Shielding the find with his body so that only Captain Valvick could see, he pulled it up in the sheet and turned it over in his palm. It was a razor, of the straight, old-fashioned variety, and closed; but it had recently been used. Rather larger than the ordinary size, it was an elaborate and delicate piece of craftsmanship with a handle so curiously fashioned that Morgan wiped the blood away to examine it.
The handle was of a wood that resembled ebony. Down one side ran a design picked out in thin silver and white porcelain. At first Morgan took it for an intricate name-plate, until, under cleaning, it became a man's standing figure. The figure was possibly three inches high, and under it was a tiny plate inscribed with the word Sunday.
"Ay know," said Captain Valvick, staring at it. "It iss one of a set of seven, one for every day of de week. Ay haff seen dose before. But what iss dat thing on it, like a man?"
The thin figure, in its silver and white and black, was picked out in a curious striped medieval costume, which 1 recalled to Morgan's mind vague associations with steel-cut engravings out of Dore. Surgeon, surgeon — barber, that was it! There was the razor in the thing's fist. But most ugly and grotesque of all, the head of the figure was subtly like a death's head, and a bandage was across the eyes so that the barber was—
"Blind," said Warren, who was looking over his shoulder. "Put it away, Hank! Put it away. Blind… death and barber… end of the week. Somebody used that, and lost it or left it here. Put it away. Have a drink."
Morgan looked at the evil and smeared design. He looked at the door, then at the white-painted bulkhead in the bunk, the tumbled bedclothes and the spotty brown blanket. Again he tried to picture the girl in the yellow frock lying here under a dim light, while the outside door was opening. So who was the girl, and where was she now, wrapped round in the soaked sheets that were here before? It was five miles to the bottom of the sea. They would never find her body now. Morgan turned round.
"Yes," he said, "the Blind Barber has been here tonight."
9 — More Doubts at Morning
As the hands of the travelling-clock at the head of Morgan's bed pointed to eight-thirty, he was roused out of a heavy slumber by the sound of an unmusical baritone voice singing with all the range of its off-keys. The voice singing, "A Life on the Ocean Wave." It brought nightmares into his doze before he struggled awake. As he opened his eyes, the heartening bray of the breakfast bugle went past in the gangway outside, and he remembered where he was.
Furthermore, it was a heartening morning. His cabin— on the boat-deck — was filled with sunshine, and a warm salt-spiced breeze fluttered the curtain at the open porthole. It was winelike May again, with a reflected glitter of water at the porthole; and the ship's engines churning steadily in a docile sea. He drew a deep breath, feeling a mighty uplift of the heart and a sensual longing for bacon and eggs. Then somebody threw a shoe at him, and he knew Warren was there.