The Man Who Stayed Alive

by John Creasey

  He drew on his cigarette, and it made a pink glow about the tip of his nose; just a glimmer in the blackness. He took out his lighter, but before flicking it on, stood in the silence, listening, in spite of his certainty that there was no sound of breathing.

  The dead did not breathe, and he was prepared to believe that anything could have happened in this cabin; anywhere on board.

  He flicked the lighter.

  The light was dim but, in the first moment, bright enough to dazzle him. He narrowed his eyes against it. Then he could see the glow, and the foot of the bed, the mirror reflecting the light and his own sinister looming figure; all the things he would expect to see, nothing to add to the night’s horror.

  The beds seemed empty.

  He made out the shape of the light switch, and pressed down.

  The beds were empty.

  One was rumpled, as if someone had been sitting on it, and that was more than a guess. The blonde wasn’t as tidy as the brunette. On the floor was a pair of pale nylon stockings, filmy things dropped casually as the woman had taken them off her slim legs. On the bed was a bra, a pair of panties, which looked too fragile for words, and a belt which hardly warranted the name belt. All of these were pink. Over a chair was the rose-coloured evening gown the blonde had worn that night. On her, it had seemed almost part of her, a living thing; but here it was, a lifeless piece of satin, with a few tawdry, glittering pieces sewn on to it. It looked too limp to have belonged to a woman so full of vitality.

  Where was she?

  If she had been in the bathroom, he would surely have beard some sound of movement. He heard none at all. He strained his ears, conscious of the slight creaking sound that the ship made, and then he stiffened, becoming slowly aware of another sound, and one which made him shiver.

  He didn’t like shivering for reasons of that kind. It was drip-drip-drip. He had noticed it before, but it was only now that he was wondering where the blonde had gone did he connect it with that one drop from the back of Gann’s chair.

  The door of the bathroom was closed.

  It wasn’t a full bathroom, just a toilet with a cubicle for a shower. This cabin was identical with that which he and Gann had shared, except that everything was the other way round. Once he realised that, he could find his way about.

  Drip-drip-drip.

  There was no other sound, and that made the dripping noise seem louder, and it also made Whittaker’s breath come in shorter, sharper measure. There was nothing at all in this night’s happenings that he liked, and he was prepared to believe the worst of everything.

  Drip.

  The truth was that he was living on the edge of his nerves. He had seen a thing which he had not believed possible; and imagining others which might never happen. He was screwing himself tip to face something which might be like a figment in a nightmare. In fact, he felt much as he would if this were a nightmare. He felt stiff and cold, and suspected that if he opened his mouth to scream, no sound would come.

  Standing here, fighting for complete calm, he knew that it would be easy to go out of the cabin and turn his back on whatever was here. But once he did that he would be finished. He would never be able to take on a job again, would be forever mocked by his own cowardice.

  He dropped the latch of the passage door, to make sure that no one could get in, then advanced towards the shower door. He touched the handle very lightly, pushed it down, and eased the door open. As he did so, he realised that the ship had stopped rolling; there was hardly any movement at all.

  He felt better, now that he was on the move.

  He looked inside the cubicle.

  He should not have been surprised, and yet what he saw kicked him so hard that at first he could not move. Here was all the nightmare horror that he had feared.

  The blonde was there, on the floor, with the plastic curtain which separated the shower from the rest of the compartment drawn back. Water swayed gently about the huddled body, lapping at creamy legs and creamy arms, covering the scarlet nails of the right hand.

  She had died as Gann had died, and the water against white tiles was tinged a soft and lovely pink.

  Whittaker stepped back into the cabin and eased his collar, which felt tight enough to choke him. It was that nightmare world. He did not even remember the way he had talked to Gann, up in the bar while watching Pirran and his two ladies for the night. All that was in the past — like life for Gann and for the blonde. Her face was hidden from him, and he still could not see whether there was any expression on it. The temptation to turn his back on this new horror was almost too strong to resist, and he had to make a conscious fight against it. If he turned away, what could he hope to win? He was known to share Gann’s room and to be working with him; he would escape nothing, and might increase the risk of being suspected

  He was there, with a job to do.

