Singing in the Shrouds (17 page)

He disengaged her arms. “You’re in clover,” he said. “Here’s your medical adviser.”

She bolted into Tim’s arms and Alleyn ran down the deck.

He switched on the overhead lights and followed round the centrecastle. He looked up and down companionways, along hatch combings, behind piles of folded chairs and into recesses. He knew, as he hunted, he was too late. He found nothing but the old blankness of a ship’s decks at night. On the excuse that he had lost his pocketbook with his passport and letters of credit, he aroused all the men, including Mr. Cuddy. Dale was still dressed and in his sitting-room. The others were in pyjamas and varying degress of ill temper. He told Father Jourdain, briefly, what had happened and arranged that they would go, with Tim, to the captain.

Then he returned to Brigid’s chair. Her pearls were scattered on the deck and in the loose seat. He collected them and thought at first that otherwise he had drawn a blank. But at the last he found, clinging to the back of the chair, discoloured and crushed, a scrap of something which, when he took it to the light, declared itself plainly enough. It was a tiny fragment of a flower petal.

It still retained, very faintly, the scent of hyacinth.

“Now,” Alleyn demanded, standing over Captain Bannerman. “
Now
do you believe this murderer’s on board? Do you?”

But as he said it he knew he was up against the unassailable opponent: the elderly man who has made up his mind and is temperamentally incapable of admitting he has made it up the wrong way.

“I’ll be damned if I do,” said Captain Bannerman.

“I am appalled to hear you say so.”

The captain swallowed the end of his drink and clapped the glass down on the table. He looked from Alleyn to Father Jourdain, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “You’ve got this blasted notion into your heads and every footling little thing that takes place you make out is something to do with it.
What
takes place? Little Miss Brigid is sitting all alone in her deck-chair. Some chap comes up and puts his hands on her shoulders. Playful, like. And what’s unnatural in that? By gum, I wouldn’t blame—” He pulled himself up, turned a darker shade of brick red and continued, “On your own statement, she’s got ideas into her head about these murders. Natural enough, I daresay, seeing how the lot of you can’t let the matter alone but never stop talking about it. She’s startled, like, and jumps up and runs away. Again — natural enough. But you come blustering up here and try to tell me she was nigh-on murdered. You won’t get anywhere with me, that road. Someone’s got to hang on to his common sense in this ship and, by gum, that’s going to be the master.”

Father Jourdain said, “But it’s not the one incident, it’s the whole sequence, as Alleyn has shown us only too clearly. An embarkation paper in the hand of the girl on the wharf. The incident of the doll. The fact that singing was heard. The Peeping Tom at Miss Carmichael’s porthole. Now this. What man among us, knowing these crimes are in all our minds, would play such a trick on her?”

“And what man among you would murder her — tell me that!”

Tim had been sitting with his head between his hands. He now looked up and said, “Sir, even if you do think there’s nothing in it, surely there can be no harm in taking every possible precaution—?”

“What the hell have you all been doing if you haven’t been taking precautions? Haven’t I said just that, all along? Didn’t I”—he pointed his stubby finger at Alleyn—“get them all jabbering about alibis because you asked me to? Haven’t I found out for you that the whole boiling went ashore the night we sailed, never mind if my own deckhand thought I was balmy? Haven’t I given out there’s an undesirable character in my ship’s company, which there isn’t, and ordered the ladies to lock their doors? What the suffering cats more could I have done? Tell me that!”

Alleyn said instantly, “You could, you know, do something to ensure that there’s no more wandering about deserted decks at night in Spanish dresses.”

“I’ve told you. I won’t have any interference with the rights of the individual in my ship.”

“Will you let me say something unofficially about it?”

“No.”

“Will you consider a complete showdown? Will you tell the passengers who I am and why I’m here? It’ll mean no arrest, of course,” Alleyn said, “but with the kind of threat that I believe hangs over this ship I’m prepared to admit defeat. Will you do this?”

“No.”

“You realize that tomorrow is the night when, according to the considered opinion of experts, this man may be expected to go into action again?”

“He’s not aboard my ship.”

“And that Miss Carmichael,” Father Jourdain intervened, “naturally will speak of her fears to the other ladies.”

Tim said, “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Alleyn said. “She’s not going to talk about it. She agrees that it might lead to a panic. She’s a courageous child.”

“She’s been given a shock,” Tim said angrily to the captain, “that may very easily have extremely serious results. I can’t allow—”

“Dr. Makepiece, you’ll be good enough to recollect you have signed on as a member of my ship’s company.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The captain stared resentfully about him, made a petulant ejaculation and roared out, “Damn it, you can tell her to stay in bed all day tomorrow and the next day too, can’t you? Suffering from shock? All right. That gets
her
out of the way, doesn’t it? Where is she now?”

