Nine and Death Makes Ten

by Carter Dickson

  This was true.

  It brought him up with a start to realize its truth. But, as usual, she was twisting words.

  "You told me—"

  "Oh, no, Mr. Matthews! No! I couldn't have told you anything. I didn't see you at all then. At least, that's my story to the captain and the purser. And you haven't disproved it."

  Max had realized several times before, of course, that there are occasions on which even the most easy-going man feels impelled to place an exasperating female across his knee and wallop her with a strap. But he had never experienced the wish so strongly as now. What exasperated him worst was a feeling that Valerie might be making mysteries where there were no mysteries. She had him on the hip now. She was winning this exchange, when she spoiled it by adding:

  "Why did you say, 'Heil Hitler'?"

  "You appear to think he's worthy of heiling."

  "I don't think anything of the sort, Mr. Matthews. But I do think it's stupid and silly to underestimate your opponent; and regard him only as a funny little man with a mustache."

  "Agreed. But I doubt if anybody in France or England does underestimate him."

  "And," said Valerie, her color going up like a flag, "if the Germans really get started, our side will jolly soon find out differently."

  Max was unperturbed.

  "Anything you say. This is, so to speak, English soil. You can say what you please when you please. Why don't you heil Hitler? Or climb up in the crow's nest and sing the Horst Wessel? We'd all like that aboard a munitions ship."

  Valerie flared out at him. "I jolly well will say what I like!" she cried. "I'll say—"

  Here they were interrupted by the calm, drawling voice of Lathrop. The doors of the smoking-room, aft, stood open on this part of the deck. Two of the port-hole-windows were also open. Lathrop's head appeared in one of these windows.

  "Oi! Sh-h! For the love of Pete remember where you are!" Lathrop cautioned.

  The head disappeared, and he came out to join them.

  "I've just been having half a pint of champagne," he went

  on, his hands dug into the pockets of a blowing topcoat, and his white hair windblown. He breathed deeply. "What we used to call, forty years ago, The Boy. Nothing like it for a rocky stomach." He glanced at Valerie, and his eye twinkled. "My professional advice to you is: don't go heiling Hitler here; or, free speech or no free speech, you'll get yourself beaned with a marlin-spike. And I'll tell you what your trouble is, young lady. You're too serious-minded."

  "All the best things in life are serious," said Valerie.

  Lathrop gestured comfortably. "We-el, that depends on how you look at it. What I think you mean is, all the serious things in life are best. And that's wrong, young lady. That's wrong. You need relaxation. So I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's all go up on the boat-deck and have some deck-tennis or shuffleboard."

  Valerie searched for words.

  "I won't play shuffle-board," she said, "with that rattlesnake."

  "You mean this fellow?" inquired Lathrop, jerking his thumb toward Max without surprise. "Oh, he's all right. No alibis, now. Come along."

  Valerie spoke unexpectedly.

  "I suppose you'd say," she began, "that Drink wasn't serious."

  "I think," observed Max, while they looked at her in surprise, "Miss Chatford is now going to preach us a sermon on temperance. And, speaking of alibis—"

  A cold, unpleasant silence gathered round them, while Valerie went red. Lathrop broke it. "I'm going to see that you two make it up," he said grimly, "if it's the last thing I ever do." He gripped an arm of each of them. "You're getting some exercise. No arguments, if you like the word better. Come with me."

  On the boat-deck, at the top of a tall companionway, the full force of the wind whipped at them. It stung water to their eyes, and made them more conscious of the ship's roll. In a big cleared space, well aft of the camouflaged bombing-planes, were two nets for deck-tennis and a shuffle-board runway. Lines of benches ran to port and starboard. Sitting alone on the edge of one of these benches was Sir Henry Merrivale.

  His big shoes were planted wide apart, and his tweed cap pulled down behind his ears. Some six feet in front of him stood a peg in a wooden base; and he was trying, with a handful of quoits made out of rope, to throw one so as to ring the peg. Utterly absorbed in this, he talked to himself in a stream of malignant mutterings, with comments, each time he threw a quoit. He was conscious of nobody. He might have been on another planet.

  "If the feller could understand English, why not say so? Too far to the right. . . Then there's the question of the razor-strop. Humph. Too high . . . And the inky, inky ink. Missed the goddamned thing again."

