“Of course we’d be freed if the foolish bloke breaks for it,” Briggs said thoughtfully.
Carruthers snorted. “On what basis? Do you expect him to leave a note behind confessing all? All it would mean is that the murderer would be gone and we’d be even deeper in the soup.” He turned back to Sir Percival. “You wouldn’t be above paying someone not to get back on the ship, would you?”
Sir Percival smiled. “I wouldn’t be above it—if someone else paid for it—but in this case, as you so intelligently point out, it would scarcely aid our case. No, if the murderer takes to his heels—as I expect he may well try to, unless stopped, he will do so without my connivance.”
“But, to return to my first point, why would he run?” Carruthers demanded. “Nobody knows who he is, or even suspects him!”
“Ah!” said Sir Percival with an enigmatic smile and prepared to take his leave. He paused significantly a moment. “But suppose someone does suspect him? What then? Suppose someone does know him? Eh?”
He tapped the side of his patrician nose with a thin patrician finger, winked through the bars at the portly prisoner for good measure and ambled slowly down the corridor, pausing only long enough to exchange a word with James V. King. He turned for a final wave of encouragement and then was gone.
“Boobly squinch, that’s what he knows!” Briggs said sourly.
Both Carruthers and Simpson were forced to suspect that Briggs was probably right. Sir Percival had put on a good show for their benefit, but it had been meant, they were sure, to raise their spirits and that was all. The plain truth was, in all likelihood, that in reality it all amounted to boobly squinch.
To Sir Percival, who had endured the hard gaze and harsher words of the toughest judges on the bench, the disapproving glare from his old friend Captain Manley-Norville glanced off with about as much effect as a raindrop on granite. The two men were seated comfortably in the Captain’s suite adjoining the bridge; sunlight streamed through the windows which served the luxurious quarters in place of portholes, and the normally rolling waters off the mouth of the Tagus were as smooth as glass.
Sir Percival sipped a private brand of brandy far superior, he was sure, to that served in the bar, and looked at his companion with faint disapprobation. Attack, he knew from long experience, was by far the best defense, and now that the social amenities had been observed in the traditional offering of alcoholic beverage, he knew the Captain was about to launch into a diatribe. Sir Percival meant to beat him to the punch.
“Really, Charles,” he said, his voice fraught with reproach, “I do consider your conduct a bit reprehensible. You shouldn’t have done it. You really shouldn’t.”
There was a moment’s silence while the Captain choked on his drink. When at last he caught his breath he came close to exploding.
“You consider my conduct reprehensible? You consider my conduct reprehensible? You consider—” For a moment Captain Manley-Norville found himself at a loss for words, a rare occurrence. He set his glass aside and leaned forward, his square jaw thrust ahead like the prow of the S.S. Sunderland. “Now, you listen to me, Percy, my lad! Five minutes after that ridiculous bridge game between those two reprobates and the Carpenters—for whom I’m holding no wake—I was having words with the library steward. Burmese solitaire! The only reason I didn’t have every deck of cards on board this ship commandeered and thrown overboard is that only those three were involved, and the other passengers were unaware of the markings. And I gave word to the steward that if either the Carpenters or any of those three ever got into a card game again, he was to hand them one of my personal decks I keep in case I have guests in for cards in my quarters.” The Captain shook his head in disgust. “Burmese solitaire! Indeed!”
“A fine game,” Sir Percival said, and sighed. “Unfortunately, it appears that too many people on board know the rules.”
“A fine game! You would think so,” said Captain Manley-Norville unkindly, and snorted. “And then, when Mr. Last-of-the-Mohicans Simpson comes walking into the card room, by whom is he accompanied? By none other than Sir Percival Pugh, no mean card player himself, and advocate for Mr. Simpson’s imprisoned friends!”
“You do have your sources,” Sir Percival murmured admiringly. “How did you ever hear of it so quickly?”
Captain Manley-Norville looked grim.
“You seem to forget that I am master of this ship,” he said in a hard tone of voice. “And the library steward is under my command. He serves passengers, but he obeys me!”
