‘They will have worse than this to complain of before the day’s over,’ replied Garrett grimly.
Silence fell again. Silence utter and unbroken. Each man was weighing the others up to assess which was the more likely murderer.
Or, rather, two of the three were. The murderer could have no doubt, no scruple, no care but the nerve-stretched eagerness to obliterate all traces of guilt from his face.
The most impartial observer might have hesitated long before he could suggest, from a mere scrutiny or even a deep knowledge of their characters, which man was the most likely.
Could one suspect Leathart, for instance—that genial, kindly Yorkshireman, an impulsive forty-year-old child? Here, one would have said, was a transparent nature. All his failings were on the surface. His easily roused temper so soon over. His schoolboyish greed, which had earned the nickname of the Glutton—greed only in matters of food and drink; in money none was more generous. How could such a man poison, out of long premeditation, in cold blood?
And yet… One didn’t succeed in the world of racing without a fund of native shrewdness. Even the geniality might be all facade. Leathart was, after all, a man of strong emotions. His entanglements with women were notorious. Perhaps…
But then there was Hopkins, with his slow saurian gaze, his complete lack of sentimentality. Wouldn’t such a man poison efficiently and ruthlessly?
And yet… Hopkins, by temperament and trade, was a watcher, not a doer. It contented him to stand outside life, peering and prying, and never so much as wetting the soles of his feet in the mud.
It was hard to imagine such a man indulging in the crudity of murder, harder still because he seemed a man capable perhaps of friendship—a thin, attenuated affection—but of nothing so robust as either love or hatred.
What of Garrett—a man to whom the getting of poisons would be easy—efficient, calm, never losing his head? And yet…a doctor, trained to save life, must have a powerful motive to destroy it. What motive could Garrett, in particular, have—he, a successful specialist and famous for his philanthropic activities?
The silence had endured for several minutes now. Outside in the harbour there was the sudden scream of a speed-boat, the wail of its exhaust tearing the silence like a piece of linen.
Leathart jumped. ‘For God’s sake, let’s do something!’ he cried. ‘What’s the good of sitting here like a lot of waxworks not daring to look each other in the eyes?’
His voice was almost hysterical, and Hopkins’ eyebrows rose at the tone. ‘A sound suggestion,’ he said. ‘I propose that first of all we find the poison. It must have been in a tube or phial, or something.’
Leathart interrupted him, his voice strained. ‘Look here, isn’t the first question to find out how the poison got into the brandy? The four drinks came from one bottle and we’ve all had ours without ill effects.’
‘You are doubtless referring,’ said Garrett, coldly, ‘to the unfortunate fact that it was I who poured out the brandy and passed the glasses round.’
‘I just asked,’ said Leathart stubbornly, not meeting his eyes, ‘how the poison got in the brandy.’
‘And I can answer that,’ replied Hopkins. Four eyes focused on him instantly. ‘You will remember that, after the brandy was poured out, but before we had drunk it, a four-masted Finnish barque came past us to starboard, reaching out of the harbour.
‘Naturally, being what we are, we all jumped up and glued our noses to the portholes for several minutes till she’d passed. During that time, any one of us could have poisoned any glass.’
Hopkins’ eyes met Leathart’s, and a faint, almost imperceptible sigh escaped from between Garrett’s lips.
‘Right! That clears that up,’ said Leathart briskly. ‘What were you saying when I interrupted you?’
‘Merely that the phial must be somewhere in the cabin.’
‘If I had been murdering anyone,’ interjected Garrett, ‘I should chuck the bottle or what-not overboard.’
‘You would have been unable to do so without leaving the saloon,’ Hopkins reminded him, ‘because the portholes are still screwed up.’
‘Well,’ retorted Garrett, ‘I think it’s a silly idea. If the murderer has any cunning he’d plant the phial on an innocent party. So, if we do find it, it will only be misleading. I vote we get on to something more tangible.’
‘I think you are wrong to be so emphatic,’ commented Hopkins with the utmost gentleness. His pebble glasses were fixed on the doctor’s face, and there was a difficult pause.
