CHAPTER IV
Peter turned over the log-book and the wireless-house to Dale, a few
minutes before midnight.
"Everything's cleared up. The static is worse, and KPH may want you to
relay a message or two to Honolulu. If you have trouble, let me know."
"Yes, yes," replied Dale, looking over his shoulder nervously. "I
will. Thanks."
Peter left him to the mercies of the static. As he descended the iron
ladder to the promenade-deck, he imagined he saw some one moving
underneath him. The figure, whoever or whatever it was, slid around
the white wall and vanished as his foot felt the deck. He hastened to
follow.
As he stepped into the light a low, sibilant whisper reached him. At
the cross-corridor doorway he was in time to see the flicker of a
vanishing gray garment and a sandaled foot on a naked ankle flash over
the vestibule wave-check. He shook open the door and followed.
A vertical stripe of yellow light cleaved the dark of the corridor as a
door was quietly shut. He heard the faint, distant click of a
door-latch. Counting the entrances to that one, and sure that he had
made no mistake, he rapped. The near-by clank of the engine-room well
was the reply. He tried the handle. It was immovable. He struck a
match. It was stateroom forty-four.
Peter went to the purser's office. Light rippled through the wrinkled
green, round window, as he had hoped. He tapped lightly, and a voice
bade him to enter.
Blanchard, the purser, dwarfed, perpetually stoop-shouldered, looked up
from a clump of cargo reports and blinked through convex, thick, steel
spectacles at his interrupter. His eyes were red and dim with a
gray-blue, uncertain definition which always reminded Peter of oysters.
Blanchard had been purser of the _Vandalia_ for thirteen years, and
Peter knew that the man possessed the garrulous habits of the oyster as
well.
"Well, well!" observed Blanchard in the crisp, brittle accents of
senility; "so you're back again, eh? Well, well, well." There was no
emphasis laid on the words. They were all struck from the same piece
of ancient metal.
"Here I am!" agreed Peter with mild enthusiasm. "The bad penny!"
"Ha, ha! The bad penny returns!" The exclamation died in a futile
cough. "What are you prowlin' around ship this time o' night for, eh?
After three bells, Sparks. Time for respectable people to be fast
asleep. Or, are you leavin' the radio unwatched?"
"I'm looking for information." Peter drew himself by stiffened arms
upon the purser's single bunk.
"Lookin' for information?" The thin voice suffered the quavery
attrition of surprise. "Funny place to be lookin' for that commodity.
What's on your mind? Eh?"
"Chinamen!"
Blanchard tilted the rusted spectacles to his forehead, and the
motionless gray orbs seemed to glint with a half-dead light.
"Chinamen? What Chinamen?" The spectacles slid back into place.
"One, a woman, came aboard as we were pulling out this afternoon. Who
is she? Where is she? Where's she from? Where's she going? Who's
with her? That's what I want to clear up."
"Is that all?" squeaked Blanchard. His wrinkled, dried lips were
struggling as if with indecision. A veiled, a thinly veiled conflict
of emotions apparently was taking place behind that ancient gray mask.
"What--what for?" was the final outcome in a hesitant half-whisper.
"My private information," smiled Peter. "Just curious, that's all.
Didn't mean to pry open any dark secrets." He made as if to go.
"Sparks! Don't be in a hurry. I'm not so busy."
"Well?"
"What's botherin' you? Maybe I could straighten you out."
"Who are the occupants of stateroom forty-four?" Peter replied.
Again the expression shifted like water smitten by an evil wind.
"Forty-four!" The words were mild explosions.
A long cardboard sheet with blue and red lines was produced from a
noiselessly opened drawer.
"The passenger list. We shall see." Blanchard's red, shiny forefinger
clawed down the column of names, halting at the numeral forty-four.
The space was blank. "You see?"
"Empty?"
"Empty." A restrained note of triumph was unquestionably evident in
the purser's cracked voice.
"I'll bother you with just one more question. What is Len Yang?"
A look of doubt, of incredulity bordering upon feeble indignation,
settled upon the serrated countenance. But Blanchard only shook his
head as if he did not comprehend.
Peter slipped down from the bunk. "Guess I'll take a turn on deck, if
the fog's lifted, and roll in. G'night, purser."
Blanchard started to say something, evidently thought better of it, and
retrieved his pen. As he dipped the fine point into the red ink by
mistake he flung another frown over his shoulder. The wireless man
lingered on the threshold, swinging the door tentatively.
"G'night, Sparks."