“But even so, I fail to see—”
“Allow me to finish! When, as I said, Mr. Simpson comes walking in, he walks in with Sir Percival Pugh, who has the nerve to sit across from me at this moment, completely forgetting the many times I’ve sat in his drawing room of an evening and watched him entertain a roomful of guests with card tricks!”
Sir Percival felt it was time to get his oar in. He had purposely allowed the Captain to blow off steam, well aware that the other would be the weaker for it. He made his voice professionally cold.
“Still, Charles,” he said, “in view of our years of friendship, I still consider your conduct reprehensible. When did you arrange it? When I went to wash my hands? Or am I correct in assuming your library steward arranged it at that time? And, more important, why did you do it?”
“Do what?” Captain Charles Everton Manley-Norville attempted to maintain his belligerent tone, but it was a failure. As Sir Percival had calculated, his previous explosion had taken a lot of wind from his sails, and besides, the chilly eye he was facing had made many a hardened prosecuting barrister quail in the past.
“You know very well what I mean!” Sir Percival’s voice was scathing. “You—or your sycophant steward—told those players in that poker game some story that permitted them to lose to me without a murmur, even though I was obviously cheating them left and right. What was it you told them?” He dropped his voice calculatingly; it sounded all the more deadly for being merely conversational in tone. “Eh? What was it you told them? That I was gathering material for a book? That I was practicing for a stage turn at card tricks?”
“I—”
“Or did you say I was doing a thesis on toleration to cheating and merely wished their reactions?”
“I—”
“Or did you simply tell them I was scatty? A kleptomaniac at the card table, so to speak? And that their losses would be returned to them by my keeper after the game if they would only humor me? That one is my choice.”
Captain Manley-Norville felt he had to defend himself.
“Percy, the fact is that there has been too much cheating on this ship as it is. The fact is that you were cheating passengers, as well; and it’s my duty to protect them. As I said before, you seem to forget that I am master of this ship. And you also seem to forget that the master of a ship has certain responsibilities!”
Sir Percival shook his head in pity at the weakness of the argument.
“And you seem to forget, Charles, that there is a murderer loose on your ship! And the only one you are protecting with your interference in my affairs is him!” He leaned forward. “Do you honestly believe that I was cheating those men for the thruppeny-ha’penny winnings involved?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Well, no, but what? The fact is you didn’t think at all, and that’s the fact! Somebody killed Mrs. Carpenter, and you seem to have completely forgotten it, and that’s the fact!”
“Briggs was right there in the room,” Captain Manley-Norville said darkly. He seemed to imply that if Briggs was guilty, then his—the Captain’s—actions regarding the poker game would somehow be defensible.
“Don’t try to make up for your past errors by multiplying them,” Sir Percival advised coldly. “Among the many other points I could prove—to free Briggs if I wished to—is that you know as well as I do that had Mrs. Carpenter ever faced Briggs with him holding a knife, the chances are she would have made him eat it. He didn’t come
up to her shoulders, and she probably outweighed him a good four stone.”
“Unless he crept up on her and stabbed her in the back.”
“How do you creep up on somebody in a bathroom roughly three feet square?” Sir Percival asked curiously. “Not to mention that Mrs. Carpenter was stabbed from the front. Besides, Briggs hasn’t the temperament for a stabbing.” He thought awhile, remembering the Murder League, and changed his tone a bit. “Anyway, not a woman. And certainly not for free.” He shook his head a bit forlornly. “I was attempting to discover, in that poker game, who the Carpenters had cheated to the extent of engendering resentment to the extent of murder. I had hoped that one or more of the players would demonstrate equal resentment in my case, and—to coin a cliché—unmask himself.” His eyes came up, cold again. “You put an end to that quickly enough.”
“I’m sorry, Percy,” said the Captain contritely.