  Two jobs.

  First, save Pirran’s life. Second, find out who had killed Gann and the girl who now lay dead.

  He looked about the cabin with steady eye, on top of his job now. There was nothing to suggest that it had been searched. The girl had come in, sat on the side of the bed, stripped, gone for the shower and, under the sound of the »hissing water, heard nothing of the approach of the killer. It was much easier to understand that than to understand how Gann had been taken by surprise.

  Whittaker moved to the dressing-chest, opened it and looked through everything he could find. Work gave him needed calmness. He didn’t find much, but a passport with the blonde’s photograph told him that her name was Maisie Gregson, that she had blue eyes, fair hair, that she was five feet six in height, and that she lived at Linton Court, Bayswater, London. The other passport gave the same kind of skeleton story. The brunette was Olive Johns; she had grey eyes, dark hair, and was five feet five in height; there were a few details he could have supplied, missing from the document. She lived at Linton Court, Bayswater, London. So presumably they shared a flat.

  They had shared. . . .

  Whittaker put the passports away.

  In an envelope he found a vaccination certificate, some traveller’s cheques, and odd papers, and a letter from the Lamprey Hotel, Broadway at 61st Street, confirming a booking for an apartment with a bedroom and a living-room for Miss Maisie Gregson, at a rent of $27-50 a week-

  Not exactly luxury.

  Whittaker kept the letter, but left everything else.

  He went slowly to the door, listened again, and then stepped out.

  A steward turned the corner, taking Whittaker completely by surprise. It was an indication of his cool nerve that he showed no sign of jumpiness and felt very little. He did not even need to keep a poker-face, but was quite natural and relaxed.

  The steward also kept a completely straight face, as stewards do. He was a plump man, going bald — especially at the front of his head: it gave him an intellectual appearance which was probably misleading. His eyes looked tired and his wrinkled lids drooped. There was no shadow of doubt that he knew which room Whittaker had come from, and it was at least probable that he had seen others come from there during the voyage. He inclined his head with the courtliness of an old hand at the game.

  ‘Good-night, sir.’

  ‘Good-night.’

  They passed. Whittaker didn’t slacken his pace, but once the man was behind him, found that his heart was outpacing itself. In the morning the blonde would be found, and the steward would report exactly what he had seen. So in the morning, unless he took sharp, evasive action, there would be a hue and cry for him. Before, he had simply been an obvious man to question because he knew Gann. Now, he had been in a position to have committed two murders, and that wasn’t a thing that anyone could laugh off.

  Was he being framed?

  He jibbed at the thought, and quickened his pace.

  It was as if his heart were a puffing engine, forcing him to go faster and faster, making his legs move like pistons. He knew exactly what he feared, and the encounter with the ste
ward had put it into clearer perspective. It was useless to tell himself that a third could not have happened, that two murders for one night were more than enough; he was frightened by the possibility that when he reached his own cabin, he would find the brunette dead.

  Could that third horror lie in wait for him?

  He took the steps up towards the hall three at a time, turned the bend in them — and saw the man’s legs, the brightly polished brown shoes, the socks with red, white and blue rings round them. One moment there were just the stairs — the next the legs, and the shoes and socks.

  At first Whittaker stood aside to let the other pass. His thoughts were of the brunette and the possibility that she was dead in his cabin. If she were, and if anyone else found her, then he would probably never save his neck — and saving it was an overpowering necessity.

  Then, there were the man’s feet. Unmoving.

  From the moment he first saw them to the moment when he began to understand, only a few seconds passed. Whittaker had moved to one side, and was now on a step near the corner, but the other man hadn’t moved.

  He did move, suddenly, savagely.

