Death in the Middle Watch (16 page)

It took Carolus a good deal of protestation before he was finally taken to John Moore's office, and it must have been nearly twelve before he was sitting there, supplied with the invariable—and at that time not particularly welcome—cup of tea.

“Television's to blame for this,” said Carolus indicating his cupper. “And not only ‘Z Cars' either. I've never seen so much tea consumed in my life as BBC policemen in plays have to swallow.”

“Get on with your story,” said Moore good-humouredly. “I suppose it is a story?”

“It is. Yes. But first find out if an arrest has been made at Heathrow. An attempt to hijack a plane for Tangier.”

John Moore put the required demands in motion.

“What's this?”

“A man called Darwin,” said Carolus. “And a girl called Rita Latour.”

“Intending to hijack a Morocco-bound plane?”

“No, no, no. Are they arrested?”

John Moore listened.

“Yes,” he said at last, “ten minutes ago. They both had automatics in their bags. How did you know that?”

“Because I put them there.”

“You mean they had no intention of hijacking the plane?”

“Certainly not.”

“They were perfectly innocent people, in other words?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You'd better get on with your story, Carolus.”

“I will. But take extra precautions with Darwin, will you, John? I don't want him to get away, even to Tangier.”

“I've already done that. Now will you go ahead? I can guess what's coming. A mass of circumstantial assumptions, leading us to find out whether there's anything in them or not.”

“Yes. Up to a point,” agreed Carolus. “It was all guesswork at first. But what you've just heard from the airport will be pretty conclusive when it's sorted out.”

“Please, Carolus! The story! How does it start?”

“With a man and woman—like most stories. Not in the Garden of Eden, but on what was meant to be next best thing to it—a holiday cruise. Do you know anything about a man named Porteous? You will. He runs an organization called Summertime Cruises. The name of the firm is quoted from its own slogan—‘Where we go it's always summer.' On one of these a year ago an attractive middle-aged woman met an attractive middle-aged man. I accept the definition of ‘attractive' from those who profess to know. I can't say how accurate it is. At any rate, their attractions worked. They became attracted to each other. The only trouble was that the woman had a husband and a very rich one. So the two of them decided to do away with him.”

John Moore repeated the last words in chorus with Carolus. “I could match this beginning with an old tale,” he quoted from
As You Like It
.

“I know,” said Carolus. “There's nothing new in the world, certainly not in crime. And for this first episode I admit I haven't got the remotest vestige of proof. I can only tell you that a man named Darwin met a woman named Cynthia Travers on a cruise and that the woman's husband, Tom Travers, a wealthy bookmaker, died of a heart attack shortly afterwards. The ship's doctor, a Pakistani who suffered from chronic seasickness, wrote a certificate and the man was buried at sea by his wife's request.”

“That's circumstantial all right,” said John Moore. “And I suppose they came back to England, got married and were unhappy ever after?”

“Right, but before that we come on the first novelty in this case. A Mephistopheles called Leacock. What is more, a maritime Mephistopheles, a deckhand. How far Leacock was concerned in the first murder, or believed murder, or whether he came by chance on some proof of it, we shall never know now. What we do know is that it was enough to enable him to blackmail the man Darwin, if not the woman.”

“I see. A serpent in the Garden.”

“And a very dangerous one. I think the plot that follows is more than half his. Darwin may have been a willing partner and his claim to have been in love with Cynthia Travers, the widow of Tom Travers whom he made his wife, was obviously exaggerated, perhaps phony altogether. At any rate, he worked out a way with Leacock to murder her without, as they thought, any great risk to themselves.

“The plan was that Darwin, having made sure that Cynthia inherited all Tom's money, thus becoming a very rich woman even after death duties were paid, should suggest a sentimental return to the
Summer Queen
for a cruise which would be more or less a repetition of the one on which they had met. Darwin would then have a business appointment which would keep him from starting the cruise with his wife, but would promise to fly out to Lisbon, the first port of call, to join her. All this worked smoothly, or would have done if a lunatic named Medlow had not started sending anonymous letters to the cruise organizer, the man Porteous, which caused him to call me in, so that I became what is known in the jargon of this form of travel a ‘cruiser,' along with Mrs Darwin and the rest and met the man Leacock on the first night out.

“The plan, a simple one, was for Darwin to come aboard on the night before the ship sailed and take up his quarters in one of the lifeboats. Only after it was too late did I remember how a ship on which I travelled had unwittingly and unknowingly carried a stowaway from Barcelona to Cadiz in a
lifeboat. He had lived on the ship's biscuits which are stored for emergencies in every lifeboat and he came out of his hiding place quite perkily. If I had thought of that, it might have saved Cynthia Darwin's life, but I console myself by remembering that she had certainly collaborated in the murder of her first husband.

“But the scheme went wrong, as such schemes often do, fortunately perhaps. On the first night out Darwin told Leacock that he could not stand being shut up in a lifeboat a moment longer and Leacock let him out on deck for a breather. No one was about except a Mrs Grahame-Willows who had been on the cruise a year before. Darwin was convinced he'd been seen, if not recognized, so that he and Leacock had to improvise. In actual fact, Mrs Grahame-Willows had only glimpsed him turning a corner and had not recognized him at all. Improvisation is always a tricky business, since it means a departure from, the original plan, and what they cooked up was not a wise proceeding at all. They argued that the ‘extra passenger' must go overboard so that a search would not be made for a stowaway. Something was thrown down: a raincoat, jacket and shoes were left on deck and Leacock shouted ‘Man Overboard!' loud enough to attract the attention not only of Captain Scorer who was on the Bridge, but also of the Owner, as we may as well call Porteous. I got in on their conference, much to the annoyance of at least two of them, and realized how much Porteous's determination to keep anything from the passengers ‘for fear of spoiling their enjoyment' would aid any mischief that might be going on.

