Nine and Death Makes Ten

by Carter Dickson

  "There's a man overboard," he managed to stutter out "Spang down he went, splash bang, with a bullet in the back of his head. For God's sake don't stand there and fuss about matches. There's a man overboard."

  "Steady. Sure?"

  "That's right, sir," panted another voice out of the dark. "I'm number four look-out. We saw him fall from up on the boat-deck. I gave the hail and heard the telegraph ring; but we don't seem to be more than slowing down?"

  The tone of the last voice held a question.

  "If you're number four look-out," said the third officer, "what the devil are you doing down here? Go back to your post!"

  "Orders to find out where he fell from. Number three, and Mr. Billings, said they thought he had—"

  "Had what?"

  "Shot himself, sir. Done himself in. You could see his face turn over in that phosphorescent stuff before he went under. The revolver fell along with him."

  "Dead?"

  "Ah, that he was!" interposed Hooper, with a sudden excited burst. "Shot slap bang through the back of the head, poor chap. Dead as mutton. It was the French officer with the uniform: lovely uniform. Shot slap bang through the back of the head; saw it done myself. But he didn't do it himself, no fear! I even saw the chap who shot him. And then dash my buttons if he didn't pitch him slap bang overboard—"

  "Just a moment," interrupted the third officer sharply. "You're sure he was dead?"

  "Slap bang through the—"

  'Take that message to the bridge," said the third officer to number four look-out. His voice in the blackness seemed to have a note of relief. "No, stop; I'll take it myself. You stay here, Mr. Hooper. I'll keep your matches. Who's that?"

  Heavy footsteps had pounded up and seemed to mix into the scramble.

  "It's Griswold," replied the purser's throaty voice. "What's up?"

  "Ah! Our friend Benoit's been shot and chucked overboard, Griswold. We're for it. This is Mr. Hooper here somewhere. Take charge of him. I'm going up to the bridge."

  "Think the old man'll stop?"

  "No. Not a chance in a million to pick him up, even if the Frenchman's alive. And it's too dangerous."

  "Right. I'll stand by. Who's that over there?"

  "Picked him up like a sack," continued Hooper with wildly accelerating excitement, as though the novelty of his having seen this were slowly dawning on him, "and dash my buttons if he didn't pitch him slap bang overboard."

  The purser's voice was gruff.

  "Here, sir, steady! Keep your feet! Not fainting on me, are you?"

  Hooper's tones shrank to thinness and hard-breathing.

  "It's me 'eart," he complained. "The excitement and all. Can't stand it. It's me 'eart.'

  "Let me give you a hand, then. Like to go inside?"

  "Ah! That I would! Wait till I pick up my lifejacket. It's in the deck-chair over there somewhere."

  Again the purser spoke sharply. "Who's that behind me?"

  Max had been listening to all this with a kind of wild abstraction like Hooper's. He groped round on the deck for his cane, and, by a miracle, found it. In doing so he happened to touch someone's trouser-leg, causing the legs to leap into the air with a jerk which showed the state of all their rattling nerves. But it was H.M.'s voice which answered the purser.

  "It's only me, son."

  "Sir Henry?"

  "Uh-huh. Sort of nice weather we're havin' for the time of year."

  "Will you take Mr. Hooper inside? Here's his arm. Now feel round with your feet, and you'll find a kind of narrow iron plate running across the deck. Wherever you feel one of those, it leads across to a door. Follow the iron band and it'll take you inside. Excuse me."

  Max caught hold of someone's coat, whether H.M.'s or Hooper's he could not be sure, and brought up behind the other two. They shuffled across, found a door, and emerged through another black-out compartment into soft light which nevertheless dazzled their eyes.

  They were in a narrow white-painted passage at the end of which, and at right angles to it, ran the main alleyway of cabins on the starboard side. The red rubber floor felt more reassuring than ever the open deck had been. On their right was a cabin door, closed, which bore the neat black number B-71. Memory returned to Max. That was the number of Captain Benoit's cabin.

  "This," growled H.M., "has got to stop. Listen, son. Tell me. What happened out there, exactly? How'd you come to see it?"

  Hooper seemed not unwilling to tell his story. But he took some time before he spoke.