‘Are you suggesting I’m the murderer, then?’ shouted Garrett, suddenly flushing and half-rising from his seat.
‘Come, come!’ said Hopkins, his lips twitching. ‘Let us remember we are friends and keep our tempers. What’s a murder between friends?’
‘Come to that,’ answered Garrett more calmly, sinking down into his chair again, ‘you seem to be taking it remarkably calmly!’
‘I am. To be perfectly frank, I was not at all fond of Pickering. You knew him as a rich and respectable banker. I—with my usual flair for finding out the worst sides of people—happen to know that his bank is a very shady affair, and his past career shadier still. Mr Pickering has put over some pretty raw deals in his time on friends of mine.’
‘In that case, why accept his hospitality?’
‘Firstly, because I like this yacht—one of the finest hulls that ever came off Champney’s drawing-board. And secondly—’
‘Secondly?’
‘I find Pickering a most interesting character study… Any more questions? No? Then I suggest the court votes on my proposal. That we now search this cabin to find one missing poison phial, tube, or container.’
‘Waste of time,’ grunted Garrett.
‘I think we should do it, old chap,’ said Leathart.
Hopkins got up. ‘Carried!’
The saloon had many cupboards and lockers, as all well-designed cabins have. Certain of them were for articles used in common-crockery, glasses, cards, books, and so forth.
But at the beginning of the trip two lockers had been offered to each man (and the keys given to him), to stow such private articles as he had—a practice which may sound unfriendly to the uninitiated, but which is carried out by all discreet yachtsmen, for it saves a great deal of argument.
When each man had given up his keys, and the lockers had been searched, an empty phial, smelling strongly of hydrocyanic acid, was found in Dr Garrett’s drawer.
More damning still, they found a receipt from a chemist, screwed up in the sheet of brown paper in which the phial had evidently been wrapped: ‘½ oz. hydrocyanic acid.’
‘Good heavens! You, Garrett!’ exclaimed Leathart, with surprising scorn. ‘No wonder you were so much against the search!’
Garrett had turned pale. ‘This is absurd!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know nothing about this!’
Leathart laughed scornfully. ‘Oh, come, I say! Know nothing about it? In your locked drawer? It’s as plain as the nose on my face.
‘You doped the glass before we sat down to dinner, put away the phial and locked the drawer, and then poured the brandy into glasses, one of which was already charged with poison!’
‘It’s a lie!’ said Garrett furiously.
‘Perhaps the Spanish police may have different views!’
‘Now, now, Leathart,’ said Hopkins, reprovingly. ‘Don’t start talking about the Spanish police. Let’s hear the mitigating circumstances. If there are any.’
‘Rot!’ said Leathart, angrily. ‘There’s nothing here but a coldblooded premeditated murder.’
Hopkins peered shrewdly at the flushed face of the Yorkshireman. ‘You seem very indignant about it, Leathart! Amazing display of indignation! After all, we don’t know yet (a) if Garrett really did poison Pickering, or (b) if he did, why? He may have had some perfectly good reaso
n—eh, Garrett?’
Garrett glared at him furiously. ‘All I know is that one of you two is the dirtiest skunk unhanged.’
‘I feared,’ said Hopkins, with a sigh, ‘that we should never be able to discuss this murder without animosity creeping in. However, let us see where we are.
‘The poison has been discovered in Garrett’s locked drawer. A bad mark against him.
‘In defence I should be inclined to urge that no murderer would stow the bottle in his own locker; surely he’d prefer to throw it down anywhere rather than there—particularly as suspicion would be bound to fall on Garrett first through having poured out the brandy.’
‘That’s all very well for a clever devil like yourself, Hopkins,’ broke in Leathart, ‘but I’m a plain man, and that argument seems just silly. At that rate the more evidence you discover against him, the less guilty he is.’
‘Well, I won’t insist on the point. I prefer to leave that kind of argument to my learned and subtle confreres, the writers of detective novels. We will just keep it at the back of our minds. Now, Garrett, have you any contribution to make?’
Garrett stared at them both defiantly.
