Death in the Middle Watch

by Bruce, Leo

  “So you told the Captain to signal Full Steam Ahead?”

  “Exactly. It was the only thing to do.”

  “Without even knowing who, if anyone, had gone overboard?”

  “There were the clothes.”

  “I can think of a dozen explanations for those. And anyway, how do you know that he threw himself over? Leacock spoke of a stifled cry. How do you know the man was not murdered?”

  “Murdered? You know, I think you are obsessed with murder, Mr Deene. The cruiser was alone, sleeping in the saloon …”

  “But how do you know he was alone? There are so many possibilities. He might have been drugged. Another passenger might have been concealed in the saloon. He could have been thrown over the side. For all you know Leacock himself might have killed the man.”

  “Preposterous. Leacock’s an excellent fellow.”

  “And thoroughly loyal, of course.”

  “Of course. You evidently like letting your imagination run away with you.”

  “But let us return to probabilities. It seems likely that one of the passengers, either deliberately or not, let himself be locked in the saloon when the lights were turned out.”

  “That may well be so.”

  “And that Leacock found him there and woke him?”

  “That’s what Leacock says and I’m inclined to believe him.”

  “Then Leacock left him and the passenger presumably took off his overcoat, jacket and shoes and went overboard to a watery grave. In that case there remain some questions for you, Porteous. Who was this passenger? Why did he want to commit suicide? Why come on a holiday cruise to do it?”

  “No doubt these questions will be answered in the morning when we see which of the passengers is missing.”

  “But how do you know you’ll see? It may not have been a passenger. A good many people were on board yesterday who weren’t going on the cruise. One of them could easily have stayed on in hiding.”

  “You have the most extraordinary knack of making things more complicated than they are. I feel sure the mystery, such is it is, will be cleared up in the morning. The Purser has a complete passenger list and it can easily be checked. Besides … ,” there was triumph in Mr Porteous’s voice, “we have all their passports.”

  “I agree that not much can be done tonight. I gather your conscience is quite easy about leaving the man, if there was a man, to drown?”

  “It’s something everyone who charters a ship may have to face at one time or another. This kind of thing is not so infrequent as you suppose. Of course I’m sorry for the poor fellow. He must have suffered a great deal before he was driven to it. But to answer your question, yes, my conscience is quite clear.”

  “You don’t feel you should have lowered a boat?”

  “Good heavens, no. You landsmen talk of lowering boats as though it were an easy matter. The whole ship would have become aware of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I had the happiness of two hundred people to think of. I had to think of them. I wasn’t going to have their rest and contentment jeopardized because some lunatic decided to do himself in. And now I think we should say good-night.”

  “I agree. I hope you sleep well.” said Carolus bitterly.

  Back in his own cabin, lying sleepless in his bunk, Carolus felt for the first time since he had agreed to accompany the cruise that it might be a far more harrowing experience than he had supposed. There was now that element of the sinister which always intrigued him in cases he had to investigate. The unlighted saloon, the sleeping passenger, the stifled cry … and all the questions that arose from these. This was going to be no ordinary puzzle, and his instincts, sure guides to Carolus in almost every circumstance, told him that there was a—well, call it a scent of danger in the air. The three men he had found on deck had at first undoubtedly meant to keep all suspicion from him. The Captain, particularly, had been able to assume an air of innocence and denial. From Porteous he expected that, from what he had seen of the man already, but Captain Scorer, bluff, purple-cheeked, apparently plainspoken, seemed the last man to wish to hush up something that might be dangerous to his ship. As for Leacock—he was either the simple honest sailor that he appeared or else something very different. Very different indeed.

  When Carolus at last dropped off to sleep it was not for long. At half past eight he felt hungry and in need of fresh air, and going on deck found, as he expected to find at this hour and in that place, the headmaster of the Queen’s School New-minster taking his morning exercise.

  “Ah, Deene! A good morning to you! I fear you must keep up with my pace if we are to converse. I have still eight rounds of the deck to complete for the mile I have set myself before breakfast. I trust it will not incommode you?”

  Carolus fell in beside Mr Gorringer obligingly.

  “I voice no suspicion of a derogatory nature,” said the headmaster as they walked. “But when I learned the welcome fact that you were accompanying this cruise I could not help but suppose that you had been drawn to it by something in the nature of a … mystery, shall I say? You see, I know you of old, my dear Deene, and I said at once to Mrs Gorringer, surely the good Deene would not accompany a holiday cruise with no more inducement than fresh air?”

  “What did your wife say?”

  “I have to confess that for once she was at a loss. But after some discussion we decided that you must have a reason for taking a holiday of which the means is contrary to all precedent.”

  “Perhaps,” said Carolus. “Did you hear anything in the night?”

  “Hear anything? The ship’s engines, of course. What should I have heard?”

  “Oh, nothing of any consequence.”

  “You cannot deceive me, my dear Deene. Your whole manner tells me that something, as they say, is going on aboard this ship. Am I not to share your confidence? You know well by now that no one is more worthy of it.”

