His voice came back at him in that enclosed space. Under his feet the deck of the Edwardic began to rise slowly, but with inflexible and treacherous vastness. It rose, hung, and then tilted sideways to a sharp creak of the bulkheads; so that he had to seize the side of the berth to keep himself from falling. The movement stirred in his stomach as well.
Then Max Matthews knew the reason for the excitement which had possessed him ever since the ship sailed. It was caused by nervousness—pure nervousness.
He unfastened his life-jacket, took it off, and hung it over his arm. He could now hear, beginning far away and pulsing nearer through the ship, the shivering note of a gong beaten louder and louder until it banged away past his door.
"All passengers are to assemble in the lounge." Max drew a deep breath. He took off his overcoat, which was now uncomfortably hot. He picked up the life-jacket again. Opening the door to the little alcove-passage, hooking it back against the wall so as to get more air, he stepped out into that tiny space; and this time he met the woman face to face.
Her cabin must be directly opposite his across the alcove. He could have reached out and touched the white-painted door, numbered B-37, which faced him. She was just turning into the alcove, walking rapidly, with the light, behind her; and they bumped smack into each other.
"I beg your pardon," said Max.
"Not at all," said the woman, after a slight pause. "My fault, I'm sure."
Her voice was lofty, with a cigarette-hoarseness. While he stood by to let her pass, she groped for and found the knob, and opened the door. The lights were burning in her cabin. It was a cabin similar to his own except for the wallpaper, and had a private bathroom as well. It was already littered untidily with the contents of two big trunks bearing the white initials E.Z.B.
This much he noticed before she turned round, in the act of shutting the door, and glanced at him over her shoulder. The thick snakeskin handbag was still pressed tightly under
one arm. Again he became aware of the small, petulant wrinkle by the drooping under-lip. But he was not interested in that.
For she looked him straight in the eyes before the door closed.
2
Max, a bit perturbed, climbed the main staircase to the| lounge on A Deck.
He has since admitted that if he had paid more attention to his fellow-passengers during the first twenty-four hours out, if he had studied more than the one or two he did study much blood and brutality might have been avoided. But that is the whole point. You never do notice much of your fellow passengers at the outset. You are tired, or depressed, at wrapped up in your own concerns. You see people only a blank faces with whom it is later difficult to associate the personalities you come to know. Even after several days it is sometimes difficult to sort them out. Of course, the Edwardic was so thinly populated that the passengers might have been ghosts wandering about in an over-decorated haunted house, and observation should have been easy. The answer lies in a cargo of high explosives, which is apt to distract the best detective instincts from watching the behavior of a murderer. I
For the third officer made it clear that this voyage was to be no picnic, when he assembled them in the lounge.
The lounge was a huge salon, with lines of mahogany pillars supporting a mosaic roof of colored glass, with green* covered tables and deep brocaded chairs round a dance-floor now veiled by carpet. Its lights were dim and spectrally glassy. Indeed, those assembled had the air of people waiting to hear a ghost story. But the third officer, who reminded Max of Sir Malcolm Campbell, spoke with brisk confidence. j
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, perching himself on the edge of a table piled with square cardboard boxes, "we none of us like to take all these precautions, or worry you with them. But needs must when the devil drives." He uttered this bon mot with a sinister roll and thrill. "First of all,
I should like you to come up here and be fitted with gasmasks. Steward!"
(O as-masks? Why gas-masks at sea? That was the question In everybody's mind. But no one spoke.)
"If you don't need 'em here," said the third officer dryly, "you will have to have them when you land in England. So you'll have to get them from us. Write your name and cabin-number plainly on the box. Now, if you please."
Obediently they trooped up. Stewards fitted on the masks, which gave an ugly and pig-snouted expression to people peering at each other in the dim light. If the mask fitted well, breathing in it produced a long and impolite noise like a raspberry, which rolled and bubbled round your ears whenever you expelled air.
Miss Chatfield and Mr. Kenworthy, it then developed, had failed to appear. A steward reported they were seasick. The third officer was a little annoyed at this news, but finally decided to see them in their cabins later on.
