Beresford and his wife had been moving around speaking to each of the guests in rotation and now it was my turn. I saw them approaching, raised my glass and said: “Many happy returns, Mrs. Beresford.”
“Thank you, young man. Enjoying yourself?”
“Of course. So is everybody. And you should be, most of all.”
“Yes.” She sounded just the slightest bit doubtful. “I don’t know if Julius was right—I mean, it’s less than twenty-four hours——”
“If you’re thinking about Benson and Brownell, ma’am, you’re worrying unnecessarily. You couldn’t have done a better thing than arrange this. I’m sure every passenger on the ship is grateful to you for helping to get things back to normal so quickly. I know all the officers are, anyway.”
“Just as I told you, my dear.” Beresford patted his wife’s hand then looked at me, amusement touching the corners of his eyes. “My wife, like my daughter, seems to have the greatest faith in your judgment, Mr. Carter.”
“Yes sir. I wonder if you could persuade your daughter not to go visiting in the officers’ quarters?”
“No,” Beresford said regretfully. “It’s impossible. Self-willed young lady.” He grinned. “I’ll bet she didn’t even knock.”
“She didn’t.” I looked across the room to where Miss Beresford was giving Tony Carreras the full benefit of her eyes over the rim of a Martini glass. They certainly made a striking couple. “She had, with respect, some bee in her bonnet about something being wrong aboard the Campari. I think the unfortunate happenings last night must have upset her.”
“Naturally. And you managed to remove this—um—bee?”
“I think so, sir.”
There was a slight pause, then Mrs. Beresford said impatiently: “Julius, we’re just beating about the bush.”
“Oh, now, Mary, I don’t think——”
“Rubbish,” she said briskly. “Young man, do you know one of the principal reasons I came along on this trip. Apart,” she smiled, “from the food? Because my husband asked me to, because he wanted a second opinion—on you. Julius, as you know, has made several trips on your ship. He has, as the saying goes, had an eye on you for a job in his organisation. My husband, I may say, has made his fortune not so much by working himself as by picking the right men to work for him. He’s never made a mistake yet. I don’t think he’s making a mistake now. And you have another very special recommendation.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said politely.
“You’re the only young man of our acquaintance who doesn’t turn himself into a carpet to be trampled upon as soon as our daughter appears in sight. A very important qualification, believe me.”
“Would you like to work for me, Mr. Carter?” Beresford asked bluntly.
“I think I would, sir.”
“Well!” Mrs. Beresford looked at her husband. “That’s settled——”
“Will you,” Julius Beresford interrupted.
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because your interests are in steel and oil. I know only the sea and ships. They don’t mix. I have no qualifications to work for you and at my present age I’d be too long in acquiring them. And I couldn’t accept a job for which I’d no qualifications.”
“Even at double the money? Or three times?”
“I’m grateful for the offer, sir, believe me. I do appreciate it. But there’s more to it than money.”
“Ah, well.” The Beresfords looked at each other. They didn’t seem too disturbed over my refusal: there was no reason why they should. “We asked a question, we got an answer. Fair enough.” He changed the subject. “What do you think of my feat in getting the old man here tonight?”
“I think it was very thoughtful of you.” I glanced across the room to the spot near the door where old Cerdan, sherry glass in hand, was sitting in his wheel-chair, with his nurses on a settee by his side. They too had sherry glasses. The old boy seemed to be talking animatedly to the captain. “He must lead a very shut-in life. Much difficulty in persuading him?”
“None at all. He was delighted to come.” I filed away this piece of information: my one encounter with Cerdan had left me with the impression that the only thing that would delight him about such an invitation would be the opportunity to give a surly refusal. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Carter. Hosts’ duties to their guests, you know.”
“Certainly, sir.” I stood to one side, but Mrs. Beresford planted herself in front of me and smiled quizzically.
“Mr. Carter,” she said firmly, “you’re a very stiff-necked young man. And please don’t for a moment imagine that I’m referring to your accident of last night.”