  “You’re bound to know sooner or later. You would have heard already, probably, if you had talked to other passengers this morning. It appears that a man may have been lost overboard last night.”

  Mr Gorringer paused, even halted his walk for a moment.

  “Lost?” he repeated. “Overboard? A man? This is indeed grave news. Was the poor fellow rescued?”

  “No. They don’t even know his identity.”

  “You alarm me, Deene. Do you mean to tell me that any one of the passengers can disappear into the sea without it being known who or for what reason? That they cannot be found by a quickly launched lifeboat? In a word, that we are all in danger?”

  “Certainly not. If a man was lost last night …”

  “A moment, Deene. You say a man. You appear to be certain that it was a man. Is there any reason why it should not have been a woman?”

  It was Carolus who paused now and eyed Mr Gorringer fixedly.

  “Good heavens!” he said.

  “I see I have disturbed your complacency, Deene. Only too often we assume the masculine gender. Have I hit the nail on the head?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. That wasn’t what made me pause. But we do, as you say, assume the masculine gender far too often. Really, you know sir, you’re an extraordinary man. Quite extraordinary. You said a woman, didn’t you? Just like that. Thank you!”

  “I should feel more gratified by your thanks if you had not at once denied the probability of what I had voiced,” said Mr Gorringer, a trifle sulkily.

  “Well, yes. What you had actually said, yes. But you do throw out some interesting thoughts. And now if you have completed your walk, shall we go down to breakfast?”

  “By all means. I’m delighted to have aided you, even if it was not quite as I supposed. And I’m pleased that you have so far confided in me as to admit that there is more in this cruise than meets the eye. At least that was your inference.”

  “Yes. But let’s say no more about it.”

  They entered the dining room together.

  Four

&n
bsp; AFTER BREAKFAST CAROLUS WAS approached by Mrs Stick. Her glasses were so dark that Carolus wondered how she could have seen through them sufficiently to recognize him.

  “We better go through to the Sun Lounge, sir,” she said secretively. “There’s so many children in there we shan’t be recognized.”

  Carolus understood neither the logic of what she said nor the necessity for so much discretion, but he followed his housekeeper obligingly.

  “You see?” she said when they had found two wicker chairs among a mass of parents and children with voices of all calibres. “We’ll be able to talk without anyone overhearing here.”

  “Yes, but what’s all this about? Why the secrecy, Mrs Stick?”

  “I wasn’t going to be the one to give you away,” she explained. “I said to Stick, there’s something funny about all this, I said. Asking us to go cruising half round the world. He must be on to something, I said to Stick.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He’s not a man for saying much, as well you know, sir, but he agreed with me.”

  “He usually does, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s not to say he hasn’t got a will of his own,” said Mrs Stick defensively. “He can be very awkward at times, can Stick. But this time there weren’t two ways about it. As if we didn’t know by now when you was getting yourself mixed up in things you ought to leave to the police. So when we heard you’d asked us to have a holiday cruise I knew what was going to happen.”

  “And what is?”

  “Murder, very likely. And goodness knows what else. It gives me the cold shivers to think of it. What about this poor fellow last night? I said to Stick, it’s soon started, I said. We’d scarcely got out of Southampton before there was one gone.”

  Carolus knew that nowhere does the grapevine flourish more than on board ship during a holiday cruise, but this frankly surprised him.

  “What poor fellow?” he asked.

  “As if you didn’t know. Throwing himself into the sea at four o’clock in the morning when there was no one to rescue him and the ship not even stopping to pick him up. Disgraceful, I call it, and I don’t care who knows it. But I suppose you’ll say he didn’t throw himself in, but someone else came up behind him when he wasn’t looking? You must have your murder, mustn’t you? You’d never be satisfied with what everyone else thinks is a suicide, and no one to blame but himself.”

  “Who is ‘everyone,’ Mrs Stick? How did you know about it at all?”

  “There’s a lady at the table where we sit who heard all about it and told us before Stick had finished ordering his sausages. What’s more, she thinks she may have seen the man who Went. She saw someone acting very funny earlier on, dodging round a corner, out of the way. She didn’t recognize him but it may have been the man. It was all over the ship by the time breakfast was finished. The only thing they don’t know is who it was.”

  “Which one? The one who dodged round the corner or the one who Went?”

  “It may well have been the same, according to the lady at the table where we sit,” said Mrs Stick becoming more than ever confidential in her manner. “But then I did hear it wasn’t a man at all but some poor lady who’d been pushed over. It gives me the creeps to think about it. They say she’d just got up for a breath of fresh air …”

  “At four o’clock in the morning?”

  “Well, that’s what they say, when this fellow crept up behind her and before you could say knife she was over the rail and into the water and drowned. But this lady at the table where we sit says it wasn’t like that at all. She says it was the ship’s doctor who’s an Indian gentleman …”

  “Pakistani.”

  “Well, it’s all the same …”

  “Oh no, Mrs Stick. Believe me, it’s not. It might have been once, but it’s very different now.”

