"What was that?"
"It was a woman's face," said Dr. Archer.
4
"Maxie," said Mrs. Zia Bey.
"Yes?"
"Max-ie!"
"Yes?"
"I'm awfully thirsty. Aren't you going to get me another drink?"
"Look here, Estelle. I'm perfectly willing to get you all the brandy aboard this ship. But, you're tight as an owl already. Can you hold any more?"
"Maxie, don't be nasty."
"Oh, all right. Steward!"
Things were going wrong again.
At nine o'clock that night, the Edwardic, butting a headwind some six hundred miles off Ambrose Light, was running into really heavy weather. So was Max Matthews.
In the spacious Long Gallery, where the chairs were too
thick to slide easily, Max sat back in one and braced himself. Mrs. Zia Bey knelt on the seat of another, pouting. He had come up here just after dinner, to drink his coffee in peace and comfort His bad leg had begun to ache with the sleety change in the weather, nor did his insides feel too comfortable under a combination of pitch-and-roll. Estelle Zia Bey joined him half an hour later. As soon as he saw her enter from the other end of the Long Gallery—skittering on the heaving carpet holding wide the flounced skirt of her white silk evening-gown—he knew what was wrong. Estelle waved a bulging white handbag at him.
She told him about it volubly. Lathrop and George A, Hooper, it appeared, had been in a skittish mood at dinner. When they passed her table on the way out they had sat down and invited her to drink. Hooper, she said, had "made a pass" at her. Max considered this very improbable; but in the inflamed state of her imagination she was apt to say anything. She told the story with a combination of immense dignity, crowing laughter, and arch coquettishness.
He kept her quiet with one hand, and beckoned to a steward with the other.
"Steward! Two brandies."
"Double brandies, Maxie."
"Double brandies. For God's sake, sit down m that chair! Don't kneel in it: sit down."
"What's the matter, Maxie? Don't you like your little Estelle?"
"Of course I like you. But do you want to go head-first and break your neck?"
"I don't care."
"Nonsense. Where's your life-jacket?"
"I don't know. I left it somewhere."
As he looked back at her, he saw her mood change. Her eyes, faintly streaked with red round the blue pupil, began to blaze. The drooping wrinkles went down still more past (he drooping mouth. She lifted her handbag as though to throw it
"You are an old stick in the mud," she said.
"Maybe so. But—"
"You don't need to think you're so grand," she shrilled at him, half getting up. "I know lots of people a 1-lot grander than you are. I'm going to see one. In the Adm—you go to hell! I don't need you to buy me drinks. I've got my information. I've got my proofs. I've got my—"
"Steady. Here's your brandy."
She was working up steam, and seemed half frantic. Her outburst went almost unheard in the long crash and roar of water outside, which rattled the furniture and seemed even to rattle her teeth. Suddenly she seemed rather dizzy.
"Here, I'll hold these. Sit down."
"Maxie!" said Estelle tearfully, and sat down in his lap and put her head on his shoulder.
This was the point at which Miss Valerie Chatford walked into the Long Gallery.
To be found sprawled back in the public room of a liner, holding a glass of brandy at arm's length in each hand to keep it from spilling, and with a drunken woman strangling you at the same time, may be called embarrassing whoever sees you. But after the first moment—curiously enough—Max was not embarrassed at all.
He was furious. And this was caused by the look bestowed on him by Valerie Chatford.
She entered from the other end of the Long Gallery: that is, from the lounge. Max did not know who she was. It is not even certain that he noticed any detail about this girl except the look she gave him.
She had one of those cold, half-supercilious, washed-out faces which are usually called patrician. She trod the earth as though she owned it. Even in repose such faces often arouse ire. You can almost hear the voice: "Oh, really? How stupidly tiresome!" That was the sort of bored look she gave Max. Then even this faint flicker of interest died out.
Max had a hazy impression of a short white fur coat, and of small brown curls. Then she was gone, steadying herself with one hand on a chattering bookcase. And he realized what a human and likable sort of person Estelle was, after all.
