Last Laugh, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

“That’s it,” she said. “You’re awfully nice. But I’m glad you know what I mean. I’ve heard about things like this happening. If we’d only known each other long ago before the war, before everything was all in pieces, we might—”

  She stopped as though she wanted him to finish, and he did so, almost before he thought.

  “We might have fallen in love,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m awfully glad you said it, my dear. We might have—if we’d only met some other time, somewhere else.”

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Oh, anywhere,” she said, “anywhere, but here. When I could be myself and you could be yourself. Let’s talk about what we used to be.”

  He could not see her face clearly, but there was a little catch in her voice, as though she had thought of checking herself before it was too late.

  “Haven’t you always been what you are now?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she answered quickly, “of course. I was thinking about you. You used to be in the Navy, didn’t you?”

  “I’m out of it,” he said. “I resigned. I was passed over for promotion.”

  “But why?” she asked. “Did you do something wrong?”

  “My personality and my temperament,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “What were you in the Navy?”

  “Aviation,” he said.

  “Oh—” It seemed to him that her voice had changed again. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Does it matter?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said quickly, “of course not. I just like to know about you. Why were you in the Navy?”

  Her questions had been kind and gentle, but her insistence made him restless.

  “I wanted to do something for my country,” he told her.

  Then he wished he had not said it, because it was too naïve to say out loud, too much like the pledge you took when you saluted the flag at school.

  “It doesn’t sound right, does it?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes, it does,” she answered. “I think you’re very nice, my dear. I feel a good deal the same way about my country.”

  She was quiet for a while after that, and he was glad that she was.

  “You’re not happy, are you?” she asked.

  “You mentioned that before,” he told her. “You said you weren’t. Is anyone?”

  “It’s silly not to be happy,” she answered, “as long as you’re alive.”

  Bob Bolles was thinking that they had covered a lot of ground in that random talk of theirs, and the more she talked the less he could understand her.

  “Yes,” she said again, “I wish we’d known each other long ago.”

  “How long ago?” he asked her. “Where did you used to live?”

  “Oh,” she answered, “nearly everywhere. When I was four or five we lived in one of those big apartment houses on Gracie Square in New York.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bob said. “There weren’t any apartment houses on Gracie Square when you were four or five.”

  She laughed. She seemed to be very much amused.

  “I was just trying to see how well you knew New York. Where should I have lived?”

  “In the East Sixties,” Bob said, “and you should have played in Central Park.”

  “Well, that’s exactly where we did live,” she said. “In the East Sixties, near Columbus Circle. The circus used to be near there, at the Garden.”

  Bob Bolles faced her squarely and tried to read her face in the dark.

  “Look here,” he said. “Why are you lying to me?”

  “Why,” she asked, “what do you mean, lying?”

  “What I say,” he answered. “The Garden was on Madison Square then. Who are you? What’s the matter? You’d better tell me.”

  “Why—” she began, but he stopped her.

  “Who are you?” he asked her again. “You’ve come up here to try to find out who I am. What was the matter today? What are you frightened of?”

  “Stop!” she said, and her voice was very low. “I’m getting cold. I’m going now.”

  “Who are you?” he asked her again. “You’d better tell me.”

  “No,” she answered, “please, my dear, don’t ask me. But I want to tell you something and it’s the truth.” She paused and glanced at the cabin door, and then she put her hand over his.

  “I didn’t come here to get anything out of you. Don’t think that, please. I’m worried about you, very worried.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I like you. I really do. Everything I said was true. It wasn’t a lie. You must promise me something.”

  “What?” he asked her.

  “If anything should happen,” her voice was very low and insistent, “about Mac or me—don’t ask me what I mean—you mustn’t interfere. You mustn’t ask questions and you must keep out of it. Do you understand?”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake?” Bob asked her. “What might happen?”

  “It hasn’t anything to do with you,” she answered. “Don’t ask. Just keep out of it.”

  “Now, wait a minute—” Bob Bolles began, and then she snatched her hand away from his. The cabin door was opening.

