The cook, taking down the dinner on Friday evening, reported Mr. Turner up and about and partly dressed.  The heat was frightful.  All day we had had a following breeze, and it had been necessary to lengthen the towing-rope, dropping the jolly-boat well behind us.  The men, saying little or nothing, dozed under their canvas; the helmsman drooped at the wheel.  Under our feet the boards sent up simmering heat waves, and the brasses were too hot to touch.

At four o’clock Elsa Lee came on deck, and spoke to me for the first time in several days.  She started when she saw me, and no wonder.  In the frenzied caution of the day after the crimes, I had flung every razor overboard, and the result was as villainous a set of men as I have ever seen.

“Have you been ill again?” she asked.

I put my hand to my chin.  “Not ill,” I said; “merely unshaven.”

“But you are pale, and your eyes are sunk in your head.”

“We are very short-handed and—­no one has slept much.”

“Or eaten at all, I imagine,” she said.  “When do we get in?”

“I can hardly say.  With this wind, perhaps Tuesday.”

“Where?”

“Philadelphia.”

“You intend to turn the yacht over to the police?”

“Yes, Miss Lee.”

“Every one on it?”

“That is up to the police.  They will probably not hold the women.  You will be released, I imagine, on your own recognizance.”

“And—­Mr. Turner?”

“He will have to take his luck with the rest of us.”

She asked me no further questions, but switched at once to what had brought her on deck.

“The cabin is unbearable,” she said.  “We are willing to take the risk of opening the after companion door.”

But I could not allow this, and I tried to explain my reasons.  The crew were quartered there, for one; for the other, whether they were willing to take the risk or not, I would not open it without placing a guard there, and we had no one to spare for the duty.  I suggested that they use the part of the deck reserved for them, where it was fairly cool under the awning; and, after a dispute below, they agreed to this.  Turner, very weak, came up the few steps slowly, but refused my proffered help.  A little later, he called me from the rail and offered me a cigar.  The change in him was startling.

We took advantage of their being on deck to open the windows and air the after house.  But all were securely locked and barred before they went below again.  It was the first time they had all been on deck together since the night of the 11th.  It was a different crowd of people that sat there, looking over the rail and speaking in monosyllables:  no bridge, no glasses clinking with ice, no elaborate toilets and carefully dressed hair, no flash of jewels, no light laughter following one of poor Vail’s sallies.