I sprang out of my bunk and clothed myself quickly. The morning had fully broken: it was another brilliant day and the wind gone, and my cabin porthole glowed in a disc of splendour against the sea under the sun. I followed the mate to the captain’s cabin. The poor man lay with his face dark with strangulation: his features were convulsed and distorted, his eyes were starting from their sockets, and froth and blood were on his lips. Dr. Saunders stood beside the body: it seems that the mate had roused him before coming to me.
“Is he dead, sir?” inquired Mr. Barlow.
“Ay; he has been throttled in his sleep. This must be the work of one of your crew,” said Dr. Saunders, speaking low and deliberately, and sending a professional glance under a frown full of thought and wonder at the corpse.
“Why one of the crew,” cried Mr. Barlow, “in a shipload of convicts? With ten soldiers and a sergeant besides?”
“Convicts!” exclaimed the doctor. “You’ll not wish me to believe, sir, that the guard is in collusion with the prisoners? And you’ll have to prove that to persuade me this is the work of a convict.”
Mr. Barlow retorted; whilst they argued the dreadful matter I looked about me, but witnessed nothing to speak to a struggle. Through the large open stern window the silver-blue sea was sheeting to the horizon, and the cabin was full of the light glowing upon the water. I was very well acquainted with the furniture of the captain’s cabin, which was right aft on the starboard side; everything was in its place. The doctor exposed the throat of the body, and showed us certain livid marks, which he said signified that the captain had been killed through compression of the windpipe by a pair of giant-strong hands. Powerful indeed the murderer must have been to destroy so vigorous a frame as Captain Wickham’s in silence, suffocating him as he lay, with never a sound to penetrate to the adjacent cabins where Gordon slept and Dr. Saunders and Lieutenant Venables.
I roused those officers; they viewed the body, and then the lot of us went into the cuddy, where we held a council. Dr. Saunders again asserted that the murder must have been done by one of the sailors—at all events by some one belonging to the ship. The mate would not hear of this. Yes, if there was nobody but the ship’s company in the vessel, then indeed the murderer would have to be sought for in the forecastle.
Captain Gordon said that he knew his men; he’d stake his life upon their dutifulness and loyalty.
“If the murderer is one of my people,” said Dr. Saunders, “he passed the sentry to enter the cuddy. How was that managed unless the sentry permitted him to pass?”
“The sentry might have been dozing,” said I.