  "H.M.!"

  "Why so many stamps, all about the same? Ship keeps rollin' ... If there could only be a good reason—"

  Max went close and uttered a piercing whistle.

  Roused out of his reverie, H.M. jerked back, glared, and accepted the situation.

  "So it's you, is it?" he grumbled. "About time you got up off your bed and walked."

  "You weren't seasick, I suppose?"

  "Me?" scoffed H.M., with hollow-voiced and incredulous astonishment. "Never been seasick a day in my life. It's your imagination, son, that's all it is. Why, take me, for instance. When I went round Cape Hatteras—"

  "Yes. Are you busy?"

  "Oh, I was just sittin' and thinkin'," said H.M., scratching the side of his nose. "And a ghostly murderer, that leaves ghost's finger-prints, wants a lot of cogitation."

  "I don't think you've met Miss Chatford or Mr. Lathrop? Or have you?"

  Lathrop, impressed, shook hands with an obvious respect which soothed and pleased the old man. Valerie remained cold and very much on the prickly side. H.M., after getting up to duck her a grave bow, gathered up the quoits from the deck and returned to his bench.

  "We've heard a lot about you in the States, Sir Henry," said Lathrop. "I'm only sorry I didn't know you were there this time. The boys at City Hall would have given you a rip-roaring reception."

  "I know," said H.M. apologetically. "That's one of the reasons why I sort of sneaked in and out. I love America. It's the most hospitable country there is. But it's so goddam hospitable that every time I spend a fortnight there they have to carry me aboard ship pickled in alcohol. I'm an old man. I can't stand the racket any more."

  "Besides," pursued Lathrop, with one eye cocked at him, "you'd hardly expect—at a time like this—finding you away from home—"

  "H'mf. So," said H.M., and tossed a quoit.

  "And then, if I remember rightly, it was in the papers that you were going to be given a peerage and go into the House of Lords."

  "It's a lie!" said H.M., galvanized. "Don't you believe a word of it. They tried to, yes. They're still skulkin' in ambush, just aching for an excuse to grab me and stick me In the House of Lords. But I fooled 'em twice, and I can still fool 'em again. Phooey." He threw another quoit, which landed several feet wide of the peg. "I say. I suppose the purser told you we were having a little meeting here to discuss murder?"

  He nodded toward the companion-way. Hooper and Dr. Archer, still a trifle pale round the gills, were clambering up, followed by the third officer and the purser.

  And, though not a word was spoken, Max sensed a new atmosphere.

  The purser was uneasy. He wore his cap jauntily, but he was uneasy.

  "Good morning," said Griswold, his expression stolid. "Is everybody here?"

  "Not exactly, son," said H.M. "Where's the Commander?"

  There was a slight pause. "The captain won't be able to be with us this morning," Griswold answered casually. "Er— maybe for all day."

  H.M. paused with a quoit lifted. His sharp little eyes searched the purser's face. With the roll of the ship, his bench moved up and down against a gray sea stung with white-caps. Wind whipped the boat-deck.

  "Oh," observed H.M., and threw the quoit again wide of the mark. He did not pursue the subject, but everybody knew what it mea
nt. Studying the boat-deck, Max realized why its aspect seemed different this morning.

  The look-outs at the rails had been doubled. They were in the zone.

  Valerie cried out: "So you wanted to play shuffle-board, did you?" she asked Lathrop. "You knew there was going to be another inquisition!"

  H.M. cut her off, and turned to the purser.

  "Those eight little finger-print cards," he said. "You've got 'em where they can't be tampered with?"

  "They're locked in my safe. Houdini himself couldn't get at 'em. I didn't lock up the umpty-umph hundred others, since all the crew have got alibis for Sunday night. They're not much good to us."

  H.M. took careful aim with still another quoit. The corners of his mouth were drawn down; over this whole group hung a heavy, deadly air which was getting on Max's nerves.

  'Tell me, son," pursued H.M., closing one eye and lazily sighting with the quoit, while the deck rose and made their legs feel light. "Suppose we did snaffle the murderer, or someone we could prove was mixed up in the murder. What would you do with him? Lock him up in the brig?"