They moved off. I watched them go, thinking all sorts of thoughts, then crossed to the hinged flap that led to the rear of the bar. Whenever I approached that flap I felt it was not a glass I should have in my hand but a machete to help me hack my way through the jungle of flowers, potted shrubs, cacti, and festoons of creepers and hanging plants that transformed the place into the most unlikely-looking bar you’d ever seen. The interior designer responsible had gone into rhapsodies over it, but it was all right for him, he didn’t have to live with it, all he had to do was to retire nightly to his semi-detached in South London where his wife would have had him out the door if he’d tried on any such nonsense at home. But the passengers seemed to like it.
I made it to the back of the bar without getting scratched too much and said to the barman: “How’s it going, Louis?”
“Very well, sir,” Louis said stiffly. His bald pate was gleaming with sweat and his hair-line moustache twitching nervously. There were irregularities going on and Louis didn’t like irregularities. Then he thawed a bit and said: “They seem to be drinking a fair bit more than usual tonight, sir.”
“Not half as much as they will be later on.” I moved to the crystal-laden shelves from where I could see under the back of the bar, and said: “You don’t look very comfortable to me.”
“By God, and I’m not!” And indeed there wasn’t much room for the bo’sun to wedge his bulk between the raised deck and the under-side of the bar: his knees were up to his chin, but at least he was completely invisible to anyone on the other side of the counter. “Stiff as hell, sir. Never be able to move when the time comes.”
“And the smell of all that liquor driving you round the bend,” I said sympathetically. I wasn’t as cool as I sounded; I had to keep wiping the palms of my hands on the sides of my jacket, but try as I would I couldn’t seem to get them properly dry. I moved over to the counter again. “A double whisky, Louis. A large double whisky.”
Louis poured the drink and handed it across without a word. I raised it to my lips, lowered it below counter level and a large hand closed gratefully around it. I said quietly, as if speaking to Louis: “If the captain notices the smell afterwards you can claim it was that careless devil Louis that spilt it over you. I’m taking a walk now, Archie. If everything’s O.K., I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“And if not? If you’re wrong?”
“Heaven help me. The old man will feed me to the sharks.”
I made my way out from behind the bar and sauntered slowly towards the door. I saw Bullen trying to catch my eye but I ignored him; he was the world’s worst actor. I smiled at Susan Beresford and Tony Carerras, nodded civilly enough to old Cerdan, bowed slightly to the two nurses—the thin one, I noticed, had returned to her knitting and she seemed to me to be doing all right—and reached the doorway.
Once outside, I dropped all pretence of sauntering. I reached the entrance to the passengers’ accommodation on “A” deck in ten seconds. Halfway down the long central passageway White was sitting in his cubicle. I walked quickly down there, lifted the lid of his desk and took out the four items lying inside: Colt revolver, torch, screwdriver and master-key. I stuffed the Colt into my belt, the torch in one pocket, the screwdriver in the other. I looked at White, but he didn’t look at me. He was staring down into one c
orner of his cubicle as if I didn’t exist. He had his hands clasped tightly together, like one in prayer. I hoped he was praying for me. Even with his hands locked he couldn’t stop them from shaking uncontrollably. I left him without a word and ten seconds later was inside Cerdan’s and the nurses’ suite with the door locked behind me. On a sudden instinct I switched on my torch and played the beam round the edges of the door. The door was pale blue against a pale blue bulkhead. Hanging from the top of the bulkhead, dangling down for a couple of inches over the top of the door, was a pale blue thread. A broken pale blue thread: to the people who had put it there, an unmistakable calling card that visitors had been. I wasn’t worried about that but I was worried by the fact that it showed that someone was suspicious, very very suspicious. This might make things very awkward indeed. Maybe we should have announced Dexter’s death.
