from a rough old seafaring man old enough to be your father. From the first I've liked the cut of your jib, Miss Glenn, and the swing of your spanker-boom. Aye, lassie, I might have had a daughter like you if the Mrs. W. that was hadn't been dead and gone these twenty years, rest her sweet soul. It was in a sou'wester off Cape Hatteras, I mind… But you don't want to hear of that. This is my advice, lassie. When a murder's been committed, in my experience, there's somebody dead," Captain Whistler pointed out, with irrefutable logic. "And if somebody's dead, that person can't be breathing heaven's free air on my deck. There's nobody missing, and nobody's complained, which they generally do in case of a murder. So— come, now; until somebody complains, I'm a free man. Just between ourselves, wasn't somebody having you on?"