The Golden Rendezvous

by Alistair MacLean

  “I don’t associate luck with this killer in any way,” I said. “He’s too damned efficient for that. I don’t think any more messages which might have worried him had come through, but he was afraid they might. He knew both Peters and Jennings were off watch at the burial, and he probably checked that the wireless office was locked. So he waited till the coast was clear, came out on deck, unlocked the office and went inside. And Dexter, unfortunately for himself, saw him going in.”

  “The key, Mister,” Bullen said harshly. “The key. How come?”

  “The Marconi-man in Kingston who checked the sets, sir. Remember?” He remembered all right: the Marconi-man had telephoned the ship asking if servicing facilities were required and Bullen had seized on it as a heaven-sent opportunity to close down the radio office and refuse to accept any more embarrassing and infuriating messages from London and New York. “He spent about four hours here. Time to do anything. If he was a Marconiman, I’m the Queen of the May. He had a nice big impressive tool-kit with him, but the only tool he used, if he could call it that, was a stick of wax, heated to the right temperature, to take an impression of the Yale —even if he had managed to pinch the Yale and return it unseen it would have been impossible for him to cut a new one, those special Yales are far too complicated. And my guess is that that was all he did while he was there.”

  And my guess was completely wrong. But the thought that this fake Marconi-man might have employed himself in another way during his stay in the wireless office did not occur to me until many hours later: it was so blindingly obvious that I missed it altogether, although two minutes’ constructive thought would have been bound to put me on to it. But those hours were to elapse before I got around to the constructive thought: and by that time it was too late. Too late for the Campari, too late for its passengers, and far far too late for all too many of the crew.

  We left young Dexter lying in the wireless office and secured the door with a new padlock. We’d talked for almost five minutes about the problem of where to put him before the simple solution occurred to us: leave him where he was. Nobody was going to use that wireless office any more that day: he was as well there as anywhere till the Nassau police came aboard.

  From the wireless office we’d gone straight to the telegraph lounge. The teleprinters in there were coupled to receiver-transmitters on fixed wavelengths to London, Paris and New York, but could be adapted by men who knew what they were doing, such as Peters and Jenkins, to receive and transmit on practically any wavelength. But not even Peters and Jenkins could do anything about the situation we found: there were two big transmitters in the telegraph lounge, cleverly designed to look like cocktail cabinets, and both had received the same treatment as the sets in the wireless office: the exteriors intact, the interiors smashed beyond repair. Somebody had been very busy during the night: the wireless office must have been the last item on the list.

  I looked at Bullen.

  “With your permission, sir, MacDonald and I will go and have a look at the lifeboats. We might as well waste our time that way as in any other.”

  He knew what I meant all right, and nodded. Captain Bullen was beginning to look slightly hunted. He was the ablest, the most competent master in the Blue Mail: but nothing in his long training and experience had ever been designed to cope with a situation like this.

  And so MacDonald and I duly wasted our time. There were three lifeboats equipped with hand-cranked transmitters for emergency use if the Campari sank or had otherwise to be abandoned. Or they had been equipped with them. But not any more. The transmitters were gone. No need to waste time or make a racket smashing up sets when all you have to do is to drop them over the side. Our murderous friend hadn’t missed a single trick.

  When we got back to the captain’s cabin, where we had been told to report, there was something in the atmosphere that I didn’t like at all. They say you can smell fear: I don’t know about that but you can sense it and you could certainly sense it in that cabin at nine o’clock that morning. The fear, the atmosphere of trapped helplessness, the sense of being completely at the mercy of unknown and infinitely powerful and ruthless forces made for an atmosphere of nervously brittle tension that I could almost reach out and touch.

  McIlroy and Cummings were there with the captain and so, too, was our second mate, Tommy Wilson. He had had to be told, the stage had been reached now where every officer would have to be told, so Bullen said, in the interests of their own safety and self-defence: I wasn’t so sure. Bullen looked up as we came through the door: his face was grim and still, a thinly opaque mask for the consuming worry that lay beneath.

