The Brass Chills

by Hugh Pentecost

  “You don’t want me to bring it up!”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why, for God’s sake? It will clear me.”

  “I don’t want you cleared, Chris. Not quickly.”

  That was too much for my simple mind. I just gaped at him.

  “Chris, we’ve done some eliminating in this case, as you know. We narrowed down our murderer to someone who traveled A deck on the Ship. There are thirteen of us here on the Island. The seven leadermen, Cleave, Alec, you and I, and the two nurses. All of those thirteen are going to be at the hearing in one capacity or another.”

  “Don’t forget,” I said, “I’m one of that thirteen, and there’ll be a firing squad waiting right outside Cleave’s office.”

  “I’m not forgetting.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I clear myself? It sounds cockeyed.”

  Bradley began to walk slowly up and down the room. “You’re on-the hook,” he said. “It would suit the murderer perfectly for you to stay there. It will give him a breather, and a chance to jolt us back on our heels once we’re all convinced of your guilt.”

  “I’m just crazy to do the murderer a favor,” I said.

  “Mercy,” said Bradley, “let me finish, will you?”

  “Okay, chum, go ahead and finish,” I said. “But it’s my life, don’t forget.”

  He looked at me and smiled. “You know something about the theater,” he said. “Something about dramatic suspense. I want the case against you to build up. When it gets black, I’ll give up one small piece of our ammunition. Somebody’s going to try to make it black again. If we can string it out, the murderer may overplay his hand in an effort to get you.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “If he doesn’t, Chris, we’ll have to concede we’re licked and clear you.”

  I began to make some sense out of it. Somebody would be lying like crazy from start to finish. Bradley was using me for one of those decoys he’d been talking about.

  “So I’m a super-special red herring,” I said.

  “Precisely.”

  “Alec would probably spill the beans,” I said.

  “I’ll explain the situation to him before the hearing starts,” Bradley said.

  “Just explain to him that he should remember it if the necessity arises,” I said.

  Bradley glanced at his wrist watch. “You’ve got about an hour. Shall I have Mama O’Rourk send you over some more food?”

  “I’ve had plenty, thanks.” He started to leave. “My childlike faith in you is rather touching,” I said. “I can’t think of anyone else who could persuade me to play games with my life.”

  He just grinned and went out.

  ***

  Two marines came for me about seven-thirty and escorted me to Cleave’s office. The setup looked formidable. They’d borrowed one of the long tables from the mess hall, and behind it sat Cleave, Commander Wasdell, Ed Winthrop, Alec Walker, and Sergeant O’Rourk. They were apparently to be the court-martial board. The leadermen and Jess and Ellen sat in straight chairs around the wall. I didn’t see Bradley anywhere — which wasn’t cheering. I was placed in a chair apart from the others.

  They all had a curious, clicked-up look. The leadermen had put on their best clothes and looked like a bunch of grownup kids in a Sunday School class. They all avoided looking at me.

  Jess was sitting next to Bill. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, and she kept her eyes lowered. There was a kind of embarrassed silence after I came in, though I had heard them all chinning together just before I made my entrance.

  After what seemed ages to me, Bradley appeared. He sat down in a chair near the door. That seemed to be the cue for the beginning. Cleave cleared his throat and looked at me.

  “Mr. Wells, have you considered changing your plea of innocence?”

  “I have not, sir.”

  He sighed. “I have appointed Commander Wasdell to handle the case against you, Mr. Wells. It seemed the fairest thing I could do, because he had no prejudice, in your direction, either for or against you. He has assembled the facts on a purely impersonal basis. Do you wish anybody to act in your behalf?”

  “I doubt if there’s anyone here who’d put his heart in it!” I said sourly.

  “If it’s agreeable to you, Captain, I’ll act for Mr. Wells,” Bradley said.

