Nine and Death Makes Ten

by Carter Dickson

  "Enjoy the picture?"

  "Oh, so-so."

  "Not feeling very fit?"

  "I'm quite all right, thanks. Why this sudden friendliness, Mr. Matthews?"

  (Oh, God! thought Max.)

  He felt her eyes measuring him. Her bare shoulders were white, of a milky smoothness; they conveyed the impression of youth even more than her "face. She kept opening and shutting the catch of her handbag.

  "I shouldn't have , said that," she told him. "I'm as bad as you are."

  "Impossible."

  "No, it isn't. You think I made a dreadful exhibition of myself up on the boat-deck this morning, don't you?"

  He hesitated, and she was after it.

  "Yes, you do. Anyway, one thing is a relief. You don't either like or respect me, so I don't have to pretend with you any more. I know what a show I made of myself as well as you do." Suddenly she began to beat her handbag against her thigh. Her voice broke, with almost shocking intensity. "Only I'm miserable, miserable, miserable! Nobody in hell is as miserable as I am!"

  More acting?

  It might be, and yet Max doubted it. Sincerity had rung in that as he had seldom heard it before.

  "Steady," he said. "I don't think you made a show of yourself at all. Only you might have told them what you knew at the beginning, and not made such a mystery of it."

  "Then the story I told," she went on, "about blackmailing letters in the woman's handbag . . ."

  This was the point at which Valerie's own handbag, from having its catch snapped so often, fell open. The steward carrying their brandies loomed over them in the gloom. He set down the brandies on the low coffee-table in front of the couch. Max heard the clock tick loudly.

  Both he and the steward saw what was in Valerie's handbag: a large nickelled electric torch with a big head and bulb. The steward hesitated before bending forward confidentially.

  "I'm sure I beg your pardon, miss. But—"

  "Yes?"

  "That torch," said the other, smiling without offense. "You won't take it out on deck, will you? I just thought I'd warn you."

  "No, of course not!" said Valerie. "I only got it in case we—you know. The electricity might go off. And it would be awfully dark and cold getting down into one of those boats."

  "That's all right, miss," the steward assured her. He had a manner like a diplomat; he could mention the weather in tones of one imparting confidential information. "Only," he added in a lower voice, "I hear there was something last night. Someone leaving a port open, or maybe one of the look-outs smoking on deck. Anyway, they're getting pretty keen on it. It's calm tonight, you know."

  "But," said Valerie, and stopped. "They wouldn't—well, do anything until we were in the boats?"

  "No, of course not," the steward soothed, and smiled •gain. "Nothing to worry about, miss." He directed a significant glance at Max. "Bar closes at ten tonight, sir. I shall have to turn the lights out. Any last orders?"

  Max shook his head, and the steward faded away, leaving them alone.

  "Cigarette?"

  "No, thanks," said Valerie.

  He lit a cigarette for himself, and finished his brandy at one go; he hesitated on the edge of making a comment.

  "I'm sorry." Valerie spoke with such abruptness that he jumped. "I'm going to seem very rude again. And I don't mean it this time. But would you finish the brandy for me?" She got to her feet, sweeping up the life-jacket. "I've got a splitting headache. I'm going to bed. Do you mind?"

  "Not at all," he pushed himself to his feet on his cane, his had leg giving him a twinge. "Take a couple of aspirins and turn in. That'll do you all the good in the world. Good night."

  "Good night."

  Thud, thud, droned the ship's engines. Thud, thud. Thud, thud. You could feel them more clearly because of the calmer sea. The clock rang with chimes, and struck ten. Max continued to smoke while the lights were put out, turning over more than one speculation in his mind, until the reproachful hovering of the steward roused him. He finished Valerie's brandy and went through the Long Gallery into the lounge.

  Having prepared himself with a couple of novels, he nettled down in a corner where he could keep an eye on the main staircase. Hooper drifted through on the way down to bed before eleven, and Lathrop a little later.

  "I hear," remarked Lathrop—his voice sounded loud, though it was not—"I hear they got an oil-tanker ten miles behind us today."

  "You can hear anything in these ships."

