‘I have no idea who this murderous fiend may be,’ I said, ‘but I think I can with certainty say who it isn’t. Counting the absent Miss Haynes, there are twenty-two of us in this cabin: to nine of those I cannot see that any suspicion can possibly attach.’
‘Merciful God!’ Goin muttered. ‘Merciful God! This is monstrous, Dr Marlowe, unbelievable. One of us here, one of the people we know, one of our friends has the blood of five people on his hands? It can’t be! It just can’t be!’
‘Except that you know that it must be,’ I said. Goin made no reply. ‘To begin with, I myself am in the clear, not because I know I am—we could all claim that—but because two hostile acts have been committed against my person, one of which was intended to be lethal. Further, I was bringing in Mr Smith here when Stryker was killed and Allen injured.’ This last was the truth but not the whole truth, but only the killer himself would know that and as he was already on to me his opinion was unimportant because he couldn’t possibly voice it. ‘Mr Smith is in the clear because not only was he unconscious at the time, he was a nearly fatal victim of the poisoner’s activities and it’s hardly likely that he would go around poisoning himself.’
‘Then that lets me out, Dr Marlowe!’ The Duke’s voice was a cracked falsetto, hoarse with strain. ‘It wasn’t me, it couldn’t—’
‘Agreed, Cecil, it wasn’t you. Apart from the fact that you were another poisoning victim, I don’t think—well, I’m not being physically disparaging but I’d think it very unlikely that you could have hoisted that rock that was used to kill Stryker. Mr Gerran, too, is above suspicion: not only was he poisoned but he was in the cabin here at the time of Stryker’s death. Allen, obviously, could have had nothing to do with it and neither did Mr Goin here, although you’ll have to take my word for that.’
‘What does that mean, Dr Marlowe?’ Goin’s voice was steady.
‘Because when you first saw Stryker’s body you turned as white as the proverbial sheet. People can do lots of things with their bodies, but they can’t switch on and off the epidermal blood supply at will. Had you been prepared for the sight you saw you wouldn’t have changed colour. You did. So you weren’t prepared. Our two Marys here we’ll have to leave out of the reckoning for it would have been a physical impossibility for either of them to have attacked Stryker with that rock. And Miss Haynes, of course, doesn’t come into the reckoning at all. Which, by my count, leaves thirteen potential suspects in all.’ I looked round the cabin and counted. ‘That’s right. Thirteen. Let’s hope it’s going to be a very unlucky number for one of you.’
‘Dr Marlowe,’ Goin said. ‘I think you should consider withdrawing your resignation.’
‘Consider it withdrawn. I was beginning to wonder what I’d do for food anyway.’ I looked at my now empty glass, then at Otto. ‘Seeing that I’m now back on the strength, as it were, would it be in order—’
‘Of course, of course.’ Otto, looking stricken, sunk heavily on to a providentially sturdy stool and insofar as it was possible for over two hundredweights of lard to look like a punctured balloon, he looked like a punctured balloon. ‘Dear God, this is ghastly. One of us here is a murderer. One of us here has killed five people!’ He shivered violently although the temperature had by this time risen well above freezing point. ‘Five people. Dead. And the man who did it is here!’
I lit a cigarette, sipped a little more of Otto’s scotch and waited for some further contributions to the conversation. Outside, the wind had strengthened until it was now a high and lonesome moaning sound that set the teeth on edge, a moan that regularly climbed up the register into a weird and eldritch whistling as the wind gusted and fell away, everyone appeared to be listening to it and listening intently, a weirdly appropriate litany for the fear and the horror that was closing in on their minds, a fit requiem for the dead Stryker. A whole minute dragged by and no one spoke so I took up the conversational burden again.
