There I was with that stuff in the lazarette and who knew what moment some gink or another would give the show away and the police would be aboard. I wasn’t thinking of myself so much as Buck, and after him I was thinking of his wife and wishing I had her aboard to drown her.
But worry as much as I liked, I couldn’t see a way out; the only way was to break him off from her and get him away, for this was only the beginning of things and I knew it would end in perdition for him. She’d managed to get some power over him with those mulberry eyes of hers, and how to loose it was beyond me.
I slept aboard that night and somewhere getting along for morning, I sat up in my bunk with a plan full made in my head. I must have been thinking it out in my sleep, or maybe it was the Almighty put it into my mind, but it was a peach. Question was, could I work it?
First thing I did was to make a dive for the lazarette and get those opium tins out; getting them on deck I dumped them one by one, and every splash I said to myself: “There goes a bit of that damn woman.” It was just before sun up and there was nobody to see.
“Now,” I says to myself, “the old Greyhound’s a clean ship again and Buck will be a clean man before dark if I have to break the laundry up and her on top of it.”
Getting on for breakfast time I sent Taute ashore for some things and did the cooking myself, then, towards noon, I rowed ashore and took the ferry for ’Frisco.
I was as full of nerves as a barber’s cat. It wasn’t what I was going to do that rattled me, but the knowing that if I didn’t pull it off, Buck would be ruined for life.
When I got to the laundry I couldn’t go in. I walked up and down the street saying to myself: “Bill, you’ve gotta do it; no use hanging in irons, you’ve got old Buck to think of. Make yourself think what you’re going to say is true, now or never, in you go, give her the harpoon.”
In I goes. The head woman said they were upstairs, and up I went.
They’d finished their dinner and Buck was smoking a cigar, the woman was still at the table, peeling an apple.