Mr. Carruthers, however, took a more philosophical approach. To begin with, he well realized that had it not been for the efforts of Sir Percival Pugh, his good friend Clifford Simpson would have suffered either the hangman’s noose or the booby hatch a few months before. Besides, Billy-boy Carruthers had always been one to whom the motto “Watch and Wait” offered a modicum, if not a magnum, of hope. There was also the reassuring fact, of course, that the arrangement of their joint account did not permit Simpson to hand over all their cash to Sir Percival even if a mistaken sense of loyalty made him wish to. This gave some slight hope that after the debacle enough might be left over to keep them from the poor farm for several weeks, at least.
Since both the quantity and quality of crime aboard the S.S. Sunderland had increased so impressively, the master-at-arms was now present at the scene in the role of warder. This gentleman was a suspicious-looking smallish man named by unthinking parents James Vincent King, and years of filling out forms of one type and another—for school, for the dole, and on rare occasions for employment—as King, James V., had done little to improve his bias toward a human race that seemed to think it comical to bow to him upon introduction.
He came up from his stool as if prepared for physical attack, took the Captain’s pass from Sir Percival, studied it cautiously for several moments, his lips moving painfully, and then reluctantly moved down the corridor out of earshot, giving the barrister unrestricted access to his clients. James V. King did not move so far, however, that he could not instantly have noted any attempt on the part of Sir Percival to smuggle a hacksaw blade hidden in a chocolate cake through the bars. As Mr. King would have been the first to tell you, he was far from the complete fool he appeared.
“Well, well! Mr. Carruthers!” Sir Percival beamed genially at the occupant of the cell to the right. “You’re looking quite fit, I must say.”
Mr. Carruthers smiled back in friendly enough style, although he refused at the moment to commit himself to words for which he might later be sorry. He was a great believer in the Norwegian proverb that a shut mouth catches no reindeer, and he felt that in his present position this was as good a time as any to practice the dictates of Scandinavian philosophy.
“And Mr. Briggs.” Sir Percival turned to the second cell, not at all disturbed by the lack of communication from the first. “You’re keeping well, I trust?”
“Grrraaagh!” said Briggs, more vocal than Carruthers.
“The food is adequate, I imagine?”
“Grrraaagh!”
“Yes. As you say. Well, gentlemen,” said Sir Percival, drawing up the warder’s stool and seating himself, “much as I should like to continue this friendly chat indefinitely, I’m afraid time does not permit. I suggest we get down to business. You are both in somewhat of a hole, I’m afraid, and your individual stories would do much to entertain me. And possibly even point a possible way for your defense. Shall we start with you, Mr. Carruthers—?”
“No! Let’s start with me!” Briggs said with a black scowl on his tiny face. His small hands clutched the bars fiercely. “And the first thing I want to know is how much nicker you think you’re going to stick us for?”
Sir Percival was not at all pained by this approach. It was quite common among his clientele, and particularly among those who were forced to deal with him more than once.
“Please, Mr. Briggs. To begin with, all arrangements for the payment of my fee have been concluded. Through Mr. Simpson, I might add.” He looked at the small occupant of the second cell quite calmly. “I might also add that he seemed to handle the arrangements with a bit less emotion than you tend to display.”
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, let me tell you—!”
“Tim!” Mr. Carruthers’ voice was sharp with disapproval. “You are being impolite. Sir Percival is here to help us. Besides, Cliff is in no position to make commitments for us, least of all financial commitments.”
Briggs was not satisfied. “But he said—”
“Unless,” Carruthers continued, quite as if he had not been interrupted, “the payment was other than money?”
The famous barrister nodded pleasantly. “As a matter of fact, you’re quite right.”
“What is this?” Briggs demanded suspiciously.
“Burmese solitaire,” Carruthers explained gently, turning to the occupant of the adjoining cell. “You see, Tim, Sir Percival is in rather an awkward spot. Being innocent, we present him with a certain problem in defending us. However, he can ease his conscience somewhat by accepting, in lieu of money, the secret of our success at the bridge table. I am happy and proud,” he added, turning back to their guest, “—and also a bit surprised—that Cliff had the brains to see it.”
