And the Deep Blue Sea

by Charles Williams

  After another minute the big mate relaxed the tension on the rope, fashioned it into a slip-knot about the dead man’s neck, and passed the other end over the pipe above them. He hoisted Krasicki up with the ease of a mother picking up a baby, held him clamped in his left arm while he used the right to take up the slack in the rope, pass it around the pipe again, and tie it off. He let go. Krasicki’s feet dangled a few inches off the deck, and his body began to swing slowly back and forth with the gentle rolling of the ship. Lind went out and relocked the door.

  Madeleine Lennox made one final hoarse outcry, and a flash of lightning revealed the mask of ecstasy now become pain as it approached the unbearable, the face twisted and distorted and the eyes clamped tightly shut as her head rolled from side to side. The writhing body strained upward against Goddard’s as though in some dying effort to engulf and devour this instrument of her torture, and then collapsed and went limp with the suddenness of a snapping spring. The ragged exhalations of her breath were hot against his naked shoulder where a moment before the nails had gripped and dug.

  Insatiable, Goddard thought, and wondered what her husband’s life had been like when he was at sea, knowing, as he must, of the succession of lovers bracketed by these silken, frenetic thighs. Maybe he didn’t even mind, he reflected, knowing her emotional involvement in the encounters was probably no greater than it would have been with a procession of repairmen trying to deal with a recalcitrant television set.

  There was no doubt she’d worked out a novel system for coping with it, by staking out a male world where there was no competition at all. Women passengers on freighters were nearly always elderly, with exceptions like Karen Brooke a one-chance-in-a-hundred possibility, and the younger, swinging crowd wouldn’t be caught dead on one. The ship’s officers, though probably married in most cases, were still sailors, and far from home, living a monastic life where sexy females were a collector’s item. All steamship companies frowned on this sort of hanky-pank on the part of their masters and mates, of course, but in man’s long journey toward the light, fornication had survived harsher edicts.

  He sat up and lit a cigarette. In a moment she stirred drowsily, and murmured, “I thank you.”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “For the obvious. You’re very good, Mr. Goddard, at a social activity that bores you to death.”

  “Bored? Of course I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining, dear man. I feel wonderful, and believe me, getting there is more than half the fun. I just wondered why. You could have burned your draft card; you obviously don’t have to prove anything.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” he said.

  “Good manners,” she decided. “I think that’s the clue. You see, you’re not even angry now, at this classic example of the perversity of females.” She laughed softly. “I like you; you’re nice. Uninvolved and totally aloof, but nice. Could I have a cigarette?”

  He lit one and passed it to her, and set the ashtray on his stomach. Thunder continued to rumble, but it was farther away now and the fury of the squall was diminishing.

  She was silent for several minutes, and then she said musingly, “There’s still something about it that bothers me.”

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Krasicki. Going berserk that way,” she said. “If he did.”

  Alarms tripped and began to ring their warning. “I don’t think I’m following you.”

  “Don’t let it bother you. I’m not sure I know myself what I’m talking about. But there was something you said afterward that I’ve never been able to get out of my mind.”

  So that stupid remark may get both of us killed, he thought. Unless he was being sounded, which was just as dangerous.

  “You remember,” she went on, “you said it would be a very good director who could have staged that scene any better. I know you didn’t mean it that way, but afterward I got to thinking about it, and began to have the craziest feeling that what I’d seen hadn’t even happened. Am I making any sense to you at all?”

  “No,” he said. “Unless you’re taking off into philosophical concepts of reality that’re too deep for me.”

  “I’m not talking about philosophical concepts,” she replied. “I’m talking about deliberate, planned illusion.”

  “Wait a minute!” He tried for the right tone of amazement and incredulity. “You mean you think that could have been faked?”

  “I don’t know. But it was too perfect. Too many separate elements came together at exactly the right point in space and time for random chance, and there are two or three things about it that bother me. One is the way Krasicki tricked Egerton—I mean, Mayr—into speaking German. That was clever, but could a man with a deranged mind have done it?”