“Beyond being pretty certain that the ‘Man Overboard' story was a fake, I formed no conclusions at this time.

“But the next night something happened which was more melodramatic and silly. Darwin decided that he must let his wife know he was on board. What story he meant to tell her
to explain his hiding in a lifeboat, I don't know, but Leacock found out which cabin had been allotted to her. Then Darwin (with a beard, if you please), slipped on a jacket taken from a peg of one of the stewards, and went down.

“‘Imagine his surprise,' as the storytellers say, when he entered the cabin and found not his wife but Mrs Grahame-Willows sitting up in bed. They stared at each other and it seemed that the lady was hypnotized into silence and Darwin was able to escape. I imagine, however, that Leacock gave Mrs Darwin the necessary warning that Darwin was on board, since during the next night while the ship was in the Tagus, the woman was not only not surprised when Darwin came to her cabin, but opened the door for him to come in and strangle her.”

“That's what you think, Carolus?”

“There's more to come. But I'm pretty certain of all that. Cynthia Darwin's strangled body was found by an old lover of hers called Runwell. He gave the alarm too late since Darwin had already gone ashore, but you can probably prove that by checking with Interpol in Lisbon. On the last call of the
Summer Queen
, Leacock had bribed a man called Costa Neves to come out to the ship at night while she lay in the Tagus and take Darwin off. Costa Neves was a clerk in the agent's office so he could do this without raising too many questions either on board or ashore, but he had two boatmen who will probably break down under questioning.”

“That would be conclusive. you think?”

“With all the rest of it, yes. Anyhow that's not my job. I simply tell you that Darwin was out at the airport bright and early to mix with the passengers of the plane coming from London, and so be ‘met arriving' by Costa Neves sent by the ship's Purser. After that it was all what we seamen call plain sailing.”

“You seamen don't explain how Darwin took the news of his own murder of his wife,” John Moore said.

“Very convincingly. He's a clever actor. But he could not appear on the passenger list of the plane for the very simple reason that neither he, nor anyone like him, travelled on it. Another point for you to check.”

“Quite. What next?”

“Next Leacock got drunk as he frequently did and was indiscreet enough to have one hell of an argument with Darwin on the night before we reached Gibraltar. Perhaps he wanted paying off in advance. I heard a little of that argument. Leacock was too drunk to give any reliable indication of its nature but I'm pretty sure he was blackmailing Darwin. And what happened later in Tunis helps to confirm it.”

“What happened later in Tunis?”

“Leacock was murdered,” said Carolus simply. “He went ashore in Tunis regularly every trip and patronized the same brothel. Darwin, like everyone else, was aware of this, since Leacock made no secret of it. All Darwin had to do was to fly out to Tunis and, posing as another sailor, pick a quarrel with him. By keeping sober and preparing his strokes he was sure of ridding himself of Leacock and his blackmail forever. I actually saw the body of Leacock when Darwin had finished with it. And the Tunis police are doubtless trying to identify the ‘fellow seafaring man' who is supposed to have done it and perhaps blaming one of the British
matelots
who were in the town that night.”

“So that, you think, winds it all up nicely?”

“Yes, John. Of course you'll have to do a bit of confirmation here and there before you charge Darwin …”

“That's an understatement. I suppose it's why you managed to put him in our hands now?”

“Yes. He thought he was in the clear in London. I must say I was rather afraid that he would get word from someone on board that it was I who had found Leacock's body and
might suspect him, but I think I managed to avoid this. He had a girl on the cruise cabling to him all the way home, but you've no idea how rumours fly on a cruise like that and they helped me to confuse the issue. I'm sure he had no idea he was suspected till I called on him yesterday and practically told him so. I wanted him to make a bolt for it. You people take so much convincing.”

“If your remote and remarkable theory has any relation with the truth, Carolus, it will be the only case I remember in. which the guilty came by their own punishment. Cynthia Travers was murdered when she had collaborated, you say, in the murder of her husband, and Leacock was murdered for planning it.”

“Yes. And now Darwin. Fifteen years at least, I should say, for the two murders.”

“Sentences are unpredictable,” said John Moore, “but I should think at least he must be cursing himself for waiting for the blonde instead of getting away!”

“Why Tangier, I wonder?” said Carolus.

“There's no extradition agreement with Morocco,” John Moore told him.

“A lot that would help!” said Carolus. “You know the procedure perfectly well. There's no extradition agreement— it's much simpler than that. If the British police want a man back the Moroccans simply arrest him, tell him he's not wanted and put him on the Gibraltar ferry. When it comes to Gibraltar, which is still English, he's arrested and put on a plane for London. No need for an extradition agreement!”

“There's one weak point in your reasoning though, Carolus. If Darwin flew out to Tunis on the night before the
Summer Queen
came into port there, his name would be on the list of flight passengers and unless he had a duplicate passport under another name it will be too easy.”

“He had,” said Carolus, smiling. “Quite another name. He must have got it years before when he could afford to be funny. I checked with the airline this morning.”

“Why? What other name?”

Carolus grinned,

“Thomas Huxley,” he said and left John Moore to realize what had amused him.