"Mrs. Zia Bey?" asked the captain, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes. You don't think she's a sinister element, do you?"
"She's a . . ." began Commander Matthews; and checked himself. He hunched up his shoulders. "No, I don't know her. But I know all about her." He eyed Max narrowly. 'Take my tip, my lad. You keep away from her. She's got queer tastes."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning just that."
"It sounds interesting."
"Does it, by God!" said the other, picking up his cap, and putting it on with a slash. The gold leaves on its peak gave him a heavy, competent, still more official look. "You wouldn't think so, if you knew her. Now drink up; and off you go. I've got work to do. Just keep your eyes skinned. If you see any 1011 of unusual thing, any sort (I can't tell you any more than that)• you corns to me in a hurry. Got it?"
Five minutes later, unsteady on his feet and whipped with wind, Max was back inside on A Deck.
The Edwardic moved more evenly, so that the pound of the engines could be felt as a steady throb. It intensified the cathedral hush. Max wandered into the gray-and-mahogany lounge, with its lines of pillars and its roof of mosaic glass. Not a soul was in it.
He sat down in a chair, and got up again. Beside the grand piano there was a full trap-drummer's outfit for dancing. Removing the dust-cover, he struck an experimental whack on the cymbals; it banged out with such loudness that he hastily replaced the cover. He was in a fever q£; restlessness, and would not admit that this was due to nerves. His nerves, he told himself, were as strong as they had been before the scaffolding collapsed under him in the Chemical Works fire.
Tom Miller's neck was broken in that fall.
From the lounge, Max wandered into the Long Gallery that opened out of it. The Long Gallery was all deep carpets, deep plush chairs, book-cases, and small bronze figures holding lights. There was nobody here either.
So he went on to the smoking-room, which opened out of the Long Gallery. The smoking-room was deserted too—except for Estelle Zia Bey.
Of all the public rooms of the Edwardic, this smoking-room had the most hushed atmosphere. Its lamps, each in a frosted-glass chrysalis, were deliberately dim. Its design was dark red. The lamps winked on red leather chairs with chromium fittings; on small tables with green felt tops and polished ashtrays; on a red rubbery floor; on a red brick fireplace which had over it a loud-ticking clock, and under it a big black porcelain cat on a red cushion—always a source of fascination or aesthetic agony for the drunks.
In a far corner, by doors leading to the deck aft, was a small bar. The white-coated barman stood asleep behind it Mrs. Zia Bey sat on a stool in front of it, sucking a gin-fizz through a straw.
He saw her face reflected in the mirror as he approached. She looked half-asleep herself, her shoulders bent forward and covered by a sable coat.
"Hello," said Max.
"Hello," answered Mrs. Zia Bey. She continued to suck at the straw. Her eyes, pale blue under shiny upper lids, opened a little. After a pause she reached out and patted the stool beside her.
"Sit down."
He sat down.
3
That was the first night out, Friday, January nineteenth. And Max slept badly.
Despite bitter weather outside, the airless cabin was too warm and induced headache. The electric fan whirred spitefully through the dark hours. It became mixed up with a long, hissing rise and recoil of waters; the gentle pitching motion soothed Max, but his dreams were unpleasant. Towards morning—or so it seemed—he was roused by a heavy trampling and bustling somewhere. He knew what it was. It was the life-boats being swung out on their davits, where they would remain, ready to be lowered at a moment's notice, for the rest of the voyage. Then he dozed. He did not wake until the shattering clamor of an alarm-bell, ringing steadily, tore sleep from his brain.
"Boat-drill, sir," said the voice of the steward at his bedside. "You'd best hurry. It's eleven o'clock."
Without bothering to shave, Max sloshed water on his face and threw on some clothes. He caught up life-jacket, gas-mask, and a blanket, and hurried down to the dining-room while the bell still pealed like a fire-alarm.