‘The implications will not have escaped you,’ I said. ‘At least, when you have had as much time to think about them as I’ve had, they won’t. Stryker is dead—and so are four others. Who should want them dead? Why should they have died? Is there a reason, a purpose behind those slayings? Have we a psychopathic murderer amongst us? If there is a purpose, has it been achieved? If it hasn’t—or if the killer is a psychopath—which one of us is going to be next? Who is going to die tonight? Who is going to go to his cubicle tonight knowing that anyone, a crazed killer, it may be, is going to enter at any time—or even, possibly, one’s own room-mate may be waiting his turn with a knife or a suffocating pillow? In fact, I should think that the room-mate possibility might be by far the more likely—for who would do anything so crazily obvious as that? Except, of course, a crazy man. So, before us, we have what you might call a sleepless vigil. Perhaps we can all keep it up for one night. But for twenty-two nights—can we keep it up for twenty-two nights? Is there any of us here who can be sure of still being alive when the Morning Rose returns?’
From their expressions and the profound silence that greeted this last question it was apparent that no one was prepared to express any such certainty. When I came to consider it myself, instead of just asking them to do so, I realized that the question of continued existence applied more particularly and more strongly to myself than to any of the others, for if the killer were no wayward psycho who struck out as the fancy took him but was an ice-cold and calculating murderer with a definite objective in view, then I was convinced that I was first on his calling list. I didn’t for a moment think that any attempt to dispose of me would be because that was any part of the killer’s preconceived plans but solely because I represented a threat to those plans.
‘And how are we going to comport ourselves from now on?’ I said. ‘Do we now polarize into two groups, the nine acknowledged innocent giving a very wide berth and a leery eye to the thirteen potentially guilty even although this is going to be a mite hard on, say, twelve of the latter? Shall we be like oil and water and resolutely refuse to mix? Or about your shooting plans for tomorrow. Mr Gerran and the Count, I believe, are heading for the fells tomorrow, a goodie and a potential baddie—Mr Gerran is going to make sure that he has at least another goodie along with him to watch his back? Heissman is taking the work-boat to reconnoitre possible locations along the Sor-hamna and perhaps a bit farther south. I believe Jungbeck and Heyter here have volunteered to go along with him. Three of those, you note, whose innocence is not proved. Any white sheep going to go along with black wolf or wolves who may come back and sorrowfully explain that the poor sheep fell over the side and that in spite of their heroic efforts the poor fellow perished miserably? And those splendid precipices at the south of the island—one little well-timed nudge, a deft clicking together of the ankles—well, sixteen hundred feet is a considerable drop, especially when you bear in mind that it’s straight down all the way. A perplexing and difficult problem, isn’t it, gentlemen?’
‘This is preposterous,’ Otto said loudly. ‘Absolutely preposterous.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I said. ‘A pity we can’t ask Stryker his opinion about that. Or the opinions of Antonio and Halliday and Moxen and Scott. When your pale ghost looks down from Limbo, Mr Gerran, and watches you being lowered into a hole in the frozen snow—do you think it will still look preposterous?’
Otto shuddered and reached for the bottle. ‘What in God’s name are we going to do?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘You heard what I just said to Mr Goin. I have reverted to the position of employee. I haven’t got my shirt on this film as I heard Mr Goin say to Captain Imrie that you had, I’m afraid this is a decision to arrive at at directorial level—well, the three directors that are still capable of making decisions.’
‘Would our employee mind telling us what he means?’ Goin tried to smile but it didn’t come off, his heart wasn’t in it.
‘Do you want to go ahead with shooting all your scenes up here or don’t you? It’s up to you. If we all stay he
re in the cabin permanently, at least half a dozen awake at any given time, looking with all their eyes and listening with all their ears, then the chances are high that we’ll all still be in relatively mint condition by the time the twenty-two days are up. On the other hand, of course, that means that you won’t get any of your film shot and you’ll lose all your investment. It’s a problem I wouldn’t like to have to face. That’s excellent scotch you have there, Mr Gerran.’
‘I can see that you appreciate it.’ Otto would have liked a touch of asperity in his voice, but all he managed to do was to sound worried.
‘Don’t be so mean.’ I helped myself. ‘These are times that try men’s souls.’ I wasn’t really listening to Otto, I was barely listening to myself. Once before, since leaving Wick, on the occasion when the Count had said something about a surfeit of horseradish, certain words had had the effect of a touch-paper being applied to a trail of gun-powder, triggering off a succession of thoughts that came tumbling in one after the other almost faster than my mind could register them, and now the same thing had happened again, only this time the words had been triggered off by something I’d said myself. I became aware that the Count was speaking, presumably to me. I said: ‘Sorry, mind on other things, you know.’
