The Phantom Death, etc.

by William Clark Russell

Another bawled, “We’ll do everything that’s right, sir, but don’t let the guffies reckon that there’s any bloody cut-throats amongst us.”

“Look for your man in the ’tween-decks,” shouted a third.

A whole volley of this sort of thing was fired off by the crew. Captain Gordon spoke to them quietly, and then turned to his own men; his manner was gentlemanly and dignified. The full spirit of the British officer was expressed in him as he stood speaking, with one hand grasping the brass rail.

This time the murder was one of real bloodshed; there should be a clue, therefore, to hunt after, were it but a fragment of stained apparel, or an unowned knife with marks of human butchery upon it. The sailors roared to me to follow them forward and watch them overhaul their forecastle. But nothing came of it. As before, every chest, every bunk, every hammock was ransacked, and now the seamen handled one another’s clothes. But it was all to no purpose, and I came out of the forecastle hot as fire and sick at heart, and went aft with my report to Mr. Barlow.

They had not been idle at the cuddy end of the ship. It was owing to the suggestion of Lieutenant Venables that two convicts, who had been thief-takers in their day, hounds of justice, afterwards cast, the one for housebreaking, the other for “smashing:” it was owing to the subaltern that these two men were brought out of the prisoners’ quarters and put to the task (guarded by a couple of soldiers) of discovering the murderer. One was a thick-set, beetle-browed man, the other slim, with a cast eye and a fixed leering smile. They spent the whole day in this hunt. They searched every cabin aft, questioned the soldiers who had been on sentry duty at the cuddy door during the night, explored every box, locker, whatever was to be met with in that way. They tumbled my clothes about in my cabin and obliged me to undress myself; but then they served Gordon, Venables, and Barlow so. They swore the murders were not the work of a convict; indeed, it was perfectly certain no prisoner could by any possibility break out of the ’tween-decks during the night when the gates were secured and the sentries posted.

The two convict-searchers then went to the forecastle, but the Jacks there, on learning the object of the fellows’ visit, said that no blooming oakum-pickers would be allowed to pass through the forescuttle; they had overhauled one another and all that their sea-parlour contained, and the second officer who had looked on had gone away satisfied; and a powerful sailor acting as the crews’ spokesman swore with a huge oath that if the two prisoners attempted to enter the forecastle the men would lash them back to back and heave them overboard.

Captain Gordon asked that the hold should be again thoroughly searched. I put in at this, and said the boatswain and I and others had overhauled the ship’s inside from fore to after peak.

“No good in walking round and round a job,” exclaimed Mr. Barlow. “What’s been done is done, gentlemen. There’s no murderer under hatches. How’s he to come up unseen? The cuddy-door sentry guards the steerage-hatch; the main-hatch and forecastle are watched by your men.”

There was nothing more to be done. The body of the doctor was dropped over the side, and it was now for Captain Gordon and the subaltern to see after the prisoners. A feeling of consternation took possession of us all. Every man looked at his fellows with more or less of distrust. Who was to be the next victim, and who was the fiend that was doing these murders? Where did he lurk? Which of all the people you saw moving about the ship as soldiers, sailors, prisoners was he? And what was his object?