  “Oh,” she said, “is that you, Mac?” And Bob saw Mr. Kingman’s head and shoulders in the cabin doorway and Mr. Kingman climbed quickly up to the cockpit.

  “My dear,” he asked her, “how long have you been here?”

  “Not long,” she answered, “just for a few minutes.”

  Mr. Kingman put his hand on her shoulder and she stood up.

  “Not exchanging confidences with the Skipper, were you?” He spoke gently, but there was something icy in his question.

  “Not exactly confidences,” Bob Bolles said easily. “We were just talking about when Mrs. Kingman was a little girl.”

  Mr. Kingman laughed and pushed her gently toward the open cabin door.

  “You mustn’t mind her, Skipper,” he said. “Helen’s a great one for talking. I hope she didn’t disturb you. It’s bad for you to be out in the night air, my dear. You mustn’t do it again.”

  “Mac,” said Mrs. Kingman, “I just wanted to find out—”

  “To find out,” Mr. Kingman said. “Come down to the cabin, dear. Good night, Bob.”

  It was a long while later—the sky was growing a little lighter than the water—when he saw Tom walking over the deck to relieve him at the wheel. He could always count on Tom to wake up without assistance when his watch came around.

  “Keep her as she is,” he said, and Tom took the wheel.

  “Yes, sar,” Tom said, “as she is,” and he pointed toward the cabin. “Are they all sleeping down there, sar?”

  “Yes,” Bob said. “Why shouldn’t they be?”

  “Sar,” Tom said, “I think they do act queer.”

  “Listen, boy,” Bob said. “All rich people act queer.”

  “Someone go on tippy-toe,” Tom said, “tippy-toe. Someone try the door up forward.”

  “What?” Bob asked. “In the forward bulkhead?”

  “Yes, sar.”

  “You’ve got great ears,” Bob said. “Forget it, boy. Maybe it was Oscar being lonely.”

  “Yes, sar,” Tom said. “I think they want to kill us, sar.”

  For a moment Bob Bolles was so surprised that he did not answer. Then he gave Tom a sharp cuff.

  “Don’t be a crazy nigger,” he said. “Call me if you want me.”

  He went forward, crawled into his bunk and lay staring at the beams above him, listening to the sound of the water close to his ear. That last idea of Tom’s made an odd climax to the whole day. He would have thought it amusing if it had not exasperated him. He was thinking that no white man could ever tell just what went through a Negro’s mind.…

  CHAPTER VII

  A sharp unfamiliar sound awakened Bob Bolles and pushed him into a sitting posture so suddenly that he had struck his head smartly upon the berth above him. The sun was coming through the open
hatch. His oilskins were swaying on the hook by his bunk. He could tell from the sun that it was quite late in the morning. Tom must have let him sleep through a watch, as Tom did sometimes. Then he heard the sound again—the sharp report of a high-powered rifle—and he was on his feet almost without thinking, running up the ladder. The sweetish salt air of the Caribbean struck his face and he saw Tom standing at the wheel grinning. Mr. Kingman, dressed in orange-colored slacks and a striped shirt, was standing balancing a rifle, looking out to windward. Oscar in faded dungarees with his shirt open at the throat was holding an empty bottle and Mrs. Kingman in gray slacks and an olive-green shirt with little gray sailboats on it, bare-headed and with sun glasses, stood just behind him. As he watched, Oscar’s heavy arm moved in an arc and he threw the empty bottle. It fell splashing on a blue wave, far out to windward, and Mr. Kingman raised his rifle and fired. Crack, it went; crack, crack.

  “Ah,” Mr. Kingman said. “Throw another, Oscar,” and then he saw Bob Bolles climbing down into the cockpit.

  It is not an easy thing to hit a bottle from a small boat with a rifle. Mr. Kingman certainly knew how to shoot. The whole scene was careless and pleasant. Mrs. Kingman smiled at him, but he could not see what her eyes were like behind the glasses.

  “It’s Mac’s hobby,” she said.

  Mr. Kingman handed the rifle to Oscar.