  “Well?”

  I shook my head, took a seat. MacDonald remained standing but Bullen gestured him irritably to a chair. He said, to no one in particular: “I suppose that accounts for all the transmitters on the ship?”

  “As far as we know, yes.” I went on: “Don’t you think we should have White up here, sir?”

  “I was about to do that.” He reached for the phone, spoke for a moment, hung up then said roughly: “Well, Mister, you were the man with the bright ideas last night. Got any this morning?” Just to repeat the words makes them sound harsh and unpleasant: but they were curiously empty of any offence, Bullen didn’t know which way to turn and he was grasping at straws.

  “None. All we know is that Dexter was killed at eight twenty-six this morning, give or take a minute. No question about that. And that at that moment most of our passengers were at breakfast: no question about that either. The only passengers not at breakfast were Miss Harcourt, Mr. Cerdan and his two nurses, Mr. and Mrs. Piper from Miami and that couple from Venezuela—old Hournos and his wife, and their daughter. Our only suspects, and none of them makes any sense.”

  “And all of those were at dinner last night when Brownell and Benson were killed,” McIlroy said thoughtfully, “except the old man and his nurses. Which leaves them as the only suspects, which is not only ridiculous but far too obvious: I think we’ve already had plenty of proof that whatever the people behind all this are guilty of, being obvious is not one of them. Unless, of course,” he added slowly, “some of the passengers are working in collusion with each other.”

  “Or with the crew,” Tommy Wilson murmured.

  “What?” Old Bullen gave him the full benefit of his commodore’s stare. “What did you say?”

  “I said the crew,” Wilson repeated clearly. If old Bullen was trying to frighten Tommy Wilson he was wasting his time. “And by the crew I also include the officers. I agree, sir, that I heard—or knew—of those murders for the first time only a few minutes ago, and I admit I haven’t had time to sort out my thoughts. On the other hand, I haven’t had a chance to become so involved as all the rest of you are. With all respects, I’m not so deeply lost in the wood that I can’t see the trees. You all seem to be convinced that it must be one or more of the passengers responsible—our chief officer here seems to have set this bee firmly in all your bonnets—but if a passenger were in cahoots with one of the crew then it’s quite possible that that member of the crew was detailed to hang around in the vicinity of the wireless office and start laying about him when necessary.”

  “You said the chief officer was responsible for planting this idea in our minds,” Bullen said slowly. “What do you mean by that?”

  “No more than I said, sir. I only——” Then the implications of the captain’s question struck him. “Good God, sir! Mr. Carter? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “No one think’s you’re crazy,” McIlroy put in soothingly. Our chief engineer had always regarded Wilson as a bit of a mental bantam-weight, but you could see him slowly revising his opinion. “The crew, Tommy. What makes you suspect the crew?”

  “Elimination, motive and opportunity,” Wilson said promptly. “We seem to have more or less eliminated the passengers. All with alibis. And the motive. What are the usual motives?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “Revenge, jealousy, gain,” sai
d McIlroy. “Those three.”

  “There you are, then. Take revenge and jealousy. It is conceivable that any of our passengers should have their knives so deeply in Brownell, Benson and Dexter as to want to kill them all? Ridiculous. Gain? What could that bunch of bloated plutocrats want with any more lucre.” He looked round slowly. “And what officer or man aboard the Campari couldn’t do with a little more lucre. I could, for one.”

  “Opportunity, Tommy,” McIlroy prompted him gently. “Opportunity, you said.”