  "Ho! You seem pretty cool."

  "Just ordinary," said Max. He spoke casually. "Do you happen to know the number of Miss Chatford's cabin?"

  Lathrop forbore to make any comment, especially a jocose one; his was never the obvious way.

  "By gosh, I believe I do!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "Not that I could tell you 'em offhand, but hers is a chemical formula. C-20: that's it! I remember her laughing about it, and saying it was a chemical formula. Or did she say a chemical formula turned the wrong way round? Anyway, it's some kind of gas."

  "Thanks."

  "Be careful," said Lathrop; and drifted on.

  Thud, thud. Thud, thud. Still no sign of H.M. At half-past eleven Max could no longer disregard the lounge-steward's turning out the lights. He slipped down to the purser's office, but knocking got no reply. His original impulse was to go to cabin C-20 and make sure Valerie had turned in; but he thought his motive might be misinterpreted, so at the last minute he changed his mind. Returning to the main hall on A Deck, which they were more or less bound to keep lighted late, he sat down grimly to read.

  The clock on the wall clicked with each jump of its hand.

  As with most people aboard this sealed-in ship, the heavy air once more did its work.

  He dozed off in the chair. Then he awoke with a start, how much later he could not tell. But it came over him suddenly. His skin was crawling with the apprehension of danger— danger intimate, personal, striking to the heart—and he had a distinct sensation of being watched.

  He looked round warily. A dim light burned in the roof of the main hall over the staircase; someone must have extinguished the rest. Not a whisper breathed aboard the Edwardic except the creak of the bulkheads and the dim churn of the engines. When Max glanced up at the clock over the lifts, the same clock which had marked time for Estelle Zia Bey's passing, he saw with a start that it was ten minutes to three.

  He must find H.M.: that was his one wish. He couldn't go to sleep still wondering, puzzling, tossing on the edge of anguish to find out the solution. He must find H.M.

  H.M.'s cabin was on the boat-deck, and whether his danger were real or fancied, he must go out there.

  His head feeling light from lack of air, he moved over as softly as his limp allowed to the black-out doors. Again he had the sharp sensation of being watched or followed. But he could see nothing. The doors creaked and cracked, an explosion of sound, as he wormed through.

  It was not difficult to find the companion-way tonight. He emerged on the boat-deck into a windless, clear, wintry night of stars. Darkness still pressed In from the sea; the light overhead was bluish, with distorting shadows, yet he could faintly distinguish objects at a distance of some feet. It was so quiet that he could hear one of the look-outs whispering and a stir of feet as of rats. Yet the apprehension of danger remained: he almost smelt it

  Something moved and darted ahead of him.

  Though the boat-deck was blurred and imprisoned by shadows, the white fur coat gave her away. He knew it was Valerie Chatford before he grasped her wrist. In her hand, just visible, was a faint bluish shine which marked the barrel of the electric torch.

  He heard his voice whisper out harshly, an eerie noise which seemed to proceed from his brain rather than his mouth.

  "Give me that torch."

  No answer. The insistent whisper muttered again.

  "Give me that torch," he said. "If you try to press the button I'll have to slosh you. Haven't you done enough already?"

  "Are yo
u mad?" she whispered back. "You don't think I was trying to—?"

  "Give me that torch?"

  The slapping and hissing of waves had become a monotone, in time to the movement of the great gray-black funnel above them, and the swing of the foremast against the stars far ahead. Max's heart felt physically cold. It was the turn of the night, in the hour of suicide and bad dreams. Shortly you would be able to scent the dawn. He kept his hand clamped round her wrist, and wrenched the torch away.

  "Listen!" said Valerie.

  Both of them whirled round. Feet began to pound on the deck some distance away. The voice they heard was clear, not loud, but it split the quiet of the night like a blow against the brain.

  "Submarine off starboard bow. Torpedo co-oming!"

  *****

  Twenty seconds later, shatteringly, the alarm-bells began to ring through every corner of the ship.

  Max thought: well, here it is. Now what happens?

