“How I wish I could be there to hear you discuss the solution of the murder! But I know from my books that the legal technicalities that usually follow on your last chapters are a bore for everyone concerned, and also, and maybe more important, a ship’s officer is responsible for ‘maintaining discipline and good order by his example, personal behavior and character,’ and seeing a senior officer in the brig would not be good for the crew’s morale, I think. And so I bid farewell forever to my ship, my shipmates, home and England, with no regrets: “To have seen such heroes walk the deck, I count the World Well Lost!
“With thanks and eternal admiration I remain,
“Yours respectfully,
“Wm. Waggish
“lst Officer, R.M.S. Florabunda”
Postlude in New York Harbor
As the Doctor swung up the companion, the Second Officer tottered out of the bridge-house and hurried aft with a white, set face. A furious roar pursued him from within.
“What’s biting the Old Man now?” the Doctor inquired of the Purser, who was leaning at the boat-deck rail, watching the last of the fog blow off.
The Purser shrugged as another roar came forth. “Ah,” he said, “you can’t blame him if he’s in a bad mood this afternoon. He’s still all fouled up over those detectives. First when they thought the First had jumped overboard they wanted the ship turned round to hunt for the body. Then when they heard about the Number Six boat being gone they wanted him to radio ashore for search-planes to be sent out … Planes! He wasn’t half wild. Game near clapping them all in irons.”
“Ah!” The Doctor puffed on his pipe reflectively. “Fancy Waggish bumping off that blighter,” he observed after a time. “I never knew he took those books so seriously.”
“I thought he must have done, when he brought us those farewell notes last night.” The Purser’s eye followed a small boat which was making for the Florabunda in a businesslike manner. “But one didn’t like to ask.”
“Where is that island of his, do you know?” asked the Doctor after another interval.
“He never said; it isn’t on the charts.… Here comes the pilot.”
“It would be a fine quiet place to work, I dare say.” A wistful look on the Doctor’s face suddenly turned to one of real vexation. “Damn it!” he said, as the true significance of the facts sank in. “And I suppose he won’t be coming back? Why, that means I can never read my Eleventh Canto to him!”
Murder in Pastiche Page 20