  “Take it away and bring up Mr. Bolles’s breakfast. By Jove, this is the—the life, isn’t it?”

  Oscar brought up folding chairs and set up a table. All their clothes, all the equipment were like numbers in a sporting catalogue. Tom went forward and Bob took the wheel again while Oscar brought him orange juice and bacon and toast.

  “You’d think that with those big hands of his that Oscar might be clumsy,” Mrs. Kingman said, “but he isn’t. Do you know what he’s doing already? He’s making a little ship to go in a whisky bottle.”

  Oscar grinned, but he made no comment.

  “When you get it finished,” Mrs. Kingman said, “you’ll give it to Mr. Bolles, won’t you, Oscar?”

  Oscar’s mild blue eyes moved down from the luff of the mainsail, stared at Bob for a moment and turned to Mrs. Kingman.

  “Huh?” he said.

  For some reason it seemed to Bob that Oscar’s monosyllable was disturbing. He saw Mr. Kingman glance toward Mrs. Kingman sharply, as though he wanted to stop her, but Mrs. Kingman went right on.

  “You will give it to him, won’t you, Oscar?”

  Oscar gave the wheel a little tug and something working in his mind seemed to amuse him.

  “Ay tank so,” he said, “if he should need a little ship in a bottle.” Mr. Kingman moved impatiently.

  “That is about enough from you, Oscar,” he said.

  “If Oscar’s such an old sea dog,” Bob asked, “why didn’t you charter a boat without a master?”

  Mr. Kingman had been gripping the arms of his chair, half leaning forward to listen, but now he relaxed.

  “Oscar can’t navigate,” he answered. “And speaking of navigating, how about getting up the chart?”

  “I’ll fetch the instrument up too,” Bob said. “I’m going to shoot the sun at noon.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Kingman, “shoot the sun.”

  The cabin was more spick-and-span than he had ever seen it. When he opened the locker and took out his chart book and instruments, he could hear their voices outside.

  “From now on,” he heard Mr. Kingman say, “you keep your face shut, Oscar.”

  When he was up on deck again and had opened the chart on the folding table Mr. Kingman rose and leaned over, looking at it eagerly.

  “Where are we now?” he asked.

  “About here,” Bob said. “I’ll tell you accurately at noon.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Kingman said, “I see our line. We’re already quite a way from everything.”

  “Yes,” Bob said. “It’s a pretty lonely sea.”

  Mr. Kingman pointed farther down the page.

  “And those dots—those are the islands there?”

  Bob Bolles nodded.

  “Those islands, have you anything that shows them larger?”

  Bob turned the pages of the big book until he came to the plate marked “Winderly Group” and there they were.

  “The big one is Mercator,” he said.

  Mr. and Mrs. Kingman crowded close to the table.

  “That looks like a harbor,” Mr. Kingman’s voice sounded sharper. “Could a ship, an ocean liner, get in there?”

  “Not enough water,” Bob said, “too much reef. You can see the figures.”

  “Those other two islands—what are their names?” Mr. Kingman asked.

  He was pointing at two other bits of land which lay perhaps forty miles to the westward.

  “Jacks Island,” Bob Bolles said, “and St. Edith.”

  “Could an ocean liner touch at either of them?” Mr. Kingman asked.

  Bob Bolles looked up from the chart.

  “Not enough water,” he said, “too much reef. But a ship with a light draught like this one can anchor in that bay at Mercator, though it looks like a tricky passage.”

  But Mr. Kingman’s mind was still back with the ocean liner.

  “I suppose,” he said slowly, “a big vessel could stand offshore and send in a small boat, couldn’t she?”

  “Why, yes,” Bob said, “of course. Do you know of a boat’s calling there, Mr. Kingman?”

  “Know of some boat?” Mr. Kingman said slowly.

  “Mac,” Mrs. Kingman said, “Mac.”

  Her voice made Bob look up from the chart. Something had made her face strained and white. Oscar was still holding the wheel, but he had moved in front of it.