Where last night there had been gloom among the passengers, today there was exuberant gaiety. Mr. John Lathrop called jokes across to Mr. George A. Hooper, whose features Max still could not remember. Captain Benoit was there, conscientiously wearing his gas-mask, with his red-and-gold-topped cap over it, and looking like nothing on earth. Estelle Zia Bey appeared, smiling knowingly at Max. This morning they were joined by a new passenger, whom the third officer addressed as "Doctor": a portly, urbane gentleman, with flat fair hair brushed neatly round' his head.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" bawled the third officer. The ringing of the alarm-bell stopped abruptly, so that his voice had some power.
"As I told you yesterday," he went on hurriedly, "if we should be attacked by sea or air you will hear that bell, and: you will come down here immediately. One moment. This does not necessarily mean that we shall abandon ship and take to the boats."
("Ho!" observed Mr. Hooper, with some skepticism.)
"It is merely a measure of precaution. If it does happen, however, you will follow me up and out on deck ... so. Come along, please."
They trooped after him, upstairs and out into the air. It was a heavy leaden-and-silver morning, over a choppy sea running with white-caps, and a dead-cold wind. When they emerged on A Deck, where the life-boats were uncovered and swung out ready, Max saw something which struck him sober: it made him ashamed of their fat-witted gaiety.
In two long straight lines, unmoving, erect, -and each in his place, the whole of the Edwardic's crew stood at attention. The blue coats of the lounge and deck stewards in one block; the white jackets of the cabin and mess stewards; the caps of the stewardesses; clerks, pantrymen, cooks, laundry-men, every person down to the page-boys with scrubbed faces and shining buttons, and the A.B.'s, trimmers, and greasers waiting beyond. Each person wore his life-jacket. Each person kept eyes front. They would stand thus, even though a sinking deck tilted them into icy water, until the last passenger had got away in the boats.
It was the passengers themselves who presented difficulties.
"You now see—stop!" said the harassed third officer, peering round him and counting. "Miss Valerie Chatford!" he called clearly. "Mr. Jerome Kenworthy!"
There was no reply.
The third officer made a trumpet of his hands. "Miss Valerie Chatford! Mr. Jerome Kenworthy! If you please!"
A steward, who had been detailed off to attend him, leaned close and spoke in an undertone.
"I don't care if they are seasick!" said the third officer. "They've got to be here. Rout 'em out, will you? This may be « matter of life or death. They must know where to go . . . Great Scott, now the Frenchman's gone!"
"Well, you said 'go,*" Lathrop pointed out, not unreasonably. "Captain Benoit only speaks about six words of English. I know, because I've had a talk with him. He's from Provence. He's trying to read Gone with the Wind, with the aid of a French-English dictionary. And it seems he can't even get to first base. He—"
"Quiet, please!"
"Now, now, my son!" said Mr. George A. Hooper, soothingly.
"I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I must ask you to remain here a few minutes more. There is one further instruction. From this time on, we must ask you to carry your life-jackets with you wherever you go."
"Wearing them?" called Mrs. Zia Bey, rather horrified.
"No, not wearing them. Just carry them over your arms. But don't put them down anywhere."
"Oh! Gas-masks too?"
"No, not gas-masks."
"Blankets?"
"No, not blankets."
"Are we going to be convoyed?"
"I have no instructions about that, madam. Perhaps, on second thoughts, it would be better if you all went below after all. I can manage the rest of it."
So, for the moment, Max saw ne
ither Miss Chatford nor the (alleged) roistering Mr. Kenworthy. But he was not thinking about them. He was thinking about Estelle Zia Bey.
What he could not decide was whether she attracted him very much, or repelled him intensely. Some mannerisms said one thing; some said the other. She had a peculiar loud rasping laugh, throwing her head back and opening her mouth wide, which would have grated on anybody's nerves.
She consumed gin-fizzes at the rate of one every fifteen minutes, and never turned a hair: except that her fine English slipped away and her intimate conversation became as coarse as a fish-wife's. But she had fine "talking" eyes, and a figure which to exuded sex-appeal that the closer you approached her the more it turned your head.
Their conversation in the bar the night before had been a kind of skirmish, an affair of outposts, in which each gauged the other's strength by maneuvering. He saw it in her fierce, snappish eyes. Each remained undecided. Each said, in effect, "I can't make up my mind about you." They parted on almost a note of hostility.