'Tomorrow," he went on, "you will be given detailed instructions. There will be a boat-drill at eleven o'clock. When you hear the alarm-bell ring, go down to the dining-room—the dining-room, on C Deck—and await orders. Bring your life-jackets, your gas-masks, and a blanket Remember, if we are ever attacked, by sea or air, you are to go to the dining-room. That's all, for the moment" He smiled. "Don't worry about it; let us do the worrying."
And they trailed out
There had been no comments, no jokes, no laughter. But the Edwardic was already pitching and rolling into heavy weather, and blank faces indicated unquiet stomachs. In fact, only four passengers came in to dinner on the first night—and no officers except the purser.
In the dining-room, which was full of mirrors and red lacquer, a funereal hush lay over half an acre of empty white tables. You could hear crockery rattle as far as the kitchen. The stewards were, if anything, more subdued than the passengers. At the captain's table, which was round and seated six persons, were Max, the affable Mr. Lathrop, and a short fat middle-aged man who introduced himself as Mr. George A. Hooper, of Bristol. Some distance away from them alone at a table for two, sat a wiry dark-complexioned man in the khaki uniform, with gold-and-red shoulder-straps, of a captain of French Tirailleurs. Max supposed that this must be the Capt. Pierre Benoit of the passenger-list. His face was completely without expression, and he never raised his eyes from his plate.
Mysterious draughts swept the dining-room. To the accompaniment of a boiling hiss outside the portholes, the whole saloon suddenly rose up slowly like a balloon, and then dropped like an express lift. Crockery chattered and ran together in the center of the table.
"Crab cocktail," said the doughty Lathrop, consulting his menu. "Grilled sole with Hollandaise sauce, steak and French fried potatoes—h'm—after that, we'll see."
"Steak and chips for me," said Mr. George A. Hooper, in the homely and comforting accents of the West Country. He added: "Gawd lummy Charley! Look at the Queen o' Sheba!"
This marked the entrance of Estelle Zia Bey.
She had committed the blunder of dressing for dinner on the first night out. But no doubt she had done it deliberately. Mr. Hooper's whisper had been one of awe.
Mrs. Zia Bey (confound that name, thought Max) wore an evening-gown of silver spangles, cut so low in front as to make the modest Mr. Hooper mutter under his breath. It reflected back the innumerable mosaic mirrors in the dining-saloon. It showed off her superb shoulders, of the same soft golden-brown color as her face. No wrinkles were visible now. She swung a black handbag from a wrist-strap. The ship rolled sharply as she came into the room, and a less steady-pinned woman would have gone skidding and scuttling into a pillar, clutching without dignity at her skirts.
But she only laughed at the steward who hurried to assist her. She pushed him with some jocoseness in the chest, lifted her long skirts, and sat down alone at a table for two. They heard her voice rise, rather harshly, as she ordered dinner.
The three men instantly went into a guilty and whispering huddle.
"That ought to be stopped, that ought," muttered Mr. Hooper, looking at his plate. "Reckon it's a scandal."
"Oh, I don't know," said Lathrop, with a massive and tolerant
gesture. His brown eye, the eye of a young man, twinkled paternally. "She's a fine-looking woman, I'd say. Name is Mrs. Zia Bey. She's divorced, or getting divorced. She's American by birth, but her first husband was English.
Her second husband (die fellow she's getting divorced from) is in the Turkish Embassy at London."
(Lathrop, Max was shortly to learn, had more talent for picking up gossip than a whole pared of women at a village sewing-circle.)
"You talked to her?" asked Max.
"Oh, casually. Just casually. I think she wanted me to stand her a drink; but I wasn't having any."
(The devil she did, thought Max.)
Lathrop chuckled. "There's one of 'em aboard every ship," he confided. "Sometimes they mean business, and sometimes they don't. Mostly they don't. But she does, if you ask me. No, sir: I'm not having any. I don't think Mrs. L. would like it."
Max ate his dinner in silence. Again he told himself, with angry insistence and some jealousy, that he was not going to get tangled up with the infernal woman. He would not strike up an acquaintance with her. He would not invite her to have a drink.
