‘Nothing wrong, sir,’ Whiteway said creamily. ‘I was watching Pascoe come in through my glasses and I saw him gaff a fish. I found this salmon hidden under tarpaulins in the cabin of his boat.’
There was a silence. Albert looked up. He took a deep breath and was about to launch himself into a futile defence on the grounds that the salmon was a Canadian fish when the Inspector said softly, ‘Salmon? That doesn’t look like a salmon to me, Mr Whiteway. I’d say it was a fine big bass.’
The water-bailiff stared. He lowered his eyes, glanced for a moment at the salmon at his feet, and looked up again. ‘A bass!’ he said squeakily. ‘You mean…’
‘I mean that as far as the police are concerned that is a bass, Mr Whiteway. I’m sorry to disappoint you. Good afternoon.’
Albert swallowed again. He looked at the Inspector, at Herbert Whiteway, whose mouth was hanging open, and at the salmon. For once he could think of nothing to say.
Alice stepped into the breach. ‘I’ll thank you to put that fish back where you found it, Mr Whiteway, and step out of our boat,’ she said in a loud voice.
Then, as a roar of delighted laughter rose from the crowded quay, she went down the steps like a duchess, with Albert behind her, smiling.
The Man Who Was Drowned
James Pattinson
James Pattinson (1915–2009) was a Norfolk man whose most popular books were tales of adventure on the high seas. Educated at Thetford Grammar School, he nourished early ambitions to become a writer, but on his own account (quoted in his obituary in the Daily Telegraph) his younger days were devoted mainly to ‘failing in the Civil Service examinations and poultry farming’. In 1939, he volunteered for the Royal Artillery, and in 1941 he was transferred to the maritime arm to serve as a gunner on Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (DEMS). On D-Day, he was aboard a 600-ton coaster carrying ammunition to Normandy, and he also served on convoys in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
After the war he returned to poultry farming in Norfolk, but found that his war-time experiences supplied valuable raw material for fiction. His first novel, Soldier, Sail North, was set on the Arctic convoys to Russia and published in 1954. Once he had broken through, there was no stopping him, and the success of Last in Convoy (1958) enabled him to become a full-time writer. Poultry farming’s loss proved to be fiction’s gain, and he continued to publish novels until late in his long life. ‘The Man Who Was Drowned’ first appeared in the John Creasey Mystery Magazine in January 1958.
The man went overboard from the M.V. Southern Star at about 10.30 p.m. A woman was the only person to see him go, and she ran to the bridge and gave the alarm.
The officer of the watch acted promptly. The 15,000 ton liner turned in such a narrow arc and heeled over so acutely that some of the more nervous passengers thought she was about to capsize. Then she straightened, the propellers ceased to revolve, and the vessel came to rest on a sea so calm that scarcely a ripple disturbed its surface.
Searchlight beams cut silver paths across the water and two boats, slipping down from out-swung davits, thrust into the night, seeking one small body in an infinity of ocean.
But the Atlantic has an insatiable appetite for bodies: it had swallowed this man as easily as a whale will swallow the tiniest speck of plankton. After a long and fruitless search the boats returned. Dripping salt water, they were hauled up again, the davits swung inboard, and the Southern Star sailed on her way with one passenger the fewer.
At the time of the incident Barton Rice had been drinking the captain’s whisky and smoking one of the captain’s excellent cigars. Rice and Captain Perry were old friends, though two more dissimilar men, physically, it would have been hard to imagine: Rice, dried-up, stringy, unemotional: the captain, stout, red-faced, jovial.
Captain Perry poured whisky from a square-sided bottle and added soda-water with skilled hands.
‘So it was business rather than pleasure that took you to Rio. Pity; it’s a fine place for a holiday.’
Rice accepted the drink, wrapping his long, thin fingers round the glass, and answered in his gentle voice:
‘Oh, I had time to look around; though certainly it was business that took me there. There was a man Scotland Yard were interested in. They thought I might get something out of him.’