  “Anyway, this lady at the table where we sit says he’d given drugs to some poor man. It won’t be the first time, she says. She says she was on the ship last year when a man was murdered and pushed over the side before he’d been property examined to show how it was done, she says. I suppose this doctor does it every cruise. The lady at the table where we sit thinks so, anyway.”

  “She seems to be rather an alarmist.”

  “Well, hasn’t she got a right to be? I told you what she’d seen earlier, this man acting funny and dodging round corners out of sight. She thinks that doctor murders someone every time the ship goes on a cruise. She had an idea she’d seen that man before somewhere.”

  “Which man? The one who was acting funny or the one who Went?”

  “The one who dodged round the corner.”

  “She doesn’t think the one who Went was murdered by the doctor, does she?”

  “Well, you couldn’t be surprised if she was to think so, could you? If I was to tell her about you being on board, with all the experience you’ve had of murders and that, I don’t know what she’d say.”

  “I hope you do nothing of the sort.”

  “Of course I shan’t. I’ve told you we mustn’t be seen talking or everyone will know and we don’t want that, do we? Nice thing it would be if people was to hear you’d been mixed up in goodness knows how many cases before this one.”

  “Which one?” Carolus demanded with a provocative smile.

  “This one that’s going on now. Thank goodness the cabin door will lock, that’s all. I couldn’t sleep a wink if it wouldn’t, same as I used to be at Newminster when I never knew who was coming to the door next.”

  Nothing noteworthy seemed to happen during that day. The ship continued on a southerly course in strong sunshine, and Carolus managed to avoid competitive games of all kinds though he had to make for cover once or twice on the appearance of young men with lists, seeking their prey. He slept well that night, but after breakfast, when Mrs Stick came to report to him in the Sun Lounge, he could tell as soon as she approached that she had news for him.

  It appeared that the passenger, invariably referred to as “the lady at the table where we sit,” had been very funny that morning.

  “You could tell there was something wrong as soon is she came down. She never said a word all the time she was having her grapefruit juice that she always starts with, and when I asked her if she wasn’t feeling well, she said, quite well, thank you, as much as to say ‘you mind your own business.’ Of course I knew I should have to get it out of her and sure enough when we were left at the table alone together, Stick not liking to light his pipe till he’s out on deck, it all came out.”

  Carolus remained silent.

  “It gave me the shudders when she told me, but I don’t suppose it will to you, you being used to murders and that. It seems it was not long gone midnight when she saw the handle of the cabin door slowly moving.”

  “Her light was on, then?”

  “Oh, yes. She keeps that on all night just In Case. She was reading a book when it happened and she says she was like someone being hypnotized. She didn’t seem able to move or open her mouth or reach for the bell or anything. She just lay there watching to see what would happen next.”

  This time Carolus could not resist a small prod.

  “And what did?” he asked.

  “It was this fellow.”

  “Which fellow?”

  “He had a white jacket on like one of the stewards, but he wasn’t one at all.”

  “How did she know?”

  “As soon as she looked, there was his grey flannel trousers. You can’t tell me any of the stewards would be allowed to walk about like that. Besides, she’d never seen him before.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Horrible, she says. A kind of sneaky look about him as though he wanted to stick a knife in her. And still she couldn’t scream. She tried to, but it wouldn’t come. So all she could do was to lie there looking at him, and him looking at her, and if looks could kill—”

  “Yes. I see the situation. What happened?” asked Carolus.

  “All of
a sudden he seemed to collect himself as you might say, turned round and went off as if someone was after him.”

  “So now the lady at the table where you sit was able to ring for the real steward?”

  “No, she didn’t. It was a choice of that or locking the door, and that’s what she decided and in my opinion it was the best thing she could do. How was she to know that if she rung her bell this other one wouldn’t come back to answer it? Then where would she be? So she jumped out, locked the door and jumped into bed again. Of course that’s what she ought to have done in the first place.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Carolus.

  “But I haven’t told you the funny part. This wasn’t meant to be her cabin, not before she came on board the ship. She’d been given another cabin which she didn’t fancy because the washbasin had to be repaired. It wouldn’t have taken a minute, as I told her, and they keep men specially for anything like that. Then she wouldn’t have had all this trouble. But she went to the Chief Steward, he calls himself, and he said she could have the double cabin meant for a Mr and Mrs Darwin, him having cancelled at the last minute, and her having been put in a single cabin somewhere else. Another funny thing is this Mrs Darwin is the very woman whose husband died and was buried at sea list year that I told you about.

  “It’s my idea,” went on Mrs Stick, “that whoever he was that came creeping in expected to see this man Darwin and as likely as not murdered him.”

  “Really, Mrs Stick, once you get the idea of murder you seem to see it everywhere. You hear of a steward wearing grey flannel trousers and you think it means …”

  “Well, you must own it’s funny. They all wear black. And the lady at the table where we sit said he looked horrible. like one of those you read about attacking anyone in railway carriages. You can think what you like, sir, but even Stick, who doesn’t listen to a lot of nonsense, thinks there’s something funny going on.”