"Very well."
She turned back into the main cabin; but she paused at the storeroom
door.
"It is curious that you heard nothing," she said slowly. "You slept
with this door open, didn't you?"
"I was locked in."
She stooped quickly and looked at the lock.
"You broke it open?"
"Partly, at the last. I heard--" I stopped. I did not want to
tell her what I had heard. But she knew.
"You heard--Karen, when she screamed?"
"Yes. I was aroused before that,--I do not know how,--and found
I was locked in. I thought it might be a joke--forecastle hands
are fond of joking, and they resented my being brought here to sleep.
I took out some of the screws with my knife, and--then I broke the
door."
"You saw no one?"
"It was dark; I saw and heard no one."
"But, surely--the man at the wheel--"
"Hush," I warned her; "he is there. He heard something, but the
helmsman cannot leave the wheel."
She was stooping to the lock again.
"You are sure it was locked?"
"The bolt is still shot." I showed her.
"Then--where is the key?"
"The key!"
"Certainly. Find the key, and you will find the man who locked you
in."
"Unless," I reminded her, "it flew out when I broke the lock."
"In that case, it will be on the floor."
But an exhaustive search of the cabin floor discovered no key.
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