Gorham puffed at his pipe slowly. Then he rose and went to his portmanteau and fumbled around a little and came back with a bit of soiled, flimsy paper.
“They had this,” he explained. “The wireless man had brought it to the chief and it put them all in a blue funk.” He spread the paper out on his great knee and read it thoughtfully. “Harry sent it as a message while we were making a fresh hitch for the hawser.”
Gorham handed it to me with a gesture, as if to say: “You see what we were confronted with.”
I read that little sheet, written in Harry Owen’s bold script. It was brief. Then I laid it on the table.
“And what did Sheila have to say?” I asked.
“She knew nothing about that message,” he responded. “Nor did she know much about what was going on. I went in to see her several times. She sat in a big chair fastened to the deck in Harry’s cabin and stared at me out of her cold, shallow eyes.”
“Did nobody else go to her?” I inquired. “I’d have thought the chief officer—”
“The chief officer had had enough in the wheelhouse,” Gorham replied. “He came out like a man in a daze; but he did his duty like a man. No idle hands on the Shearwater that night!”
“But what did they make out of that message?” I insisted. “You tell me they went to you as a final resort, to ask you to bring Harry Owen to his proper senses. What did they make out of that wireless he sent?”
Gorham peered at me.