"Max-ie."
"Yes?"
"Where's my brandy?"
"Here. Sit up and take it.** He was filled with a sort of soothing despair. "Listen!" he said, adjusting that none-too-light weight on his lap. 'There's only one thing to be done. Give me a little time, and III get blotto too. Then we'll both feel the same."
"Maxie, how awfully nice of you!"
"But in the meantime, what do you say to getting a little air on deck? Can you make it?"
"Max, don't be nasty. Of course I can make it!"
"Come on, then. Easy."
She seemed subdued and a trifle dazed. Toward her he now felt intensely protective. She was a good scout who only wanted looking after. They went through the lounge, digging their heels in as the furniture cracked and jumped and tilted up at them. They emerged into the hall beside the main staircase.
"The last drink did me good," whispered Estelle, in a hoarse voice. "Just let me go down to my cabin and get a wrap and powder my nose; and I'll be with you in half a tick."
"Sure you can manage? Would you like me to go down with you?"
"Of course I can. You wait here. I'll be back in a minute."
He steadied her as she clutched the handrail of the staircase, and watched her go down, holding her handbag to her breast.
On the wall over the two lifts opposite the staircase, there was a clock whose hands pointed to nine forty-five. In lulls of the roaring outside, you could hear the click as its hands jumped from one minute to the next.
And, while he waited, Max's heart warmed toward Estelle Zia Bey. She might have been only drunk, but she had seemed forlorn and rather pitiful as she stumbled down those stairs. This was (no doubt) a maudlin mood on Max's part, produced by loneliness or other causes. But she was the most heartening and human thing aboard this ship; you had only to contrast her with the frozen-faced girl who sailed through the Long Gallery.
He tried to remember what Estelle had told him about herself. She volunteered information in pounces. Her mind was like a railway yard, full of bewildering points and switches. But over every track ran a sort of bumpy good nature. She spoke highly of her second husband, Mr. Zia Bey, from whom she had been divorced some six months. She had two children, now at school in Switzerland: her husband had been awarded the custody of the children.
The hand of the clock kept on clicking. Five minutes.
Max, his life-jacket hung over his shoulder, was finding it increasingly difficult to stand up even with the aid of the cane. The deck under him seemed to slip from beneath his feet like a colossal chute, catching the breath in the pit of his stomach. It dived; halted, and climbed again, bobbing like a cork, before he could get his balance. Woodwork creaked in agony as the deck dropped.
He fell across to a pillar, held on to it, and lowered himself into the pillar-seat. A heavy draft was blowing: somewhere, a door kept on banging.
Maybe they hadn't better go out on deck, on a night like this. The sea was alive: it smote the Edwardic's plates like a fist. Anyway, he ought to have an overcoat. Estelle always announced firmly that her age was thirty-five. Where were all the other passengers? In the next room—the lounge—something heavy, which sounded like a potted palm, fell over with a crash and rolled. The lounge-steward should see to that. Every stick of furniture chattered there.
Ten minutes.
What was keeping the woman?
He was being dense, of cou
rse: she had passed out. She had gone down there with the best intentions in the world, but instead she had slid down on her berth into oblivion. Lathrop and Hooper must have given her a lot of liquor; though, of course, she had taken three or four cocktails before dinner.
He had waited several more minutes before apprehensions commenced to trouble him. Estelle was practically blind to the world. Suppose she had fallen down and hurt her head? Easy enough to do, in those cabins. The rubbery smell of the hall got into Max's nostrils, and wouldn't go out: he wondered whether he might not forfeit all his boasts by being seasick himself.
Better go down and see what had happened.
The steps were Max's most treacherous bit. Covered with brass bindings on the treads, they had a snaky movement of their own. But it seemed foolish to summon the lift just to go down one flight to B Deck.
