Death in the Middle Watch

by Bruce, Leo

  This was altogether too allusive for Carolus.

  “To whom?” he asked politely.

  “The lady at the table where we sit. I told you how one of the stewards tried to get into her cabin.”

  “You told me nothing of the sort. You expressly said the man who came to her cabin at night was not a steward. He had grey flannel trousers.”

  “It’s all the same when you’re in bed and they come in after you. Anyway, this time it happened to poor Mrs Darwin and she’s not alive to tell the tale.”

  “But her husband is,” said Carolus. “And I rather think he will tell it with some force. He’s due on board any minute now. His plane must have come down nearly an hour ago.”

  Mrs Stick looked rather awed and said nothing.

  “Didn’t the lady at the table where you sit know that?” Carolus asked with a touch of banter.

  “She didn’t happen to mention it at lunch,” replied Mrs Stick airily. “She was talking about the young lady who was taken to the fish market this morning, Miss Berry her name is, and got left there, trying to find her way out, and was shouted at by all the Portuguese women walking about with fish on their heads. They say poor Miss Berry came on board smelling something dreadful of fish. and I suppose you can’t wonder, really.”

  Carolus was stung into a retort.

  “That whole story is untrue,” he said. “Miss Berry was left on board this morning and was talking to me. She wanted to see the fish market but never got there.”

  Mrs Stick sniffed. It was evident that she preferred her own authority to Carolus’s.

  “That’s what the lady at the table where we sit said, anyway,” she stated with finality.

  The steward in charge of the Sun Lounge approached and told Carolus that the Captain would like to see him in his cabin, so he left Mrs Stick and followed the steward’s directions.

  He found Captain Scorer with Mr Porteous and the Purser, but this time there was a stranger with them, a clean and spruce-looking man in his early fifties.

  “Let me introduce Mr Deene. Mr Darwin,” said the Captain.

  Darwin seemed calm, though Carolus thought at once that it was the habitual manner of a man who did not exhibit his emotions, though he might be feeling great distress. He nodded to Carolus and, after an awkward silence, Porteous, addressing Carolus, said, “We have been breaking our tragic news to Mr Darwin.”

  “I hope you have told him the truth,” said Carolus.

  “What truth?” Darwin almost shouted.

  “The truth that last night, Mr Darwin, your wife was murdered.”

  A cry broke from Darwin but he did not speak.

  “I wished to break this as gently as possible to Mr Darwin,” said Porteous reproachfully.

  “No purpose can be served by leaving Mr Darwin to discover for himself from ship’s gossip. I’m sure we all express our deepest sympathy, Mr Darwin, but you had better know the truth.”

  Then Darwin turned to Porteous and asked in a quiet strained voice, “When you received these threatening letters, just what precautions did you take?”

  Porteous cleared his throat.

  “You will understand that the happiness of a large number of people is my responsibility. I did not wish to alarm them. The letters might be a fake or the act of a madman …”

  “In that case was there not all the more need to take measures for the protection of your passengers?”

  “Cruisers,” corrected Mr Porteous. “Of course there was, and we took those measures. I employed Carolus Deene, a well-known investigator.”

  For the first time Darwin showed some emotion. It was anger.

  “What the hell is the good of an investigator after it has happened?” he asked. “You needed an armed policeman, not an amateur detective. I mean no disrespect to Mr Deene, of course. But events, tragic events as I understand them, have shown that I am right.”

  “I agree entirely,” said Carolus. “I should never have been asked to act as a security guard. But I’m afraid you’re wrong in talking of an armed policeman. It would have been totally impracticable to try that sort of thing to protect every passenger.”

  “Was there nothing in these letters to suggest that it was my wife who was in danger?”

  “Nothing. Had there been you would have been told at once.”

  “In that case I should never have let her come out here alone, whatever the cost to my business.”

  “What is your business. Mr Darwin?” asked Carolus.

  Darwin answered with a single word which seemed to say all that was necessary.

  “Property.”

