by Bruce, Leo
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
“What makes you certain?”
“Saw something that night. Said nothing about it, but saw something.”
“When?”
“When this shout came. ‘Man overboard’. Wasn’t in my cabin as I said.”
“Where were you?”
“In the galley. With Gunner the steward. Oh, nothing like that. Adore my Phil. No, scoffing a couple of sandwiches. Night starvation. Glass of Guinness. Gunner went to his cabin to fetch some snaps he wanted to show me. While he was gone I heard this awful sort of scream—‘Man overboard!’ ”
“Go on,” said Carolus, but Mrs Roper paused for a draught of beer.
“Dashed out,” she continued at last, “to the bit of deck on the starboard side. Saw someone disappear into the entrance to the saloon.”
“But who?”
“Couldn’t see. Just a tail end disappearing. Leg, I think. But someone definitely.”
“So you think this person, whoever it was, had thrown Larkin overboard?”
“What else?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Larkin was a big man. Besides, why should the other shout ‘Man overboard’ when he did it?”
“Don’t ask me. Your job.”
“And if you could hear that shout, why didn’t you hear one from Larkin? He surely didn’t allow himself to be thrown overboard without shouting for help?”
“Don’t know. Not my problem.”
“Moreover, why didn’t you report it?”
“Might have involved Gunner. Besides, thought of you.”
“Very kind of you, Mrs Roper. Your theory of murder doesn’t quite accord with the facts, though. Who do you think would murder this man?”
“Almost anyone on the ship. The Captain. Appleyard. Kutz. Gunner. Butt. Ferry. Prosper.”
“Or you?”
“Been glad to. Dreadful cad.”
“I’ve been down to Barton Abbess,” said Carolus. “Looking into the murder he was supposed to have committed.”
“Didn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see wood for trees in this case. I’m going out to Tangier on Tuesday, travelling on the Saragossa. Perhaps that’ll teach me something.”
Mrs Roper grew very thoughtful.
“On the Saragossa? Be a bit careful, eh? Something I don’t like about that ship. Maybe someone who won’t like your nosing.”
“Don’t worry. The passengers will be different people from those of your trip, of course.”
“Wasn’t thinking of passengers. Keep off the deck at night.”
“Really, Bugs.”
“Dropped that name. Never do. Curate’s wife. But be serious. It wasn’t just Larkin. He was bad enough. Something else.”
“All right. Of course what really would clarify matters would be some link between the two deaths. Larkin’s that, but if, as you believe, Larkin was murdered, he ceases to be a link. Unless there was anyone else on board who had some connection with the Willick case.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“I always distrust coincidence. How can I believe that Gregory Willick was murdered, then the man suspected of his murder was murdered, and there was no connection between the two? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Glad I haven’t got to work it out. Back to Leeds tomorrow.”
For a moment Carolus almost envied her.
11
AT THE end of his first evening on the Saragossa Carolus was inclined to agree with Mrs Roper—there was something disturbing and unlikeable about the ship. The new passengers seemed a dull lot who would have transferred to another ship if it had been possible when they read about the events of the last voyage. As one man put it at dinner—“I demanded of the company that they should provide other accommodation, but they hadn’t another ship for two months.”
“It’s not very nice, is it?” said a lady passenger. “Knowing what has happened. I don’t feel comfortable at all.”
It was not the unease among his fellow-passengers which vaguely disturbed Carolus, it was something in the atmosphere, a sort of strain or anxiety, as though everyone were expecting a shock.
Next morning at breakfast the lady passenger who did not think it very nice said she was sure she had seen a stranger pacing the deck last night. Rupert Priggley did not help matters by saying, “Obviously the ghost of Larkin.”
A natural explanation was found when a passenger who had been suffering from sea-sickness entered the saloon for the first time and the lady recognized him as last night’s stranger, but the little incident added to the general disquiet.
Appleyard came to Carolus during the morning and said, “The Captain would like you to come and have a drink with him, Mr Deene. Shall we go up now?”
They found Bidlake looking serious.
“It’s going to take two or three trips to get over this damned thing,” he said. “The passengers can talk about nothing else.”
“I’m afraid people do talk in a case of this sort,” said Carolus.
“It’s the mystery that makes them. If it had all been clear-cut and straightforward it would have been forgotten long ago. But the wretched man had to go and type his suicide note, which gives no proof at all. Then he was suspected of the other murder and the Coroner brought in a verdict of ‘murder against person or persons unknown’ there. It doesn’t look as though it will ever be straightened out for good.”
“Mr Deene’s doing his best, sir,” Appleyard pointed out.
“Yes. So I hear. Well, anything we can tell you. Let’s see, who has the cabin Larkin occupied, Appleyard?”
“Mr Deene, of course. I arranged it specially. For one thing, the other passengers might not have liked it. For another, I thought it might interest him.”
“It does,” said Carolus. “Now I wonder whether you would mind running over the events of the night when Larkin disappeared, exactly as they happened.”
Appleyard volunteered to do so. It took nearly a quarter of an hour and a second round of drinks before he had finished.
