ow
of the blood until the next day, or that Vail was dead; and that he had
a vague recollection of something white and ghostly that night--he was
not sure where he had seen it.

The failure of their attempt to get rid of the storeroom key was
matched by their failure to smuggle Turner's linen off the ship.
Singleton suspected Turner, and, with the skillful and not over
scrupulous aid of his lawyer, had succeeded in finding in Mrs. Sloane's
trunk the incriminating pieces.

As to the meaning of the keys, file, and club in Singleton's mattress,
I believe the explanation is simple enough. He saw against him a
strong case. He had little money and no influence, while Turner had
both. I have every reason to believe that he hoped to make his escape
before the ship anchored, and was frustrated by my discovery of the
keys and by an extra bolt I put on his door and window.

The murders on the schooner-yacht Ella were solved.

McWhirter went back to his hospital, the day after our struggle,
wearing a strip of plaster over the bridge of his nose and a new air of
importance. The Turners went to New York soon after, and I was alone.
I tried to put Elsa Lee out of my thoughts, as she had gone out of my
life, and, receiving the hoped-for hospital appointment at that time, I
tried to make up by hard work for a happiness that I had not lost
because it had never been mine.

A curious thing has happened to me. I had thought this record
finished, but perhaps--

Turner's health is bad. He and his wife and Miss Lee are going to
Europe. He has asked me to go with him in my professional capacity!

It is more than a year since I have seen her.

The year has brought some changes. Singleton is again a member of the
Turner forces, having signed a contract and a temperance pledge at the
same sitting. Jones is in a hospital for the insane, where in the
daytime he is a cheery old tar with twinkling eyes and a huge mustache,
and where now and then, on Christmas and holidays, I send him a supply
of tobacco. At night he sleeps in a room with opaque glass windows
through which no heavenly signals can penetrate. He will not talk of
his crimes,--not that he so regards them,--but now and then in the
night he wraps the drapery of his couch about him and performs strange
orisons in the little room that is his. And at such times an attendant
watches outside his door.

CHAPTER XXV

THE SEA AGAIN

Once more the swish of spray agai