  “No,” Mr. Kingman said, “do not bother, Oscar. What do you mean, Bob, I should know of some boat?”

  “What’s the matter?” Bob asked. “I didn’t mean anything.” That was the first time his mind had moved, putting things together. Mr. Kingman laughed.

  “Of course you didn’t, Bob,” he said.

  The Thistlewood was moving through fine weather, pushed on by a brisk fair breeze so steady that you hardly had to trim a jib from one day to the next.

  All the first day out Mr. Kingman kept looking astern or going to the bow with his glasses, as though he expected to see something, but at the end of that time he gave it up. And there was nothing worth watching, except now and then a line of porpoises breaking the water and diving in unison, or the flying fish that darted off the bow and whizzed in a straight line through the air and popped into the sea again.

  “They look as if they had been wound up with a key,” Mrs. Kingman said.

  The sea, Bob thought, was doing both Mr. and Mrs. Kingman good. Their faces had looked drawn and tired in Kingston, but now the lines had gone out of them. They shot at bottles sometimes or took sun baths or dozed on deck and every evening they asked Bob Bolles for dinner and bridge in the cabin. Sometimes it seemed to him that they were like himself, glad to forget who they were or where they were going, for they did not talk about their background any more than he did. They lived entirely in the present, and even Oscar grew mellow and agreeable.

  Just as Mrs. Kingman had said, Oscar had the most amazing way of making things. He had picked up all those little skills which you associate with an old seaman who has been in sail. He finished his little ship with all her masts and yards laid flat and then he thrust it into the neck of a bottle and pulled a bit of silk thread and up came the masts and spars with all their standing rigging.

  That idea of Tom’s about murder and sudden death often amused Bob Bolles. He even asked Tom about it the third night out when Tom awakened him for his trick at the wheel.

  “Anybody tried to kill you yet?” Bob asked, as he pulled on his sweater.

  “No, sar,” Tom answered. “But what for Mr. Kingman keep looking all the time,” Tom asked, “like he’s afraid someone is after him?”

  “Rubbish,” Bob Bolles said.

/>   “And wherefor,” Tom asked, “should Mrs. Kingman be afraid of him?”

  “Afraid of him?”

  “Yes, sar,” Tom said. “She makes eyes at him, afraid, when she talks to you, sar”—but she never talked to Bob alone again until the last night out.

  The breeze seemed to be dying down that night, although they were making five knots when he had looked at the log. Standing alone in the cockpit, he kept turning his head so that the wind would strike his face. There was no doubt that the wind was dropping. By morning there might be a flat calm or a change of weather, but judging by the barometer and by his instinct he felt that the weather was going to hold. Nevertheless, the wind had shifted a point or two. He went forward and trimmed the jib and the mainsheet a trifle. When he came back a figure was standing near the wheel, and he saw that it was Mrs. Kingman.

  “I shouldn’t be up here,” she said. “I can only stay a minute.” Her words were quick and a little breathless. “He’s asleep, but you can’t be sure.”

  “Look here,” Bob Bolles began. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary for days until she appeared. “I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to you. What’s so mysterious now? What is it?”

  “Don’t,” she said, “don’t talk so loud. He’s so—so jealous. He’s a very queer man, very—but don’t mind that. How far are we from land?”

  The binnacle struck her face as she stood near him by the wheel. Her face looked drawn and pale.

  “I don’t know exactly,” he told her. “There’s always a certain element of gamble in trying to hit a little spot like Mercator on the nose. It’s easier to navigate a plane than a small boat, I think.” She did not answer and he went on. “If you want my guess, from the way the clouds looked at sunset and from the way the air feels, we should see something of the Winderly Group at dawn, probably the hill at Mercator.”

  “Then it’s over,” she said, “and we’ve hardly seen each other at all, have we?”

  “Do you mind?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she said, “I do. Do you?”

  It wasn’t right—talking to her so—and in the end it added up to nothing.

  “Yes,” he said, “I don’t understand you. You’re like—”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Like a frightened lady in the dark,” he said. Her lips were half open and then she closed them and shook her head.