‘And did you?’
Rice smiled, but did not answer the question. His pale blue eyes were childishly ingenuous. Captain Perry drew on his cigar and smoke curled away towards the white-painted ceiling of the comfortable stateroom.
‘I have never understood,’ he said, ‘exactly what your position in the forces of law and order is.’
Barton Rice’s smile was positively angelic. ‘I am not sure that I quite understand it myself. Shall we just say that I am useful?’
When the Southern Star suddenly heeled over as she put about, Captain Perry swore vividly and briefly.
‘What the devil does Turner think he’s playing at?’
Whisky had spilled over on to the captain’s neatly creased trousers. He dabbed at them with a handkerchief and lifted a telephone that was in reach of his hand.
‘Hello; hello there! What’s the trouble? Is that so? Oh, confound it!’
He put the telephone back on its hook. ‘Some damn fool’s slipped overboard. This’ll put us behind schedule. Damn all idiots!’
The woman who had seen the passenger fall overboard appeared to be about twenty-five to thirty years of age. She was dark, attractive, and had a good figure. She spoke English with only the faintest of accents, so that it was difficult to tell whether she was an Englishwoman who had lived a great deal overseas or a foreigner who had spent much of her life in England.
She refused the glass of brandy which Captain Perry offered her, but accepted one of his cigarettes, leaning forward in her chair as he questioned her about what she had seen.
‘You say you were standing on the promenade deck, Miss Leblanc?’
‘That is so. I was leaning back on the rail and looking back towards the end of the ship, watching the moon shining on the water. It was very beautiful. Then I saw the man. I noticed him especially because there was nobody else in sight. There were some other people strolling along the promenade deck but they were behind me. Where he stood this man was alone, and I am sure that I was the only one who could have seen him.’
‘Where exactly was he standing?’
Rice lay back in his chair, watching Miss Leblanc with half-closed eyes. There was an urgent vibration running through the cabin as the Southern Star made up for lost time, thrusting forward into the night and opening a gap between herself and the man who had gone to his lonely grave in a wide ocean. It was as though the vessel were shuddering at the memory of the tragedy.
‘The man was standing,’ said Miss Leblanc, ‘just where a kind of iron spout goes through the rails.’
‘The garbage chute,’ said Captain Perry. ‘I know where you mean. Did his actions strike you as being in any way peculiar?’
‘Not at first. He just seemed to be gazing out across the water. Then he swayed, threw out his arms, and fell down the chute headfirst. That was when I ran up to the bridge and gave the alarm.’
‘You acted most sensibly. That was the quickest way to get something done. My only regret is that we were unable to save this unfortunate man. Whether he fell overboard by accident or threw himself over on purpose I don’t suppose we shall ever know.’
Miss Leblanc got to her feet and the two men rose also.
‘I am very tired,’ she said. ‘I think I will go to bed.’ Captain Perry walked to the door and opened it; but before Miss Leblanc could leave the cabin Rice said in his gentle voice:
‘May I ask one question? Were you standing on the port or the starboard side of the promenade deck?’
The woman hesitated. ‘Really, I am so vague about nautical terms. Looking back in the directio
n from which the ship was coming, I was on the right hand side.’
‘That would be the port side,’ said Rice. ‘Thank you.’
Barton Rice was dozing in a deck-chair in the morning sunshine when Captain Perry came to a halt in front of him.
‘We have discovered who it was who left us so abruptly last night,’ he said.
Rice’s childlike eyes opened. ‘Ah! Anyone of interest?’
‘A fellow named Schmidt—Walter Schmidt. Came aboard in Buenos Aires.’
‘Schmidt, eh? A German?’
‘He was travelling on a Mexican passport. May have been German originally. I don’t know anything about that.’
Rice digested this information. Then he got up from his chair and stretched himself.
‘If you have a moment to spare,’ he said, ‘I should like to show you something. It won’t take more than a minute.’
