Rub-A-Dub-Dub

by Robert L. Fish

  Q: Yes. . . . Well I suppose that’s about all the questions I can think of as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Wilkins. Thank you for your patience. Now, the next witness please? Ah! Mr. Tompkins, I believe . . .

  A: That’s right. Arthur Tompkins.

  Q: A certified accountant, are you not?

  A: That is correct.

  Q: I find it difficult to believe that a man with your experience in numbers and percentages, etcetera, did not instantly discover that he was being cheated.

  A: Well, I didn’t. At least not in time, if that’s what you mean. I’d lost a goodly sum before I was able to confirm my suspicions. As Mr. Wilkins testified before me, this Carpenter chap was good. He—

  Q: Yes?

  A: I was going to say, he was much better, incidentally, than you.

  Q: Ah, well; one can’t be the best in all things. But to return to the Carpenters; when did you discover you had been cheated?

  A: About two hours after we were playing.

  Q: And what did you do then?

  A: Why, I stopped playing, of course!

  Q: Did you notify the authorities?

  A: Well—well, no. . . .

  Q: May I ask why not?

  A: Well . . .

  Q: Let me put it to you this way, Mr. Tompkins: Mr. Montmorency is a man accustomed to handling matters of this nature without recourse to any authority other than himself. Mr. Jimmy Wilkins is a man accustomed by his profession to attempts to cheat him, and to maintaining silence regarding those attempts. But you, sir, are a certified accountant. As such you are trained to regard money as sacred. You are also well accustomed to call upon authority when normal respect for property rights regarding money is lacking, as it obviously is when one is being cheated. I find it difficult, therefore, to understand why you did not attempt to recover your losses through official channels, once you knew you were being cheated?

  A: Er . . .

  Q: Yes?

  A: Well, if you must know, I took this cruise trip in order to handle some extremely confidential matters, and I didn’t want any publicity to attach to my presence on the S.S. Sunderland—to come, that is, to the attention of my—ah—my competitors.

  Q: Oh, ah! Sorry! Fortunately, it appears that the record of these proceedings may be somewhat less than complete, so I think you need have no worries on that score. You may be excused, Mr. Tompkins. Thank you. And the last of our cardplaying witnesses? Mr. James Wellington?

  A: The Reverend James Wellington, Sir Percival.

  Q: I should have suspected. Well, I don’t believe we need subject you to too many questions. You never did suspect you were being cheated, did you, Reverend?

  A: I did not.

  Q: Not even when Captain Manley-Norville came into the card room when I was out washing my hands and said that I was cheating you?

  A: It wasn’t the Captain. It was the library steward.

  Q: And you still did not suspect?

  A: I did not believe him.

  Q: May I ask why not?

  A: It would not have been charitable.

  Q: Thank you! There are far too few left in this world with your pure mind, Reverend. May we play cards again together as soon as possible. You may be excused, and thank you very much. Hmmm! Well, that finishes our card-playing suspects. Let us now continue our search for the truth—may we have next the stewardess who was so unfortunate as to discover the body. Mrs. Penelope Watkins. Mrs. Watkins? If you’ll just be seated, please?

  “Why doesn’t he have that slinky master-at-arms up for questioning?” Simpson asked in a low but perturbed tone of voice. He had managed seats beside himself for his newly released friends, and a steward was in the process of providing the trio with appropriate refreshment. “If I was putting this bash in a book, he’s the chap I’d have on the carpet at this point!”

  “Saving him for dessert,” Briggs guessed, quite correctly. “Old Pugh likes to end a meal with a bang! He wants somebody he can make look guilty if he is or not, and that spiv King looks as guilty as that spiv steward who turned me in—”

  “Who you didn’t even see,” Carruthers remarked.

  Briggs paid no attention to the interruption. “Old Pugh needs somebody to start off the fall assizes with, and I guess old King James the Fifth is elected. Let’s hope he has better luck than his namesake! Anyway, don’t worry about old James V.—just worry about his savings account!”

  “Hold it!” It was Carruthers, twisting about in his chair. A number of other passengers turned with him. “Here comes the doctor. Quick work, I must say! They must keep a live chicken in the laboratory for pregnancy tests, or something.”