  The third officer laughed, without much amusement.

  "No, sir. That's another idea out of the story-books. I've been asked about it before. The brig is only used when an A.B. goes on the spree in port, and has to be suppressed. It's not for passengers."

  H.M. persisted.

  "Well, what would you do with him, then? A suspected murderer?"

  The third officer shrugged his shoulders.

  "The captain would probably just confine him to his cabin, until he could be handed over to the authorities in port."

  "Confine him under guard?"

  "Locked in, more likely. After all, he couldn't get away. There's only one way of escaping from this ship when you couldn't get a boat. Straight down."

  "Uh-huh. Like Benoit," agreed H.M.

  After carefully sighting again, he tossed the quoit, and it landed two feet beyond the peg. His face smoothed itself out. His manner was heavy and quiet, but Max liked it even less. After drawing a deep, gusty breath, he looked straight at Valerie Chatford.

  "We'd better get on with it, then," he said. "You lock up the gal there. I'll be responsible for handin' her over to the authorities when we get to the other side."

  There was a silence.

  Valerie had backed away. She balanced herself lightly, not without grace, on the moving deck. Wind brushed her curly hair behind the ears, forcing her to lower her eyelids. But her face was one of stark terror.

  "I don't know what you're talking about!" she cried in a high-pitched voice, which the wind choked back. "Me?"

  "You," said H.M. "Looky here. The captain, and the chief engineer, and the officers on the bridge, and these fellers here" —he indicated Cruikshank and Griswold—"can't afford to fool about. They're on the spot. In case you didn't know it, carryin' munitions in a gale, such as we've had for the past two days, is no ruddy picnic. There's enough on everybody's mind as it is. They can't let you go on throwin' spanners into the machinery just for fun."

  The very quietness of his voice made her draw back still further.

  "Just a minute before you answer," resumed H.M. "There's no proper 'gray powder' aboard for developin' finger-print impressions. But French chalk, powdered very fine and used with a soft brush, does almost as well. Your finger-prints were all over the metal part of the light-switch in Mrs. Zia Bey's cabin. They were also on a powder-bowl on the dressing-table. Cruikshank got 'em last night, and Griswold compared 'em. Is that right, son?"

  The third officer nodded grimly.

  The purser glowered at the deck.

  Not a sound came from any of the others, except that Hooper, dropping his life-jacket with a thud, flopped down on the bench beside H.M. Dr. Archer put one hand on the back of the bench, gripping it hard.

  "I want you to stop actin' the fool," continued H.M., calmly sighting with another quoit, "and take back all the ghost stories you've been telling us. Now I warn you. This is your last chance."

  "Do you deny," cried Valerie, "that I am—"

  Again H.M. stopped her. "I'm not denyin' that your name may be Valerie Chatford, and that you may really be Ken-worthy's cousin. I thought that name Kenworthy was familiar. He's old Abbsdale's son, of course. I knew Abbsdale when he was an r.a. at Falklands. As a matter of fact, the skipper and I have been in touch with him this morning."

  "In touch with him?" repeated Lathrop. "But how in thunderation did you manage that? You can't send a radiogram from this ship. They won't let you. We're cut off from everybody."

  "I sort of thought," said H.M., "that it might qualify as official business. We used the radio telephone." Again his eyes fastened on Valerie. "Abbsdale's got a sister, Ellen Kenworthy. Her first husband was Jossy Bernard, of the Foreign Office; and they had one daughter—Valerie—before Jossy died about eighteen years ago. Later on, Ellen married a schoolmaster named Chatford. There was blue blazes to pay over that, First, because Chatford wasn't quite out of the top drawer. Second and more important, because Abbsdale's a holy terror and Chatford had been thought to be living with his housekeeper, a woman called Vogel. But Ellen married him, took the child, and went out to Bermuda. Abbsdale refused to speak to her again. Right, young feller?"

  In the act of throwing a quoit, he craned his neck round again.

  Jerome Kenworthy, an itinerant specter muffled up to the ears in a big tweed coat, wabbled up the companion-way with his life-jacket bumping behind him. He got to the bench, pushing Hooper over, and sat down.