  “A disturbed mind doesn’t mean a moronic mind,” Goddard protested. “And he had been a university professor.”

  “I know,” she said. “But there’s another thing. In the theater, I think you call it blocking.”

  Sharp, Goddard thought, unless she’s been coached. “That’s right. The movement of actors in a scene.”

  “Umh-umh. So with three men at the table, Lind is the only one in a position to grab Krasicki and try to stop him. The captain is clear at the other end, and you’re behind it.”

  “The skipper always sits at the head of the table,” Goddard said. “And in my case it was pure chance.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she replied. “Where you were sitting had been Krasicki’s place. He’d never come to the dining room since we left Callao, but the place was always laid for him in case he did show up.”

  Goddard was thinking swiftly and uneasily. Barset could be involved in it, or the dining room steward, or both. Or they could have been merely following instructions from Captain Steen. But it was Madeleine Lennox who was the dangerous problem at the moment. It would seem absurd, of course, that she could have any part in the plot itself, but there was a very real possibility she could be involved with Lind. Suppose the mate was using her to find out just how much he suspected?

  As a trap it was deceptively simple, and beautiful in its deadliness. He was supposed to warn her, tell her there was a good chance she could be right but to keep her mouth shut if she hoped to get to Manila alive. If she were innocently playing with dynamite, that would stop her. But if she weren’t, if she reported it to Lind, he’d very neatly positioned his own neck on the block. But there was another way.

  “You’d better cut down on spy movies,” he said. “You’re beginning to believe them.”

  “Then you think I’m imagining things?”

  “Look, the man was shot twice through the chest in full view of five people. You saw the blood—”

  She interrupted. “I know. It must have been real, so that ought to clinch it, but something about it still bothers me. I keep trying to remember what it was.”

  He sighed. “You’d be a defense attorney’s dream as a witness in a murder trial. Yes, I saw this man’s head blown off with a .45, but I don’t believe for a minute he was hurt.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said.

  Maybe he’d convinced her. But when she went back to her own cabin he still wasn’t sure.

  It was a hot, bright morning with a gentle breeze out of the southeast, almost directly astern. The Leander rose lazily and almost imperceptibly to the quartering swell as she plowed ahead. Eight bells struck as Goddard emerged from the passageway and began his morning walk around the promenade deck. The squall had sluiced all the salt from her decks and bulkheads, and there was a freshly scrubbed look to her paint that matched the clean and untroubled beauty of the day. Gone, too, were his suspicions of last night; the whole idea was ridiculous, he decided now, and thought with amusement that Mrs. Lennox wasn’t the only one who’d seen too many spy movies.

  He had completed four laps around the deckhouse when he noted the ship was passing through a vast colony of tiny Portuguese men-of-war, apparently newly hatched, their
sails no larger than a fingernail. He stopped at the after end of the deck and lit a cigarette as he leaned on the rail to watch them drift past in numbers that must run into millions. It was a phenomenon he had encountered two or three times at sea and which always puzzled him. How could they hatch in such numbers in one place? He was wondering about it now when he became conscious of an odor like that of burning cloth. He looked down, thinking he must have set his shirt afire with the cigarette, but there was no sign of it. Then the odor was gone, as strangely as it had appeared. He must have imagined it.

  Only Captain Steen and Madeleine Lennox were in the dining room when he entered. They were just finishing their breakfast, and he was struck by the odd preoccupation of their manner as they greeted him. Steen looked troubled. Mrs. Lennox turned as he sat down, and asked archly, “Did that awful thunderstorm scare you last night, Mr. Goddard?” Lind came in at the same moment, and Goddard was conscious of a vague impression that wasn’t what she’d started to say at all.

  Lind laughed as he sat down. “Don’t be insulting, Mrs. Lennox. A line squall scare a man who’d go around the Horn in a Dixie cup?”