  He was leaning up against the white wall with his back to it, and his feet thrust out far as though he were going to slide down. Slow breathing animated his tubby little figure. He stared at the floor. His right hand was thrust under his jacket over the heart, patting it; a life-jacket dangled from the limp fingers of his left hand. There was a flush on his waxy cheeks above the iron-gray mustache.

  "This'll be something to tell 'em at home," he breathed, •till continuing to pat his heart. "Me, George Hooper, saw a poor chap get himself shot and pitched overboard. His cap had a red and gold top on it."

  "Yes, sure. But what did you see?"

  "f," said Hooper, suddenly looking up out of pale bluish eyes, "takes myself out for a breath of fresh air. I've got a deck-chair just outside there, outside that door."

  (It was true, Max remembered. He had seen Hooper dozing In that deck-chair during his walk round B Deck in the morning.)

  "I sits down in the chair," pursued Hooper, controlling his breath, "and pulls the rug over me. I sits there maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and I thinks to myself I'll go inside again, when the door opens. That door there. I could hear it open. And people came out on deck."

  "How many people?"

  'Two," replied Hooper after reflection. "You could hear them walk, if you couldn't see. They went over to the rail. You could just barely"—a born story-teller, he pressed his thumb and forefinger together, holding them up dramatically —"you could just barely see their heads and shoulders. Well, what did I think? Nothing! Until it started. I hear a noise like fighting. I hear a kind of big blaze and bang like Bonfire Night. And there's the end of a gun pointing at the poor chap's 'air under the cap, and somebody behind him firing it. And up I jumps out of my chair."

  Here Hooper jumped again. In moments of strong excitement, he reverted to broad Somerset. His tone was injured.

  "I said, 'Here, meson! what's-thee-doing?' God, I thought, this won't do! There wasn't anything except a kind of screech from the poor chap. Over I goes to the rail, just in time to see his boots go over the edge. Leather boots, they were. I touched one. But over he went, and somebody else started to run away very soft on his feet when I looked down over the edge to see where the poor chap went.

  "He landed head first in that white frothy stuff that's got lights in it, and turned over on his back, and started to slip along backward as fast as a beetle down a drain. You couldn't see him longer nor two seconds before there was

  nothing but frothy water again. Poor chap. I reckon it's a shame."

  Hooper broke off.

  Once more patting his waistcoat over the heart, and slowing down his panting breath, he appealed to them about the shame of this. But he still seemed lost in wonder that he had been the person to see it.

  Throughout the recital H.M. had remained heavy and thoughtful, the corners of his mouth drawn down, peering at Hooper over spectacles pulled down on his broad nose. He removed his cap, which gave him a more human appearance. He sniffed. Putting his fists on his hips, he contemplated his companions with a surprising mildness.

  "So," he murmured. "It looks as though we've been done in the eye again. Could you see the person who fired the" shot? Could you identify him if you saw him again?"

  "Oh, lad, lad! Don't ask for miracles!"

  (It was a new experience for H.M. to be addressed as "lad," and the corners of his mouth went still further down. But he persisted.)

  "Well, was he tall or short? Fat or thin?"

  "I don't know.
"

  "You say he started to run away. Which direction did he go? Fore or aft? Or back through this door?"

  "Blest if I can tell you. I was thinking about that poor chap—"

  The black-out doors at the end of the passage banged and shook. Commander Matthews, wearing a light oilskin, groped through from the deck. His face was without expression; he nodded to them, and glanced at the door of B-71.

  "So Benoit's gone," he observed.

  "Another of us," said Max.

  "I wanted to tell you something," the captain went on crisply. "Benoit shot himself. It's very unfortunate."

  Hooper bounced upright.

  "For the benefit of the crew," said Commander Matthews, "and until we get to the other side, Benoit shot himself. Do you understand? Two witnesses on the boat-deck saw the revolver fall into the water along with him. The fellow was probably mad. He killed Mrs. Zia Bey and then took his own life. There is no more danger. Is that clear?"

  He paused, and glanced round, as the third officer pushed through the black-out doors behind him.

  "My job," said Commander Matthews, "is to get this ship safely to port. I'll see it's done. But I won't run the risk of panic. Is that clear?"