But that was last night: the gloomy first night at sea. In the morning, at boat-drill, she smiled at him so knowingly j that it was like a blanket of intimacy drawn round them. She had thought better of that hostility—as he had.
The whole ship, in fact, seemed to be waking up. When Max invited the lady to the bar for a cocktail before lunch, they found Lathrop already there. He was planted before the brick fireplace, his feet apart. With him was the portly, fair-haired man—evidently Dr. Reginald Archer—whom Lathrop had instantly buttonholed. Lathrop beckoned them over, and insisted on ordering Martinis for everybody.
"What we need," he declared, "is more boat-drills. Yes, indeed. That one was a beauty. Did they finally hoist the two contemptibles out of bed, I wonder?"
"I believe they did," smiled Dr. Archer. "In fact, I remained behind to see. Your good health."
Dr. Archer was very much the man of the world. On his face was always an indulgent expression, a half-smile, as of one at peace with life. He never spoke until everyone else had spoken; and then with an air of delivering judgment He was perhaps older than he looked. They were sitting round the red leather sofa before the fireplace: with lamps burning! behind their heads, for few portholes were opened even in the public rooms. As Dr. Archer sat back comfortably, with his neatly plastered hair and his faint double-chin, the yellow light showed innumerable tiny lines round his eyes.
"I hope," he continued, holding up the cocktail, "that this will settle me. I had rather a bad night."
"Seasick?" inquired Lathrop sympathetically.
Dr. Archer smiled. His eyes were looking a trifle sunken
And yellowish as well, but this may have been the effect of the lamplight.
"Partly," he said.
"Partly?"
Dr. Archer smiled again.
"Yes. I should rather like to know who is practicing knife-throwing in the passages at two o'clock in the morning."
Like a polished raconteur, he expected a sensation; and he got one.
"Knife-throwing?" Lathrop almost shouted, so that the bar-steward dropped and broke a glass he was cleaning.
"I believe so."
"But what happened?"
"It was something of an adventure," said the doctor. His eternally good-humored face, however, belied seriousness.
"Well? Go on! What was it?"
Dr. Archer tantalized them still more before he continued.
"It happened, as I say, about two o'clock in the morning. I was lying in my berth in my cabin. Queasy, ladies and gentlemen, very queasy. The ship was pitching a good deal, and creaking like a wicker rocking-chair. Aside from that, it was almost unpleasantly quiet."
"Yes?"
"Oh, by the way! I ought to explain that there's nobody anywhere near me. My cabin is on C Deck, amidships. Outside it runs a narrow branch-passage, twelve or fourteen feet long, ending in a blank wall with a porthole." He illustrated with a gesture of his well-manicured hands. "Across the passage there's an empty cabin.
"Well, the first thing I heard was a kind of thump. Thump! Like that. As though something solid had struck wood. Next I heard footsteps pass my door, go to the end of the passage, and turn round and come back again. They were little, light, •oft footsteps, as of a person walking on tiptoe. After a few seconds there was another thump. Down came the little soft footsteps again, turned, and went back. Thump again. Do you know"—Dr. Archer put his head on one side, and laughed in apology—"I got the wind up? Fact. I did.
"I rang the bell for the steward, but there wasn't any reply. So I got up, feeling horribly ill and giddy, and stumbled over to the door. There were two more thumps while I felt round and failed to find the door. What I didn't like was the stealth of those noises and footsteps in the middle of the night: it was as though the steps were coming for me.
"Then—whisk!
"I got the door open, and something dodged away. That's the only way I can express it But I was not well, and my eyesight may have been bad. In any case, the little passage was empty.
"There was a light burning in the main passage, however, and shining into the smaller one. Somebody had been using this small passage as a kind of shooting-gallery. Somebody had been throwing a rather heavy knife at a piece of paper pinned up on the end wall under the porthole. On the piece of paper, by the way, was a crudely drawn image of a human face. The knife had hit the face every time, usually through the eyes or through the neck. That's why I say I spent rather a bad night"
He paused.