“Thanks,” said Carolus. “That’s clear enough. I suppose we have to admit of three possibilities, though one is so far-fetched that it can almost be ruled out. It could have been suicide. It could have been murder. It could have been an accident.”
“An accident? What about the suicide note?”
“I said it was far-fetched. But suppose someone who saw him fall accidentally wanted it to appear that he had committed suicide, he could have typed the note afterwards. There was time for him to do so. But let’s not consider that because it’s carrying open-mindedness to the point of absurdity. Let us suppose it was murder. So far as I can see from what you have told me, only three of the people on board are really exempt from all suspicion of throwing Larkin overboard—you, Captain, you, Mr Appleyard, and the apprentice Dickie Bryce. Captain Bidlake was in his cabin, because you at once went to the speaking-tube and spoke to him, you and Bryce were on the bridge. That excludes the three of you from having bundled him into the sea, but it doesn’t absolutely prove that none of you killed him. He could have been a corpse already, merely got rid of by an accomplice.”
“True, I suppose,” said Appleyard, “though I think you stretch things a bit.”
“Now what about the ship’s company? You didn’t take anyone on in Tangier, did you?”
“Certainly not. There isn’t a man who has been with us for less than six trips, and most of them much more.”
“Let’s count them out, then, for lack of any possible motive. It was only if anyone had been signed on after it was known that Larkin was travelling. So for all practical purposes our suspects are these: the Second Officer Peter Kutz, the Steward Gunner and the passengers Gerard Prosper, Gerald Butt, Ronald Ferry and Kate Roper.”
“If it was murder,” said Captain Bidlake discontentedly. “I can’t see why you can’t be satisfied with suicide.”
“I probably shall be in the end, but le
t’s run over the loose ends of possibility. There is, of course, one person who could solve the thing at once, who knows exactly what happened.”
Bidlake and Appleyard both turned to him with interest.
“I mean, whoever it was who shouted ‘Man overboard’. If we could discover his or her identity we should be home. Unfortunately we don’t even know if it was a man or a woman.”
“I heard it,” said Appleyard. “I’ve always believed it was a woman. Mrs Roper, in other words.”
“Yet young Bryce thought it wasn’t. ‘Like a man screaming,’ he said. I say, Deene, you don’t think it could possibly have been the fellow himself in a panic as he fell?” Bidlake asked.
“Hardly. He wouldn’t shout those words at all.”
“No. I suppose not. It’s strange,” Appleyard went on, “but I disliked and distrusted this man Larkin from the first moment I saw him, long before I knew he was suspected of murder. Small hands and small feet. Disproportionately so. My father always used to say—never trust a man with small feet.”
“Did anyone come to see him off in Tangier?” asked Carolus.
“No. But a man came to meet him in London, though. Apart from the police, I mean. This was a man we knew, Lance Willick, the murdered man’s nephew. He travelled with us about a year ago and came on board in London to find Larkin. Of course he soon heard what had happened.”
“That’s interesting. He really was a friend of Larkin’s, then?”
“Must have been at one time. I asked him if he suspected Larkin of his uncle’s murder and he said that at first he hadn’t, but it began to look like it.”
“What sort of man?”
“Very pleasant and unassuming. The kind of passenger we like.”
“I’m going to meet him in Tangier. I have very strong hopes that when I’ve seen him I can clear this up. There’s so much he can tell me.”
“Good. One last drink before lunch? I think we might. I’m making them small. Is there anything else we can tell you, Mr Deene?”
“Yes. In Larkin’s conversation was there anything about his past? Nobody seems to know anything of him at Barton Abbess.”
“Practically nothing. He was too busy being offensive to talk about much else. I only remember two things he said about himself. He had belonged to the British Fascists before the war and also he had been many years in Calcutta.”
“Sure it was Calcutta?”
“Quite sure.”
“Gregory Willick came from there.”
“Then it all fits in.”
“I wish it did. Where was he during the war?”
“Ah, not a word about that. There was a complete blank between Fascist meetings in 1939 and his arrival in Tangier five years ago. So far as his conversation went, I mean.”
“Tell me,” said Carolus, “why does the Third Officer never come into this? I haven’t heard him mentioned. Yet there must be a Third Officer.”
The Captain and Appleyard both smiled.
“There is,” said Bidlake. “Mr Booth. He’s a first-rate seaman and a really good chap, but a bit of a rough diamond. He begged me, after his first trip, to excuse him from having his meals in the saloon, and I agreed because he was quite wretched there. You can meet him if you like, but he’s no more in the picture than one of the crew. I don’t think he ever met Larkin.”
“I think perhaps I’ll go and have a chat with him sometime, but tell me a little about Kutz.”
“No one can do that. No one really knows much about him. I know he’s practically kept going by his hatred of Germans and Russians. He wants to take French citizenship. He appears to be wildly Francophil. But these things don’t tell you much about the man himself. You’ll have to talk to him and see what impression you get.”
“I’m relieved to see,” said Appleyard, “that we seem to have a pretty uninteresting lot of passengers on board now. No potential murderers this time. They all look rather alike.”
