Page:The Magic Carpet Magazine Volume 03 Number 03 (1933-07).djvu/18

 "Believe him?"

"He seems an honest little rat. Damned if I know what to believe!"

"Same here," confessed Cleghorn. "Looks mighty queer, all of it. I don't savvy about Gray, though. He must be somewhere about the ship, Mac."

"He's not. He's supposed to be on duty now, too. Think we'd better make any general search for him?"

"No," said Cleghorn slowly. "No, something's up, Mac, and I don't know what it is. Best lay low and keep your eye peeled. Here, take my gun and keep it on your hip. I've got another in my locker. By the way, look in Adams' cabin for his, will you? He keeps it in his wash-stand drawer, right side. If you find it, bring mine back."

"Right," said Mac, and dropped the automatic into his jacket pocket.

Cleghorn, alone at the break of the bridge, gripped the rail hard and frowned at the sun-glittering water. Something very queer—yes! One at least of those men forward, who had come aboard the previous evening, knew that Rapp was really Peterson. Then, the murder of poor Adams. And now a mysterious disappearance. Charley Gray, the assistant engineer, was a rough old rascal, strong as a horse, with a bitter tongue, but true as steel. How on earth could he have vanished bodily? Such things just were not done. He was no doubt somewhere around the ship, perhaps dead drunk in a corner.

Then Cleghorn found Marie Silva ascending the ladder hastily. She stood before him, flushed, her dark eyes excited and angry.

"There's something horribly wrong here, Cap'n Joe!" she broke out. "My bag was locked, and had a pistol in it. Now it's been cut open—a long gash down one side—and the pistol is gone. Nothing else is missing. Tomkins discovered it himself and called me in to see the cut bag."

As Cleghorn had half anticipated, Macintyre did not return his automatic, for Adams' weapon was clean gone. And so was the second pistol in Cleghorn's locker.

found the mystery still unsolved.

Three things stood out sharply, with puzzling prominence. Charley Gray had simply vanished; he was not aboard the ship. Adams had been murdered, and if Cleghorn suspected the murderer, he said nothing, but buried his chief officer calmly. Then, the disappearing pistols. Some one had raided the officers' cabins; some one had cut open Marie Silva's bag and taken the pistol from it.

Cleghorn found his own futility maddening.

Moved by his own helplessness, he that evening confided in Darby. The other three of Darby's party were having a card game in the mess cabin, Horton was on the bridge, Marie Silva had gone to her own cabin. Cleghorn found Darby in the stern, smoking, looking out at the silvery moonlit wake. He told him bluntly what had happened.

"You've searched up for'ard?"

"Yes," said Cleghorn bitterly. "We've searched everywhere. No sign of Gray. No sign of any pistols."

"Well," and Darby tapped his pocket, "nobody's got mine, anyhow! I dunno what it can mean, for a fact. That Rapp-Peterson thing looks bad. You say one of the men for'ard knew him, eh? Might be those three sharks had hooked me, somehow, but why? No sense to it. We're all four partners. Piracy? Ain't likely. They'd not want this ship.