  “What the Americans call Real Estate?”

  “Exactly. I had to be in London yesterday for a most important meeting. But of course if I had been given the smallest indication that my wife was threatened, I should not have let her come.”

  “You did not receive any letters of a type similar to those Mr Porteous had?” Carolus asked.

  “None.”

  “Tell me, Mr Darwin. Have you ever heard the name Alexander Carlisle?”

  Darwin hesitated.

  “In what connection?”

  “In any connection. Property, perhaps? Or just something personal?”

  “There is a familiar ring about the name,” said Mr Darwin. “Does he appear on television?”

  “I have no idea. But he’s on this ship. A Jamaican.”

  “I see.”

  Did he? Carolus wondered.

  But Darwin was talking again.

  “I suppose you have done right not to inform the Portugese authorities. I certainly don’t want my poor wife’s body taken away to some morgue. But aren’t you taking a certain risk in not informing them of a thing of this kind?”

  Both Porteous and Scorer nodded solemnly.

  “Undoubtedly,” Porteous said. “But it seemed to us that the decision should be left to you.”

  “I appreciate that. The decision, if you like, but not the responsibility. I can’t relieve you of that. I can only say that I would prefer that my wife’s body should be taken to England for burial. A cremation. You must decide whether you can carry out my wishes.”

  “Do you plan to accompany us?” asked Porteous.

  “You mean on a pleasure cruise?” asked Darwin impatiently.

  “I realize. of course. that it can be no such thing for you. But I thought perhaps you might wish to remain with your wife’s body.”

  “That was thoughtful of you. I am, as you must all understand, too shocked at the moment to decide. If I had not been met this morning at the airport and warned of what to expect when I came on board, I should have had no inkling.”

  “Who met you?” asked Porteous rather sharply.

  “A Señor Costa Neves.”

  The Purser intervened. “I arranged that. I felt that it should not be broken suddenly to Mr Darwin.”

  “Thank you,” said Darwin. He looked pale and wretched. “But as Mr Deene says, no purpose is served by concealing the truth from me. Have you any suspicions about it yet? I mean, suspicions of anyone connected with it?”

  “None worth formulating,” said Carolus. “But I mean to know who murdered your wife, Mr Darwin. Also exactly how and why. I shall report first to you when I have anything more than remote guesswork.”

  “How—please don’t try to spare any feelings—how was it done?”

  “Your wife, according to the ship’s doctor, was probably strangled,” said Carolus.

  “Probably? Doesn’t he know?”

  “Again,” said Porteous, “we have awaited your arrival to make a detailed examination.”

  “Then please wait no longer,” said Darwin curtly. “We must have the maximum information and as soon as possible.”

  Carolus found this cool, though evidently troubled, man surprising but in the circumstances welcome. He had imagined a husband more outraged than grief-stricken, abusing everyone connected with the ship and her ill-fated cruise. He began to understand what Ratchett
had meant when he spoke of a charming fellow.

  “Do you wish to go down to your wife’s cabin?” asked the Purser in the tones of an undertaker consulting the wishes of “the family”.

  “Of course. Before the doctor makes his examination.”

  “Then I will take you down myself,” said Ratchett. “We all feel the deepest sympathy.”

  Darwin turned to Carolus. “Later I should be glad if we could have a talk,” he said. Again Carolus felt grateful to him for not speaking of “a few words” as Mr Gorringer surely would have done.

  “Certainly. Meet you in the Bar Lounge in half an hour’s time,” he offered.

  Darwin nodded and followed the Purser to the door. But he turned back.

  “I take it you have examined my wife’s body?” he said to Carolus.

  “No. Not much in my line, I’m afraid. I’ve never learnt anything from a cadaver that was not in the doctor’s report. And I don’t think the puzzle of this crime will be solved by a microscope or any other of the forensic aids.”

  “Really?” Porteous intervened, sounding rather hostile. “Then how do you expect to solve it, Mr Deene?”

  “Common sense and perhaps a touch of instinct—for want of a better word.”

