With this profound observation, he put the pad down on the berth. The third officer, the purser, and Max looked at each other.
"But why should he do that?" the third officer wanted to know.
"Ah!" said Hooper. "Don't ask me!"
He dusted his hands.
"Oo-er!" he added, consulting his watch. "Nearly half-past nine. I'll bet a fiver I've missed that concert. Clean forgot about it. But who wouldn't forget about it, seeing a poor chap dropped smack bang overboard like that? Do you want me for anything else?"
"Just a minute, son," said H.M., whose expression was wooden. He addressed the purser. "You get any orders from the captain?"
"Only to take orders from you."
"Uh-huh. Well. Did the late Mrs. Zia Bey deposit any sealed envelope at your office?"
The purser snapped his fingers. "I nearly forgot. Yes, sir, she did. At the old man—sorry, the captain's orders I opened it. Here it is." He drew the buff envelope out of his pocket. "There's nothing in it but squashed newspapers, as you can see for yourself."
H.M. took the envelope and emptied its contents part way out. He weighed it in his hand, sniffing. He did not speak for so long a time that the others shifted and coughed. Finally he handed the envelope back.
"All right. Tell me, son. Are you any good at scarin' people?"
The purser contracted his George Robey eyebrows and looked sinister.
"All right. Then I got a commission for you. I'm not goin* to appear in this thing myself any more than I need. I want you to find this Chatford girl. Show her that envelope. Yell blue thunder at her. Try to find out what she was really doin' in Max Matthews's cabin last night. You won't; but you start the demoralization process and I'll complete it. If you see any of the other passengers, you can ask 'em—be more tactful there, though—what they were doin' about nine o'clock tonight. Got that?"
"Yes."
"That's all, then. Hop it. You," H.M. said to the third officer, "stay here. And you too, Mr. . .. harrum .. ."
"Hooper."
"Hooper. You stay here too, if you got nothing very pressin' to do. Now we can settle down comfortably."
After drawing at the empty pipe for some time, H.M. at last began to fill it from an oilskin pouch. He lifted the skirts of hit raincoat, whisked a large American kitchen-match across the seat of his trousers, and lit the pipe. Sniffing contentedly, he got Into the berth and sat propped up in it with bit back against the pillows like a convalescent. The smoke was vile. But he puffed with drowsy relish for another interval. Then he pointed the pipe-stem at Cruikshank.
"You and the purser," he said, "spoke French to Benoit last night. Tell me the honest-Injun truth. How much did you understand?"
"Sorry. Not much, I'm afraid."
"That's the kind of truth I want, anyway. What do you think he was trying to tell you?"
The other hesitated.
"It's like this," he said in a rush. "In understanding French, you can do well enough if you get off in the right groove. That is, if you know at the start what the conversation is supposed to be about; if you pick up some words, you get clues to the rest. But when it's not clear at the start, the thing only gets more incomprehensible as it goes along." Again he hesitated. 'To tell you the truth, he seemed to be talking about some woman."
"So?"
"Yes. It was 'elle' this, and 'elle' that. For a minute I thought he was confessing to the murder. I wanted to question him about it, but I didn't want to show off my ignorance in front of Griswold. And does the word traitre mean what I think it does?"
H.M.'s eyes narrowed.
"It means traitor, yes. Are you sure that's what he said? For Lord's sake, son, be careful! Could it have been traite? Or traite? Or traiteur?"
The third officer's dark complexion went still darker.
"That's beyond me." He brooded. "No, look here! I'm almost certain it was traitre; somebody was a traitre. One thing more, sir." His jaw hardened. "Can I make a suggestion without being laughed at? Griswold thinks it's very funny, but I'm not so sure. I think Benoit may have been a member of the French Intelligence."
H.M. showed no disposition to laugh. He blew a large smoke-ring, and watched it distend and dissolve towards the white roof. He looked even more bothered.
"I've been thinkin' of that," he replied with an air of apology. The sharp little eyes fastened on Cruikshank. "But I say, son. Let's have your views. Don't you think a member of the French Intelligence would be likely to know English?"