“I’ve given her a Nembutal. She’s asleep in bed. The door’s locked and I’ve got the key.”

“Well, keep it and let her stay there. The steward can take her meals. Unless you think
he’s
the sex monster,” said the captain with an angry laugh.

“Not in the sense you mean,” Alleyn said.

“That’s enough of that!” the captain shouted.

“Where,” Father Jourdain asked wearily, “is Mrs. Dillington-Blick?”

“In bed,” the captain said at once, and added in a hurry, “She left Dale’s suite when I did. I saw her to her cabin.”

“They do lock their doors, don’t they?”

“She did,” said the captain morosely.

Father Jourdain got up. “If I may be excused,” he said. “It’s very late. Past midnight.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said and he also rose. “It’s February the fourteenth. Good-night, Captain Bannerman.”

He had a brief session with Father Jourdain and Tim. The latter was in a rage. “That
bloody
old man,” he kept saying. “Did you ever know such a
bloody
old man!”

“All right, all right,” Alleyn said. “We’ll just have to go on under our own steam. The suggestion, by the way, to keep Miss Carmichael in bed for twenty-four hours has its points.”

Tim said grandly that he’d consider it. Father Jourdain asked if they were to do anything about the other women. Could they not emphasize that as Brigid had had an unpleasant experience it might be as well if the ladies were particularly careful not to wander about the deck at night without an escort.

Alleyn said, “We’ve done that already. But think a minute. Suppose one of them chose the wrong escort.”

“You know, it’s an extraordinary thing,” Father Jourdain said after a moment, “but I keep forgetting it’s one of us. I almost believe in the legend of the unsavoury deckhand.”

“I think it might be a good idea if you suggest a four of bridge or canasta. Mrs. Dillington-Blick plays both, doesn’t she? Get Mrs. Cuddy and Miss Abbott to come in. Or if Dale and the other men will play you might get two fours going. Makepiece will look after Miss Carmichael.”

“What’ll you do?” Tim asked.

“I?” Alleyn asked. “Look on. Look round. Just look. Of course they may refuse to play. In which case we’ll have to use our wits, Heaven help us, and improvise. In the meantime, you probably both want to go to bed.”

“And you, no doubt,” said Father Jourdain.

“Oh,” Alleyn said, “I’m an owl by habit. See you in the morning. Good-night.”

He was indeed trained to put up with long stretches of sleeplessness and faced the rest of the short night with equanimity. He changed into slacks, a dark shirt and rope-soled shoes and then began a systematic beat. Into the deserted lounge. Out on to the well deck, past the little verandah where the two chaise longues stood deserted. Round the hatch, and then to the cabin quarters and their two covered decks.

The portholes were all open. He listened outside each of them. The first cabin, facing aft and to the starboard side, was Mr. Merryman’s. It appeared to be in darkness, but after a moment he saw that a blue point glowed somewhere inside. It was the little night light above the bed. Alleyn stood near the porthole and was just able to make out Mr. Merryman’s tousled head on the pillow. Next came the doorway into the passage bisecting the cabin-quarters and then further along on the starboard side was Mr. McAngus, who could be heard whistling in his sleep. The Cuddys, in the adjoining cabin, the last on the starboard side, snored antiphonally. He turned left and moved along the forward face of the block, past Miss Abbott’s dark and silent cabin and then on to Father Jourdain’s. His light still shone and as the porthole was uncovered Alleyn thought he would have a word with him.

He looked in. Father Jourdain was on his knees before a crucifix, his joined hands pressed edgeways to his lips. Alleyn turned away and walked on to the “suite.” Dale’s light was still up in his sitting-room. Alleyn stood a little to one side of the forward porthole. The curtain across it fluttered and blew out. He caught a brief glimpse of Dale in brilliant pyjamas with a glass in his hand. He turned left past Brigid’s porthole with its carefully drawn curtain and then moved aft to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s cabin. Her light too was still on. He paused with his back to the bulkhead and close to her porthole and became aware of a rhythmic slapping noise and a faint whiff of some aromatic scent. “She’s coping with her neckline,” he thought.

He moved on past the darkened lounge. He had completed his round and was back at Mr. Merryman’s cabin.

