THE DEAD MAN IN THE PASSAGE
The Kut Sang was dropping downstream as I locked my stateroom and made my way to the upper-deck, partly to get a last look at Manila, but more for the purpose of considering what I should do in the matter of telling Captain Riggs that I suspected Meeker was not a missionary.
In the last few minutes before the departure of the vessel I had suddenly been struck with the idea that Meeker was more than a mere spy who mistook me for one of his own ilk. This feeling was vague and formless, and I did not know how to begin to put together the various elements that seemed to connect some sort of a well-defined plot.
No sooner would I set about putting certain facts together than I would laugh at myself for manufacturing a mystery; and, after I had tried to shake off the impression that the Kut Sang and all of us in her were more than mere travellers and seamen, the fantastic ideas insisted upon running through my head.
Through this formless mass of queer events of the day, Meeker and the little red-headed man kept to the front of my fancies, and with them the steamer Kut Sang.
Why, I asked myself, had Meeker made such strenuous efforts to keep me from taking passage in the vessel? It seemed absurd to suppose that he had acted as he did, simply because he disliked the idea of having me for a fellow passenger.
Then there was Trego and Meeker's appearance at the bank, "seeking alms," and the further fact that Trego was in the Kut Sang. It seemed to be more than a coincidence that the two of them should meet as they did.
I even found something queer in the killing of the boatswain of the Kut Sang at the Flagship Bar, and began to wonder if Petrak did not have a hand in the murder, even though he was so ready with a denial when I spoke to him about it.
As I stood at the rail of the hurricane-deck, and thought of these things, Petrak came up from the fore-deck and stood at the foot of the ladder leading to the bridge, where I could hear Captain Riggs pacing to and fro and speaking through the trap to the helmsman about the course.
The little red-headed man grinned at me and set to work polishing the knob of the wheel-house door, and not until that minute did I realize that he had come along with us in the Kut Sang. And he likewise reminded me at once that it was I who had brought him aboard.