"Thinking back on it," said Cruikshank, "I'm not so sure he didn't know some English, at least"—and the pipe came out of H.M.'s mouth in a hurry.
"So? What makes you believe that?"
"Nothing I could swear to in court. It's an afterthought, I admit. Only—well, like this. Now I look back on it, I remember something I said to Griswold. I said: 'What do you suppose the fellow wants with all those rubber stamps?' I spoke out of the side of my mouth, and in more or less a mumble."
"Uh-huh. Well?"
"I could almost swear, by the look of the fellow's eyes, that he'd understood me. He started to stretch out his hand, as though to pick up the stamps, and then thought better of it. This is all hind-sight, mind you! Griswold and I were pretty excited at the time. Still, if he spoke so little English, what was he doing in America? I'd hate to go up and down Broadway asking my way in French."
"Another point. Do me a favor, son. Just pull out that trunk from under the berth again, will you?"
The third officer did so; and at H.M.'s direction, turned it over. On the under-side, in addition to Edwardic and B labels, there were pasted on it the labels of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York and the Willard Hotel in Washington.
"Washington," repeated H.M., relaxing as Cruikshank pushed the trunk back. "I was coming to this identity business, and the traveling. But you got his passport, haven't you?"
The other showed a gleam of relief.
"Yes; I don't think the passports have been returned yet," he conceded. "They're still down in Griswold's office. They—" He broke off. "Hullo! Where's Mr. Hooper?"
The inconspicuous manufacturer of rubber stamps had disappeared. Even Max, standing by the door, had not noticed him go. H.M., with a roar, poured himself out of the berth and stood upright.
"I hope he understands the skipper's orders," H.M. said. "Burn me, how in blazes did he get out of here? He's burstin' with his great adventure. I hope he won't go confidin' it to a friendly steward or stewardess." The third officer was alert. "Shall I to after him?"
"You'd better. Hammer It through his head that he's to keep quiet, If we get a panic started aboard this tub, there'd be trouble for sure."
As Cruikshank left the cabin, H.M. appeared to have reached the Inst stage of despondency. He blundered about the confined space, picking things up and putting them down. He picked up a comb. He absent-mindedly juggled a dry shaving-brush. He noted that Benoit had been reared in the Spartan tradition of those who use straight-bladed razors; and, with an abrupt growl of interest, he caught up the razor and opened it. Its polished blade glittered wickedly under the light.
Max Matthews felt somewhat queasy about the stomach.
"Were you thinking," said Max, "that it would be an ideal weapon for cutting a throat?"
"I was."
"But we know Benoit didn't do it."
"Oh, sure," acknowledged H.M., making a slow and suggestive sweep in the air with the razor. "We know Benoit didn't do it. We also know—"
A startled exclamation from the door almost made him slice his left thumb off. He glared, his shoulders hunching up to his ears, as the head of Benoit's cabin-steward appeared behind Max. But the steward pulled himself together. He was a delicate-faced, soft-voiced elderly man, who resembled a retired parson.
"Did you ring, sir?"
"No," said H.M., and waited.
There was a long, delicately balanced pause, while H.M. swept the razor in the air once more, and the ship's engines thudded far below. The crea
king of the bulkheads sounded like a creaking of bone and sinew as the steward appeared to brace himself.
"I beg your pardon, sir. May I ask a question?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"Is it true what I hear? That Captain Benoit has shot himself?"
"I'm afraid it is. Why?"
The steward moistened his lips. "Then I'm very sorry. I think I must have burnt his suicide-note."
Dead silence.
H.M. shut up the razor and replaced it in the rack over the wash-basin.
"But it was in the waste-paper basket!" the steward protested, with more excitement in his gentle voice. "I tidied up the cabin and made up the berth during dinner, and there it was in the waste-paper basket." He pointed to the usual basket beside the dressing-table. "It wasn't torn. But what else could I do except throw it out, when it was in the waste-paper basket?"
"Just a minute, son!" urged H.M., with powerful restraint. He took the now-dead pipe out of his mouth and put it in his pocket. "What was in the waste-paper basket?"