Sir Percival smiled at Carruthers with true appreciation.
“I am amazed, Mr. Carruthers,” he said, “that a man capable of analyzing a situation as correctly as you have just done should still permit his ego to lead him into the embarrassing situation that you did vis-à-vis Mrs. Carpenter and her charms.”
“Do you mean,” Briggs interrupted, still unable to credit his ears, “that knowing how the playing cards are marked aboard this tub is worth more to you than money? You? Sir Percival?” He turned to the other cell. “Billy-boy! Call the master-at-arms! This man is an obvious imposter!”
“Quiet, Tim!” Mr. Carruthers’ glare drove the smaller man to a sullen silence. Billy-boy returned his attention to the barrister. “I agree, Sir Percival, that it was rather a bad mistake on my part, dictated by a whim of the moment. But with the lady dead, I’m afraid it’s a bit late for denials.”
“For the usual ones, I suppose,” Sir Percival said in agreement. “I could probably come up with five or six explanations that would satisfy a jury, if need be, but let us hope it does not come to that.” His pleasant look faded a bit as he took the two men into his confidence. “However, there are several rather unusual problems connected with your defense. Normally, of course, in a murder case where the victim is married, the spouse—wife or husband as the case may be—is almost immediately suspected, almost invariably charged, and in an inordinately high precentage of cases is found guilty of the crime. Unless, of course,” he added in the interests of honesty, “I defend them. In the case of the Carpenters, however—”
“Of course! I’m an idiot!” Billy-boy Carruthers was disgusted with himself for having forgotten this first precept of crime detection. “How could I ever have come to overlook such an obvious fact? Other, of course,” he added, thinking about it, “that in a mystery novel it would be too easy. Yes—” A touch of enthusiasm entered his rich voice. “Mr. Carpenter would make an excellent suspect! Loads of oil on his hair, that villainous mustache, that sneaky look—”
“He isn’t as sneaky as that nosy steward who turned me in!” Briggs grumbled, scowling. “That’s the bloody spiv I’d like to see charged with the murder!”
“That’s scarcely fair,” Carruthers reminded the man in the next cell. “After all, you went to a great deal of trouble to make sure he would see you and pass the word along. Well, didn’t you?”
“Grrraaagh!” replied Briggs.
“However,” Sir Percival continued equably, not a bit upset—or influenced—by the interruptions, “as I was saying, in the case of the Carpenters there is an added factor. Mr. Carpenter, it seems, is missing, and had been for at least twelve hours before his wife’s demise. And there appears to be evidence in the form of a bloodstain on the porthole sill in their stateroom that leads the Captain to believe he left the ship through this somewhat unorthodox exit. Obviously, it appears, with someone’s contrivance.”
Mr. Carruthers shook his head pityingly.
“No, no!” There was a disparaging note in his voice. “I can tell you all about that!” He proceeded to do so. “It was the old chicken bladder swindle; you must have heard of it. Goes back years and years. Chap pretends he’s been shot by someone philandering with his wife. Falls down, writhes about a bit looking gruesome,
bites on a small bag of chicken blood he’s been hiding in his cheek, and then dramatically expires, bleeding all over the place from the mouth. The wife hustles the mark out of the room instanter, and later, of course, the poor idiot is jam on toast for blackmail.”
“You mean—?”
“Exactly. That’s chicken blood on the porthole sill. Mr. Artful Dodger Carpenter carried the farce out to the bitter end. I have to give him credit.” His bright blue eyes suddenly twinkled in memory. “You see, I very nearly had him out the porthole before our sneaky-looking friend suddenly decided he didn’t want to be a corpse after all. Figured he hadn’t been shot, by some miracle.”
