When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead: A Thrilling Detective Story

by Mrs. George Corbett

Late that evening the steward of the “Merry Maid” was sitting in his berth, writing.

The accommodation at his disposal was of the most meagre kind. It included neither desk nor table, for which, by-the-bye, the tiny place would not have had room if they had been available. By way of a substitute, however, his washstand, which was of the sort commonly considered quite luxurious enough for a seafarer, was fitted with a deal top, and upon this he had spread the wherewithal to write a long letter. He sat upon his campstool and applied himself very diligently to his work, covering sheet after sheet with minute writing. Actually, he was writing a very detailed account of all that had transpired after he left home to enter upon the duties of an amateur detective. Having made his budget of news as complete and circumstantial as possible, he folded the papers upon which he had written into a long, thin roll. Then he reached out of the drawer under his bunk an empty wine bottle. He had evidently prepared it for the occasion, for it was quite clean and dry. Into this receptacle he thrust his roll of paper. Then he corked the bottle, and wired the cork firmly down, tying over all a piece of washleather, in order to prevent the possibility of the entrance of sea-water into the bottle. His next proceeding was to open the port, and to lower the bottle through it into the water, through which the “Merry Maid” was running at the rate of ten knots an hour—not at all bad for an ordinary ocean tramp, as the class of vessels to which the “Merry Maid” belonged is often called.

“There,” he thought, “I feel easier after taking that precaution. One never knows what may happen, and there is too much at stake to permit it to depend entirely on my safety. I wonder what makes me feel so uneasy. I don’t think I have done anything to betray myself. And yet I have a strange foreboding of coming ill. Shall I ever see old England again? Just now I have my doubts. Throwing that bottle into the sea was the first outcome of the new feeling of dread which has come over me, and even if ill comes to me before we reach Malta, there is the chance of Harley being rescued after all, for the first person who picks the bottle up will examine and report upon its contents. I once read of a castaway bottle floating about two years—sent hither and thither, caught first by one current, and then by another—before it was finally washed ashore. God grant that Harley may not have to wait two years for his deliverance.”

While he was thus musing in a depressed mood that struck him as uncanny and unaccountable, considering the information that he had gained, the steward of the “Merry Maid” prepared himself for bed, for he had to rise early next morning. Had he but cast his tired eyes up to the little peephole which overlooked the next berth, he would have noticed something which would have alarmed him. The hole being unprotected, the light from his oil lamp had betrayed him.

The captain had retired for the night, but found sleep to be in too fitful and fleetsome a mood to benefit him. The fact that he was richer by at least a thousand pounds than he was a day or two ago had set his imagination going, and he was in fancy entering into all sorts of plans for doubling his capital. Towards one o’clock, he was dozing off, when a slight noise awoke him. Some people are easily aroused by any unexpected sound. Captain Cochrane was one of these people. There is hardly any time so quiet at sea in a merchant ship as one o’clock in the morning. All hands not on watch are in bed, and those who are on watch content themselves with doing their duty. Supplementary caperings or promenadings are deferred until a more seasonable time.

This being the case, we can understand how it was that Captain Cochrane was on the alert at once when the sound of a splash in the water close to his port fell on his startled ears. For a moment he lay wondering whether someone had fallen overboard or not. Then, just as he came to the conclusion that the splash was hardly loud enough to account for a cat falling into the water, he noticed something else that surprised him.

Just opposite his face, as he sat up in his bunk, there was a small round patch of light. He had no light burning in his berth. Whence came this illumination of a spot to which no light for which he could account could penetrate? He must find out. With Captain Cochrane, to resolve was usually to do. It did not take him long to discover William Trace’s secret.

A hole had been deliberately cut in the partition. Such an act would not be done without a purpose. What was that purpose? A very cursory inspection, conducted in the quietest possible manner, convinced the captain that he had come upon a means of espionage. He himself had been the object of supervision. It was time to reverse the situation, and this was accordingly done. The blood of William Trace would, of a surety, have run cold if he could have seen the baleful look in the eye which was now peering down at him as he unconsciously betrayed his dual identity by divesting himself of the thick wig and beard, which he found hot and uncomfortable.

Chancing, as he vaulted into his bunk, to glance at his means of inspecting the next berth, he noticed, to his horror, that the card-board disc was not in its place. To repair the omission was the work of a moment. But he could not so soon recover from the shock which his blunder had caused him. The sense of foreboding which had visited him in the earlier part of the night attacked him with redoubled force, but amid all his doubts of his own personal safety, inspired by his conviction of the villainous character of the two men with whom he had to deal, there rose a sense of thankfulness that Harley’s rescue no longer depended entirely upon his brother’s personal safety.

The replacing of the card-board disc prevented Captain Cochrane from seeing into the steward’s berth. But this fact did not trouble him. The hole had served his purpose, and he had seen enough to convince him that he had brought to sea as ship’s steward a man who was neither more nor less than a spy. A spy, moreover, who had found it necessary to cloak his identity by an elaborate disguise.