Sixty Days to Live

by Dennis Wheatley

  The sea remained placid, the clouds showed no signs of breaking, and the Ark drifted onwards among the debris which had floated to the surface from the flooded world. For two days there was no further incident to disturb their dull routine although they all continued to be nervy and suspicious of each other. Derek was up and about again; Oliver’s arm was slowly mending. The raids upon the food had ceased, so Gervaise, who had a theory that the thief and Derek’s attacker were one and the same, had begun to hope that whoever had been responsible had taken a hold upon themselves through fright at discovering that they had nearly committed a murder, and that he would be faced with no more unsolved mysteries.

  It was, therefore, with an appalling shock that, on coming out of his cabin on the fifteenth morning of the flood, he found his brother lying dead on the living-room floor.

  Before he could warn the others Margery had come out of the women’s cabin. Her piercing scream brought the rest of the party running; and in a horrified group they stood staring at Oliver’s dead body. The back of his head had been smashed to pulp. There could be no doubt that he had been murdered.

  His face drawn and anxious, Gervaise looked slowly round. ‘There is only one explanation for this,’ he said huskily, ‘and since there is no possibility of any of us leaving the Ark it is a terrible thing to have to face. One of us is a homicidal maniac’

  23

  THE MANIAC

  The full horror of their situation slowly dawned upon them. There was no escape from the Ark. They must remain living cheek by jowl in its narrow confines; yet the brain of one of them had been turned by their terrible experiences and, whoever that person was, while appearing normal for the greater part of the time, he was afflicted with occasional periods of hideous aberration in which he was capable of murder.

  With a nervy gesture Gervaise passed a hand over his white hair. ‘You see, it all ties up,’ he went on gravely. ‘I know most of you think it was Lavina who took the cigarettes but I’ll swear that she would never lie to me if she had done so while in her senses. The bottle of brandy might have been taken by any of us; or perhaps that twelfth bottle was never there. I believed that it was Derek who had been at the food because he is the heartiest eater among us; but that doesn’t explain the fact that much more food has disappeared than any one person could have eaten. Sam, Hemmingway and myself, all had an opportunity to attack Derek and it is plain, to me at least, that the other two had a possible motive; but neither of them had the least reason to kill poor Oliver. These acts are those of a madman and the lives of us all now depend upon finding out which of us suffers from these terrible fits of lunacy.

  Each one of them was quite convinced that it was not themselves and regarded the others with reluctant suspicion. It was a frightful thing for them to think that from now onwards, if ever they remained alone for a few minutes with one of the others, that other’s mind might suddenly go blank and they would find themseves fighting with a maniac; or that one of their friends might steal upon them in the dark and strike them down, as had happened to Derek and Oliver.

  ‘Well, there are six of us now,’ said the practical Sam, voicing the thoughts of them all, ‘and the best precaution we can take is that never less than three of us should remain alone together.’

  ‘How about at night?’ asked Margery. ‘Lavina and I must continue to share a cabin.’

  ‘I don’t mind that, if you don’t,’ Lavina said promptly. ‘We’ll lock our door, and if I see you walking in your sleep, I shall scream the Ark down.’

  Margery shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, either. It can’t be you, because you’re not strong enough to have delivered those terrible blows on the back of Uncle Oliver’s head.’

  ‘I don’t know so much. They say that maniacs have superhuman strength.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t either of you girls. The fact that Derek was attacked when he was below rules both of you out. It’s one of us men; either Gervaise, Hemmingway or myself.’

  Sadly they set about preparing Oliver for burial. Margery washed his body while Lavina sewed up a sheet to be his shroud and weights into its lower end. It was only after they had finished that the relief of tears came; and both girls sobbed as Gervaise read the Burial Service over his brother’s body. The door of the Ark was opened and the shrouded figure consigned to the cold, grey waves.