“You should be. I will admit,” Sir Percival said, thinking back, “that for a few minutes there, when my cheating didn’t bring out the faintest snarl or the slightest resentment, I considered seriously the possibility that the four of them might have worked as a team to handle the Carpenters. I thought they might even have utilized the services of their wives and/or girl friends. Looking at that group playing canasta in the other corner and listening to them, I could conceive of no crime they might not be capable of committing. And, of course, all of them had been victimized at one time or another by the Carpenters at the bridge table. But then I thought that four murderers—or eight, adding wives and/or girl friends—was a bit much, so I looked elsewhere for an explanation of their complaisance at being cheated. And, of course, lit upon you first out of the box.”
“I can only repeat that I’m sorry.”
“Water over the dam,” said Sir Percival philosophically and changed the subject. “What’s on the docket in the form of entertainment tonight? The ship’s newspaper hasn’t been too informative, lately.”
“The master-at-arms is also our reporter. He’s been busy, you know.”
“If picking your teeth with a broom straw constitutes business, he’s been busy,” Sir Percival admitted. “You haven’t answered my question. How do the peasants frolic this eve?”
“Captain’s party, as a matter of fact.” Captain Manley-Norville unconsciously preened a bit as he said it. “Formal, you know.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that. Easy enough to cancel. And what time do we dock tomorrow?”
“Elevenish in the morning. But about the party tonight—”
“One of those things. One can’t have everything. The party, I’m afraid, is out.”
“But, why?” Captain Manley-Norville almost wailed.
“Because, Charles, pet, tomorrow, as you say, we dock at eleven. And our murderer may well decide not to take a chance by returning to the ship. While he may feel safe at the moment—or may not—he knows, as well as I do, that little Timmy Briggs is as pure as the driven snow, at least as far as killing Mrs. Carpenter is concerned. And eventually, of course, this fact is bound to come to light, despite the distractions placed in the paths of justice by ship’s masters. At that time, of course, suspicious glances are going to be cast in other directions. One of them might well be his. Our next stop after Gibraltar is Funchal, I believe, on an island from which it is relatively difficult for a fugitive to escape. If I were an enterprising murderer not wishing to take chances, I do think I would leave the ship at Gibraltar tomorrow and not return.”
“But what’s that got to do with my party tonight?”
“Tonight, Charles, we shall turn our efforts to more vital purposes.” He came to his feet, smiling faintly. “In any event, Captains’ parties are old hat. Tonight we shall give the passengers of the S.S. Sunderland entertainment in a more unusual form.”
Despite the loss of his party, Captain Manley-Norville found himself intrigued.
“In what form?” he asked.
“In the form of a Coroner’s Inquest,” Sir Percival said quietly, and moved toward the door.
12
When Miss Carol Grumkin of Golder’s Green first went to work for the accounting firm of Tompkins and Struthers as secretary to its president, Mr. Arthur Tompkins, she had hoped—as all young people starting out on their careers should do—quite naturally for rapid promotion and quick success; nor was she unwilling to work for them. The efficacy of this philosophy could not have been better demonstrated, for now, less than six months later, her services had become so indispensable that Mr. Tompkins had brought her along on the cruise of the S.S. Sunderland, installing her in an adjoining cabin, in order to handle any correspondence that might reach them en route as well as any other secretarial duties that might arise of a general business nature.
It was therefore difficult for Mr. Tompkins to refuse when the Captain of the Sunderland—wishing to keep some record of the proceedings of his first shipboard Coroner’s Inquest and having no other substitute—requested the services of Miss Grumkin to take down a shorthand account of the action, for insertion in the ship’s log. Mr. Tompkins attempted to explain to Miss Grumkin in the privacy of their joint staterooms that her talents in that direction were really not the equal of a standard courtroom stenotypist’s, but Miss Grumkin, offered a share of the limelight, was not about to refuse. After all, when Arty-Barty was a guest for dinner at the Captain’s table one evening, she had been forced to settle for a salad in her stateroom, and when Smarty-Arty wanted to play bridge or poker all day instead of paying attention to her, she wasn’t even permitted to don her bikini—which she set off to spectacular advantage—and sit around the pool with its handsome lifeguard. Given such conditions, Mr. Lardy-Arty could scarcely expect his normal authority to prevail.
