“Will you allow me to leave this room for five minutes?”
“If I may go with you, and if you will come back without protest.”
“You are arbitrary!” she said resentfully. “I only wish to speak to Mr. Turner.”
“Then—if I may wait at the door.”
“I shall not go, under those conditions.”
“Miss Lee,” I said desperately, “surely you must realize the state of affairs. We must trust no one—no one. Every shadowy corner, every closed door, may hold death in its most terrible form.”
“You are right, of course. Will you wait outside? I can dress and be ready in five minutes.”
I went into the main cabin, now bright with the morning sun, which streamed down the forward companionway. The door to Vail’s room across was open, and Williams, working in nervous haste, was putting it in order. Walking up and down, his shrewd eyes keenly alert, Charlie Jones was on guard, revolver in hand. He came over to me at once.
“Turner is moving, in there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the forward cabin. “What are you going to do? Let a drunken sot like that give us orders, and bang us with a belaying pin when we don’t please him?”
“He is the owner. But one thing we can do, Jones. We can keep him from more liquor. Williams!”