  Whittaker had no time to look further, and to see what the man’s face was like. In that few seconds of grace, he sensed what was coming, and flung his arms upwards, putting his hands across his head. The first blow from the stranger smashed down with agonising force. Whittaker thought that the fingers were broken; he knew that they had saved his skull from being smashed in like a shell.

  The man grunted, and was ready to strike again.

  Whittaker flung himself forward. The second blow missed his head and his hands and fell, limply, on to the small of his back. The force of his own blow made the attacker lurch forward, and then the one thing Whittaker hoped for happened. The man went sprawling, tossed over Whittaker’s back.

  Whittaker straightened up, but could hardly keep his feet. He had stopped thinking now, had only the animal instinct to save himself.

  The upwards movement sent the attacker hurtling through the air and crashing to the side of the staircase. He hit it with a crunching kind of thud and fell to the floor like a sack. Whittaker knew then that the danger had gone, but that was his only thought. His hands were afire, and in spite of their protection, his head felt as if it had been, savagely battered. He managed to turn so that he was sitting on the stairs, head in his hands, staring through his fingers at the crumpled body of his assailant.

  The man lay quite still, in an oddly twisted position.

  Whittaker watched him, stupidly. The ache in his own head, the horror of all that had happened, combined to make him feel just numbed. He had been very near death. The savagery of the blows had been a kind that could crush a man’s skull — as Gann’s had been crushed, as well as the blonde’s. His fingers had saved him; that and the fact that he had been going forward, so that a little of the force of the blow had been wasted.

  Get that: he had nearly been the third victim. What was happening? Had some madman started to kill. . . ?

  This was death by design: Gann, him, the blonde. Bat be was alive, and the would-be-killer was lying there, Whittaker noticed the peculiar way the man’s neck was bent, but couldn’t think why. He began to work his fingers about, cautiously, and they hurt a little less. There was a spot of pain in the small of his back, but nothing that mattered. He began to think more rationally and, with thinking, began to feel also a sense of triumph at his own escape. First Gann, then Maisie Gregson, had died from a savage blow on the back of the head, and he had saved himself by a sub-conscious movement and a lot of luck.

  He had always believed in his lucky star.

  He had a sense of anti-climax as he stared at the man, who was dressed in a navy-blue suit, whose face was turned towards the wall, whose ringed socks were clearly visible because of the way his trousers had hitched up as he had fallen. Near him was a bludgeon, spiked and bloody. He would soon come round, and when he came round, he would talk. He would have to.

  Whittaker gulped.

  He took his hands from his head, and looked harder at the unconscious man.

  ‘No,’ he said, huskily. ‘No.’

  He got up, and found it necessary to cling to the hand rail; his head seemed to go up and down, as if the ship had started rolling again. It hadn’t. He went down two steps, one at a time, and felt as if he would never again be able to move freely. He stared without shifting his gaze, and what he saw made him lick his lips, and then say again:

  ‘No.’

  Yet in his bones he knew what he feared was true. The man had struck the walnut panelling of the staircase with such force that he had broken his neck. That was why his head was in such an odd position.

  Whittaker made himself go down on one knee, felt for the pulse, and knew that he was right.

  He straightened up.

  ‘One, two, three,’ he said, stupidly. ‘One, two, three — four.’

  He clenched his teeth.

  If he were going to lose his head, this would be the time. Do the wrong thing now, and he was finished. If he were actually seen by the side of a dead man, what would words and explanations do to help? Gann; the girl; this brute. It was as bad as being caught red-handed, and yet — here was the nightmare. He couldn’t make himself move; he felt as if his joints were all locked; arms, legs, hands, mouth. There were limits to what a man could take, and he had been severely shocked twice tonight, had not really recovered from the first one.

  He must move.

  He tried to make himself, but was still in that locked position.