“Yes,” said Carolus, “except that tall chap who didn’t appear the first day. Maltby is his name?”
“Yes. I understand he’s going out to Tangier to start a business.”
“Oh. I notice he’s armed,” Carolus said. “What? On board? You mean he carries some arm about with him?”
“Yes. A small revolver. Silly habit.”
“There’s something rather odd about him altogether. Gunner said he was on deck last night till the small hours. Said he couldn’t sleep.”
Carolus smiled.
“I shouldn’t worry,” he said. “You’re bound to ‘see things’ after your experience last trip. He’s probably quite an ordinary man.”
They went down to lunch, and Carolus discovered that Rupert Priggley had already won nearly two pounds at Canasta. The conversation grew a little more animated than yesterday, for the fine weather and smooth sea seemed to be bringing the passengers round to the normal cheerfulness of a sea voyage and they were getting to know one another. The man called Maltby remained rather aloof, but the lady who didn’t think it very nice seemed in much better spirits in spite of her losses at Canasta.
That evening after dinner Carolus had a chance of talking to the apprentice Dickie Bryce. He realized that it would be difficult to get the truth because by now the boy scarcely knew what he did see, but going about it very quietly and calmly he tried to do what Captain Bidlake and the police had failed to do.
“You see, Dickie,” he explained, “you seem to have the impression that the shout came before the man reached the water.”
“Yes.”
“In that case you must have seen him strike the water, or how would you come to think that the shout came first?”
“I don’t think I saw him strike the water. But I see what you mean. I must have thought I did. It’s so difficult, Mr Deene. It was dark. I heard a shout, looked down and for one second in a rough sea saw a man’s shape in the water.”
“Do you remember during that second whether he was face upwards or downwards?”
“Neither, really. I think I saw his boots.”
“His boots? You mean it was as though he had dived and was just going down head first?”
“I think so. I can’t be sure. But boots are there somewhere. He was gone in a second. You can imagine in a rough sea!”
“You had no idea who it was, of course?”
“Not till everyone knew. I’m sure I saw no face.”
“Did you have any private ideas about who it might be?”
Dickie Bryce looked uncomfortable.
“Just between you and me,” said Carolus.
“Well, I did think perhaps it might be Mr Kutz.”
“Why?”
“He’s such a funny chap. You never know with him. He never talks to anyone. You know he was in a concentration camp, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, after that … well, I did just wonder if it was him.”
This gave Carolus an idea and he decided to seize his first chance of conversation with Kutz—not of course to reveal what Bryce had suggested, but because he felt that in spite of all the Second Mate’s reserve something might yet be learned from him.
“Did you know Larkin by sight?” he asked Bryce now.
“Oh yes, we get to know all the passengers by sight. Besides …”
Dickie Bryce looked very uncomfortable.
“Well?”
“I got into rather a row with the Skipper over this passenger.”
“How?”
“He asked me into his cabin for a drink.”
“But he didn’t drink. He was a strict teetotaller.”
“Not that night. He was well away. We’re not supposed to go in the passengers’ cabins. I don’t know why I did. I didn’t like the fellow.”
“What happened about it?”
Bryce hesitated.
“Nothing,” he said at last. “Somebody must have told the Skipper, because he had me up on the bridge next day and gave me hell.”
“Th
anks for all you’ve told me. It may be more helpful than you think.”
Carolus was restless that evening, almost regretting that he had chosen this slow way to reach Tangier. He still believed that Lance Willick was at the core of the whole thing and until he saw him he was unlikely to do anything but flounder. He had learnt so little of any value on the Saragossa and seemed unlikely to learn more.
He went to his cabin and tried to sleep, but found it impossible. He had never been over-self-confident, and tonight he felt unsure of himself. Here he was after all this questioning of people, all this careful thought and observation, without knowing who had killed Gregory Willick or whether Larkin’s death had been suicide or murder. Still less had he any idea in the latter case who could have been guilty.
The solution here, he believed, would not come piece by piece, slowly making sense of little things, but in one moment of revelation. It was one of those cases where there was some secret key to the whole thing. Perhaps when he talked to Lance Willick he would find it in his hands.
He could not sleep and decided to dress and go out on deck. The lights in the saloon were out now and the little deck-space was dim and breezy. He leant over the rail and looked down at the gently swaying surface of the water.
Presently he was aware that someone was on the deck behind him. He heard nothing and saw no shadow, but felt a presence there. Suddenly there came into his mind Mrs Roper’s words—‘Be a bit careful. Keep off the deck at night.’
Carolus stood quite still, his hands gripping the rail. It was really as though his heightened senses gave him eyes in the back of his head, for he felt the presence behind him approach and loom over him. Then in his ear, “This is just where it must have happened,” said a deep voice.
If the voice’s owner expected Carolus to be startled, he must have been disappointed. Carolus did not even turn to see who had spoken, for he knew it was the tall passenger Maltby.
“Yes, just about here,” he replied cheerfully and continued to gaze down into the water.
“Formed any theory about it?” asked Maltby in his bass voice.
“Not really. Have you?”
“Theory? No. I don’t deal in theories.”