  Hooper nodded slowly. His pale blue eye, unexpectedly shrewd, rolled round and then surveyed the floor.

  "In my cloth-headed way," observed H.M., "I think you're doin' the right thing. What about the passengers?"

  "The passengers are to be told the truth," said the captain. "In fact, it's to be crammed down their throats. I understand they all know about Mrs. Zia Bey now, anyway; the crew know, I can tell you. But there's a special reason. Since this morning, there's been a special and mutual watch-system instituted among the crew. I ordered it. Five minutes after Benoit went overboard, I had reports from all the officers in charge. Every member of this ship's crew was at his post, or can produce an alibi, for the time of the shooting."

  Commander Matthews did not raise his voice. But the atmosphere of the passage had grown as cold as the deck outside.

  "You see what that means, don't you? If you don't I'll tell you. This murdering maniac must be one of the seven remaining passengers. Or else it's one of my own officers, which I tell you frankly I rule out. Very well."

  Without apparent emotion, Commander Matthews lifted his open right hand and struck it so heavily on the white wall of the passage that the door of B-71 rattled in its frame.

  "This passenger who's guilty won't get away with it. None of them will get away with anything. They'll be questioned, they'll be watched, they'll be surrounded, they'll be deviled, until we weed out the man we want. That's all. Mr. Cruikshank!"

  "Sir?"

  "Go and get the purser, and ask him if he will join us here. Sir Henry Merrivale, I ask you straight. I'm no detective. It's out of my line. Will you take over?"

  H.M., a big somnolent bulk, had been leaning his back against the closed door of the cabin. From the pocket of his raincoat he took out a black pipe, so caked that there would be hardly room for a lead-pencil to go into the bowl, and stuck It in one corner of his mouth. His usual expression of cynicism, as of one smelling a bad breakfast-egg, had deserted him. He sucked at the pipe-stem. His narrow eyes moved tideways behind the big spectacles.

  "Son," he said, "I'd be proud to."

  "And land this swine before we get to the other side?"

  "I promise nothin'," said H.M. unexpectedly. "I only promise things when I get mad. I'm not mad now. Just sort of— tightenin' my belt and spittin' on my hands. Like you."

  "Have you got any ideas about this? Who's doing it? And why? And how those damned finger-prints were made?"

  "Well . . . now, I wouldn't say an idea," argued H.M., as though carefully defining his terms. The pipe shifted from one side of his mouth to the other. "One or two things did strike me as fishy, when I heard young Max's story. And I'd like very much to see this feller Benoit's belongings. I'd like to take a good look at his cabin. Could we go there, son? Where is it?"

  "Just behind you," said the captain, nodding. "Any assistance you want is yours. Just ask for it."

  Grunting, H.M. turned round. The back of his bald head shone even in that dim light; and above the leathery creases in the neck at the base of his skull stuck out a fringe of grayish black hair which the barber seemed to have missed. He hunched his shoulders and grunted again. Then he opened the door.

  13

  The roof-light was burning in B-71. With true French thriftiness, Captain Benoit had booked one of the smallest single cabins aboard the ship.

  In shape it was a narrowish oblong, with the door on the narrow side. You looked into a kind of white-painted cell. Along the left-hand wall stood the berth, set long-ways with ; its head against the wall opposite the door. In this wall opposite the door, there was room for a dressing-table and a washbasin. The wall to the right had a deep alcove, terminating in a sealed porthole. The glass-faced wardrobe stood to the®| right of the door. There was one chair.

  Since there could be little room in the cabin for anybody except H.M., the others remained outside. H.M. lumbered in,

  glowering. The more he poked and probed about the cabin, the more dissatisfied he appeared to become.

  A wool dressing-gown hung from a wall-peg, with a pair of slippers under it. On the chair, neatly piled, lay a life-jacket, a gas-mask box, and a blanket H.M. examined them, and then turned his attention to the dressing-table.

