"That's very strange," he commented. "No stains, no axe! You
fellows have been mighty careful to destroy the evidence, haven't
you?"

All that long day we made our deliberate progress up the river.
The luggage from the after house was carried up on deck by Adams
and Clarke, and stood waiting for the customhouse.

Turner, his hands behind him, paced the deck hour by hour, his
heavy face colorless. His wife, dark, repressed, with a look of
being always on guard, watched him furtively. Mrs. Johns, dressed
in black, talked to the doctor; and, from the notes he made, I
knew she was telling the story of the tragedy. And here, there,
and everywhere, efficient, normal, and so lovely that it hurt me
to look at her, was Elsa. Williams, the butler, had emerged from
his chrysalis of fright, and was ostentatiously looking after the
family's comfort. No clearer indication could have been given of
the new status of affairs than his changed attitude toward me. He
came up to me, early in the afternoon, and demanded that I wash
down the deck before the women came up.

I smiled down at him cheerfully.

"Williams," I said, "you are a coward--a mean, white-livered
coward. You have skulked in the after house, behind women, when
there was man's work to do. If I wash that deck, it will be with
you as a mop."

He blustered something about speaking to Mr. Turner and seeing that
I did the work I was brought on board to do, and, seeing Turner's