Out in the open at last. So this was one of the criminals; the fellow who had tried to melt into the helio room? The eavesdropper? The man who had been in Nina's room? Heaven knows, of all on board, I had least suspected him.
He thought, of course, he had me trapped. But you can't capture an S.S. Man just by holding a gun on him and telling him to put up his hands. Even with my hands up, and the Banning gun on the floor beside me,—I could have pointed my left shoulder at him, drilled him with a stab of heat from the heat-ray embedded in the padded shoulder of my jacket. My right elbow was pressing my side to fire it, with all my body tensed to try and drop under what might have been his answering shot. But I didn't fire. His next words checked me.
"So you're not just a mathematics clerk—a damned murderer here on board! Get up! We're going up to Mackensie."
I stared as his foot kicked at my gun, and he swiftly stooped and picked it up.
"Come on," he added with a rasp. "Climb to your feet, Penelle. We'll see what the Captain has to say about this—"
"That suits me," I murmured. I said nothing more. Docilly I let him shove me in advance of him, up the ladder, along the dim main corridor, up the companionway from the starlit bow deck triangle to the little catwalk bridge in front of the turret.
Fortunately we encountered no one. At his telescope in the peak of the bow, the forward lookout turned and gazed at us curiously. The dim control turret was empty, eerie with the spots of fluorescent light from its banks of instruments. The controls were locked for the vessel's present course. The door oval to the adjacent chart room was open. Mackensie was alone in there, plotting the X-87's future course on a chart. He stared blankly as the grim young Wilson shoved me in upon him.
"Caught this damned fellow in the magnet-room, Captain. He's killed Bentley. By God—something queer's in the air this voyage. Bentley murdered—"
Mackensie's first stare of startled amusement as I was shoved captive before him, faded into horror. His heavy, square jaw dropped.