  The dreary grey skies still stretched low overhead from horizon to horizon. Although it was only mid-July the temperature was that of November and it seemed to be growing colder day by day. A slight but chill wind was blowing and the waves lapped hungrily at the landing platform of the Ark; the only thing showing above the waters in all that vast desolation.

  When the Funeral Service was over and they had again returned, shivering, to the warmth, none of them felt like talking. An uneasy silence brooded over the living-room as they sat about doing nothing or making a pretence of trying to read. The minds of all of them were filled with dark suspicion of their neighbours and horrid, fruitless speculation as to when and upon whom the murderer would make his next attack.

  Lunch was a gloomy meal and after it, as had become their habit, they retired to their cabins for an afternoon sleep.

  It was about half-past three when Derek, waking from a doze, noticed that Hemmingway was no longer in the bunk opposite him. Instantly he roused Gervaise and Sam and, slipping from his bunk, muttered quickly:

  ‘It’s Hemmingway. I felt sure it was. Look! His bunk’s empty. He must have tiptoed out of the cabin while we were asleep. Come on! Arm yourselves with anything that’s handy; we’ll probably have to knock him out.’

  At that moment there was a muffled shriek. Gervaise wrenched a sheet out of his bunk to tie the maniac, Sam grabbed a clothes-brush for a club, and Derek a heavy ruler which still lay where Oliver had left it by the side of his now empty bunk.

  As they dashed out of the cabin the screams came again. For a moment they had assumed that one of the girls was the new victim; but in the tiny hallway they ran full-tilt into them, for they also had been roused and were leaving their cabin to find out who was screaming.

  The trap-door in the living-room, which led to the lower deck, was open. Rushing towards it, Sam cried:

  ‘He’s down there! The poor chap must know he’s the maniac and be trying to commit suicide—or else he’s got caught up in the machinery.’

  In his anxiety to save his friend from further injury Sam dropped the twelve feet to the lower deck straight through the trap. Derek and Gervaise followed by the ladder. A yell of ‘Help! Help!’ came from a storeroom where the seeds and bulbs were kept.

  Picking himself up Sam sprang through the open doorway, the others hard on his heels. In the dimmish light of the single electric globe they saw that a desperate struggle was in progress. Rolling on the floor Hemmingway was at death-grips with another man.

  The other three flung themselves upon the struggling couple and succeeded in wrenching Hemmingway’s attacker away from him. Their opponent fought with all the strength of a madman, but between them they managed to pinion his arms and feet and roll him over on his back. As the light struck his face Sam gasped:

  ‘Good God! It’s Finkie!’

  Fink-Drummond’s chin was covered with a fortnight’s beard, his hair was matted, his clothes indescribably dirty. He was slavering at the mouth and his eyes shone with a maniacal hatred. Few of his old colleagues would have recognised the ex-Cabinet Minister but Sam had known him, after a moment, by his long, pointed nose.

  Having bound their captive with the sheet that Gervaise had brought from his bunk, they hoisted him up to the living-room and sat him down in a chair. Out of pity for his state Lavina brought him a glass of water to drink but, with a violent jerk of his head, he knocked it out of her hand. All their efforts to make him speak were quite unavailing. He was stark, staring mad.

  Gervaise went below to investigate and, returning after a few moments, said to the others:

  ‘I think he must have been
still sane when he came on board, because he chose for his hiding place the one storeroom that none of us were likely to go into until the Ark touched land. By rearranging a lot of the cases of seeds and bulbs he’d hollowed out a six-foot tunnel and in it, I’m glad to say, I found most of the missing food. I imagine he took as much as he could each time because he was afraid we might make some new arrangement of the stores so that he wouldn’t be able to get at them again later on.’

  ‘But how on earth did he get aboard in the first place?’ Sam inquired.

