Cargo of Coffins Read Online Free PDF Page B

position. Get it?”
    “No. Get off the bridge.”
    “You will soon enough. I’m deep, Lars. You ought to know that by this time. Napoleon was a half-wit compared to me.”
    “Listen here, Paco,” said Lars very quietly. “This is my bridge, no matter how I got here. And stewards walk lightly aboard my ships. Now get below.”
    Paco rocked on his heels and his grin grew in impertinence. Then he laughed aloud and turned toward the ladder. He stopped at the top and looked back. He laughed again and clattered down out of sight.
    Lars faced the wind again and watched the changing hues of the sea. But the elation was gone from him now. A nagging, bitter wrath, which had been with him these many years, was blown into its full force.
    He did not like his position. He was too much a man of swift decision and straightforward action to appreciate the sublety of the maze which was enfolding him. He only knew one thing. He had to keep near Paco if he ever wanted to even up the score. And he had to make sure that nothing happened to this girl.
    True, if anything happened to Paco, it was the Penal Colony again for Lars Marlin. If he tried to upset Paco’s game, Paco would risk everything to show Lars up as an escaped convict—he might even try to pin Simpson’s murder on him.
    Something was about to happen. Something was happening this very instant. But Lars knew his best chance lay in waiting. As yet he knew nothing except that Paco had a way to make four million francs. He vowed the grinning Spaniard would never live long enough to spend them.
    Lars hit the rail with a clenched fist. If he could only think of some way to destroy Paco without destroying himself!

CHAPTER FOUR
    Paco’s Strange Illness
    A T eight bells in the evening, Lars was again on duty, relieving First Officer Johnson. Johnson and the other two mates were efficient enough, very average mariners, but it was indicative of their lack of ambition that there was not another master’s ticket aboard the Valiant. They all had little enough to say to Lars. He was a stranger to them and though they could easily see that his seamanship was good, they reserved judgment.
    Lars Marlin’s state of mind was not a calm one and his natural silence, added to this, gave him a reserved air which they mistook for austerity.
    Comfortably plump Johnson gave over the bridge with a salute and the single statement of the course and left. The quartermaster was relieved by the same man who had been steering on Lars’ first trick .
    Lars looked into the binnacle , contacted his lookouts and then went into the wing to lean against the rail and look forward into the velvet warmth of the night.
    Lars had wanted this trick because the Valiant was still close in, crossing the steamer lanes which led to Rio from the north.
    He felt the strangeness of his responsibility. He had, in this command, the lives of these people to protect. But more than that, he could not be certain just how or where Paco would strike.
    He felt very uncertain about Paco in several ways. The amazingly debonair cutthroat had worked himself into the confidence of this entire party. They suspected nothing of his past operations and had no inkling of his present plans, whatever they were.
    Paco’s luck was wonderful. With the utmost carelessness he had committed a “perfect” crime. He would never be brought to book by the Rio authorities for that murder. The audacity of the crime was quite in keeping with Paco’s past operations.
    Simpson had been found in an alley with three inches of steel though his heart. No knife, no clues, no visible reason why Simpson had been killed.
    Facing the police, Paco had been wide-eyed and innocent. Miss Norton’s solid recommendation about Paco had completely blocked any effort on the part of the police to investigate Paco’s past. It was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind that Paco had done the murder. He had grieved realistically, had told Miss Norton gallantly that he would