He was breathing hard when he reached the bottom. The long alleyway on B Deck, gleaming white and shiny like a shoe-box, stretched away past the starboard cabins. It bowed steeply, and threw him forward. He turned into the alcove between his own and Estelle's cabins, and knocked at her closed door.
There was no reply. He knocked again.
"Want anything, sir?" asked his bedroom steward, instantly appearing from round the corner of the main alleyway.
"No, thanks. Go away."
After knocking a third time, he opened the door.
The cabin was in darkness. But a dim light burned in the small private bathroom on the right, whose door was open and hooked back. You could trace the outlines of shaking and banging objects which moved like shadows in the cabin.
It was square in shape. Against the wall opposite Max, at the extreme left, was the head of one berth. Then came a tiny bedside table. Then a porcelain wash-basin. Then a dressing-table, with a mirror over it. Then another bedside table, and the head of a second berth. AU these were ranged in a line against the opposite wall.
Estelle Zia Bey, a mere dim shape in that light, had been sitting in front of the dressing-table with her back towards Max. She had now fallen face-forward, still sitting on a stool, and motionless except for the motion of the ship. It was as though she had slipped over unconscious while putting on lipstick. But there was a warm, sweet, acrid odor which stifled and sickened the nostrils in that overheated cabin.
Max switched on the light.
First of all he saw the blood-spots which spattered the mirror. Then he seemed to see blood everywhere. That was
what he smelt, too.
* * * * *
He went outside and closed the door.
"Steward!" he called.
There was no answer.
"Steward!" bawled Max. His stomach seemed to be opening and shutting inside him; he closed his eyes, conquering nausea; and, when he opened them again, there was the steward in front of him.
"I want you to go and get the captain," said Max.
The enormity of this request appeared to stun his companion. In the half-light Max saw his shining, wide-open eyeballs, and his deprecating smirk.
"The captain, sir?"
"The captain."
"But / couldn't do that, sir. And anyway, you know, they wouldn't disturb the captain."
"Look here," said Max, fighting hard. Both he and the steward had to steady themselves before a pitch; but it carried them so lightly that they might have been flying. "I'm the captain's brother, do you understand? His brother. I've got orders from him to do exactly what I'm doing. You do just as I tell you, and take the message to him personally, or he'll murder you. Tell him I've got to see him at once in B-37, and say that he'll guess what I want to see him about. Now hop it."
After a pause the steward hopped it. Max went back into cabin B-37, and closed the door behind him.
5
Mrs. Zia Bey's throat had been cut.
This is one of the ugliest sights in the realm of violent death, and need not be fully described here. But Max had to look at it.
The frosted ceiling-bulb showed it with raw clearness. Fortunately her face was hidden; the arms, at either side of it, bent in at the elbows and cradled above her head. Her white silk gown was backless, so that he could see the long ridge of the backbone under the taut, brownish skin as she lay forward. The hair helped hide her face, too. There was so much blood that it would have been difficult to identify at first glance many of the toilet-articles on the dressing-table. Blood had spattered as far as the mirror when the artery was severed, and soaked the front and sides of her gown. When the ship's propellers shook out of water, the vibration through the whole cabin made her shiver as though she were crying. She slid, and would have fallen sideways if Max had not steadied her body.
This couldn't be real.
But it was.
Behind him, the door of the wardrobe kept swinging slowly open and shut—open and shut—with a maddening and monotonous clack. There were intervals of about twenty seconds
between the clacks, and Max found himself jumping to them. He pushed the wardrobe door fast shut with his elbow. Then he forced himself to walk round and look at her from all sides.
Estelle's two trunks had been removed long ago, so that the cabin was comparatively clear. Her white purse, open, lay on a made-up bed. The sable coat lay beside it. There was even a speck or two of blood as far away as the white counterpane.
Died while she was drunk.
The silk wall-panel design of the cabin was blue and orange. It had become hot in here: sweating-hot, blinding-hot, choking-hot, and the rasping bulkheads squeaked interminably. But hardly five minutes passed before the door opened, and Commander Francis Matthews took a quick glance inside.