  On this stood a folding leather traveling-frame, containing two old photographs, one of an elderly French military man with a fierce brushed-up mustache, the other of a good-humored middle-aged woman—presumably Benoit's parents— which lent a homely, domestic touch to a dead man's room. Comb, brushes, and scissors were set out in an even line. There was a tin of Klein-O for buttons, of tan polish for boots. Clothes-brush and boot-brush hung on hooks beside the wash-stand, on whose rack had been ranged shaving-tackle, toothbrush, and tooth-powder.

  H.M. opened the dressing-table drawers. He peered into the alcove of the porthole. With infinite labor he got down on his knees and pawed under the bed, dragging out a fiat cabin trunk which proved to be empty except for some soiled linen.

  He pushed it back, and opened the door of the wardrobe.

  Here he discovered a spare uniform, with the three gold stripes of a captain on the shoulder-epaulettes, two lounge suits of civilian clothes, some ties on the hanger-rack, a spare pair of knee-length boots, and two pairs of shoes. After adjusting his spectacles so that apparently he could not see at all, H.M. peered at the sleeve of the uniform. As a last resort, he reached up and groped round without success on the top of the wardrobe.

  "Oh, my eye!" he muttered.

  Throughout this he continued to chew at the empty pipe, and his expression grew more disconsolate each minute.

  "What is it?" Max asked from the doorway. "What are you looking for?"

  H.M. sat down on the edge of the berth.

  The third officer had arrived back with the purser. To both of them Commander Matthews gave low-voiced instructions, after which he excused himself and disappeared on his own duties. In the absence of the skipper, the absorbed third officer ventured an indiscreet whisper to the purser.

  "Looks like a boiled owl," he said.

  "I was cogitatin', damn you," said H.M., opening one wrathful eye. "That's the way I cogitate. Lemme see, now."

  Again he hauled himself to his feet, and again attacked the dressing-table. From on top of a neat pile of shirts and socks in the upper drawer, he took out a small cardboard box. This he shook out on the bed. It contained five rubber stamps with wooden handles, and an ink-pad in its tin container.

  "You two bloodhounds," pursued H.M., waving a rubber stamp malevolently at the third officer and the purser, "were in here last night. Hey? You came to get Captain Benoit's finger-prints?"

  "That's right, sir," admitted the third officer, shifting uncomfortably.

  "And Captain Benoit was sittin' here (I'm told) amusing himself
with a lot of rubber stamps and an ink-pad?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Are these the same rubber stamps?"

  The third officer stepped gingerly into the cabin. He picked two or three of the stamps and turned them over. "They look like the same ones, anyway. I didn't examine 'em."

  "When you finally made him understand you wanted his fingerprints, he offered to give you samples by pressing his thumb on the ink-pad here. That is, he started to. But you prevented him before he could do it, and got his prints from your own Ink-roller. Is that right? Hey?"

  The third officer nodded.

  "That's right, sir."

  "Excuse me!" interposed a new and interested voice.

  It was Hooper, whom everybody had forgotten. He had kept in the background, at times wrapped in profound meditation over his adventure, and at other times gazing with fascinated eyes into the cabin. The rubber stamps drew him. He wandered into the cabin, adding to its congestion. He picked up the stamps one after another, and examined them with a professional scrutiny. His air of the expert about to pronounce an authoritative opinion was so overwhelming that nobody else spoke.

  "Make these myself," he explained. "Hooper's, Broad Mead, Bristol."

  The general verdict, it appeared, was favorable until he opened the ink-pad with the intention of pressing one of the stamps on it. Then he stopped. It was the ink-pad which interested him, not the stamp. He studied it, touched it with his finger, and held it up horizontally to his eye. An expression of wonder crept across his small features.

  "Here's a funny thing," he said. "The poor chap must have been daft! Would there be a bottle of ink among his things, now?"

  "Ink?" roared H.M., galvanized.

  "Yes. About half a bottle of ink," agreed Hooper, eyeing the pad. "You wouldn't see anything wrong with this pad, I'd like to bet?"

  "No. What about it?"

  Hooper chuckled. "Ah! But I would. This is a new pad. Brand new! And yet do you know what the poor chap's gone and done? He's poured about half a bottle of ordinary writing ink smack down on top of the ink that's already in the pad! Spoils the pad; of course it does. Squelchy as glue. Look. People do do some soft things, don't they?"