  The others laughed, a trifle self-consciously, and after they had gone out, Lind said to Goddard, “I’ve been reading up on catatonic states, and there are a couple of things I’d like to try on Krasicki. You want to come along?”

  Goddard was startled for an instant, thinking of his fears of the night before; then he shrugged. “Sure,” he said. They finished breakfast and went down to the deck below. Lind called out to the Filipino youth to bring Krasicki’s breakfast, and Goddard stood in back of him as he unlocked the door. Lind pushed it open, let out a curse, and leaped inside. Beyond him, Goddard saw Krasicki’s body dangling from the overhead pipe.

  “Get the first-aid kit!” Lind shouted, drawing a knife and slashing at the braided rope.

  Goddard wheeled and ran down the passageway, his mind racing even ahead of his feet. He’d been right. And now his performance had to be as convincing as Lind’s. There was another shout behind him as he sped out on deck and up the ladder, but he kept going. He was panting as he hurried back down the passageway with the kit two minutes later. Several crew members were now jammed around the open door, peering in. He started to push through them, and Lind’s voice barked, “Clear the door! Let him through!”

  Krasicki’s body lay on the deck, the rope now gone from his throat, exposing the brutal mark it had left. Very realistic, Goddard thought; just don’t get too close. Lind straightened, and said wearily, “I tried to stop you. He’s been dead for hours.”

  Goddard shook his head. “It’s a rotten shame.” We’re a real team, he thought; with a good director, we could do anything.

  “Goddamn it!” Lind exploded. He gestured toward the braided rope. “The one thing we didn’t think of.” He whirled toward the door. “Break it up, you guys! What are you gawking at?”

  Nice touch, Goddard thought; male frustration, anger directed at self, relieved by shouts. And at the same time distracts attention from the exhibit in case its nose twitches or respiration is too evident for close scrutiny. He looked around the room, and noted the deadlights were closed over the portholes.

  “He closed ’em last night,” Lind said. “I noticed it when I was in here around eleven. And like a stupid bastard, I didn’t even wonder why. Here, give me a hand to put him in the bunk.”

  Goddard looked around for Otto or the bos’n, but neither was present. Then, in an instant of utter confusion, he realized Lind was speaking to him. The big mate was looking at him with a faintly sardonic smile. “You’re not afraid of a dead man, are you?”

  “Oh. No,” Goddard said, fighting for recovery. Lind caught Krasicki’s legs. Goddard stooped and grasped the bare arms near the shoulders, feeling the cold flesh and the rigidity of death, and they lifted him onto the bunk.

  Lind pulled a sheet from one of the other bunks and covered the body. He turned then, and his eyes met Goddard’s as he made a helpless gesture with his hands. “For the rigor to be that far advanced,” he said, “he must have done it right after I was here. I’m a hell of a doctor.”

  Goddard was still trying to control his expression and sort out the chaos of his thoughts, but he managed an automatic reply of some kind. “There was no way you could tell,” he said.

  VIII

  GODDARD WENT OUT. THE CREW members in the doorway stepped back to let him pass, but they did it silently, and there was no longer any friendliness or recognition in their eyes. As he went down the passageway, he heard the muttering behind him.

  “This bucket’s beginning to give me the creeps.”

  “—ever since we picked that guy up—”

  He was being cast as a Jonah; he’d lost his own ship, and now he’d brought his contamination of doom aboard this one. No seaman would admit to being that superstitious, but there was always some dark residue of it, even in the twentieth century. He paid no attention as he went outside and up the ladder; his mind was still trying to come to grips with questions attacking him from all sides at once.

  Karen Brooke was walking the port side of the promenade deck. She always managed to look lovely and cool and completely self-possessed, he thought. She smiled. “Is there any change in Mr. Krasicki’s condition?” At the same moment Captain Steen came hurrying down the ladder from the boat deck. He went on without speaking. She looked after him, puzzled.

  “Yes,” Goddard answered. “He’s dead. He hanged himself.” Or maybe I killed him, he added silently.

  “Oh, how awful!” She shook her head, winking back the tears. “It’s not fair! His whole life was just one long tragedy.”