  “Will you accept Lieutenant Bradley as counsel?” Cleave asked me.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alec was studying his long, slender surgeon’s hands. There was a tightness at the corners of his mouth. Of course, he knew what Bradley was up to, I wondered if anyone else in the room had been let in on it. You couldn’t tell anything from the blank, scrubbed faces of the leadermen.

  Wasdell stood up, a sheaf of papers in his hand. I thought he might not be prejudiced, but he was going to be plenty anxious to hang it on me and get it over with. He cleared his throat.

  “This is a little bit out of my line, sir,” he said to Cleave. “We’ll have to be quite informal, since I shall have to call members of the court-martial as witnesses, as well as Lieutenant Bradley himself.”

  “We understand, Commander. Will you proceed, please?”

  “I should like to call Lieutenant Bradley as my first witness.”

  It was certainly informal. The witnesses just sat where they were. There was no special chair for them. Wasdell stood stiffly behind the long table.

  “Mr. Bradley, I understand that you were, in part, responsible for Mr. Wells’s being present on this expedition.”

  “That’s true, sir. As you know, there was considerable secrecy about the expedition. I was made responsible for engaging a liaison officer for the trip. The authorities decided it would be better to engage a civilian, a man without previous navy training. It was their notion such a man might be able to work in closer harmony with the civilian workers.”

  “And you chose Mr. Wells?”

  “Commander Sullivan in Los Angeles was in charge of the recruiting. He had half a dozen potentials on his list. They were called into his office. I was asked to be present to express an opinion about each of them. Mr. Wells was one of the candidates. Sullivan and I both agreed that he was the best of the lot.”

  “Yon didn’t know Mr. Wells personally?”

  “No. I’d never seen him before he walked into Sullivan’s office. He was selected on the basis of his qualifications and the personal impression he made on us.”

  “When Mr. Wells reported to Commander Sullivan’s office had he any idea that he might be assigned to this expedition?”

  “I don’t see how he could, sir. As a matter of fact, I was detailed to explain matters to him after he was sworn in. I’m quite certain he was completely in the dark.”

  “Had Sullivan ever met Wells before?”

  “I believe he had,” said Bradley. “Mr. Wells tried to enlist in the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. He was offered a public-relations job by Sullivan but turned it down. He wanted active duty.”

  “Could he have learned about the expedition at that time?”

  “Mercy,” said Bradley, “the day after Pearl Harbor there were no plans for any expedition. We didn’t know where we stood then, Commander.”

  “Then in your opinion Mr. Wells could have had no advance knowledge of the job to which he was assigned?”

  “I don’t see how he could, sir.”

  Wasdell shuffled his papers, frowning. “After the matter was explained to him, how long was it before you boarded ship?”

  “Eight or nine hours.”

  “Then there would have been time for him to make plans after he’d been informed?”

  “Plans for what, sir?”

  “Murder and sabotage!” said Wasdell harshly. Bradley hesitated. “I suppose he could, sir,” he said. I nearly jumped out of my chair! Bradley had been with me every second of the time after my swearing in. He knew perfectly well I could have planned nothing. I was about to protest when I
caught Alec Walker looking at me. One eyelid drooped in a slow wink.

  So we were lulling the murderer into a sense of security at the start. Maybe Bradley and Alec felt good about it. I know damned well I didn’t!

  “That’s all, Lieutenant,” Wasdell smiled wryly. “Your witness.”

  “No questions,” said Bradley, quite seriously.

  What the hell kind of horseplay was this, I thought.

  “My next witness is Dr. Walker,” said Wasdell. He turned to Alec, who was leaning back in his chair, staring owlishly up at the ceiling.

  “Three poisonings took place on the trip out here, doctor. First a group of five men were all poisoned at once. Then an attempt was made on your life. Finally Mr. Quartermayne was fatally poisoned.”

  “That is correct,” Alec said.

  “You have come to some definite conclusions as to the nature of the poison, haven’t you, doctor?”