Taking up his cocktail glass, he drained it and set the glass down. On his face as he told the story was a twinkling expression which said, "I may be joking, you know; but after all I may not" Then he dusted the knees of his trousers.
"Ah, well. Have a Martini with me? No? Sure? Then 1 must go and brush up for lunch."
Lathrop said with hollow incredulity:
"Is that straight?"
"Perfectly straight old boy. If you don't believe me, go down and have a look at the knife-dents in the wall."
"Did you see the knife?"
"No. Ah, no. That was taken away."
"I don't believe it! Sorry; no offense, you understand, but I don't believe it, and that's flat!"
Dr. Archer shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He got to his feet pulling down his waistcoat and adjusting the fit of his faultless coat. Evidently this was the first time anyone had tried out any stories (true or otherwise) on Lathrop; and he, who usually told the stories himself, did not like it Ii turn he adopted a smiling and skeptical expression, shaking his head reprovingly, but Max knew he was impressed.
"Maybe the ship's haunted," suggested Max. "You know: like the Upper Berth."
"Maybe it is," agreed Lathrop, and chuckled. "Maybe that Frenchman is a ghost. You never see him except a meal-times. Or maybe poor old Hooper is a ghost. Did I tell you about Hooper?" demanded Lathrop, laying hold of the< conversational reins again, and yanking the team back where he wanted it. "He manufactures rubber stamps. His son is—"
"Excuse me," interrupted Max. "But, Doctor, didn't you report this affair?"
"Report it? To whom?"
Max didn't know. He could hardly say, "to the captain," since the whole thing might be a practical joke. Or, as seemed more probable, it might be an invention of Dr. Reginald Archer's. Something told Max that Dr. Archer was addicted to that wide-eyed and donnish form of humor in which you tell wild lies, with a straight face, solely because you Imagine somebody has tried to pull your leg first. Dr. Archer, who had been talking for some time to Lathrop, probably imagined that Lathrop did nothing but reel off one whopper after another.
Unfortunately, that was the impression Lathrop conveyed.
"But what about the paper?" asked Max. "That is, the paper this face was drawn on? Did you keep that?"
"The steward has it, or did have it," answered Dr. Archer equably. "It was fastened to the wall with a safety-pin. You could ask him, I'm telling the truth, you know. Word of honor, I am."
"By George, I believe you are!" said Lathrop suddenly.
"And in that case," said Max, "we ought to put all the clues before our criminological expert."
Dr. Archer raised his almost invisible blond eyebrows. "Our criminological expert?"
"Mr. Lathrop. After all, he represents the New York police department. He's crossing the ocean to bring back Carlo Fenelli."
Second sensation.
"That's not quite accurate," observed Lathrop, without batting an eyelid. "I suppose your brother told you?"
"Yes."
"His facts were a little rocky," said Lathrop in the same drawling tone. "It's true I'm going after Carlo Fenelli. But I'm not connected with the police department in the way you mean. I'm an Assistant District Attorney. My job is to see that Carlo doesn't get away with another of his celebrated legal Houdini tricks. Great lad, Carlo."
"That's Carlo Fenelli, the racketeer?" inquired Dr. Archer.
"Yes." Lathrop made a gesture which brushed this aside as of small interest. He seemed excited about something else.
Teetering before the fireplace, his hands behind his back and his forehead pitted with wrinkles of concentration, he allowed an urchin's grin to flicker across his face.
"You see—about that knife-throwing business," he went on. "Now, I'm a lawyer, not a detective. Thanks for the flattery, though. And, as a matter of fact, the study of fingerprints was once a great hobby of mine. But there's one thing that might be very interesting about the doctor's story. Somebody was throwing knives at a face drawn on a piece of paper. All right! The question is, was there anything personal in it? Was it a drawing of any face in particular? Could you recognize it?"
Dr. Archer snapped his fingers.
"Ah! Stupid of me," he said, as though some trifle had escaped his memory. "I should have mentioned that. No, the drawing was not recognizable as anyone in particular. Just a crude sketch. But one thing, if this is of any value to you, was definitely indicated."
Nine and Death Makes Ten Page 3
