In my bare feet I made no noise, and slowly made my way forward to see if there was a light in Captain Riggs's room. Before I had gone far I heard a murmur of voices, and then saw a sliver of light from the jamb of a door. There was a conversation going on in the captain's room, but I could not distinguish the voices. I went on to the forward end of the superstructure and discovered a port-hole in the captain's cabin partly open, and by going up three steps of the bridge-ladder I had a partial view of the room.
Captain Riggs was fully dressed, and sat at a shelf which dropped from the wall. He was sorting out papers, and Harris, the mate, was standing over him, talking.
"You must be mistaken, Mr. Harris," I heard the captain say.
"Make me third cook if I be!" exclaimed Harris, who seemed to be in an irritable mood. "I know what I'm talking about, cap'n! I run my thumbnail along the edges of it."
"Sally Ann's black cat, Mr. Harris!"
"All I ask ye to do, cap'n, is come down and have a look at it for yerself. That's what this is all about I'm tellin' ye! We got somethin' on our hands, I tell ye! We've got to do somethin' about it right away or we'll have more trouble. What if the crew smells a rat?"
"You got a little too excited about that murder, Mr. Harris. I'd know all about that. The owners wouldn't send me to sea with such as you say, and say nothing to me, nor the charter party, either. They'd use a liner and about forty men for anything like that. I'm crazy enough now, what with this murder and mess, without getting myself stirred up over anything like that. You better get some sleep. We'll find in the morning that you made a mistake."
"But I had a light on it!" insisted Harris. "It's thar, I tell ye, and I made sure. I don't come botherin' of ye with no cock-and-bull story like this unless I know. I held a bull's-eye light on it and it showed plain as Cape Cod Light. One of them chists got sprung, and I thought maybe I'd made a mistake when I put the light on it, but when I rubbed my thumbnail on it I knew I was right. I know the feel, I tell ye. Every cussed one of 'em is the same, too."
"I tell you, Mr. Harris, I've had tomfoolery enough for one night, and I ain't going down in the hold and dig around in cargo and get the crew suspicious. They are stirred up enough as it is with what's gone on to-night, and I guess that's what ails you."
"Cuss it all, Cap'n Riggs!" exclaimed Harris in exasperation. "Ye ought to know I don't get gallied for a little blood spilled. I slep' in a bunk all one night in the Martha Pillsbury with a man what didn't have any head and never turned a hair. Ye know that old barkentine whaler that Cap'n Peabody sold. Dang it all, cap'n, that is what this man Trego come aboard as he did—that's what he was here fer. It come down at the last minute and he bossed the job of gettin' it aboard.