"A note, sir. On ship's stationery. Signed by Captain Benoit."
"And you found this note?"
"Yes, sir, but I couldn't read it. It was written in French. All I can tell you was that it was addressed to the captain—I mean the commander, that is. Anyway, it was just a sheet of paper headed 'Monsoor lee Capitann' of the Edwardic in big letters across the top."
"And it was in the waste-paper bas ..."
H.M. remained wooden of expression, though his big chest rose and fell. He stopped. His eyes wandered round the cabin, and fixed on a point beside the door. He lumbered over and touched the button of the electric-fan.
Softly, insistently, the drone of the fan raised to a thick singing in that small place. It began to swing in measured movements from side to side, sweeping the cabin. There were a few sheets of paper in the box which had held Benoit's rubber stamps. H.M. put one of the sheets down near the edge of the dressing-table. As the strong breeze raked the table-top, moved away, and swung back again, the paper began to flutter. Sixty seconds later—an eternity of time by heart-beat or watch-tick—they saw it slide off. It hung in the air, gently touched the rim of the waste-paper basket, and came to rest on the carpet.
"I see," muttered the steward. They had all been standing as stiff as dummies, staring at the scratching paper. "If i-t'd done then what it did now, you'd have had the poor gentleman's suicide-note."
"Suicide-note!" said H.M. with contempt; but he checked himself and grunted. "Where is that paper now, son?"
"In the incinerator, I'm afraid."
Outside, far down the white-painted alley of cabins, a woman began to scream.
H.M.'s expression was not pleasant. "I dunno what that is," he said to Max. "But if I wanted to wrap myself up in the mantle of prophecy, I'd have a thunderin' good shot at it. I told you our pal Hooper was burstin' with his adventure. If he's started to spread the story among the crew—" He paused, and turned to the steward. "That's all, son. No, it wasn't your fault! You don't have to keep quiet about it. The Frenchman left a note, shot himself, and the note was destroyed. No secret there. You can go."
He beckoned Max into the cabin.
They listened, but the screams were not repeated. The sea had begun to rise, and the ship's rolling was heavier. Gay-colored curtains at the porthole stood out with the motion, taut as flags in a breeze, and sank gently with the roll to the other side, while Cabin B-71 chattered like teeth.
"The truth," snarled H.M., pointing to the waste-paper basket. "Maybe the whole truth. Carefully written out by the cautious Benoit. Put down for our lovin' hands to find. And snatched away from us by the fraction of an inch when . . . What was that book Benoit was reading?"
"Gone with the Wind," said Max; and began to laugh for the first time since he had set foot aboard.
The Edwardic shouldered on.
Two nights later, they entered the submarine zone.
Since the early hours of Monday morning, the weather had been wicked. Squalls gradually congealing into a sleet-storm whistled from the north-east. The life-boats had to be hauled in and sealed with canvas; they would have been swamped or smashed by the drive of thirty-foot waves. Griswold, totting up the damage done to broken crockery, had his swivel-chair break under him. No passenger was unaffected by it, to some extent at least, and on Monday night only Lathrop and Max staggered into the dining-saloon. On Tuesday night it was deserted.
Toward Wednesday morning the gale subsided. It was even possible to walk with some degree of balance, if anybody were abroad in the passages. Wednesday dawned dark and very cold on a slow-rolling sea. The gulls screamed again. Towards eight o'clock they were overhauled and passed, a mile or so away, by another liner going in the same direction. She was as gray and featureless as a ghost-ship against the darker gray sea; she might have been transparent. A bright white light, winking and flashing from the side of the bridge, signalled in Morse that she was the Andalusia, one of the White Planet's crack liners. Stewards at the rail, with binoculars, could see that she was carrying a six-inch gun aft The Edwardic carried no arms except the captain's revolver, and a .22 rifle belonging to the second engineer.
During those bad two days, all thoughts even of murder had been flooded out of Max Matthews's mind. He doubted if anybody else worried about it. His thoughts during the last part of the storm were as elementary as a dog's; and he felt as sick as one. Everything else had grown remote.