I passed straight through the nurses’ cabin and the lounge into Cerdan’s cabin. The curtains were drawn, but I left the lights off: light could show through the curtains and if they were suspicious as I thought someone might have wondered why I had left so suddenly and taken a walk outside. I hooded the torch to a small pencil beam and played it over the deckhead. The cold air trunking ran fore and aft and the first louvre was directly over Cerdan’s bed. I didn’t even need the screwdriver. I shone the torch through the louvre opening and saw, inside the trunking, something gleaming metallically in the bright spot of light. I reached up two fingers and slowly worked that something metallic down through the louvre. A pair of earphones. I peered into the louvre again. The earphones lead had a plug on the end of it and the plug was fitted into a socket that had been screwed on to the upper wall of the trunking. And the radio office was directly above. I pulled out the plug, rolled the lead round the headphones and switched off my torch.
White was exactly as I had left him, still vibrating away like a tuning fork. I opened his desk, returned the key, screwdriver and torch. The earphones I kept. And the gun.
They were into their third cocktails by the time I returned to the drawing-room. I didn’t need to count empty bottles to guess that, the laughter, the animated conversation, the increase in the decibel ratio was proof enough. Captain Bullen was still chatting away to Cerdan. The tall nurse was still knitting, the short one holding a newly-filled glass. Tommy Wilson was over by the bar. I rubbed my cheek and he crushed out the cigarette he was holding. I saw him say something to Miguel and Tony Carreras —at twenty feet, in that racket, it was impossible to hear a word he said—saw Tony Carreras lift a half-amused, half-questioning eyebrow, then all three of them moved over towards the bar.
I joined Captain Bullen and Cerdan. Long speeches weren’t going to help me here and only a fool would throw away his life by tipping off people like those.
“Good evening, Mr. Cerdan,” I said. I pulled my left hand out from under my jacket and tossed the earphones on to his rug-covered lap. “Recognise them?”
Cerdan’s eyes stared wide, then he flung himself forwards and sideways as if to clear his encumbering deck-chair, but old Bullen had been waiting for it and was too quick for him. He hit Cerdan with all the pent-up worry and fury of the past twenty-four hours behind the blow, and Cerdan toppled over the side of his chair and crashed heavily on the carpet.
I didn’t see him fall, I only heard the sound of it. I was too busy looking out for myself. The nurse with the sherry glass in her hand, quick as a cat, flung the contents in my face at the same instant that Bullen hit Cerdan. I flung myself sideways to avoid being blinded, and as I fell I saw the tall thin nurse flinging her knitting to one side and thrusting her right hand deep into the string knitting bag.
With my right hand I managed to tug the Colt clear of my belt before I hit the ground and squeezed the trigger, twice: it was my right shoulder that hit the carpet first, just as I fired, and I didn’t really know where the bullets went nor, for that one nearly blinding instant of agony as the shock of falling was transmitted to my injured neck, did I care: then my head cleared and I saw that the tall nurse was on her feet. Not only on her feet but raised high on her toes, head and shoulders arched sharply forwards, ivory knuckled hands pressed deep into her midriff: then she swayed forward, in macabre slow-motion action, and crumpled over the fallen Cerdan. The other nurse hadn’t moved from her seat: with Captain Bullen’s Colt only six inches from her face, and his finger pretty white in the trigger, she wasn’t likely to, either.
The reverberations of my heavy Colt, painful and deafening in their intensity in that confined metal-walled space, faded away into a silence that was deathly in more ways than one, and through the silence came a soft Highland voice saying gently: “If either of you move I will kill you.”
Carreras Senior and Junior, who must have had their backs to the bar, were now turned round half-way towards it, staring at the gun in MacDonald’s hand. Miguel Carreras’s face was unrecognisable, his expression changed from that of a smooth, urbane and highly prosperous businessman into something very ugly indeed. His right hand, as he had whirled round, had come to rest on the bar near a cut-glass decanter. Archie MacDonald wasn’t wearing any of his medals that night, and Carreras had no means of knowing the long and blood-stained record the bo’sun had behind him, or he would never have tried to hurl that decanter at MacDonald’s head. Carreras’s reactions were so fast, the movement so unexpected, that against another man he might have made it: against MacDonald he didn’t even manage to get the decanter off the counter, and a split-second later was staring down at the shattered bloody mass that had been his hand.