  “It was the bacillus botulinus,” Alec said. “This bacillus is ordinarily found in faultily preserved foods. It is so rare under modern scientific methods, of canning that I don’t believe there has been a case of botulosis in the United States in the past twenty years.”

  “How do you account for its presence on the ship, then?”

  “The poison was brought aboard by the poisoner,” Alec said. “We don’t know how it got into the food eaten by the five men. But in my case, and in the case of Quartermayne, we know exactly what was done. In my case it was injected into a glass of tomato juice which was in my refrigerator. In Quartermayne’s case it was injected into cough medicine. In both of these instances the poison was put in the juice and the medicine after a portion had been consumed by the victim.”

  “You mean it was not present originally in the can of tomato juice or the bottle of medicine?”

  “Precisely, otherwise Quartermayne and I would have been poisoned much earlier in the game. I’d already had one glass of juice from the can without ill effect, Quartermayne, had been taking his cough medicine for several days.”

  “I think that’s clear, doctor. Tell me, who had access to that tomato juice?”

  “Anyone who had access to A deck and the sickbay.”

  “Did Mr. Wells have such access?”

  “He did.”

  “And did he have access to Quartermayne’s medicine?”

  “He did, Commander. But let me point out that so did everyone else now present in this room. There was nothing exclusive about Mr. Well’s opportunity.”

  Wasdell frowned and said, “That will be all, doctor.”

  He had slipped so smoothly past any discussion of the first poisoning that I was suddenly quite certain he was in on Bradley’s plot too.

  “I’d like to ask a question if I may, doctor,” Bradley said from behind me. It made me nervous not to see his face.

  “Certainly, Lieutenant,” Alec said.

  The botulinus bug, whatever it is, is a rare poison, isn’t it?”

  “If you mean by that, can a layman go to a drugstore and buy it, the answer it no. It’s perfectly well known to medical science. It’s been one of the research chemist’s major problems for years.”

  “Then a layman, such as Mr. Wells, might not be presumed to know much about it?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you there, Lieutenant,” said Alec. “How can we say that? People have died of it for years. Almost anyone might know about it, particularly a man who did a good deal of reading.”

  “I see,” said Bradley. “But how could a layman readily acquire a quantity of this poison?”

  “He couldn’t,” Alec said. “It isn’t manufactured, you understand. It’s not used for anything. But in a laboratory where they were doing research on the subject there might be a fairly large quantity of it.”

  “Didn’t you once do research on this yourself, doctor?”

  “I did,” said Alec sharply. Then he smiled, “Enough research, Lieutenant, so that I wouldn’t fool around with it in my own tomato juice, you can be sure.”

  Wasdell then asked about treatment. Alec explained what he had done for the five men and what Bradley and Jess had done for him. He added that, unfortunately, there had been no chance to apply the same methods in Quartermayne’s case. He’d been dead when they found him.

  He went on to say that in the case of the five men they had looked for no evidence of foul play. He had assumed it was bad food.

  “But when you were poisoned, doctor, you did investigate?” Wasdell asked.

  “Lieutenant Bradley handled that,” Alec said. “It was four or five days before I could make an analysis of the tomato juice. When I did, I found it crawling with the bacillus botulinus.”

  That was all for Alec.

  “I’d like to call Miss Jessica James,” Wasdell said. She lifted her dead-white face to him, and all the old misery welled up inside me. God help me, nothing could change what I felt for her.

  IV

  Wasdell began with routine questions, which she answered in a scarcely audible voice. She had volunteered for the trip and been selected from a large group of such volunteers along with Ellen Lucas. She had come aboard the Ship three days before the sailing. Dr. Walker was already aboard and had explained her duties to her. There had been nothing for her to do until after lunch of the day before sailing. Then the five men had been poisoned. She and Alec and Ellen had worked like lunatics to save them. It had been touch and go.

  “1 would like to bring you now to the night the ship sailed,” Wasdell said. “You were on duty, I believe?”

