Inside, Cray was talking swiftly:
“What’d he say? Did he tell you I was blabbing?”
“Blabbing. What talking’s been done—” Drake paused, as if uncertain. “Forget it. A man don’t like to be told he’s like to swing. I’m hot headed. I figured mebbe you’d told him what was in that cablegram—the one about Varnavosk bein’ dead—mebbe more, too. But—”
“Forget it is right.”
Cray was acting strangely. Yesterday he had told the captain that the murderer, supposedly on their ship, must be either Quayle or Drake. Now he seemed to have shifted his views, unless he wished to lull Drake into a state of false security.
“Forget it is right,” he grinned, reaching for the spare headset, already adjusted to fit Drake. “Want to listen in a spell? I’m goin’ out for a breather. If you hear anything funny call me.”
Drake hesitated.
“What you planning to do?”
“Nothing,” Cray answered. “Be a sport. Most men’d get hot if you come ravin’ at ’em; but me, I’m different. You set there. Forget it!”
“I’ll try,” Drake scowled. “If the Old Man says anything about that row with Quayle, you tell him it’s an old score we were settling.”