He approached the iron ladder leading to the forward well deck and climbed down it. When he had reached the bottom he waited for a moment in the shadow of the centrecastle. On his left was the door through which the figure in the Spanish dress had come on Friday night. It led into a narrow passage by the chief steward’s quarters. Above him towered the centrecastle. He knew if he walked out into the moonlight, the second officer, keeping his watch far above on the bridge, would see him. He did walk out. His shadow, black as ink, splayed across the deck and up the hatch combing.

On the fo’castle two bells sounded. Alleyn watched the seaman who had rung them come down and cross the deck towards him.

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night, sir,” the man replied and sounded surprised.

Alleyn said, “I thought I’d go up into the bows and see if I could find a cap-full of cool air.”

“That’s right, sir. A bit fresher up there.”

The man passed him and disappeared into shadow. Alleyn climbed up to the fo’castle and stood in the bows. For a moment or two he faced the emptiness of the night. Beneath him, in a pother of phosphorescence, the waters were divided. “There is nothing more lonely in the world,” he thought, “than a ship at sea.”

He turned and looked at the ship, purposeful and throbbing with her own life. Up on — the bridge he could see the second officer. He waved with a broad gesture of his arm and after a moment the second officer replied, slightly, perhaps ironically.

Alleyn returned to the lower deck. As he climbed down the ladder, a door beneath him, leading into the seamen’s quarters in the fo’castle, opened and somebody came out. Alleyn looked down over his shoulder. The newcomer, barefooted and clad only in pyjama trousers, moved out, seemed to sense that he was observed and stopped short.

It was Dennis. When he saw Alleyn he made as if to return.

Alleyn said, “You keep late hours, steward.”

“Oh, it’s
you,
Mr. Broderick. You quite startled me. Yes,
don’t
I? I’ve been playing poker with the boys,” Dennis explained. “Fancy you being up there, sir, at this time of night.”

Alleyn completed his descent. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “It’s the heat, I suppose.”

Dennis giggled. “I
know
. Isn’t it terrific!”

He edged away slightly.

“What’s it like in your part of the world?” Alleyn asked. “Where are your quarters?”

“I’m in the glory-hole, sir. Down below. It’s
frightful
.”

“All the same, I fancy it’s healthier indoors.”

Dennis said nothing.

“You want to be careful what you wear in the tropics. Particularly at night.”

Dennis looked at his plump torso and smirked.

Alleyn waited for a moment and then said, “Well, I shall take my own advice and go back to bed. Goodnight to you.”

“Good
morning,
sir,” said Dennis pertly.

Alleyn climbed up to the bridge deck. When he got there he looked back. Dennis still stood where he had left him but after a moment turned away and went back into the fo’castle.

At intervals through the rest of the night Alleyn walked round his beat but he met nobody. When the dawn came up he went to bed and slept until Dennis, pallid, glistening, and silent, brought in his morning tea.

That day was the hottest the passengers had experienced. For Alleyn, it began with a radioed report in code from Inspector Fox, who was still sweating away with his checks on alibis. Apart from routine confirmations of Mr. McAngus’s appendicial adventure and Aubyn Dale’s departure for America, nothing new had come to hand. The Yard, Fox intimated, would await instructions, which meant, Alleyn sourly and unfairly reflected, that if he made an arrest before Cape Town, somebody would be flown over with a spare pair of handcuffs or something. He made his way, disgruntled, to continue observation on the passengers.

They were all on the lower deck. Brigid, who was still rather white, had flatly refused to stay in bed and spent most of the day in or near the bathing pool, where an awning had been erected and deck-chairs set out. Here she was joined by Tim and at intervals by one or two of the others. Only Miss Abbott, Mr. McAngus and Mrs. Cuddy refrained from bathing, but they too sat under the awning and looked on.

At noon Mrs. Dillington-Blick took to the water and the appearance was in the nature of a star turn. She wore a sort of bathing negligée which Aubyn Dale, who escorted her, called a “bewilderment of nonsense.” It was all compact of crisp cotton frills and black ribbons, and under it Mrs. Dillington-Blick was encased in her Jolyon swimsuit which belonged to a group advertised as being “for the Queenly Woman.” She had high-heeled thonged sandals on her feet and had to be supported down the companion-ladder by Aubyn Dale, who carried her towel and sun-shade. At this juncture only Brigid, Tim, Alleyn and Mr. Cuddy were bathing. The others were assembled under the awning and provided an audience for Mrs. Dillington-Blick. She laughed a great deal and made deprecatory
moues
. “My dears!” she said. “
Look
at me!”

“You know,” Brigid said to Tim, “I really
do
admire her. She actually cashes in on her size. I call that brilliant.”

“It’s fascinating,” Tim agreed. “Do look! She’s standing there like a piece of baroque, waiting to be unveiled.”