  "This young feller," pursued H.M., "talked to his father on the radio telephone, and he says the gal is genuine. Right! We'll let it go at that. What we won't let go is the spankin' lie that she was with young Kenworthy for fifteen minutes on Saturday night. Now, my wench, are you goin' to admit you were in Mrs. Zia Bey's cabin or not?"

  Valerie's jaw had grown hard under the soft skin. She was frightened. But she also seemed bewildered. And there was another emotion which Max could neither define or quite put into words. Uncertainty, suspicion, what?

  "Light of my life," murmured Kenworthy, contemplating his shoes with a kind of horror, "you had better own up. This morning they grilled me like a sole. And nothing would please me more than to be presented with a gratuitous alibi.

  But it won't wash. At the moment I don't care what happens. I don't give a damn if the ship goes down. Have we got to sit out in all this wind? Couldn't we just all go down to the bar and die?"

  Valerie, puckering up her eyes, spoke in a wondering voice.

  "But—well, suppose I didn't tell quite the truth?" she cried. "What on earth are you making all the fuss about?"

  H.M. was genuinely staggered. He remained holding the rope ring in the air like a man with paralysis, his mouth open and the peak of the cap sliding down over his eyes.

  "Oh, Lord love a duck!" he breathed. "This is broad-mindedness for fair. Oh, my eye. Two murders in five days. A near-panic in submarine waters. A semi-lunatic goin' about with a razor and a revolver. And the girl wants to know what we're makin' all the fuss about."

  "Nonsense!" said Valerie. Impatience began to mix with her fear, or at least so Max interpreted it. "You know who the murderer was."

  "Do we, now?"

  "Of course you do! It was Captain Benoit."

  "Captain Benoit?"

  "Naturally. You know that. You've known it since Sunday night."

  "My dear, good wench . . . !"

  "I don't care what sort of stories you put about, I heard the truth from my stewardess," continued Valerie. "Captain Benoit killed Mrs. Zia Bey. He couldn't face it afterwards, so he shot himself. My stewardess has a cousin who's one of the look-outs. She says he actually saw it happen; actually saw him put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. It was a crime of passion, as I could have told you. Frenchmen are like that anyway. He wrote her a lot of letters, and then he went ga-ga and killed her and got back the letters."

  Hooper had jumped up and was shaking h
is head violently, but Valerie would not be interrupted.

  "As I say, I could have told you that long ago," she fired at them. "I saw him on Saturday night."

  "Half a minute," said H.M., in such a clear, sharp voice that it checked the girl's apparent hysteria. "You saw Captain Benoit kill Mrs. Zia Bey?"

  Valerie corrected herself.

  "I didn't exactly see him kill her. That would have been too horrible. I couldn't have stood it. But I saw him—well, at work. I saw him come out of her cabin after she must have been dead."

  H.M., still holding the quoit, stared at it as though he had never seen it before.

  "Benoit's on the scene of the crime," H.M. muttered. "Benoit tries to tell 'em something, and is surprised when they say 'Ah, oui.' Benoit leaves a note. Benoit is polished off . . ." His voice trailed away, and then grew strong again. "And so the man who knew too much," he groaned, "gets it in the neck again. When did you see him come out of Mrs. Zia Bey's cabin?"

  "A-about five minutes to ten. He was carrying a big bundle of papers, incriminating letters—oh, a bundle three or four inches thick!"

  "Are you lying to us again?" thundered H.M.

  Dr. Archer interposed. "If you'll allow me to say so," he smiled, "this young lady seems to have—er—almost a morbid fixation on the subject of incriminating letters. A pile of letters three or four inches thick is not a bundle. It's an archive."

  "People do do some queer things, don't they?" ruminated Hooper. "Sounds like a film. That it do."

  "Yes, I know it does," agreed Lathrop grimly. "Now that the cat's out of the bag, there are a few things I could bear to understand myself. Young Matthews told us your story about those mysterious letters long ago, Miss Chatford. What I wish you'd tell us is this: How did you know the woman had a bagful of letters to start with?"

  H.M.'s powerful lungs quieted an incipient babble when everybody began to talk at once.

  "Easy, now! Burn me, take it easy. Just tell us the story, my wench. What happened to you between nine-forty-five and ten o'clock on Saturday night? And this time, mind, we want the whole truth."

  Valerie braced herself.