This history, therefore, depends a bit for its accuracy on Miss Carol Grumkin’s notes, and while there may be an occasional hiatus where a witness used more than a two-syllable word, in general they are not as bad as might be expected. For one thing—despite her appearance in a bikini—Miss Grumkin had actually taken a three-month course in stenography and had even passed, although her fellow students credited this miracle to reasons other than scholastic ability. This, however, could well have been mere jealousy. A better reason for the relative accuracy of this report, it is to be judged, is that Sir Percival Pugh was kind enough to edit it for the sake of the Captain’s record, adding little things like punctuation, correcting spelling and even being so thoughtful as to put in local dialect when used to enhance the dramatic quality of his masterful interrogation. There are some who may feel he used the occasion to build up his brilliance in the case, paying little attention to Miss Grumkin’s actual notes, but again, this may be mere jealousy. Suffice to say, what we have here is what now reposes as An Addition to the Log of the S.S. Sunderland, as well as in the archives of the New Scotland Yard.…
Timothy Briggs tramped morosely up the carpeted stairway from E Deck to the Promenade Deck and the Main Salon where the inquest was to be held, grumbling all the way. At his side Billy-boy Carruthers trudged, silent and thoughtful. Before them the same husky sailor who had assisted at their arrest marched evenly, while King, James V. brought up the rear, sorry he had not been permitted to handcuff his prisoners and even sadder that the Captain had turned down his request for a submachine gun, a shotgun—or even a .22-caliber pistol—to make sure they did not escape. James V. King was determined that his charges would be delivered in one piece and would not disappear in a puff of puce smoke—a thing he had seen accomplished on the stage of the Palladium once—or at least not if he could prevent it.
“Inquest!” Briggs muttered in deep disgust. “All it means is being paraded in front of a bunch of gaping idiots, like the crowds watching the Christians in a Roman arena. What does old Pugh think he’s going to prove by all this nonsense?”
“He probably thinks he can get us out of the soup this way,” Carruthers suggested evenly. He looked sideways. “Do you have any major objections? Or would y
ou really prefer to spend the rest of the cruise in the brig?”
“Might just as well, the tight rein you keep on our having any fun,” Briggs said sourly. He grimaced as if in pain. “And all because of some idiot writer a million miles away!” He looked up at the calm blue eyes of his rotund companion. “I say, Billy-boy—if by some miracle old Pugh does manage to pull it off and they strike the shackles and all that, how about giving the old S.S. Sunderland and her crew the back of our necks at Gibraltar and flying back home? Eh? I’ve about had the bloody bounding main!”
Carruthers glanced down at the wizened face staring up at him so earnestly. He smiled faintly. “Beginning to think that possibly Sir Percival can pull it off, eh?”
“Oh, he can twist a jury in a courtroom around his little finger, I don’t deny that,” Briggs admitted grudgingly, “but he isn’t in a courtroom here. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’ll pull any rabbits out of his hat as far as the Captain of this tub is concerned. Let’s just say that while I don’t necessarily have a lot of faith, I still have a bit of hope.”
“A touch of charity wouldn’t be amiss, either,” Carruthers commented dryly, and continued his march up the stairs.
“’Ere now!” said James V. King, sternly. He raised his arms, simulating possession of a weapon. “That’ll be enough o’ that chatter, see? Yer prisoners, and don’t yer forget it!”
The library steward, faced with the problem at short notice of converting the Main Salon into a courtroom scene suitable for a Coroner’s Inquest, didn’t boggle for a moment. Fifteen years of arranging for masquerade parties in which the Salon took on the appearance of everything from the Casbah, to Carnival in Rio, to Waikiki, to the poop deck of a Spanish galleon, had given him much valuable practice. And as an avid cinema fan in his rare free time, he had witnessed many a vis-à-vis between prosecuting counsel and defense advocate before a gavel-pounding bewigged judge, so the scene was clearly fixed in his mind. His only problem was that he couldn’t rightly recall whether a Coroner’s Inquest took place in a court of law or a morgue. Fortunately he opted for the courtroom, and he had done himself proud.
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