  “You’re thinking of rabbits,” Briggs said. He grinned maliciously. “You’d best bone up on that sort of thing, Billy-boy, what with all the women that are going to be chasing you!”

  Q: I’m very sorry, Mrs. Watkins, but I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to wait a few minutes. I see Doctor Ramsey has returned from his errand. We shall come to you in a few minutes. Thank you. And now, Doctor?.

  A: I did that test as you requested, Sir Percival.

  Q: Ah! Fine! At a later point, Doctor, I shall explain to you just how I knew it was chicken blood, and just how the blood managed to get on the porthole sill.

  A: I should be most interested to hear it, Sir Percival. Because there isn’t the faintest doubt that the blood in that porthole sill is human blood. No doubt at all. . . . (Sensation)

  14

  “Well,” said Sir Percival Pugh softly to nobody in the vicinity except himself. “Well, well, well.” He considered his words and found them good. “Well!”

  Captain Manley-Norville leaned over from his perch a bit anxiously.

  “I say, Percy?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s all this chicken-blood thing?” He sounded puzzled, a rare thing with the Captain, and a state he didn’t particularly enjoy. Captain Manley-Norville liked to know where everything was at any particular time and in which condition. “Don’t tell me we have one of these voodoo cases on our hands?”

  “No, it’s not voodoo. It’s simply that I was teeing off the wrong tee onto, the wrong fairway. Other than that, I was coming in for a fair score, considering handicap.”

  “You?”

  “Me. That’s the handicap, this trip. Me. It comes, of course,” he added evenly, “from listening to people and trustingly remembering what they told me.”

  “I say, Percy.” Captain Manley-Norville lowered his voice even more. “How about dropping the whole thing? After all, you merely contracted to ease this Briggs chap and this Carruthers chap out of choky on E Deck, and you did that without raising a sweat. And,” he added shrewdly, “you also did it in such a manner that they’re almost bound to hare for home tomorrow from the Gibraltar airport by fastest means, leaving me in your debt for God knows how many bottles of bubbly. Which, of course, I consider a bargain.”

  Sir Percival smiled up at his friend.

  “You’re right on the button on all counts, Charles. As usual. Except that I can’t very well drop it now. I’m just beginning to see light. Call it beginner’s luck, but there it is.”

  “I have a tendency to call it a new client,” Captain Manley-Norville said shrewdly. “How far off am I?”

  “Two feet from the pin with no roll,” Sir Percival conceded and smiled.

  “But you want to get on with it?”

  “If you haven’t run out of vichy water.”

  Captain Manley-Norville smiled down from his platform. “Someday I’m going to bar you from this ship, Percy,” he said in a half whisper and rapped on the music stand. Unfortunately he had forgotten to use the baton and he winced. “Court,” he said in a voice that broke up the murmurs resounding throughout the room, “is in session.”

  “I wonder what old cutie-pie Pugh has under his hat right now,” Briggs muttered suspiciously. “Look at that look on his face!”

  “It’s just possible if you keep quiet and listen
you may find out,” Carruthers suggested in a low voice and leaned back in his seat, trying not to be cognizant of the glances being sent his way by a large part of the feminine population—mostly above seventy—of the Main Salon. . . .

  Q: Dr. Ramsey, thank you for your valuable information. I don’t believe we need bother any further.

  A: But you said—

  Q: I say many things, and most of the things I’ve said here this evening can be classed as disregardable, if such a word exists. You may be excused, Doctor.

  A: Well, all right, but I’d still like to know where you got the notion of chicken blood . . .

  Q: Yes. Well, now, to return to you, Mrs. Watkins. You are the stewardess on B Deck?

  A: Just the aft half, sir. Tilly Suffield, she handles the fore cabins.

  Q: But you handle B-67?

  A: Yes, sir.

  Q: And, if the information furnished me by the purser is correct, a certain Alf Martin is the steward who works with you in your section?

  A: That’s right, sir.

  Q: Good. Now, if you would be kind enough to tell us in your own words what happened on the noon of last Wednesday?