‘I can see that.’ The Count was looking at me in a thoughtful fashion. ‘All very well to opt out of responsibility, but what would you do?’ He smiled. ‘If I were to co-opt you again as a temporary unpaid director?’
‘Easy,’ I said, and the answer did come easily—as the result of the past thirty seconds’ thinking. ‘I’d watch my back and get on with the ruddy film.’
‘So.’ Otto nodded, and he, the Count and Goin looked at one another in apparent satisfaction. ‘But now, this moment, what would you do?’
‘When do we have supper?’
‘Supper?’ Otto blinked. ‘Oh, about eight, say.’
‘And it’s now five. About to have three hours’ kip, that’s what I’m going to do. And I wouldn’t advise anyone to come near me, either for an aspirin or with a knife in their hand, for I’m feeling very nervous indeed.’
Smithy cleared his throat. ‘Would I get clobbered if I asked for an aspirin now? Or something a bit more powerful to make a man sleep? I feel as if my head has been on a butcher’s block.’
‘I can have you asleep in ten minutes. Mind you, you’ll probably feel a damn sight worse when you wake up.’
‘Impossible. Lead me to the knock-out drops.’
Inside my cubicle I gripped the handle of the small square double-plate-glazed window and opened it with some difficulty. ‘Can you do that with yours?’
‘You do have things on your mind. No mangers allocated for uninvited guests.’
‘All the better. Bring a cot in here. You can borrow one from Judith Haynes’s room.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There’s a spare one there.’
CHAPTER TEN
Five minutes later, wrapped to the eyes against the bitter cold, the driving snow and that wind that was now howling, not moaning, across the frozen face of the island, Smithy and I stood in the lee of the cabin, by my window which I’d wedged shut against a wad of paper: there was no handle on the outside to pull it open again, but I had with me a multi-tooled Swiss army knife that could pry open just about anything. We looked at the vaguely seen bulk of the cabin, at the bright light—Coleman lamps have an intensely white flame—streaming from one of the windows in the central section and the pale glimmer of smaller lights from a few of the cubicles.
‘No night for an honest citizen to be taking a constitutional,’ Smithy said in my ear. ‘But how about bumping into one of the less honest ones?’
‘Too soon for him or them to be stirring abroad,’ I said. ‘For the moment the flame of suspicion burns too high for anyone even to clear his throat at the wrong moment. Later, perhaps. But not now.’
We went directly to the provisions store, closed the door behind us and, since the hut was window-less, switched on both our torches. We searched through all the bags, crates, cartons and packages of food and found nothing untoward.
‘What are we supposed to be looking for?’ Smithy asked.
‘I’ve no idea. Anything, shall we say, that shouldn’t be here.’
‘A gun? A big black ribbed bottle marked “Deadly Poison”?’
‘Something like that.’ I lifted a bottle of Haig from a crate and stuck it in my parka pocket. ‘Medicinal use only,’ I explained.
‘Of course.’ Smithy made a farewell sweep of his torch beam round the walls of the hut: the beam steadied on three small highly varnished boxes on an upper shelf.
‘Must be very high grade food in those,’ Smithy said. ‘Caviar for Otto, maybe?’
‘Spares medical equipment for me. Mainly instruments. No poisons. Guaranteed.’ I made for the door. ‘Come on.’
‘Not checking?’
‘No point. Be a bit difficult to hide a submachine- gun in one of those.’ The boxes were about ten inches by eight.
‘OK to have a look, all the same?’
‘All right.’ I was a bit impatient. ‘Hurry it up, though.’
Smithy opened the lids of the first two boxes, glanced cursorily at the contents and closed them again. He opened the third box and said: ‘Broken into your reserves already, I see.’
‘I have not.’
‘Then somebody has.’ He handed over the box and I saw the two vacant moulds in the blue felt.
‘Somebody has indeed,’ I said. ‘A hypodermic and a tube of needles.’
Smithy looked at me in silence, took the box, closed the lid and replaced it. He said: ‘I don’t think I like this very much.’
