"Nor would I," I said softly after a pause. We exchanged glances. He resumed his sextant.
"The only thing to be done," he said, "is to keep a watch. We shall know shortly. Excuse me, doctor, I must take the bearings."
Routine must go on aboard ship, but this cool attitude, reasonable as it was, was not to my taste in my condition. Things moved as smoothly as before; the watch came and went, and the bells tolled regularly; but with the knowledge that I had that something evil was brewing, I fretted and worried and grew out of temper. The powers that were responsible for the safety of the ship and her good conduct were indifferent to the danger, or else incredulous. I alone knew how incompetent was the captain to secure his vessel, and the attitude of "Mr. Morland" filled me with contempt. It was very well for a royal prince in his palace, surrounded by his guard, servitors, and dependants, to assume an autocratic attitude, and take things for granted. But it was another case when he had deliberately abandoned that security and launched himself upon a romantic, not to say quixotic, career, in which nothing was certain. Yet upon the promenade deck the Prince and his sister took their constitutionals as if nothing had happened or would happen, and, as before, Mlle. Trebizond joined them, and her laugh floated down to us, musical and clear. Would nothing make them understand the peril in which they stood?
In all this vexation of spirit I still found time to be amused by Lane. The affair of Adams was, necessarily, public property, and the inquiry promised by Day was in process. Adams was gone, gone overboard, as I knew, and I could have put my hand on his murderer, if I could not also identify the man who had made an attempt to be mine. Lane, on the rumour of the night's proceedings reaching him, sought me, and complained. It was ludicrous, but it was characteristic of the man, as I had come to know him.
"Where do I come in?" he asked plaintively. "You might have given me a call, doctor."
"I wish I had been sleeping as sound as you," I said.
"Oh, hang it, man, it's dull enough on this beastly boat. If there's any row on, I'm in it."
"Do you think you guess how big a row you may be on?" I asked him.
"Oh, well, it's infernally dull," he grumbled, which, when you come to think of it, was a surprising point of view.
The Adams inquiry ended in what must necessarily be called an open verdict. The evidence of the boatswain and Pentecost, one of the hands, assured that. Both testified to the fact that they were awakened in the still hours by a splash, and one thought it was accompanied by a cry, but was not sure. At any rate, the boatswain was sufficiently aroused to make search, and to discover that Adams was missing, and subsequently that the port-hole was open. He had then, as he declared, reported the matter at once to the officer of the watch, who was Holgate. Holgate came to the captain's cabin, as has been related. There was no discrepancy to be noted in the stories of the two men, nor was there any inherent improbability in their tale. So, as I have said, though no verdict was given, the verdict might be considered as open, and we had got no further. The captain, however, took one precaution, for the key of the ammunition chest was put in Barraclough's charge. What others did I know not, but I slept with a loaded revolver under my pillow.