“Damn you! That’s an order. Anything else comes, leave it in code.”
Cray went white and was about to speak. Then he checked himself. He walked away; he was thinking.
“Him, too—the Old Man. Wonder what he knows that the world don’t, that he’s afraid of the world learning? I’ll, maybe, find out. I’ll see. Tonight, maybe. He might work in. Who knows?”
The captain, staring at the retreating back was staring at words that floated before his eyes.
For that message had read:
All ships. All ships. All ships.
Varnavosk necklace stolen. Suspect at sea.
Watch passengers. Stand by for more.—Scotland Yard.
The urgency of the thrice repeated “All ships”—that stabbed him, made him wince. Trouble, trouble in large consignments, coming out of the air. Other messages, and the field of search might narrow, perhaps, till it centered on an old tramp wallowing across the Western Ocean; till some swift offshore craft might draw alongside, and some officious jackanapes would climb up the ladder and ask fool questions about eight new faces aboard the Cora.
There was trouble on the ship that said, “Hush.”
The captain walked stiffly across the bridge and down to his cabin. Cray, on the boat deck, watched him go.
“Yes, we’ll use you, my bucko,” said Cray. “Now I wonder—” and he stared down on the well deck, forward, where the little Liverpool passenger sprawled on a hatch cover.