  A: Well, sir, when I heard that some little old man all covered with perfume and lipstick was seen coming out of B-67, I figured something had to be fishy, because while I don’t want to be catty, sir, this Mrs. Carpenter she just never struck me as being that kind. Not that I mean that as being complimentary, sir, though I don’t mean that as being uncomplimentary either, sir. I’ll admit she was a good-looking woman, if you like them all chest, but—while I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, and like I said I don’t want to be catty—she might have looked hot on the outside, but inside she was a cold potato. A woman can tell, sir, if you know what I mean.

  Q: I suspect I do. Tell me, what about Mr. Carpenter? Was he what you would term a hot potato or a cold potato?

  A: I couldn’t rightly say, sir. I never seen him. He was always out of the cabin by the time I come on to clean up, but Mrs. Carpenter was a great one to sleep in when she could. But my guess, sir, is that Mr. Carpenter had to be a cold potato, too. I mean, to be married to a cold potato like his missus.

  Q: Yes. Well, to return to the events we are investigating, you were saying?

  A: Oh! About that Wednesday! Well, sir, when I heard about the old man coming out of the cabin and all that guff, I figured to meself, I says, Penny, old girl, I says, if something’s missing from that stateroom, the old bit—biddy—who lives there, ten to one she’ll accuse you of taking it, so you better check it out. And I did. I goes in there and looks all around, and it all looks okay to me, so I figures the steward was drunk, or giving me the needle or something, but I also figures that while I’m in there, I might as well check out the loo, because that’s almost sort of automatic with us every time we goes in a cabin, and I pulls back this shower curtain and—Gar! What a bleeding—I mean, what a mess!

  Q: And then what happened?

  A: Well, I guess I must have had the screaming meemies and the doctor come and the next thing I know I’m in the ’firmary and Mary, there, she’s giving me a couple of pills and taking me to me cabin.

  Q: Yes. However, if we could return to cabin B-67 for a moment, how is it that the steward—seeing a suspicious character emerging from the room—didn’t investigate the matter himself? Why did he feel it necessary to suggest that you investigate?

  A: Prolly because he didn’t have a key, sir.

  Q: Oh? Are stewardesses the lone guardians of the gate, so to speak? As I recall Mr. Williamson’s testimony, I believe he stated that master keys were distributed with a more lavish hand than that. I believe he stated that master keys were in the possession of stewards, stewardesses, the master-at-arms, plus the Captain. Had I been misinformed?

  A: Oh, no, sir. It’s only that the master keys they issue to us stewards and stewardesses just fit the locks in our particular sections. Like mine: it fits all the cabins in B Decks aft, sir. It wouldn’t fit any of Tilly’s cabins, like, sir.

  Q: I’m afraid you still have failed to clarify the matter in my mind. My question remains: How is it that Alf Martin didn’t investigate this strange man coming out of B-67 himself?

  A: Oh, this steward wasn’t Alf, sir.

  Q: I beg your pardon? Then who was he?

  A: Now, sir, that’s odd. Real odd. I mean, odd. Fifteen years I been on this bucket—begging your pardon, Captain—and I thought I knew them all, but this one was a new one, he was. I never seen him before in my life. He never pinched me, or anything like that, and I’d remember that, and almost every other steward—

  Q: May I ask how you knew this man to be a steward, if you had never seen him before?

  A: By his uniform, of course, sir. All the stewards wear white jackets and black bow ties, and us stewardesses, we wear white dresses and—but you must know all this, sir.

  Q: I do. Tell me, Mrs. Watkins, how is it you are not wearing your glasses?

  A: I don’t wear them unless I have to, and I don’t need them now, because—but land’s sake, how did you ever know I even wear glasses, sir?

  Q: A fortunate surmise, is all. I believe that will be all, Mrs. Watkins. Thank you.

  CAPTAIN MANLEY-NORVILLE (interrupting): I say, Percy—I mean, Sir Percival—I’m not exactly sure what you’re driving at, but I do know we have no new stewards on the roster. Certainly no steward so new that Mrs. Watkins would not recognize him, with or without her glasses.

  SIR PERCIVAL: Should you be worried about an unidentified object on your payroll list, Captain, I wouldn’t be if I were you. I believe what Mrs. Watkins saw and spoke to was a passenger.

  CAPTAIN MANLEY-NORVILLE: A passenger? Wearing a steward’s uniform?

  SIR PERCIVAL: NO, sir. A passenger wearing a passenger’s uniform. His white dinner jacket and black tie.