  “I know,” Goddard said. Apparently she was prey to no doubts or suspicions, and he had no intention of raising any. He’d found himself beginning to like her, sensing in her some of the same loneliness that had marked his own life for the past five months, and he felt an urge to protect her if he could.

  But from what, he asked himself after she had walked forward. Didn’t Krasicki’s death prove he’d been wrong? Didn’t it demonstrate once and for all that the whole affair had been just what it seemed to be? Of course it did—unless it had been designed to do just that.

  The trouble was, he reflected, that his thought processes and Lind’s were too much alike, and they’d been on a collision course from the beginning. If Mayr’s death had been a hoax, for it to work at all there could be no doubt, now or ever. That, of course, was the reason for the elaborately staged shooting in front of five witnesses instead of something simple like a heart attack. So now, if Lind had sensed his suspicions of it, the mate was backed into a corner; Krasicki still had to disappear, but there was no longer any possibility of getting away with a second fake sea burial. If Goddard had suspected the first, he would already have forecast the second. So Krasicki had been expendable, and Lind had killed him to plug this hole in the dike.

  But that wasn’t all, Goddard thought; the diabolical bastard ran a test on me at the same time, and I may have flunked it. If I had forecast the second fake and guessed how he’d carry it out, he knew exactly how I would react. I would realize I was there as a witness, but I would be very careful not to witness any more than I was supposed to. Then he threw the change-up pitch, and my reaction time may not have been fast enough. If I gave away the fact I didn’t really believe Krasicki was dead, then he was killed for nothing and we’re right back where we started—except that the deadly son of a bitch has really got me fingered now. I’m no longer a reliable witness, and he’s already measuring me for an accident.

  His thoughts broke off then, and he frowned, conscious again of that odor of burning cloth. He was standing almost where he had been before, at the after end of the promenade deck. Maybe it was coming from one of the open portholes of the dining room. He looked in the nearest one, and sniffed again. No, it wasn’t from there. He turned and searched the after well-deck and the ventilators of number three and four holds, but could see nothing. But no
w it was gone.

  Karen Brooke came back around the corner of the deckhouse. “Do you suppose poor Mr. Krasicki will be buried at sea also?” she asked.

  “Probably,” Goddard said. “I don’t think he had any family at all.”

  She nodded somberly. “I love ships,” she said. “But there’s something about this one that is beginning to scare me. I know it sounds silly—”

  “No, it’s normal enough,” Goddard replied. “Deaths at sea affect people that way; to coin a phrase, they’re all in the same boat.” He lit a cigarette. “Do you know what our cargo is?”

  “Some copper ingots,” she said, “and a little general cargo, but mostly cotton. Several thousand bales for the Japanese textile mills.”

  He nodded. When she had gone on, continuing her walk, he stood looking somberly aft across the well-deck. Cotton. Great, he thought; that’s all we need now.

  What little breeze there was died out by mid-morning, and the heat became an ordeal. An air of sullenness and unease lay over the whole ship; the second death in three days left its mark on everybody. Word was passed that the sea burial would take place the following afternoon at four. Tempers were on edge. A fight broke out on the deck below; Rafferty, the hoodlum room steward, beat up one of the oilers, and Lind had to be called to stitch up a cut face.

  Shortly after eleven there was another breakdown in the engine room, and the Leander slowed and came to rest on a sea like burnished steel. A shaft bearing running hot again, Barset said; the chief hoped to be under way again in an hour, but the hour passed, and then two, while the Leander continued to lie motionless under the burning sun. No one appeared for lunch. Both women were apparently in their bunks, under the fans. Goddard continued to prowl the promenade deck, stopping every few minutes at the aft end of it to sniff the air and study the ventilators in the well-deck. It was just after one P.M., when he finally saw it, a wispy thread of smoke snaking upward from the starboard ventilator of number three hold. It thinned and disappeared, but there was no longer any doubt. The Leander’s cargo was afire.