  ‘Roy,’ said Margery. ‘Roy used to sit with him when he was a prisoner at Stapleton, if you remember, and they became quite friendly. Roy must have told him about the Ark and, after he was free, he must have decided that he’d stand a better chance of saving himself by stowing away on board it than by any other means. It would have been quite easy for him to have got into it and made his arrangements on the night Roy went to London, while we were all asleep in the house.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ Derek agreed. ‘And during that terrible time we had those first few days, being cooped up there in the dark while the Ark was thrown all over the place must have sent him mad. God knows, it was bad enough for us; but just think what the poor devil must have suffered with all those cases sliding about or being flung on top of him in the darkness. Light as most of them are, it’s a miracle they didn’t kill him. But how did you find him, Hemmingway?’

  Hemmingway smiled. ‘I’ve read quite a lot about insanity at one time and another and I felt fairly certain that none of us was mad; the only other explanation was a stowaway. I remembered then that whenever I’ve passed the seed room lately there’s been a very unpleasant smell. I thought some of the roots in there were going bad, but after lunch to-day it occurred to me that it might be something else. As my idea seemed a bit far-fetched, I didn’t like to tell the rest of you about it in case you thought that I might be the madman myself, so when you were all asleep I took my loaded crop and went down to investigate. But Finkie was on me before I could get a blow in and he was near murdering me by the time you chaps came on the scene.’

  Gervaise nodded his grey head. ‘Well, I do congratulate you. Having found him explains everything and relieves all our minds of an intolerable burden. It was plucky of you, too, to risk taking on a madman on your own.’

  ‘What’re you going to do with him?’ Lavina asked, staring nervously at the wild-eyed figure in the chair.

  ‘We can’t leave him loose about the Ark,’ said Gervaise, decisively. ‘We’ll shift the cases round a bit to make things more comfortable, keep his hands tied so that he can’t attack whoever brings him his food, and put him back where he came from.’

  Fink-Drummond was held while Gervaise gave him a morphia injection; they then rearranged the stores and, when he had gone off, they carried him down to his prison. Having put looped cords over his head, hands and ankles, they knotted these behind his back so that he could sit or lie in reasonable comfort but could not free himself and would choke if he attempted any violent movements. There was a risk that in a frenzy he might strangle himself while they were all up in the living-room or asleep in their bunks but that risk had to be taken as there was no other way in which they could ensure his not attacking whoever acted as his gaoler. They eliminated the chance as far as possible by padding the cord that went round his neck, and made up a bed for him with the mattress and bed-clothes from the spare bunk in the men’s cabin that Roy was to have occupied.

  After the discovery of the maniac-stowaway life in the Ark became normal. Day after day it tossed or drifted on the bosom of the grim, uncharted seas, first in one direction then in another. Gervaise was now convinced that they must be somewhere out in the North Atlantic. The ever-increasing cold was a clear indication that they were being swept a long way north, while had they been floating over the old countries within a few hundred miles of Stapleton it was almost certain that they would by this time have sighted some of the European mountain chains; the tops of which must still be above water.

  All of them were now used to the constant rocking of the sphere, but at times a strong wind got up upon which the waves set the Ark rolling and lurching most uncomfortably; and for two days in the latter part of July they suffered again the terrors of another storm.

  Margery and Sam had renewed bouts of sea-sickness whenever the weather was rough, and partly on account of the fact that they shared the same distressing weakness a strong sympathy developed between them; but other things also contributed to their cordial friendship. Margery was a serious-minded person and had always admired Sam for his sense of responsibility and decisive, straight-thinking mind; while, from having at first been sorry for her as Lavina’s less lovely sister, he came to realise that she had many sterling qualities that Lavina lacked.

  All of them had now begun to worry in secret as to whether they would ever see land again. With the rediscovery of the bulk of the food that Finkie had stolen they still had ample provisions for some weeks, but the flood had proved so much vaster in its extent than even Oliver’s most gloomy forebodings had led them to expect, that horrid doubts as to if they would survive had returned to nag their minds and they now feared that they might be washed up and down the Atlantic until they died of starvation.