Under their feet the ship seemed perfectly steady; it was like walking along a pier at the seaside. The tropics had been left behind but the weather was still pleasantly warm. The two men came to the after rail of the promenade deck and halted. They were on the port side.
‘This should be about where Miss Leblanc was standing,’ said Rice.
Perry agreed. ‘From what she said, it must be.’
‘Exactly. Now look down towards the poop.’ Rice pointed with his finger. ‘Does anything strike you as peculiar?’
Captain Perry looked aft at the stern and away towards the creaming wake of her passage. He shook his head.
‘Nothing.’
Rice beat a little tattoo on the teak rail, holy-stoned and bleached almost white by sun and water.
‘I am surprised you notice nothing strange. You remember Miss Leblanc’s story? She said the man—Schmidt—fell down the garbage chute. Now, as you will observe, the chute is not visible from here; there is deck housing in the way. From the starboard side it can be seen, but not from here.’
Perry exclaimed: ‘Damned if you aren’t right! I ought to have noticed that.’ Then he gave a laugh. ‘She was confused about port and starboard and obviously made a mistake.’
Rice nodded. ‘Oh, certainly she may have done so. But I have a nasty suspicious mind—it’s one of the occupational diseases of my profession—and I think she may have been lying.’
Captain Perry stared—surprised and slightly shocked.
‘But why should she have lied? Where was the point in telling a story like that if it wasn’t true?’
‘We will skip that for a moment,’ answered Rice, ‘and examine her conduct a little further. After she had seen the man fall overboard, doesn’t her subsequent action strike you as rather peculiar?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well now; in such a case what would be the normal reaction, the instinctive conduct of the ordinary person? Wouldn’t it be to yell “Man overboard! Man overboard!” and go on yelling until somebody heard? Miss Leblanc herself admits there were other people on the promenade deck whose attention she might easily have attracted. But no; she acted quite differently; without apparently uttering a single cry, she ran some considerable way along the deck, up a number of stairs and on to the bridge to inform the officer of the watch.’
‘It was the most sensible thing to do.’
‘Sensible no doubt, but not normal. In moments of emergency few people do the sensible thing.’
‘Perhaps Miss Leblanc is not an ordinary person.’
Barton Rice smiled. ‘There,’ he said, ‘I think you may well be right.’
Suddenly he changed the subject. ‘Wireless telegraphy is a wonderful thing,’ he remarked. ‘A most useful invention. Don’t you agree?
‘I have been in touch with Buenos Aires and London since our conversation this morning,’ said Barton Rice.
He and Perry were watching, with an interest that was more apparent than real, a game of shuffle-board which some noisy young men and women were playing.
‘I have gained quite a lot of interesting information about this fellow Schmidt—Walter Ludwig Schmidt, to give him his full, and apparently genuine, name. It seems he was a pretty well known Communist—a kind of international organiser of unrest. The Argentine police were glad to see the back of him, he’d been in gaol there—and I don’t think he’d have been received with joy by the authorities in England. The fact is he was deported some years back as an undesirable alien; he had Anglicised his name to plain Walter Smith then, but it was the same man. Twice he tried to get back into England and was stopped at the ports. It seems he was going to have a third attempt. He must have been very keen on getting into the country.’
‘Well, he’s lost the chance now,’ said Perry. ‘Seems to me he was no great loss. But there’s one thing—this rules out the suicide theory.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘This man had a purpose. It’s the people whose lives are empty who do away with themselves. Must have been an accident.’
‘Is there not a third alternative?’ Rice asked quietly. ‘Could it not have been murder?’
Perry looked startled. In the warm afternoon sunshine, watching the gay shuffle-board players and hearing their excited laughter, the idea seemed preposterous.
‘Oh, come now,’ he said. ‘Murder? Where’s the reason—the motive?’
Rice stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘A man like Schmidt must have had a lot of enemies; activities such as his breed enemies as bad meat breeds flies. He may have been due for liquidation—communists are notoriously prone to that sort of thing.’
