"Watch th' door an' windows!" a seaman cried. "Somebody's gone an' croaked Thedessa."
Accusing eyes glowed in the match's yellow light, and the Ice Pilot felt that he was the centre of suspicion. A hand was raised and a long finger pointed toward him.
He waited until someone lighted the wick of a smashed lamp, then stepping from the locked door he went to the woman and knelt by her side. Rising, he said, "I didn't kill her. I think the piano-player did."
"Maybe she ain't dead," said a voice that Stirling recognized as coming from the sailor.
The waiter took off his apron, closed one eye craftily, and, after a brutal laugh and a sharp glance around the circle of seaman, exclaimed:
"Aw, nobody killed her-she just fell on th' knife!"
Stirling sought for the piano-player who had vanished. He square-set his shoulders, clenched his fists, and cleared his throat.
"I'll go for the police," he said.
The waiter and a seaman grasped his sturdy arms. "Hol' on," they urged.
"Why should I hold on?"