After that, he came in hastily and shut the door. For a time he said nothing. Max heard him breathe asthmatically.
"Done herself in?"
"No," said Max. "I don't think so, anyway."
"Why not?"
"Her throat's cut. I can't find anything she could have done it with. There's nothing here but a nail-file."
"Not murder?"
"Looks like it."
Commander Matthews turned his eyes round. "You didn't—?"
"No, no!"
"Bolt the door."
While Max did so, Commander Matthews walked across to the far berth, under the porthole on the left-hand side of the cabin, and sat down on the edge of the berth. The message had found him in the act of shaving, and there was still a smell of witch-hazel round him. Max observed this because odors are the most noticeable thing to a man with a queasy stomach. Commander Matthews' stocky elbows were out-thrust, and he still breathed hard. The gold oak-leaves on the peak of his cap looked heavy and authoritative.
"What happened?"
Max told him.
"She came down here at quarter to ten," said the captain. "And you followed at just on ten o'clock?"
"Yes." "I expected something. But not this. This looks like—"
With the sliding of the ship, the dead woman slid gently off the dressing-table before anybody could catch her.
She fell on her back, but rolled over again on her face, upsetting the bathroom stool on which she had been sitting. Small toilet-articles—r-an eyebrow-tweezers, an orange-stick, and a small bottle of nail-varnish—were swept off and fell in blood-stained patches round her. As she lay with her face against the light blue carpet, they could see that she still held a big gold lipstick in her right hand.
Commander Matthews got up and went to examine her.
"Usually," he said, "they take a long time to die. What happened? Didn't she yell, or put up a fight, or anything like that?"
"I don't know. We might ask the steward if he heard anything."
"Bump on the back of her head," said the captain, feeling in the bedraggled yellow hair. "Probably came up behind. Bashed her with something, and stunned her. Then held her head up, and—" He made a cutting gesture, from left to right.
"You make it very vivid."
Commander Matthews glanced up.
"I've seen this
sort of thing before," he said unexpectedly. "In the old Heraldic. It was a laundry-steward did it."
"Did what?"
"Killed a woman like this. Sex maniac. You know what I mean. Only, in this case there doesn't seem to be any sign of anybody trying to—"
"No."
"Hard to tell. The fellow might have got scared, and sheered off."
Max shook his head. "I've got a feeling that there's more to it than that."
"So have I. Only, it might be. These things happen, I tell you." The captain paused. For the first time his gruff voice betrayed excitement. He examined the body more closely, and then took several quick looks round him. "My God, Max, we've got him! Look there. And there. And there. We've got him!"
"Where? What is it?"
"Finger-prints," said Commander Matthews.
Once pointed out, the traces became blatantly obvious. On the right-hand shoulder-strap of Estelle's white gown, a little way down the back, they could see the clear print in blood of what looked like a thumb. Another, more smudged, was at her waist on the left side.
Commander Matthews got up from his squatting position, breathing hard through his nose. He looked closely at the two shallow drawers in the mahogany front of the dressing-table. Taking a box of matches out of his trousers' pocket, he struck a match and held it close to the stained mahogany surface. Just under the ledge of the glass top—in a place formerly hidden by the dead woman's body—they saw a half-print which looked like the narrower one of a finger.
The captain craned his neck round. He glanced at the wash-basin, which also had a mirror over it, at the left of the dressing-table. Two folded face-towels should have hung on a small rail at the side of it. Only one towel hung there now. Commander Matthews found the second towel, crumpled and blood-stained, in the wastepaper basket under the dressing-table.
He flung the towel back into the basket.
"That's it," he said calmly. "Killed her. Lost his head, wiped his hands, and bolted. Crazy fool."
Commander Matthews sounded almost relieved.
"Looks like it," admitted Max.
"Don't you agree?"
"I suppose so."
Nine and Death Makes Ten Page 4