  CAPTAIN MANLEY-NORVILLE: At noon?

  SIR PERCIVAL: Admittedly de trop, but I doubt if this particular passenger had gone to bed at all that Tuesday night. Certainly not in his own stateroom, or he would have put on something more comfortable for his disappearance.

  CAPTAIN MANLEY-NORVILLE: YOU can only be referring to Mr. Carpenter.

  SIR PERCIVAL: I only can, can’t I? I might mention that should you decide to send the master-at-arms to conduct another search for the gentleman, that he be instructed to be a bit more thorough than he was on Tuesday night.

  CAPTAIN MANLEY-NORVILLE: Master-at-arms! You will immediately take a group of sailors and search this ship again, do you hear? And I expect you to do a proper job this time, and look in every nook and cranny, do you understand? And don’t come back until you bring Mr. Carpenter with you? Is that clear? (Sensation)

  STATEMENT BY MR. MAXWELL CARPENTER:

  I don’t know why this Pugh character is trying to shut me up, because I’m sure not ashamed of what I did to Mazie, although I will admit people could find fault with me for taking so long to do it.

  Mazie’s trouble—did I say trouble? I mean one of her two thousand troubles—was that she was such a silly, bossy bitch. When she said jump, you weren’t even allowed to ask her how high. And her card play? You’d think just watching me and playing with me all these years would have taught her something, but not a prayer! Take her bridge. If I told her once I told her a thousand times you can’t pick up a hand and open seven no-trump without even sorting out the cards—once, maybe, but certainly not six times in a row. Some jasper is bound to notice, I don’t care how stupid he looks. And the only reason she didn’t do something that dumb with those two old crooks was she didn’t get a chance. I still would like to know how they got hold of every deck of cards on the ship.

  Now you take that rape bit Mazie pulled. Just to get even! Good God! Only idiots do things to get even; only a purebred nut loses his temper. I wasn’t angry when I killed Mazie. I admit I was a trifle irked, because she wouldn’t even shut up when she was taking a shower, but I wasn’t what you’d really call angry. I was just fed up
with things all at once. Sending a posse out after me just because I wasn’t in bed by midnight! You'd think I was ten years old!

  I’d picked up a bottle of brandy someplace and I took it down to the gym—nobody’s ever there at night; in fact, nobody’s ever there during the day. They’d do better to make a card room out of it. Anyway, I never drink, and I guess this brandy conked me out. I was sitting on a pile of gym mats trying to figure out how to raise enough scratch to get back into a decent game, and the next thing I know I guess I fell asleep, because when I woke up and made it back to the cabin, it was already eight o’clock by my watch.

  Anyway, I hammered on the door—she’d taken off the padlock to get in, of course, but she’d latched the thing from the inside—and I finally woke her up, and then she started in. She was even nastier than usual, which is something, believe me! And then I got a little irked, too, remembering that dumb chicken-swindle bit. I must have told her a dozen times since we were married that the chicken-swindle bit went out with the bustle—especially that dumb patter she insisted on using—and that on top of that, chicken blood tastes lousy. It also doesn’t come out in cold water, and I was getting sick and tired of wearing shirts all spotted with little red dots. They don’t look neat, and she knew how I liked to look neat. I must have told her a dozen times at least, but talk to the wall! A dozen times I told her tomato juice would do the trick just as well, but when Mazie got an idea in her pea brain, you couldn’t budge it with a dock crane. It had to be chicken blood, she says, because she read it someplace. I wish people would be more careful what they write!

  Anyway, she says since I already woke her up she’s going to take a shower, but does that stop her from yammering? Don’t bet on it! All it does is make her raise her voice. So I took off my jacket and shirt—it wasn’t too clean, I’ll admit, but it was the cleanest one I had—at least it didn’t have spots of chicken blood all over it—and I picked up the knife from the fruit dish and I went in and I stuck her. And believe it or not, she kept talking nasty all the way down to the floor of the shower. That Mazie!

  The knife? I tossed it out the porthole. It hit the sill and bounced, and for a minute I was afraid it was going to fall back inside right on my shirt, but it fell out into the water, which was luck. That’s all I needed, my last shirt spotted too. I told her to send the others to the laundry, but like I said, talk to the wall!