  Darwin scarcely waited to hear this.

  “I hope you’re not depending too much on instinct,” said Porteous.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll find out who killed Cynthia Darwin, anyway.”

  “Have you in the meantime found out who was responsible for the threatening letters?”

  “I have a pretty good idea. I know who it wasn’t and that’s half the battle.”

  “No doubt you will inform me, in that case?”

  “All in good time,” said Carolus.

  Darwin was waiting for him at a table in a far corner of the saloon called the Bar Lounge.

  “I’ve seen my wife,” he said. “Seems pretty certain she was strangled. That accords with the fact that the passengers in the next cabin, so the Purser tells me, heard nothing at all.”

  “Did the Purser tell you what the girl in the cabin opposite heard?”

  Darwin stared.

  “No. What?” he asked.

  “Not a very reliable witness, I’m afraid. One of the saddest good-time girls I have known. She says she heard someone knocking on the door of your wife’s cabin. She looked out but by the time she did so the man or woman had entered the cabin and closed the door.”

  “I should have said ‘impossible’ an hour ago. I have learned better than to say that of anything. But I certainly can’t account for it. She surely could not have invited anyone to come to her cabin at one or two in the morning. Unless …”

  “Unless what, Mr Darwin?”

  “I was going to say unless she asked one of the women passengers. For company or something.”

  “In that case it would suggest that she was strangled by a woman. Not very likely, I should have thought.”

  “Not necessarily. She might have expected a woman and left her door unlocked. The woman might have introduced a man.”

  “Needless to say I have gone over the possibilities in my mind,” said Carolus. “Including the possibility that Sir Charles and Lady Spittals, or Miss Berry, the girl in the cabin opposite, are lying. Or that one of them is.

  “But you’ve reached no conclusion?”

  “No. I haven’t. No final conclusion.”

  “To you this is just a puzzling case,” said Darwin rather sadly. “To me it is the loss of my wife. We had only been married six months.”

  “So I understand.”

  “Did you meet her?”

  “Just for a few moments when she first came on board.”

  “I was deeply in love with her,” said Darwin. “I’m sure you appreciate that. I am as determined as you are to discover the truth. Meanwhile I have had time to consider the practical side of the situation. I shall ask Porteous and the Captain if the ship can put in at Gibraltar before entering the Mediterranean instead of on its way back to England. Then I shall pay for a special flight to carry her body home and I shall go with it. I should think Porteous would be more than ready for the sake of the other passengers. It must all be an embarrassment to him.”

  “I suppose so. He’s always speaking of his responsibility for the happiness of his cruisers. I think, if I may say so, that your plan is a good one.”

  “In this way there will be a proper postmortem.”

  Carolus looked keenly at him.

  “Most people, when they lose a relative, are horrified by the idea. I’m glad you see it in that light.”

  It will cost a lot of money,” said Darwin unexpectedly. “But I shall be glad if it only helps a little to get at the truth.”

  “Yes. I see that.”

  “But you have no idea, even a sheer guess, where the truth lies?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. We all indulge in guesswork sometimes. But at present I have nothing even to form the basis of a list of possible suspects.”

  “Let us be hypothetical though, Deene. Who would be on that list if you decided to make it now?”

  “Almost everyone on the ship, to start with. The officers and crew and all the passengers.”

  “All the passengers?”

  “Why not? If you suspect one it must be all of them, men and women. But it doesn’t end there. The Purser will have told you that a launch put out from the docks last night at about one o’clock. The agent’s clerk, apparently. The man who met you at the airport this morning. That widens the range considerably.”

  “Why?”

  “There were two boatmen on the launch whom Ratchett assumed to be the usual crew of the launch. But no one knows. The launch seems to have been alongside for the best part of an hour. You see why I say this widens the range of possibility?”

  “You mean that the murderer might have been concealed aboard the launch?”