Yet he knew that the thing was fated, and that he could not help it. A sort of unpleasant prevision told him that. The worst of it was that he didn't even like the look of her. But, when a person grows rather sick of life, he says to himself, 'Why not?' he says—
A blue-uniformed steward crossed the salon, threading gingerly among the rattling tables.
"Mr. Matthews, sir?"
"Yes?"
"The captain's compliments, sir, and could you have coffee with him in his room after dinner?"
Max could, and was glad of an excuse to go. On his way out he had to pass Mrs. Zia Bey's table. He could have avoided it by taking a longer circuit round, but he thought that this might look conspicuous; and an acute pang of self-consciousness shot through him. As he passed her table, she lifted her head and looked him full in the eyes. Her mouth, which Was painted dark red and looked as soft as pulp, wore a faintly mocking expression; as though she were about to smile.
That was all. He limped past.
The steward took him up in the lift to A Deck, and then outside. To avoid any chink of light being seen, such outer doors as could be used were constructed on the plan of water-tight compartments. You opened one blacked-out door, and walked into a kind of vestibule. Then, after closing it, you opened a second blacked-out door, and emerged into whistling darkness.
"Look out, sir!" cried the steward.
Max had never imagined such darkness even in his dreams. The wet deck soared up under him, tilting high. The ferrule of his cane slipped on a wet iron plate, and he nearly fell at full length.
He could hear the wind scream, under a vast flapping and thrumming, behind canvas sheets which they had tied up like screens along the open deck. Even so, it wormed through and lifted his hair. It was literally true to say that you could not see your hand before your face. He lifted one hand and wriggled the fingers: nothing. Not a gleam, not a star: nothing but a blackness which howled you down, deafened you, and stung your lips with spray.
The steward, shouting something in his ear, was guiding him towards a companionway which led up to the boat-deck. At least, he knew it was a companionway when he barked his shins against it. They groped their way among the huge swathed shapes of the bombing-planes up on the boat-deck, and presently emerged, half-blinded, into the dazzle of the captain's room.
"Look here," said his brother, after surveying him in silence for some moments, "what the devil do you mean by taking this ship?"
Commander Francis Matthews had changed little during the two or three years since Max had seen him last. He was forty-five; his face was something less than the color of raw beef; his bearing was quiet (except in family matters), and his manners good (with the same reservation). He sat, stocky and foursquare, in a swivel-chair beside a polished desk. His "room"—not cabin—might have been the study in a suburban villa. Two frosty blue eyes, the lids pinched and wrinkled as though with astigmatism, never wavered from his brother's face.
Then Commander Matthews put his fists on his hips. The four gold stripes on his sleeves lent him a powerful impressiveness.
"Don't you know it's not safe?" he demanded. "Sit down."
Max laughed at him; and the other, after a slight pause, grinned back.
"You're traveling by this ship," Max pointed out
"That's different. It's my job," said the captain, becoming powerfully stern again.
There was another silence.
"Er—what's been happening to you?" asked Commander Matthews, fidgeting a little. "I hear you cracked up. Sorry I couldn't get in to see you. This bloody war___"
"I know."
"Well?" said his brother fiercely. "What happened?"
"I was covering a fire. The photographer and I were up on a scaffolding. It collapsed. We went down in the middle of the blaze. I didn't get burnt; they pulled me out in time; but it got my side and leg, and if I hadn't had the best doctor in the world I'd have been permanently paralyzed. Tom Miller was killed."
There was another pause. Commander Matthews drew a deep inhalation through his nose.
"H'm. Break your nerve?"
"No. At least, I don't think so."
"How are you feeling now?"
"Fed up."
The other nodded. "Why're you going back to England?"
"You don't keep jobs on a New York paper after eleven months in the sick-bay. The paper was damned decent about It, though: paid every penny of the expenses.—This war's going to spread, Frank. I think I can pick up something in London."
"H'm. Money?"
"That's all right, thanks."
"I said: money?" snarled Commander Matthews.
"And I tell you it's all right, thanks. I don't need anything."