  “I don’t have to go into that,” Wilson said. “Engineer and deck crews could be eliminated at once. The engineering side, except for officers at mealtimes, never go anywhere near the passenger and boat-decks. The bo’sun’s men here are only allowed there in the morning watch, for washing down decks. But“—he looked around him again, even more slowly—”every deck officer, radio officer, radar operator, cook, galley slave and steward aboard the Campari has a perfect right to be within a few yards of the wireless office at any time: no one could question his presence there. Not only that——”

  A knock came at the door and Assistant Chief Steward White came in, hat in hand. He was looking acutely unhappy and looked even more so when he saw the extent and composition of the welcoming committee.

  “Come in and sit down,” Bullen said. He waited till White had done this, then went on: “Where were you between eight and half past eight this morning, White?”

  “This morning. Eight and half past.” White was immediately all stiff outrage. “I was on duty, sir, of course. I——”

  “Relax,” Bullen said wearily. “No one is accusing you of anything.” Then he said more kindly: “We’ve all had some very bad news, White. Nothing that concerns you directly, so don’t get too apprehensive. You’d better hear it.”

  Bullen told him, without any trimmings, of the three murders and the one immediate result was that everyone present could immediately remove White from the list of suspects. He might have been a good actor, but not even an Irving could have turned his colour from a healthy red to a greyish pallor at the touch of a switch, which was what White did. He looked so bad, his breathing got so quick and shallow that I rose hastily and fetched him a glass of water. He swallowed it in a couple of gulps.

  “Sorry to upset you, White,” Bullen went on. “But you had to know. Now then, between eight and eight-thirty: how many of our passengers had breakfast in their rooms?”

  “I don’t know, sir, I’m not sure.” He shook his head, then went on slowly. “Sorry, sir, I do remember. Mr. Cerdan and his nurses, of course. The Hournos family. Miss Harcourt. Mr. and Mrs. Piper.”

  “As Mr. Carter said,” McIlroy murmured.

  “Yes,” Bullen nodded. “Now, White, be very careful. Did any of those passengers at any time leave their rooms during this period? At any time? Even for a moment?”

  “No, sir. Quite definitely not. Not on my deck, anyway. The Hournos are on ‘B’ deck. But none of the others went in or out of any of the suites: only stewards with trays. I can swear to that, sir. From my cubicle—Mr. Benson’s, that is—I can see every door in the passageway.”

  “That’s so,” Bullen agreed. He asked for the name of the senior steward on “B” deck, spoke briefly on the phone, then hung up. “All right, White, you can go. But keep your eyes—and ears—open and report to me immediately you come across anything that strikes you as unusual. And don’t talk about this to anyone.” White rose quickly, and left. He seemed glad to go.

  “There it is, then,” Bullen said heavily. “Everyone—every one of the passengers, that is—in the clear. I’m beginning to think you may have the right of it after all, Mr. Wilson.” He looked speculatively at me. “How about it now, Mr. Carter?”

  I looked at him, then at Wilson, and said: “Mr. Wilson seems to be the only one of us that makes any sense. What he says is logical, completely plausible and fits the facts. It’s too logical, too plausible. I don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?” Bullen demanded. “Because you can’t believe that any crew member of the Campari could be bought? Or because it knocks your own pet theories on the head?”

  “I can’t give you any why’s or why not’s, sir. It’s just a hunch, the way I feel.”

  Captain Bullen grunted, not a very kindly grunt either, but unexpected support came from the chief engineer.

  “I agree with Mr. Carter. We’re up against very very clever people—if it is people.” He paused, then said suddenly: “Is the passage money for the Carreras family, father and son, paid in yet?”

  “What the devil has that got to do with anything?” Bullen demanded.

  “Has it been paid?” McIlroy repeated. He was looking at the purser.

  “It’s been paid,” Cummings said quietly. He was still a long way from getting over the shock caused by the murder of his friend Benson.

  “In what currency?”

  “Travellers’ cheques. Drawn on a New York bank.”

  “Dollars, eh? Now, Captain Bullen, I submit that’s very interesting indeed. Paid in dollars. Yet in May of last year the generalissimo made it a penal offence to be in possession of any foreign currency whatsoever. I wonder where our friends got the money from. And why are they permitted to be in possession of it? Instead of lingering in some jungle jail?”