  No more than that. No emotion which he could afterward; remember. In the space of twenty seconds before the blare of alarm-bells, a hundred speculations went through his head. He wondered what the explosion would look like and) sound like. He wondered whether the ship necessarily went up; wherever the missile struck, like a spring toy he had had? as a child, or whether there might be parts of the hull where it could burst without igniting the cargo. 1

  Then the alarm-bells ran under the deck like fire. J

  "Run!" he said. "Get down to your cabin, grab a blanket] and anything else you may need, and go to the dining-room. Got your life-jacket?"

  "You don't think," Valerie screamed at him, "I was trying to signal a—"

  "Never mind what I think. You can move faster than I can. Hurry!"

  "Don't we go for the boats?"

  "Damn your soul," said Max. "You heard what the third! officer told us. You obey orders. Go on!" j

  A torpedo in motion through the water, someone had once told him, made a kind of chuckling and clicking noise. If you sighted it enough distance off, he had also been told, a ship readily responsive to the helm on a zigzag course might man-] age to dodge it. That would be the first one.

  Valerie had gone.

  The alarm-bells were still blaring, drowning thought. Max hurried down. He fell twice on the journey, flattening out on! the deck, without consciousness of pain. But he did not run. He told himself that he ruddy well wouldn't run.

  The lower decks were astir. A sailor walked quickly but quietly past, coiling rope. Max took the example. Fastening on his life-jacket, he went into his cabin, which now seemed to him unendurably hot. Taking his notecase from the dressing-table drawer, and the passport he had that morning redeemed from the purser, he glanced round for anything

  else that might be of service. Gloves. Extra cigarettes and matches. Finally, gas-mask and blanket.

  One part of his mind always listened, as tense and acute as a microphone. He was waiting for the torpedo to strike. Why didn't it? Perhaps it had already struck; but that was Impossible.

  Leaving the cabin, he was clean out and down the passage before he recalled that he had forgotten one of the most important things of all: his overcoat.

  He went back for it.

  It vaguely surprised him that he was no longer afraid. Get out of here, he said to himself. What are you delaying for? Don't look round the place again. The thing's coming in half a minute, and then there won't be time.

  On the way out for the second time, he met his bedroom steward, who asked him if he had got everything, and was reassured. The steward nodded and moved away. You still had to shout under the din of the alarm-bell. When he reached the dining-room, some of the passengers were already there. The third officer, standing by the door with a watchful eye in counting, nodded and grinned at him as he passed.

  The many little mosaic mirrors of the dining-room pillars glittered under lights, and repeated images. Cloths were on the tables. Hooper, bundled up in life-jacket and blanket, wearing a green Tyrolese hat with a little feather in it, sat placidly at a table and drummed his fingers on it. Lathrop, wearing his gas-mask, sat at another. Dr. Archer came in quietly, and Kenworthy smoking a cigarette. Both, after consideration, took chairs. No one spoke to anyone else. The last to appear was Valerie.

  The clatter of the alarm-bells stopped; and stillness was a blow.

  Still no one moved or spoke.

  Max removed his life-jacket in order to put on his overcoat underneath, after which he replaced the life-jacket. Valerie—across the table from him—was fumbling and twisting at the strings of hers; so he set it right for her.

  She was the first to speak out in the hollow, bright, still room. "I'm afr—" she began, a sharp sound. Max closed his fingers round her shoulder and gripped as hard as he could. Her shoulder-muscles remained rigid, but she seemed to grow calm.

  One of the doors to the kitchen squeaked. The water in the glass carafes on the tables tilted slowly back and forth with the motion of the ship; Max could feel no difference in speed.

  Lathrop lifted his gas-mask to speak loudly. "They must have missed us."

  "Ah; looks like it," nodded Hooper. "My son," he added to the third officer, calling across the room, "dashed if I haven't forgotten the present I was bringing for Lou's little one! Can I go back upstairs and get it?"

  "No. Please remain where you are."

  "But what in hell are they waiting for?" demanded Lathrop.

  "Steady, please."