‘But,’ Perry objected, ‘Miss Leblanc saw him fall. She would have known if he had been pushed.’
Rice’s thin face creased into its ingenuous smile. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but you see there is still an idea in my unpleasant mind that Miss Leblanc was not telling the whole truth.’
‘You surely don’t think she murdered Schmidt? And if she had a hand in it, why should she give the alarm?’
‘Those are questions that have yet to be answered. Meanwhile, it might be instructive to notice with whom she is on friendly terms.’
‘As to that,’ Perry answered, ‘she seems to be friendly with no one. I have never come across anyone so obviously aloof from social contacts—especially a woman as attractive as she is.’
‘Which again, my dear Perry, marks her out from the ordinary. I think I shall have to have a talk with her.’
Barton Rice discovered Miss Leblanc in a deck-chair. Casually he dropped into one beside her.
‘You don’t mind?’
She looked at him coolly. Her face and arms were very brown from the hot sun that they were now leaving behind. So were her legs—very shapely legs, the detective noticed.
‘Not at all, Mr Rice.’
Rice took out a cigarette case and offered it to his companion. She took a cigarette with her left hand. The hand, like the rest of her visible body, was burnt to a dark brown, but on one finger was a circle of paler skin, like a ring. Rice noticed the circle, as he noticed all things, but he did not remark upon it.
‘Captain Perry and I have been admiring your presence of mind, Miss Leblanc,’ he said, holding a match to her cigarette.
Miss Leblanc allowed smoke to float away from her red lips. ‘For what reason, may I ask?’
‘When this man fell down the chute last night you did not uselessly cry “Man overboard!” You went at once to the one part of the ship where something could be done. Not many would have acted so resourcefully.’
‘I am not in the habit of losing my head, Mr Rice.’
Rice wondered whether he detected a hint of mockery in the tone. ‘However,’ he said, ‘there is one point which puzzles us. You said you were standing on the port side of the promenade deck, yet the garbage chute is not visible from there. From the starboard side, yes; from the port, no. How then could you have seen the man?�
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He was watching Miss Leblanc closely, but she gave no sign of being disconcerted by this attack.
‘It was the left hand side, looking towards the rear of the ship.’
‘You said the right hand side last night,’ Rice pointed out gently.
‘Then I must have made a slip of the tongue.’ She smiled, and again Rice suspected mockery. ‘We all make slips of the tongue, don’t we?’
Rice nodded. ‘That is true.’
When he left Miss Leblanc it was with a higher opinion of her self-possession but not of her concern for the truth. He remembered the circle on her finger, however. She should have covered that up, he thought.
That evening Barton Rice went on a journey to a part of the ship unfrequented as a rule by passengers—the forecastle, in which the crew’s quarters were situated.
Rice had struck up a friendship with one of the sailors, a man named Tomlinson, soon after the ship left Buenos Aires. He had encountered him on the boat-deck where Tomlinson was at work and the discovery of a mutual interest in detective novels had led to Rice lending the sailor a number of paperbacks.
It was with another of these in his hand that he was now going in search of Tomlinson, but as he was about to enter the forecastle his way was barred by a man wearing a blue jersey and a peaked cap. He was well over six feet tall and heavily built, very dark about the chin and with black eyebrows that sprouted stiffly like flue-brushes.
‘No passengers allowed in this part of the ship,’ he said gruffly.
Rice answered affably. ‘I wanted to speak to one of the ABs—a friend of mine.’
The man did not move to let him pass. ‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘Not down here. It’s against regulations for passengers to come in the crew’s quarters. If everybody was to crowd down here we wouldn’t be able to move.’
The man’s tone was, to say the least, uncivil. Rice resented it, but did not allow his voice to reflect his feelings.
‘Surely regulations are not altogether rigid. They can be waived.’
‘Not on my responsibility, they can’t. No passengers in the fo’c’sle.’
Deep Waters Page 28