There were several seconds of silence while Sir Percival took this added factor into account, feeding it into the computer bank of his brain. A bit down the hall King, James V. hunkered down against the wall, picking his teeth with a broom straw and watching closely for any attempt on the part of the barrister-type, lord or no, to smuggle dynamite into the cell for the purposes of blowing it up and freeing the miscreants. He had once read such a plot in an old book found in his grandfather’s attic; he would have been amazed—and even more watchful—had he known it had been written by none other than the portly gentleman in Cell No. 1.
Sir Percival nodded slowly as he looked up.
“Excellent,” he said. “There is therefore the possibility that the Carpenters, failing in their attempt to get money from you, tried the same trick on someone else after you had been dragged off to choky. And the other party may not have been as easily dissuaded at the last moment from putting a blackmailer through a porthole.…”
Carruthers nodded in agreement, wondering that he had not thought of it himself. Briggs merely watched owlishly from the adjoining cell. Sir Percival carried on.
“Add to this possibility the fact that—prior to you—the Carpenters had cheated four or five couples substantially at the bridge table, and—” He smiled encouragingly. “Just think; almost anyone aboard this ship is a potential suspect.”
“Great!” Briggs said sourly. “Is that supposed to reassure us?”
“It’s usually considered somewhat better than being the only suspect,” Sir Percival pointed out, and then added, both for the sake of honesty and because Briggs was beginning to faintly irk even this paragon of patience, “Of course, the others weren’t caught practically red-handed.…”
Briggs glowered but, for the time being at least, remained silent. Sir Percival returned to business.
“All right. Now I’d like to hear your stories. Not, of course, that it makes much difference …”
“I beg your pardon?” Carruthers was staring at him.
“Never mind. Your stories, please. Complete in all detail, as truthful as you feel necessary considering the slightest lie can hang you, and leaving out as many unnecessary adjectives, adverbs and expletives as possible. Mr. Carruthers? Let’s start with you.”
The next half hour or so was spent in detailing a full history of the relationship between the three founding members of the Mystery Authors Club and the Carpenters, male and female. Sir Percival took no written notes but allowed the statements to be engraven upon his tremendous memory word by word, even as his giant intellect made sense out of them. When at last he had dragged the final comma and semicolon from the pair, he nodded optimistically and came to his feet, straightening the creases in his trousers. Another barrister, facing the facts as they had been presented, might well have quailed at the thought of attempting a defense based upon them, but the idea of failure never crossed Sir Percival’s mind.
“A fairly simple problem, really,” he said in an offhand manner, and prepared to depart.
“Simple?” Briggs exclaimed.
“Why, yes.” Sir Percival smiled at him brightly.
But Billy-boy Carruthers had a far more important question in mind.
“Just what did you mean a while ago,” he asked curiously, “when you said you wanted to hear our stories, and then you added, ‘Not that it makes much difference’?”
“Just what you heard,” Sir Percival said calmly and prepared to waste a few more minutes in the interest of educating his clients. “After all, we do have a wealth of potential suspects, do we not? I certainly don’t intend the facts as you’ve stated them to be allowed to interfere with my defense.” He shrugged. “As I said, simple. We pick a likely suspect from our endless group and accuse him of the crime. If driven to it, I suppose, I could even prove him guilty, though let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“How?” Carruthers demanded. “If he didn’t do it?”
“How do I know? It’s early on.” Sir Percival glanced at his watch and smiled in their general direction. “Well, ta. Time for work.”
“Wait! Wait!” Carruthers looked at the famous barrister aghast. “You mean you’d accuse an innocent man just to free us?”
“Well, you do want to be freed, don’t you?”
“Not under such circumstances! I won’t hear of it!”
“Now, if it was that sneaky steward—” Briggs began thoughtfully.
“Tim! Quiet! Sir Percival—”
But Sir Percival had raised a hand for silence.
“You know,” he said slowly, “that really isn’t a bad idea. The idea of the steward, you know. Being British he’d be returned to England as a matter of course; and if you’re really worried about his suffering for something he didn’t do, why, I’d defend him.” He looked at Carruthers evenly. “I’ve never lost a case, you know.”