  Margery, quite naturally, took refuge from her fears in the consolations of her stereotyped religion; frequently reading her Bible and the numerous sacred works which the library of the Ark contained. The others were not irreligious but thought of spiritual things in a somewhat different way. Only Sam, who was fundamentally a Christian but had neglected his religion for many years, observed the great comfort that Margery derived from her faith and began to join her in discussions which drew them still more closely together.

  At times Lavina still plumped herself down on Sam’s lap, gave him quick kisses and played with his greying hair. But Sir Samuel Curry, millionaire, with his host of friends and hangers-on, was one thing; the middle-aged, kind but somewhat ponderous man in the Ark, rather another. He seemed to have lost his sense of humour and the lightness of touch which was so essential in dealing with the moods of a flame-like creature like herself. She never questioned the fact that she still loved him but there were times when he bored her to distraction, and she began to rely more and more for her entertainment on Derek and Hemmingway.

  Derek was much the more satisfactory in that respect as he never seemed to have anything on hand to occupy his attention for any length of time and so was always at her beck and call. It was Derek who turned on her bath in the morning; Derek who fetched her cigarettes when she had left them a few yards away in her cabin; Derek who, after every meal, brought her handbag from the table to the arm-chair which she had chosen to decorate with her graceful limbs; and Derek who changed the records on the gramophone according to her instructions whenever it was played.

  Besides, Derek was really very nice to look at. His handsome face had lost none of its bronze during their month of drifting on the bleak, cold seas. His crisp, brown hair was good to touch and in fooling with him she often ruffled it. True, he had few subjects outside huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ and farmin’ upon which he could discourse intelligently, but he was a ready listener, his hearty laugh was a certain echo to every sally that she made and he jumped at the chance of dancing with her whenever she told him to clear the rugs at one end of the living-room.

  Hemmingway, on the other hand, had many interests of his own. He read a great deal, often played chess with Gervaise or six-pack Bezique with Sam, and sometimes he did not even glance in Lavina’s direction for hours at a stretch. When he did he was friendly enough and he was always willing to discuss the development of her film scenario with her when he was not otherwise occupied.

  His behaviour puzzled her extremely. During their first few days in the Ark she had been quite convinced that he had fallen for her but was keeping a tight hold on himself through loyalty to Sam and from a desire not to take advantage of the experience they had
been through together during their flight from London. Yet when she had frankly challenged him, after Derek had been knocked out, he had categorically denied having any feeling other than friendship for her and as the days wore on she had become convinced that he had been speaking the truth.

  Whether she was glad or sorry about that she was unable to make up her mind. She was quite sure that she was not in love with him and she had all her work cut out to handle Derek, so she was really rather glad that Hemmingway was not likely to provide a further complication in her relations with Sam. But at the same time it was a sad blow to her vanity that Hemmingway should remain immune from her fascination.

  She made no attempt to attract him but she felt that the mere fact of her constant presence should have been enough; and she could never resist the temptation to watch him covertly whenever he was reading to see if he was watching her. But he always appeared to be completely absorbed in whatever he was doing and after a time she became conscious of a queer reaction in her feelings for him. From having considered him, when they had first really got to know each other, as rather a charming and amusing person she reverted to her first opinion that he was a cold, monkish intellectual; and by the time they had been in the Ark a month she was thinking of him as dispassionately as she did of Gervaise or her sister.

  Gervaise had taken over Oliver’s job with the instruments as well as carrying on with his own work of writing up the journal of the Ark and issuing the stores. But there had still been no opportunity to use the sextant and take the altitude of the sun, moon or stars, as day after day, night after night, the dense banks of low cloud remained unbroken overhead.

  The general level of their spirits sank as the days dragged by. Whenever the weather was too rough for Derek to get his morning exercise he became grumpy with everyone except Lavina. She turned on the gramophone so frequently that they were almost tortured by the incessant repetition of her favourite dance tunes. Margery discovered that Sam had never been confirmed and was taking him stage by stage through the catechism.