“Turner! He has killed some one finally!”
“Hush, for Heaven’s sake! Wilmer has been murdered, Adele—and the captain.”
Mrs. Johns had less control than the other women. She stood for an instant, with a sort of horrible grin on her face. Then she went down on the floor, full length, with a crash. Elsa Lee knelt beside her and slid a pillow under her head.
“Call the maids, Leslie,” she said quietly. “Karen has something for this sort of thing. Tell her to bring it quickly.”
I went the length of the cabin and into the chartroom. The maids’ room was here, on the port-side, and thus aft of Mrs. Turner’s and Miss Lee’s rooms. It had one door only, and two small barred windows, one above each of the two bunks.
I turned on the chart-room lights. At the top of the after companionway the crew had been assembled, and Burns was haranguing them. I knocked at the maids’ door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it an inch or so.
“Karen!” I called—and, receiving no answer: “Mrs. Sloane!” (the stewardess).
I opened the door wide and glanced in. Karen Hansen, the maid, was on the floor, dead. The stewardess, in collapse from terror, was in her bunk, uninjured.
CHAPTER VII.
WE FIND THE AXE
I went to the after companionway and called up to the men to send the first mate down; but Burns came instead.