Lying in his berth, wedged there with pillows against the plungings of the cabin, he sometimes dozed and sometimes reviewed his life. He remembered every opportunity lost, every drink too many, every wrong judgment The great ghostly ship, with its hundreds of shrouded cabins, had become his universe. And sometimes he thought of Valerie Chatford.
Valerie Chatford.
When he first began definitely to suspect her he could not afterwards remember.
Tracing it back, he thought it originated in a chance remark from Jerome Kenworthy. This was on Monday morning, just when the weather was getting bad, and just before Kenworthy (as well as nearly everyone else) had hurried away to seclusion. He and Kenworthy and Dr. Archer and Lathrop had been trying to play shuffle-board on the boat-deck. Kenworthy had quoted Valerie as saying that, to give the devil his due, Hitler was a brilliant man and you couldn't blame the Germans for following him.
This, of course, was nothing. Max completely forgot it, until bad dreams accompanied the first touch of seasickness on Monday night. Aided by certain remarks of Sir Henry Merrivale, his subconscious mind got to work. It gave him a particularly vivid dream of Valerie Chatford, a swastika band on her arm, marching in the midst of a crowd of women.
He awoke in a fever; for the next dream, to tell the truth, had bean of Valerie Chatford in next to nothing at all, and himself about to put his arms round her.
Hit waking mind said to him: You know where that started. It is an echo of that conversation in the purser's office, where they were discussing legends of people committing murders without any clothes, and so crept into the dream. His vague Instincts said: That girl attracts you intensely, so much so that in your mentally crocked-up state you shy away from her and think you dislike her.
The swastika image followed him into real sickness throughout Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, with the sea running more calmly, he got up to find with surprise that he felt as fit as he had ever been: though very empty, and somewhat weak. It was a pleasure to walk. He even felt hearty, and sang in his bath. This diminished a good deal after breakfast, though he confined himself cautiously to toast and coffee.
What he did realize, with ugly post-dream clearness, was that they had come back to murder. For two days the Edwardic had been a dead ship. Now they must pick up again. His suspicions of Valerie Chatford—not necessarily as a murderess, but for certain as a slippery character of some kind— angered him once more. Of course, you can't suspect a girl of anything just because you dream about her with a swastika sleeve-band.
But there were facts. Her claim to be Ken-worthy's cousin, as told to the purser, was infuriating rubbish; though Kenworthy corroborated it, and this shook Max's nerve. Her claim to be with Kenworthy between nine-forty-five and ten o'clock on Saturday night, also as told to the purser and also corroborated by Kenworthy, he knew to be an outright lie.
Damn the girl.
She was the first person he saw when he went up on deck shortly before noon. He found her in the big open space aft on A Deck, where the huge hatch-cover was piled with sandbags, and a few deck-chairs had hopefully been set out. She wore a tan coat with the collar turned up; the wind blew her curly hair. Her back was towards him, and she stood looking at the white zigzag track of the wake.
"Good morning," he said. On an idiotic but irresistible impulse he added: "Heil Hitler!"
The words rattled against the cold morning air. They startled as he said them. For a second or two Valerie did not move. Then she turned round.
"Good morning," she answered through tightened lips. "Is that your idea of a joke?"
(He wished he hadn't said those words. It was as though he had been talking treason himself.)
"Every time we meet," said Max, "it seems to consist in you asking me, in one way or another, whether that is my idea of a joke."
"If we didn't meet.. ." Valerie suggested pointedly.
(She was attractive, though. You couldn't deny that. It had given him a shock when she turned round. All her washed-out airs had gone. Though there were shadows under her eyes, the sea air had given her color; she seemed possessed by a quiet inner excitement, though she instantly became glacial when she faced him.)
"If we didn't meet... ?" she repeated.
"Now that you've gained a cousin, don't you think you can afford to be generous?"
"Are you suggesting that Jerome isn't my cousin?"
"I'm saying, at least, that you weren't in his cabin between a quarter to ten and ten on Saturday night."
Her eyes were maliciously innocent. "How do you know where I was then, Mr. Matthews? You didn't see me until two o'clock."
Nine and Death Makes Ten Page 12