‘No. I prefer to watch you. Being innocent, you see, I happen to know one of you is the murderer, and sooner or later he’ll give himself away.’
‘A very proper sentiment,’ murmured Hopkins. ‘Our next task, therefore, is to find some motive. Blackmail has been suggested by Leathart—’
‘I didn’t actually suggest it,’ interrupted Leathart, uneasily.
‘I apologise. You are right; you did not suggest it in this case. You merely mentioned it as a justifiable motive for a murder.’ Leathart wriggled, but said nothing.
After a keen look at him, Hopkins continued: ‘The murdered man (whom, by the way, I consider perfectly capable of blackmail, with his bland smile and his mean mind)—the murdered man, as the crime stories always call the violently deceased, probably had some documents with which to blackmail—letters and so forth. We had better search his person and his locker.’
‘Right,’ said Leathart, jumping up, ‘I’ll look through his clothes.’
‘One moment,’ remarked Hopkins, suddenly shooting out a long arm and laying it on Leathart’s shoulder. ‘One moment. We had better go together. And perhaps Garrett had better come too. He might—he just possibly might—try to make a bolt for it.’
They returned with a handful of papers and a wallet. Hopkins read through them. Both watched him with fascinated attention. He made a little noise as if of satisfaction, looked up, and said:
‘Well, Leathart, what would you say to this? A letter written to Pickering, in Garrett’s own handwriting. And marked “Confidential.”’
Garrett started as his eyes fell on the document, and he swore. Without looking up, Hopkins read the letter out:
My dear Pickering,
—I should be infernally grateful if you could give me another thirty days’ grace on that promissory note. I’ve just had a reminder from Leathart about the heavy bill I ran up with him on last month’s racing, and I hardly know where to turn for ready cash. I’m safe enough—you know that half a dozen operations will cover the amount—but I happen to be in a temporary corner.
Yours ever, J. GARRETT.
Leathart gave a slow murmur of astonishment. ‘So that was it! But why, Garrett, why? Man alive, my reminder to you was a joke! If I’d known you were in any real difficulty, so far from running up any bill I’d have lent you all you wanted!’
Hopkins was watching Leathart’s face with an unblinking stare. ‘But Garrett didn’t know that, eh? And so, when Pickering refused to renew the note, Garrett killed him to gain time.’
Garrett jumped to his feet. Every vestige of self-control had left him. Shaking with anger, he leaned towards Hopkins, his face a few inches from the other man’s, and almost spat into his face.
‘You rat! You Judas! So this is the little plot you’ve prepared, sitting there like a spider! God, what a fool I was ever to trust you, you heartless, soulless, gutless devil!
‘You killed Pickering. You knew he had that letter on him; he showed it to you, I expect! You hid the poison bottle in my drawer!
‘Pickering never refused to renew my promissory note. He told me before we started on this trip not to worry about the note. We were too good friends for him to do anything to embarrass me, he said.
‘You told us yourself you hated him. You poisoned him, and wove your slimy little plot, like one of your slimy little stories!’
Hopkins gazed quietly back into the convulsed features of his friend. He seemed to note every line of fury as if he were examining an interesting old picture.
‘I understand your fury, Garrett,’ he said. ‘I was afraid that once we started murdering each other our happy, our almost ideal friendship would be broken up.
‘Believe me, however. I bear you no ill-will.’ He turned. ‘Well, Leathart, what do you say?’
‘Guilty as blazes!’
‘And do you think the circumstances mitigating? Money affairs are very worrying, you know! Almost the most worrying in the world.’
‘Look out!’ shouted Leathart; and Hopkins leaped sideways. Wild with fury, Garrett had sprung at him.
Leathart seized Garrett by the elbows. In the huge Yorkshireman’s hands he was like a child, and he was flung sullenly back in his chair.
‘Very crude!’ remarked Hopkins.
‘So, Leathart, you consider there are no mitigating circumstances?’
‘None!’
‘What shall we do, then?’
‘Hand him over to the Spanish police.’
Hopkins’ eyebrows rose. ‘Come, come. An old shipmate of ours! Surely we’ll offer him a gentleman’s way out?’