‘Twenty-two days could be a very long time,’ I said. ‘Now, if we could only find the stuff that’s going to go inside this syringe.’
‘If. You don’t think somebody may have borrowed it for his own private use? Somebody on the hard stuff who’s bent his own plunger? One of the Three Apostles, for instance? Right background, after all—pop world, film world, just kids?’
‘No, I don’t think that.’
‘I don’t think so either. I wish I did.’
We went from there to the fuel hut. Two minutes was sufficient to discover that the fuel hut had nothing to offer us. Neither had the equipment hut although it afforded me two items I wanted, a screwdriver from the tool-box Eddie had used when he was connecting up the generator, and a packet of screws. Smithy said: ‘What do you want those for?’
‘For the screwing up of windows,’ I said. ‘A door is not the only way you can enter the cubicle of a sleeping man.’
‘You don’t trust an awful lot of people, do you?’
‘I weep for my lost innocence.’
There was no temptation to linger in the tractor shed, not with Stryker lying there, his face ghastly in the reflected wash from the torches, his glazed eyes staring unseeingly at the ceiling. We rummaged through tool-boxes, examined metal panniers, even went to the length of probing fuel tanks, oil tanks and radiators: we found nothing.
We made our way down to the jetty. From the main cabin it was a distance of just over twenty yards and it took us five minutes to find it. We did not dare use our torches, and with that heavy and driving snow reducing visibility to virtually arm’s length, we were blind people moving in a blind world. We edged our way very gingerly out to the end of the jetty—the snow had covered up the gaps in the crumbling limestone and, heavily clad as we were, the chances of surviving a tumble into the freezing waters of the Sor-hamna were not high—located the work-boat in the sheltered north-west angle of the jetty and climbed down into it by means of a vertical iron ladder that was so ancient and rusty that the outboard ends of some of the rungs were scarcely more than a quarter of an inch in diameter.
On a dark night the glow from a torch can be seen from a considerable distance even through the most heavily falling snow but now that we were below the level of the jetty wall we switched our torches on again
, though still careful to keep them hooded. A quick search of the work-boat revealed nothing. We clambered into the fourteen- footer lying alongside and had the same lack of success. From here we transferred ourselves to the mock-up submarine—an iron ladder had been welded both to its side and the conning-tower.
The conning-tower had a platform welded across its circumference at a distance of about four feet from the top. A hatch in this led to a semi-circular platform about eighteen inches below the flange to which the conning-tower was secured: from here a short ladder led to the deck of the submarine. We went down and shone our torches around.
‘Give me subs any time,’ Smithy said. ‘At least they keep the snow out. That apart, I don’t think I’d care to settle down here.’
The narrow and cramped interior was indeed a bleak and cheerless place. The deck consisted of transverse spaced wooden planks held in position at either side by large butterfly nuts. Beneath the planks we could see, firmly held in position, rows of long narrow grey-painted bars—the four tons of cast-iron that served as ballast. Four square ballast tanks were arranged along either side of the shell—those could be filled to give negative buoyancy—and at one end of the shell stood a small diesel, its exhaust passing through the deck-head as far as the top of the conning-tower, to which it was bolted: this engine was coupled to a compressor unit for emptying the ballast tanks. And that, structurally, was all that there was to it: I had been told that the entire mock-up had cost fifteen thousand pounds and could only conclude that Otto had been engaged in the producers’ favourite pastime of cooking the books.
There were several other disparate items of equipment. In a locker in what I took to be the after end of this central mock-up were four small mushroom anchors with chains, together with a small portable windlass: immediately above these was a hatch in the deck-head which gave access to the upper deck: the anchors could only be for mooring the model securely in any desired position. Opposite this locker, securely lashed against a bulkhead, was a lightweight plastic reconstruction of a periscope that appeared to be capable of operating in a sufficiently realistic fashion. Close by were three other plastic models, a dummy three-inch gun, presumably for mounting on the deck, and two model machine-guns which would be fitted, I imagined, somewhere in the conning- tower. In the for’ard end of the craft were two more lockers: one held a number of cork life- jackets, the other six cans of paint and some paint-brushes. The cans were marked ‘Instant Grey’.
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