For the second time in a few seconds the crashing roar of a heavy gun, this time intermingled with the tinkle of smashed and flying glass, died away and again MacDonald’s voice came, almost regretfully: “I should have killed you, but I like reading about those murder trials. We’re saving you for the hangman, Mr. Carreras.”
I was climbing back to my feet when someone screamed, a harsh ugly sound that drilled through the room. Another woman took it up, a sustained shriek like an express, whistle wide open, heading for a level-crossing, and the stage seemed all set for mass hysteria.
“Stop that damned screaming!” I snarled. “Do you hear? Stop it at once. It’s all over now.”
The screaming stopped. Silence again, a weird unnatural silence that was almost as bad as the racket that had gone before. And then Beresford was coming towards me, a bit unsteadily, his lips forming words that didn’t come, his face white. I couldn’t blame him, in his well-ordered and wealth-cushioned world the entertainments offered his guests couldn’t often have ended up with bodies strewn all over the floor.
“You’ve killed her, Carter,” he said at length. His voice was harsh and strained. “You’ve killed her. I saw it, we all saw it. A—a defenceless woman.” He stared at me, and if he had any thought of offering me a job again I couldn’t see it in his face. “You murdered her!”
“Woman my foot!” I said savagely. I bent down, yanked off the nurse’s hat, then ruthlessly ripped away a glued wig to show a black close-cropped crew-cut. “Attractive, isn’t it? The very latest from Paris. And defenceless!” I grabbed her bag, turned it upside down, emptied the contents on the carpet, stooped and came up with what had originally been a full-length double-barrelled shotgun: the barrels had been sawn off until there was no more than six inches of them left, the wooden stock removed and a roughly-made pistol type grip fitted in its place. “Ever seen one of those before, Mr. Beresford? Native product of your own country, I believe. A whippet or some such name. Fires lead shot and from the range our nurse friend here intended to use it it would have blown a hole clear through my middle. Defenceless!” I turned to where Bullen was standing, his gun still trained on the other nurse. “Is that character armed, sir?”
“We’ll soon find out,” Bullen said grimly. “You carrying a gun, my friend?”
The “nurse” swore at him, two words in basic Anglo-Saxon, in a low, snarling voice. Bullen gave him no warning, he swept up the Colt and str
uck the barrel heavily across the man’s face and temple. He staggered and swayed, out on his feet. I caught him, held him with one hand while with the other I ripped the dress down the front, pulled out a snub-nosed automatic from a felt holster under the left arm, then let him go. He swayed some more, collapsed on the settee, then rolled to the floor.
“Is—is all this necessary?” Beresford’s voice was still hoarse and strained.
“Stand back everyone,” Bullen said authoritatively. “Keep well over to the windows and clear of those two men, our two Carreras’s friends. They are highly dangerous and might try to jump in among you for cover. MacDonald, that was splendidly done. But next time shoot to kill. That’s an order. I accept full responsibility. Dr. Marston, bring the necessary equipment, please, and attend to Carreras’s hand.” He waited till Marston had left, then turned to Beresford with a wry smile. “Sorry to ruin your party, Mr. Beresford. And all this, I assure you, is highly necessary.”
“But—but the violence, the—the killing——”
“They murdered three of my men in the past twenty-four hours.”
“They what?”
“Benson, Brownell and Fourth Officer Dexter. Murdered them. Brownell was strangled. Benson was strangled or shot, Dexter’s lying dead in the wireless office with three bullets in his stomach, and God knows how many more men would have died if Chief Officer Carter here hadn’t got on to them.”
I looked around the white, strained, still unbelieving faces, there was no real understanding there yet of what the captain was saying, the shock, the fear, the near-hysteria left no room for thought in their minds: of them all, I had to admit that old Beresford had taken it best, to adjust himself to what must have been the incredible spectacle of seeing fellow-passengers suddenly gunned down by officers of the Campari, to fight his way out of this fog of crazy bewilderment.
The Golden Rendezvous Page 12