His brother seemed a little nonplussed. They had skated rapidly over this personal conversation, as they always did, while Commander Matthews creaked back and forth in his swivel-chair. Once a huge lurch of the ship brought Max's heart up in his throat, turning him slightly dizzy. It set the captain's chair sliding, and almost upset the coffee-service on the railed center table. The captain sprang up. He seemed relieved to have his attention diverted.
"Coffee?"
"Thanks."
"Brandy?"
"Thanks. Frank, what's on your mind? What's worrying you?"
Commander Matthews turned away, but not before Max had seen the blood come into his face and into the blue veins of his forehead. He poured the coffee. He opened a wall-cabinet, taking out a bottle and two fat-bowled glasses. After glancing once at the speaking-tube which communicated with the bridge, he poured out two weak brandies.
MI suppose you don't know," he went on, with his eye on the bottle, "that we found two time-bombs planted in the hold Just before we sailed."
Again there was a silence.
"Mind! Ill have your hide if you mention that to anybody! But it's a fact. They were set to explode about six hours out of New York. If Cruikshank hadn't found 'em, we'd all be playing harps this minute."
He set down the bottle with a thump.
"But precautions—" Max began.
"Precautions!" said the captain. "You saw that mob of special constables at the dock. We've taken every human precaution that can be taken. Since then we've gone over every inch of this ship with a microscope: no bombs, no stowaways, nothing. And don't worry about it," he added lightly. "Well get through all right."
"I hope so."
"But it's a responsibility, you know. There's no denying it's a responsibility."
"To say the least."
"Yes. Well. Look here." The captain hesitated, frowning. "Since you are aboard, I'd take it as a favor if you'd—keep your eyes open. You know? I'm sure of my crew, every man-jack of 'em. But I'm not so sure of my passengers,"
Max sat up.
"Here, I say! You don't mean somebody might plant a bomb and then stick with the ship?"
"Frank
ly," said Commander Matthews, with an air of; handsome concession, "I don't know what the blighters mightn't do if they saw a chance to wreck a cargo like this." Again he put his fists on his hips. He was smiling: but it was his "official" smile, marble-toothed and fishy and unconvincing. He added:
"I can't tell you anything, Max. I'm under Admiralty orders. So mum's the word. But here I am with nine passengers—" "Eight."
"Eight," the other corrected himself hastily. "Eight, I meant to say." His eyes grew sharp. "Met any of the passengers, by the way?"
"Only a few. There's a big fellow called Lathrop, with a primitive sense of humor. He keeps on making some joke about being after a murderer, and acting very mysterious •bout it."
"Joke?" said the captain. "It's no joke. True as gospel."
Again Max sat up.
"Do you mean that?"
"I don't say things I don't mean," snapped Commander Matthews, the blood in his forehead-veins again. "Ever heard of a man named Carlo Fenelli? The what-d'ye-call-it—you know—racketeer? He's in jug in England, and wanted for about six murders in the States. They want him back in a hurry, and they're extraditing him. But (it seems) this chap Fenelli is so canny that he ought to have his behind kicked. If they try to take him out of England by way of France or Italy, Fenelli's smart lawyers will serve more papers on 'em and hold 'em up till Doomsday with more red tape. Lathrop is somebody connected with the New York police. He offered to go straight over, and bring Fenelli straight back in an English ship. At least, that's Lathrop's story. He seems all right."
Commander Matthews drank brandy at a gulp. Picking up • passenger-list, he flicked it open. His reddish forefinger moved down and stopped at the name Kenworthy, The Hon. Jerome.
"H'mf. Yes. And I know this one, right enough."
"Who?"
"Young Kenworthy. Son of Lord Somebody-or-Other. He's traveled with me before. Too much money. Always seasick the first half of the trip, and drunk the second. He's all right But the others—"
Max was growing even more puzzled.
"There's a West Country business-man named Hooper," he replied, "and a French army officer. Then there's a Dr. Archer, and this chap Kenworthy, and a Miss Valerie Chat-ford: whom I haven't seen, any of them. Finally, there's—"
Nine and Death Makes Ten Page 2