“And who would pay?” Briggs demanded.
“Why, I suppose you would,” Sir Percival said, and smiled.
Briggs shook his head decisively. “Forget the steward!”
“Now see here!” Carruthers said firmly, “I refuse to stand by and have an innocent man accused of murder just in order to save my own neck. Both Tim and I are innocent; that should be sufficient.” He disregarded Sir Percival’s look of astonished pity. “You’ll simply have to find some other means of defense.”
Sir Percival sighed and shook his head sadly.
“You make it dashed difficult, you know. Normally, I don’t listen to clients in the course of charting a defense, but I suppose your being innocent makes a difference. And I can’t drop the case or refuse it because I’ve already been paid and can’t return the fee. The devil!” He looked up bravely. “Well, we’ll come up with something; we always have. If anything further occurs to you, be in touch. I suppose the master-at-arms will carry a message; you can’t very well wrap it in a brick and toss it out the window. In the meantime, ta. Patience and faith. And worry not; the truth shall set you free!”
With a brief wave of a manicured hand he turned and moved off down the corridor, pausing only long enough to advise King, James V. that his throne could once again be occupied. Behind him Carruthers was still in partial shock from the barrister’s naughty suggestion.
“I knew he was a twister,” he said, “but can you imagine? Accusing an innocent man? Even if he got him off later, think of the shock, of the shame? Of the time in quod?” He turned to get Briggs’ reaction to his impassioned statement and then frowned at the expression on the other’s face. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Now I’m really worried!” Briggs said darkly.
“What about?”
“You heard him say ‘The truth shall set you free,’ didn’t you? Well,” Briggs said heavily, “the day old Pugh has to fall back on the truth, we’re sunk!”
“My dear Simpson,” Sir Percival exclaimed, exhibiting his normal patience once again. “It wasn’t my first or my best plan, in the first place. If it weren’t for the completely incomprehensible attitude of your two friends, we’d be home free. But since I had to come up with an alternate scheme—and did—it seems to me that a bit less objection on your part would be in order.”
He was beginning to feel the room had an echo, for he had been repeating the same statement in one form or another for some time. The two men were seat
ed at the corner table in the Promenade Deck bar, partaking of brandy and champagne. While it was a new drink to Sir Pervical, he had taken to it instantly. He only wished that Simpson’s reaction to his scheme had been accepted with the same alacrity.
“I know it wasn’t your first scheme,” Simpson said stubbornly and dug a cigar from his pocket. He lit it broodingly and tossed away the match. “But it isn’t much more honest. It’s cheating, and while that’s better than sending a man over who’s innocent, it’s still cheating.”
Sir Percival stared at him. “And taking nearly three thousand pounds from the Carpenters using a marked deck was not?”
“But that was different, you see,” Simpson explained. He put aside his cigar long enough to sample his drink and then put his drink aside in order to sample his cigar. It was evident he was using the time to put his thoughts in order. “Billy-boy Carruthers explained it all to us, you see. It seems there was—or is, for all I know—this poor American author, brilliant in some ways, but an absolute sod in others, and he—”
He proceeded to repeat the sad tale of the book club in the States who had refused to handle the history of the Murder League simply because the naughty boys had profited from their crime.
“So you can understand,” Simpson ended, “why we have to avoid any hanky-panky. Billy-boy wouldn’t stand for it. The same reason he miffed on the accusing-of-innocents bit. You see?”
“You were saying something about cheating the Carpenters—”
“Oh, yes! I forgot. Billy-boy felt that taking a pair of card cheats was sort of the old Biter-Bit thing, you know. He felt this book club wouldn’t—or anyway, shouldn’t—be too upset about that.”
“In that case,” said Sir Percival—for his mammoth brain had instantly seen the opportunity presented and jumped upon it—“if the Biter-Bit is acceptable, how much more acceptable Justice Triumphant?”
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