"To the Ella?"
She was feeling in her pocketbook, and now she held out to me an
envelope addressed in a sprawling hand to Mr. Turner at his hotel.
"Am I to open it?"
"Please."
I unfolded a sheet of ruled note-paper of the most ordinary variety.
It had been opened and laid flat, and on it, in black ink, was a
crude drawing of the deck of the Ella, as one would look down on it
from aloft. Here and there were small crosses in red ink, and,
overlying it all from bow to stern, a red axe. Around the border,
not written, but printed in childish letters, were the words: "NOT
YET. HA, HA." In a corner was a drawing of a gallows, or what
passes in the everyday mind for a gallows, and in the opposite corner
an open book.
"You see," she said, "it was mailed downtown late this afternoon.
The hotel got it at seven o'clock. Marshall wanted to get a
detective, but I thought of you. I knew--you knew the boat, and
then--you had said--"
"Anything in all the world that I can do to help you, I will do,"
I said, looking at her. And the thing that I could not keep out
of my eyes made her drop hers.
"Sweet little document!" said McWhirter, looking over my shoulder.
"Sent by some one with a nice disposition. What do the crosses
mark?"
"The location of the bodies when found," I explained--"these three.
This looks like the place where Burns lay unconscious. That one
near the rail I don't know about, nor this by the mainmast."
"We thought they might mark places, clues, perhaps, that had been
overlooked. The whole--the whole document is a taunt, isn't it?
The scaffold, and the axe, and 'not yet'; a piece of bravado!"
"Right you are," said McWhirter admiringly. "A little escape of
glee from somebody who's laughing too soon. One-thirty--it will
soon be the proper hour for something to happen on the Ella, won't
it? If that was sent by some member of the crew--and it looks like
it; they are loose to-day--the quicker we follow it up, the better,
if there's anything to follow."
"We thought if you would go early in the morning, before any of
them make an excuse to go back on board--"
"We will go right away; but, please--don't build too much on this.
It's a good possibility, that's all. Will the watchman let us on
board?"
"We thought of that. Here is a note to him from Marshall, and--
will you do us one more kindness?"
"I will."
"Then--if you should find anything, bring it to us; to the police;
later, if you must, but to us first."