  Then, as if from a long way off, he heard sounds; footsteps. Someone was coming towards the stairs from the hall. Whittaker moved away from them, made a desperate effort, and broke through the paralysis. Once able to move, he went down quickly, and made very little sound. He dared not stop, or soothe his swelling head. He couldn’t stop his heart from thumping, either. He reached the next deck, when he heard the footsteps stop, and heard a sharp exclamation. He moved towards the staircase on the other side, and went up them. At least the nightmare was past. Was it? That other girl . . .

  A man shouted something which sounded like, ‘Steward!’ The word carried the ring of panic.

  Whittaker reached the main hall from the other staircase several minutes later. He was outwardly quite normal, and inwardly a great deal better, but there was one dreaded thing on his mind; fear of finding the brunette dead, too. He tried to keep the thought out of his mind, but it stayed there, immovable. He saw other people without any feeling of dismay or fear — as if sure that he would not be in danger until he had seen the girl.

  He would not allow himself to move too quickly. By now, men were hurrying towards the staircase. He recognised the ship’s doctor, and the purser, a small man and a big one. There were also several passengers, three of them fully-dressed, two in dressing-gowns. Men were whispering. Three white-coated stewards had appeared as if from nowhere, and were taking up a position as of guard at the head of the stairs; there would be others below.

  A man with a shock of red hair, and wearing a green dressing-gown, said to Whittaker:

  ‘Do you know what’s happened?’ He sounded scared.

  ‘Afraid I don’t,’ Whittaker was pleased with himself; his voice could not have been steadier or more casual.

  ‘A man’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ echoed Whittaker, as if he lived in a world which knew not death. ‘That’s pretty ugly. Dead?’ he repeated. ‘But how . . .’

  ‘I’m told it’s a broken neck.’

  ‘Extraordinary thing,’ observed Whittaker, and looked towards the stewards. ‘They seem to have everything under control, though. Nothing we can do, is there ?’ He mustn’t be too casual.

  ‘Well — well, I suppose not,’ said the red-haired man. ‘As you say, extraordinary.’ He blinked at the stewards, and looked as if he dared venture further, so that he could get first-hand evidence. Instead, he stood where he was, clutching the dressing-gown about him.
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  Whittaker reached his own passage. There was just the one sense of fear; of what he might find.

  Two more stewards and a nurse were coming along, all walking briskly, all looking as if they had been woken from a deep sleep. They hardly noticed Whittaker, but that was not remarkable, in view of that strange ability to lose himself even among a small group of people. There was a quickness in the men’s step which told of sensation waiting for them. A kind of eagerness. Whittaker had no eagerness, only the dread of what might be waiting for him.

  He heard someone in the passage behind him, and glanced over his shoulder. There was nothing nervous in his manner or his emotions; fear of what would happen if he were suspected was driven away by the all-pervading dread. He could picture the girl as she had lain there when he had first entered his cabin; how she had looked when he had pulled the bedclothes down.

  Perfection.

  Beauty.

  Vital, throbbing life.

  The man behind Whittaker was the man in the green dressing-gown. He turned into a room three removed from Whittaker’s, and the door slammed.

  Whittaker turned to his own door, and touched the handle, but for a moment didn’t turn it. He felt almost sure what he would find, and he dreaded the moment of discovery. He wanted time to get away from other people, to put both time and distance away from the horror that had happened tonight. He had rubbed shoulders with violence all of his life, but never a holocaust like this. It was worse because of what might wait behind this door. He forgot that he had been seen coming out of dead Maisie’s room; and later, near the hall after the man had been found dead; that he would be known as a friend of Gann’s. But he began to remember these; and to remind himself that he had been seen coming from the passage where A14 was situated.

  Now if a dead woman were found in his own cabin. . . .

  He flung the door open, let it bang back, and waited for a second, to make sure that no one was there. His heart was banging uncontrollably.

  Unless they hid in the shower, no one was.

  He stepped in, closed and locked the door, and went to the wardrobe cupboard. He felt choked. His hands .were clammy, yet cold. It was a full minute before he could bring himself to open that door. When he did, it was with a savage movement and that fear amounting almost to conviction that the brunette would be dead.