  “What are you suggesting, Chief?”

  “Nothing,” McIlroy confessed. “That’s the devil of it. I just don’t see how it can tie up with anything. I just submit that it is very curious indeed and that anything curious, in the present circumstances, is worth investigating.” He sat silently for a moment, then said idly: “I suppose you know that our generalissimo friend recently received a gift from the other side of the Iron Curtain? A destroyer and a couple of frigates? Trebled his naval strength in one fell sweep. I suppose you know the generalissimo is desperate for money—his régime is coming apart at the seams for lack of it and that’s what lay behind last week’s bloody riots. You know that we have a dozen people aboard who would be worth God knows how many millions in ransom money? And that if a frigate suddenly did heave over the horizon and order us to stop—well, how could we send out an SOS with all our transmitters smashed.”

  “I have never heard such a ridiculous suggestion in my life,” Bullen said heavily. But ridiculous or not you’re thinking about it, Captain Bullen, I said to myself, by heaven you’re thinking about it. “To knock your suggestion on the head straightaway. How could any vessel ever find us? Where to look for us? We changed course last night, we’re over a hundred miles away from where they might expect us to be—even if they had any idea where we were going in the first place?”

  “I could support the chief’s arguments in that, sir,” I put in. There seemed no point in mentioning that I thought McIlroy’s idea as far-fetched as did the captain. “Any person with a radio receiver might equally have a transmitter—and Miguel Carreras himself mentioned to me that he used to command his own ships. Navigation, by sun or stars would be easy for him. He probably knows our position to within ten miles.”

  “And those messages that came through on the radio,” McIlroy went on. “Message or messages. A message so damned important that two men died: and the possibility that another such message might come through caused a third man to die. What message, Captain, what so tremendously important message? Warnings: from where, from whom, I don’t know. Warnings, Captain Bullen. Knowledge which in our hands would have destroyed some carefully laid plans: and the scope of those plans you can judge from the fact that three men died so that that message should not come through.”

  Old Bullen was shaken. He tried not to show it but, he was shaken. Badly. And I knew it next moment when he turned to Tommy Wilson.

  “On the bridge, Mr. Wilson. Double lookouts: stay doubled till we get to Nassau.” He looked at McIlroy. “If we get to Nassau. Signaller to stand by the Aldis all day. ‘I want assistance’ flags ready for the yardarm. Radar office: if they take their eyes off the screen for a second I’ll ha
ve ’em on the beach. No matter how small a blip they see, no matter what distance, report immediately to the bridge.”

  “We turn towards them for assistance, sir?”

  “You blithering idiot,” Bullen snarled. “We run for our lives in the opposite direction. Do you want to steam into the waiting guns of a destroyer?” No question but that Bullen was far off balance: the self-contradictory element in his instructions escaped him completely.

  “You believe the chief, then, sir?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Bullen growled. “I’m just taking no chances.”

  When Wilson left I said: “Maybe the chief is right. Maybe Wilson is right, too. Both could go together—an armed attack on the Campari with certain suborned members of the crew backing up the attackers.”

  “But you still don’t believe it,” McIlroy said, quietly.

  “I’m like the captain. I don’t know what to believe. But one thing I do know for certain. The radio receiver that intercepted the message we never got—that’s the key to it all.”

  “And that’s the key we’re going to find.” Bullen heaved himself to his feet. “Chief, I’d be glad if you came with me. We’re going to search for this radio, personally. First we start in my quarters, then in yours, then we go through the quarters of every member of the crew of the Campari. Then we start looking anywhere where it might be cached outside their quarters. You come with us, MacDonald.”

  The old man was in earnest all right. If that radio was in the crew’s quarters, he’d find it. The fact that he’d offered to start the search in his own suite was warranty enough for that.

  He went on: “Mr. Carter, I believe it’s your watch.”