‘No,’ rumbled Leathart, suddenly. ‘I wouldn’t give him even that, the skunk!’
‘I see. Well, well!’
‘And what about you, eh, you slimy devil?’ said Garrett. ‘What’s your opinion? You lead others on, but you take darn good care never to give away anything yourself!’
‘My opinion? Ah, yes, my opinion.’ Hopkins had been smiling, but now the smile vanished; and, behind his thick glasses, he darted at Leathart a glance of piercing malignancy, of utter and biting contempt.
‘My opinion, Leathart, is that you’re the meanest skunk it has ever been my lot to meet. I thought I was a judge of human character. I turn out to have been a child, a baby.
‘You are a murderer, Leathart. Don’t look surprised. I repeat, you are a murderer. You murdered Pickering. You had provocation, no doubt. I don’t complain of that.
‘But not only are you a murderer; you deliberately attempt to fasten on your best friend the guilt of that murder. You had no pity, you pressed for the last ounce of punishment. You won’t even permit him to blow his brains out.
‘You! Our inoffensive, childish, sporting glutton! Faugh!’
‘I kill Pickering?’ exclaimed Leathart at last. ‘You must be crazy! Why should I want to?’
‘I have met you once or twice at Pickering’s house,’ said Hopkins slowly. ‘I’m an observant devil, you know.
‘Mrs Pickering is a very beautiful woman, isn’t she? And ill-treated by her husband, eh? And ready to tell anyone so? And her husband’s jealous of your heart-to-heart talks with her, lunches in town, and so forth? Isn’t that so?’
‘You’re mad!’ said Leathart, emphatically. ‘It’s true that I felt sorry for Mrs Pickering. If you like, I’m in love with her. I don’t mind admitting it.
‘But, as for murdering him! Confound it, you can’t accuse me of murder just because of an admiration for a man’s wife!’
‘Oh, no,’ said Hopkins, ‘I happen to have more substantial grounds. I knew you had murdered Pickering the moment he fell dead.’
Leathart laughed aloud, scornfully. ‘
Oh, and whence this certainty?’
‘Well, when we were watching that barque go by, I happened to see the cabin behind me reflected on the porthole glass. I told you I was an observant devil, didn’t I?
‘And I saw you replacing Pickering’s glass, with a guilty air, one eye on our backs to make sure we didn’t see you. I wondered what the devil you were playing at… Until Pickering fell down dead.’
‘You swine!’ exclaimed Garrett, glaring at Leathart. ‘You of all people!’
Leathart had flushed; but he seemed strangely unconcerned as he answered, ‘Yes, I killed Pickering.’
‘You confess?’
‘No. Oh, no! For I am not guilty. I killed Pickering. And yet Garrett is the murderer. And yet Pickering died by accident.’
‘Is this madness, Garrett?’ asked Hopkins. ‘Or is he putting it on?’
‘No, I’m not mad,’ replied Leathart. ‘I feel peculiarly sane. I know exactly what happened. I knew from the moment you found that letter in Pickering’s pocket.
‘Garrett tried to poison me—me, his best friend—because of a paltry gambling debt. Do you wonder I wanted to see him handed over to the police?
‘But then Fate, or Chance, stepped in. For, when your backs were turned, I did a childish thing. Garrett had poured out for Pickering a much larger portion of brandy than for me.
‘Half in genuine greed—you know my weakness for cognac—and half in joke, I swapped glasses. When we had drunk I was going to tell you all that I’d swiped the best share after all. What a joke! What a devil of a joke!’
‘Did you give Pickering a larger portion, Garrett?’
‘I did,’ admitted Garrett. ‘As host. But we’ve only Leathart’s word that he swapped them.’
‘No,’ said Hopkins. ‘I told you I’m an observant devil… and as we lifted our glasses for the toast, I remember thinking: trust old Leathart to get the fullest glass!’
‘You’re both lying!’ exclaimed Garrett furiously.
‘No,’ answered Leathart, firmly and quietly. ‘I am not lying.’
A shaft of sunlight lit the troubled faces of the three friends.
Deep Waters Page 17