  Kenworthy, looking narrowly at each passenger in turn, continued to smoke his cigarette and smile. It was like a gesture of insolence. Dr. Archer thoughtfully checked over the contents of his pockets: torch, cigar-case, flask, lighter, and two bars of chocolate. The doctor's hand shook once; he darted a quick glance round to see if anyone had noticed. Hooper sighed as though bored. They made 'em tough in Somerset, Max thought. Hooper calling, "My son, can . . ."

  Max sat up straight.

  Where was Sir Henry Merrivale?

  The whole ship seemed alive with moving and dragging noises; it was all the intimation they had of what might be going on outside. Lathrop smote his gloved hands together. Dr. Archer poured out a little water into a glass and drank it.

  "Mr. Cruikshank!" Max called sharply, and everybody jumped. "We're one short. We—"

  "Quiet, please!"

  Footfalls clacked loudly on the staircase outside. There were two sets of glass double-doors opening into the dining-room. At the doors on the starboard side, the third officer stiffened to attention. Max saw the last person he expected to see: old Frank. Commander Matthews strode into the room, stopped short, surveyed them all in turn, and spoke quietly.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, don't be alarmed. There's no danger."

  His stocky shoulders went back.

  "In fact, there's no submarine. You can go back to your cabins. We've been the victims of a false alarm."

  It took about thirty seconds for the meaning of this to settle itself in minds adjusted and eyes focused to look back at death. There was dead silence, except for the quiet trampling of feet overhead: the crew filing back to their quarters. The red lacquer of the dining-room, the mirrors endlessly repeating a picture of old Frank with his hand half raised: Max afterward remembered nothing on the voyage with quite such vividness as this.

  Dr. Archer got up with stiff legs from his chair, and sat down. He smiled. Kenworthy yawned.

  But that was not all.

  "Just one moment!" said Commander Matthews. "Mr. Cruikshank, close the doors."

  The third officer went round, closed the double-doors, and bolted them all. He next walked across to glance into the kitchens and make sure they were empty. Commander Matthews, hands in side-pockets and thumbs hooked over the edges, took a few steps closer to the passengers.

  "I said you could go back to your cabins," he went on. "That was only in a manner of speaking. To keep you quiet. I'd rather you stayed here a while. The fact is, that false alarm was not an accident."

  His tone remained
conversational. He approached a table and leaned against it.

  "I don't know whether you know it: Every one of you has been under surveillance since Sunday night. There wasn't a move any of you made that I didn't know about. There's a murderer with us. I don't have to tell you that I was seeing to it that he didn't get away with anything else.

  "Unfortunately, there was something I didn't foresee." The captain's lips drew back from his teeth. "He thought of a new dodge. He imitated a look-out and set up a submarine alarm. We couldn't take any chances. We fell for it—nearly ten minutes, we fell for it. Everybody aboard was concerned with his own particular duties in case of attack. Nobody noticed what was happening anywhere else. Sort of cover, do you see? I think you do. Under that cover, there was time enough for this fellow to do what he wanted to do. An attempt was made to rob the purser's office."

  Commander Matthews paused.

  He was now so close that Max could hear him breathe, noisily.

  "In the attempt," he went on, "Sir Henry Merrivale was injured; seriously injured, we're afraid. The robber hit him down from behind."

  "The purser's assistant, Mr. Tyler—" Commander Matthews hesitated, and moistened his lips—"is dead." He paused again. "Mr. Tyler died in the line of duty. His skull was fractured with repeated blows from some heavy kind of weapon. We think the poker from the fire-irons in the smoking-room. Anyway, he's dead. I thought you all ought to know."

  Silence.

  His hearers were in a kind of paralysis. What the threat of a submarine could not do, a combination of the sick relief of being told it was a phantom danger, and now this news on top of it, nearly accomplished for most of them.

  "I'd be grateful," the captain concluded, "if you would just remain where you are for a little while. Except my brother. Come with me, Max. If any of you wants anything to eat or drink, just call for it. Mr. Cruikshank will see you get it."

  He turned round.

  Halfway to the door, his fists now on his hips, he stopped short and turned round. He appeared to struggle with speech.

  "To most of you," he added, awkwardly, "it's too bad. You don't deserve this treatment. You behaved like veterans in what you thought was real danger. Thanks 1 Come on, Max."