  “Or could have been one of the men whom Ratchett took for boatmen. There are a number of possibilities. All in all, I see no point in trying to make a list of suspects at the moment. Perhaps I may be able to suggest something before you leave us at Gibraltar. You have not been concerned in any way with the troubles in Northern Ireland, I suppose?”

  “I have some property there. And in the South. But surely this could have no connection?”

  “I mention it only because some of the younger members of an Irish family were playing in the corridor rather noisily near your wife’s cabin. Their connection seems the most farfetched of suppositions, but since I was given the information, I pass it on to you.”

  “Thanks. I see your difficulties. Don’t let me add to them by asking you to investigate every ridiculous piece of guesswork of the passengers.”

  Eight

  NO ONE AMONG THE passengers on the sixty-fifth cruise of the Summer Queen was likely to forget the events of the night she left Lisbon for the journey down to Gibraltar, and the greatest addicts of holiday cruising swore after them that they would never go on a cruise again. The sea was rough, for one thing, and the wind and inky darkness of the night made the name of the ship, and of the company which chartered it, a mockery. But there was more to it than bad weather and Carolus himself felt, in words quoted from one of his favourite authors, that almost anything was rather more than likely to happen.

  On the first night out from Lisbon, none of the officers appeared at dinner and it was said that they were all needed for their mysterious duties on the bridge or in the engine room. As Mrs Stick told Carolus after dinner, “She says they know it’s bad luck to carry a corpse on board.”

  Carolus was amused to notice that reference to “the lady at the table where we sit” had become shortened at last to the simple if majuscular She, the full title being too pleonastic even for Mrs Stick who loved, as she said, to call things by their proper names.

  “She says it’s no wonder all the officers are needed to keep the ship from turning over when there’s a dead body in one of the cabins. A
nd look at this wind! It’ll be a wonder if any of us will be alive in the morning to tell the tale. Stick says he’s known some rough weather in his time but this beats it all. He says it’s as though there’s something unnatural about it and you can’t really wonder, can you?”

  Carolus tried to look sympathetic.

  “Then there’s that Mr Medlow, as he calls himself.”

  “Isn’t that his name?”

  “Well, it may be for all I know, but I sometimes wonder if he knows himself, the way he’s carrying on. You hear of people not being all there but I don’t think he knows whether he is or not, shouting the way he does.’

  “Shouting?”

  “You should have heard him. Running round the saloon waving his walking stick and saying ‘Where’s Porteous? Where’s Porteous? I’m going to kill that bastard!’”

  “Perhaps he’d had a drink too many.”

  “I don’t know what he’d had but it upsets anyone when they’re having a quiet chat to have someone shouting like that. Then She has to say, ‘He will, too. He means it,’ which only shows how some people take anything like that. Of course you’ve heard about Lady Spittals, haven’t you? That’s another thing. All her jewellery gone!”

  “But I’ve just been speaking to her. She was wearing quite a lot of it.”

  “That’s what She told me. She said no sooner had Lady Spittals gone to her cabin to get ready for dinner when she knew someone had been there. Sort of sensed it, She said, and when she came to look in her jewel box it was empty, so she rang for the steward, She said, and when he came he looked ever so funny as though he’d got something to hide, so she knew what it was and went straight to the Purser and told him all about it. If you say she was wearing it when she was with you she must of got it back then, mustn’t she?”

  “We’ll soon find out,” said Carolus, and went across to Lady Spittals.

  “I’ve just heard a story that you’ve lost some jewellery,” he said.

  “Well, if that doesn’t take the cake I don’t know what does,” said Lady Spittals. “All that happened was that when I went down to our cabin this evening, I had a feeling that someone had been there. You know that feeling, when someone’s just left a room? I’m very quick to feel anything like that. I can always tell if there’s a cat in the room, for instance. Mother used to say I had second sight. So tonight I just felt it. A stranger I mean, not Charles or the cabin steward. But all that about jewellery’s so much nonsense. I keep most of it in the ship’s safe, anyway. These are just a few little things I happen to have with me.” She indicated a display of brilliants which reminded Carolus of the Tower of London.