“There’s the —— rum, and there’s the —— glass; and now don’t you stir out of that —— chair,” he said, with a liberal use of his favourite adjective. Then, much to my relief, he betook himself up the stairs and on to the deck, where I could hear him muttering and swearing to himself as he unlashed the dinghy.
That I was excited and eager, the reader may believe; but though, the moment Hughes’ back was turned, my eyes were swivelling in their sockets and sweeping the sides of the cabin with the intentness of a search-light, I did not think it advisable to leave my seat and set about the search in earnest until he had actually left the hulk. But no sooner was he well out of the way than I was at work, with every sense as poised and ready to pounce as a hovering hawk.
Not often in my life have I experienced so bitter a disappointment. I had hoped great things of this visit to the “Cuban Queen;” but though I searched every part of the hulk, including the hold, which, as there happened at that moment to be no dynamite on board, was not secured, I found no evidence as to the sex of Hughes’ visitor. To describe the fruitless search in detail is unnecessary. Whoever “Mrs. Hughes” might be, she had evidently taken pains to insure that every trace of her presence should be removed. I could not even tell whether she had shared the sleeping bunk with Hughes, for the coverings had been stripped off, leaving the bare boards without so much as a pillow, and the entire cabin had apparently been turned out and scrubbed from end to end immediately before or after her departure.
The visit from which I hoped so much had proved a lamentable failure. I was not one penny the wiser and three pounds poorer for my trouble, not to speak of having got a chill, of which I should think myself cheaply rid if it ended in nothing worse than a cold.
“The scheming rascal,” I said to myself. “I might have known he wouldn’t have let me down here if he hadn’t been aware that every sign of his having a companion on board had been cleared away. I suppose the secret of it all is that he has got word that the inspector’s coming to pay the hulks a visit shortly, and he’s packed off Mrs. Hughes until it’s all over. Very likely she set things straight herself before she went. All his pretended reluctance to go for my clothes and to leave me here was put on that he might bleed me to the tune of another pound. I should only be serving him out in his own coin if I gave information that he’s had a woman on board.
“If it was a woman? It’s very odd, though, that she hasn’t left some little sign of her sex behind her—a hairpin, a button, or a bonnet-pin. There are only short hairs (Hughes’ evidently) on the brush and comb, but she may have had her own and have taken them with her. But anyhow I might have expected to find, if not some hair-combings, at least a stray hair or two which would have let me into the secret, and the neighbourhood of the mirror’s the most likely place to find them.”
But, search as I would, not a single hair could I find, and in another half-minute the near dip of oars announced Hughes’ return. As I heard him jerk the sculls from the rowlocks, and the grinding of the dinghy against the ship’s side, I took another despairing look around in the hopes of lighting on something that had hitherto escaped my notice. One object after another was hastily lifted, investigated, and as hastily put down, but always with the same result. As I heard Hughes’ step upon the deck my eyes fell upon a little square of soap which had fallen to the floor and had escaped the notice—probably of Hughes as well as of myself—on account of its being hidden by the corner of an oilskin which was hanging from the wall. This oilskin I had taken down to overhaul, and it was when replacing it that I found the soap, which I saw, when I lifted it, was of better quality than one would expect to find in such a place. It was still damp from recent usage, and as I turned it over two or three hairs came off from the under side and adhered to my hand. As I looked at them I gave a low, long, but almost silent, whistle. They were beyond question the bristles of a shaving brush which was fast going to pieces from long service. And that I was not mistaken in so thinking was proved by the fact that the under side of the soap still bore the marks made by the sweep of the brush over the surface, and that the lather upon it was damp.
Some one had been shaving, and that quite recently, on the “Cuban Queen.” It could not be Hughes, for he wore a thick, full beard. If the person who passed as “Mrs. Hughes” really was a woman she was not likely to have recourse to a razor to enhance her charms. If, on the other hand, that person was a man, who was personating a woman for purposes of disguise, a razor would be an absolute necessity among his toilet requisites.
CHAPTER XI
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
We often read of a novelist “taking the reader into his confidence,” but at this point of my narrative I should like to reverse the process, and ask my readers to take me into theirs. Were I telling my story by word of mouth instead of by pen, I should lay a respectful hand, my dear madam, upon your arm, or hook a detaining forefinger, my dear sir, into your button-hole, and, leading you aside for a few minutes, should put the matter to you somewhat in this way: “From the fact of your following my record thus far, you are presumably interested in detective stories, and have no doubt read many narratives of the sort. You know the detectives who have been drawn—or rather created—by Edgar Allan Poe, and in more recent times by Dr. Conan Doyle and Mr. Arthur Morrison—detectives who unravel for us, link by link, in the most astounding and convincing manner, and by some original method of reasoning, an otherwise inexplicable mystery or crime.