  Jess nodded. She was in the sick-bay watching the sick men. Alec had been called to a conference in the captain’s cabin. Yes, she had seen him drink tomato juice before he went and put the extra glass in the refrigerator.

  She then said that when Alec came back, he brought some cans of food to analyze. The movement of the ship had made her feel queazy, and Alec had told her she might go on deck. She had taken her life preserver and gone out.

  “What happened when you got on deck, Miss James?”

  “I … I was trying to figure out how my life preserver worked when Mr. Wells came along. I … ”

  “Just a moment, Miss James. Where did Mr. Wells come from?”

  “I … I don’t know,” she said.

  “Did he say what he was doing on deck?”

  “I don’t recall that he did.”

  “Had you met him before?”

  “No.”

  “Go ahead, Miss James.”

  “I … I asked him how the life preserver worked,” she said. “He showed me. We just stood by the rail, talking.”

  “Do you remember what you talked about?”

  Jess lowered her eyes. “Mostly nonsense,” she said. “It was pitch dark. We couldn’t see each other.”

  “Was the subject of the poison brought up?”

  “I … yes, it was. In a very casual way. Mr. Wells asked how the patients were getting along.”

  “That was all?”

  “He … he didn’t take it very seriously. He seemed to think it was ordinary ptomaine. I told him it might be much more serious.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “I don’t remember that he said anything, because just then Dr. Walker’s buzzer rang.”

  She told how she’d found Alec, called me to help her, and then sent me to fetch Bradley and the captain. She said I’d met somebody in the corridor and sent them on the errand and come back to help her.

  “Did you get the impression Wells was willing to help?”

  “He did everything I asked him to do,” Jess said.

  “Did you realize at the time it was attempted murder?”

  “No. I … I was too busy to do much thinking about it. As soon as Dr. Walker was out of danger, Lieutenant Bradley told us that it wasn’t an accident.”

  She never once glanced in my direction. I found myself trying to will her to look at me. It didn’t work.

  Wasdell then covered the business of the tomato jui
ce.

  She’d been in the sick-bay while Alec was at the meeting. She hadn’t once gone into Alec’s office. Anyone could have come into the office and dealt with the tomato juice. Noises of the ship would have kept her from hearing anything.

  “You became friends with Mr. Wells after that?”

  “Yes.” It was almost a whisper.

  “Good friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mr. Wells ever indicate to you that he might feel something more than friendship for you?”

  “He … he tried to,” Jess said. “I … I always stopped him.”

  “Why, Miss James?”

  She sat silent, her hands knotted together in her lap.

  “Why did you always stop him, Miss James?” Wasdell repeated.

  “Because I didn’t want to take a kicking around!” Jess said, her voice suddenly tense.

  “I don’t understand, Miss James?”

  “I just didn’t want to take a kicking around. I — well, it might have been too easy to — well, to like to hear it!”

  I could feel my heart start to pound against my ribs. She had really wanted to be told but she’d been afraid that I wasn’t serious. That it was just a flirtation to pass the time?

  “Why shouldn’t you want to beat it?” Wasdell asked.

  “Because I wasn’t sure of Mr. Wells,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  “Sure of what about him?”

  She looked down at her hands and then up again at him. “Like everyone else on the Ship; I guess I was trying to figure things out. We all knew it had to boil down to the people on A deck. The leadermen all alibied one another — all except Mr. Regan, who was bunking with Mr. Wells. I couldn’t believe Captain Cleave or Lieutenant Bradley were guilty. Besides, they’d been in the captain’s cabin along with Mr. Quartermayne. I knew I wasn’t guilty, and I was certain of Ellen Lucas. That left Mr. Regan and Mr. Wells.” Her voice broke. “It had to be one of them. I wasn’t sure.”

  “And you decided it was Mr. Wells?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “No. I didn’t decide anything.”

  “But you didn’t want to let yourself get fond of Mr. Wells?”