“The skipper’s disappeared...”
If Joe Webb said it once, he said it a score of times before dawn. He shouted it to the first of the men who arrived across the bank. He said it softly to the women as they were disembarked one by one from the Jenny to the launch and thence home. He whispered it in an awful monotone to the tipsy mariners from the Barlow Arms, who said they didn’t believe him and kept shouting ‘Women and children first’.
Then, he had to tell it to the police at one in the morning.
They gave Webb a large cup of tea, at which he looked disgusted and said he was starved through. They then added a tot of rum. Webb smiled. “It was like this...”
Webb was a small, very fat man of a little over fifty. He had a large, round red face, too, with protruding eyes of washed-out blue. He moved and thought slowly and with difficulty.
“It was this way...”
Mr. Jingling had already given a coherent account of the tragic trip to the glory shore and gone home. All the police wanted was to know at what point the skipper disappeared.
“I got his orders over the telegraph awright till he was half-over...I can tell jest where we are in the river, you know, havin’ crossed so offen.”
The sergeant of the borough police raised his eyes as if praying for patience.
“Do you think Old John had a stroke and fell off the bridge, like?”
“Eh? Fell off?”
Webb had to stop to think. He eyed his empty cup and the bottle on the desk, but nobody took the hint.
“How old was he?”
“Seventy...Talked of retirin’ any time.”
“Did he have a drink at the Barlow before he came aboard for the last trip?”
“Perhaps he did...And then, perhaps he didn’t...When we put in at Elmer’s Creek before the last trip back, the skipper took a walk up the jetty to stretch ‘is legs. He always did.”
“Did you go, too?”
“No. I stayed and tended the fire. It was warmer there, too. I’ve got a bit of a chill, you see, and the breeze was cold.”
Webb eyed the bottle again, but there was no response.
“You’re sure he came back on board?”
Webb looked utterly disgusted.
“Oo do you think gave orders from the bridge if he wasn’t back on board? The devil himself? The skipper rang down jest like he always did. Astern out of Elmer’s Creek till we turned in the river; then full ahead...”
“And half speed ahead as you neared the pier on this side?”
“That’s right.”
“And before he could do it, he vanished, and the Jenny took the bit between her teeth and headed for open sea.”
“That’s ’ow it seems. I can’t understand it. It beats me.”
He pondered deeply, puffing out his cheeks like balloons.
“Where is Old John, then?”
“Your guess is as good as ours, Joe. Likely he had a stroke and fell overboard. The river squad are out now looking around for him.”
Outside, the town was quiet. The Irish boat was almost in darkness, ready for the morning trip. A few fishing vessels which, that night, were off to Iceland, were casting-off. A stiff little breeze whistled round the police station from the windows of which the whole of the river and waterfront were visible. The string of flickering lights on the buoys of the channel, the swinging lamps of the docks and harbour, the deserted promenade following the course of the river until it joined the sea at Farne Point, and, across the channel, the navigation lights on the jetty at Elmer’s Creek and a solitary illuminated upper room at the Barlow Arms. Overhead a plane droned its way to Ireland.
Joe Webb seemed disinclined to move. The room was cosy and there was a chance that they might remember to give him another tot of rum. He coughed hoarsely to remind them he wasn’t very well.
“I’ll ’ave to rub me chest when I get in. It’s a cold night for the time of year.”
“Try another little drop of this.”
The sergeant poured a couple of tablespoonfuls of the liquor in a cup. Webb took it with eager fingers, frowned at the amount, swung it round in the cup, sniffed it, and threw it into his mouth. The sergeant was glad of a bit of company. With the exception of the search for John Grebe’s body, there wasn’t much doing.
“Did you know the skipper well, Joe?”
Webb rubbed his bristly chin and put down his cup.
“Yes...an’ no. We’d worked together for nearly a score o’ years. But I never knew much about ’im. A close sort o’ chap.”
“Did he come from these parts?”
“No. Blest if I know where ’e came from. A bit of a mystery. I’ve ’eard it said he’d a master’s ticket. What ’e was doin’ on a one-eyed little tub like the Falbright Jenny God on’y knows. Time was when shippin’ was bad, when many a good captain took to a poor job. But never a one like that, with a crew of one, just pilotin’ an old ’ulk across an estuary over an’ over agen. Bitter, ’e was, too, but as far as I could see, ’e never tried to change ’is job.”
“Bitter? What about?”
“Life, I suppose. I’ve seen holidaymakers crossin’ the ferry try to get Old John to talk. Sort of tell ‘em old sailors’ tales. But ’e soon shut ‘em up. Proper ’aughty-like when ’e tuck that way. Might have bin the capting of the Queen Elizabeth.”
“A man with a past, eh?”
“Shouldn’t be surprised at that.”
“He lived over at Elmer’s Creek, didn’t he?”
“Yes. In the old ’arbourmaster’s house. There used ter be an ‘arbourmaster there, you know. Quite a sizeable port, it was, till it all got sanded up and Falbright grew instead. You know Old John’s cottage. On the river jest past the jetty.”
“I know it. Did he keep house for himself?”
“He’d a sort of housekeeper, who kept the place clean, but who didn’t live in. Mrs. Sattenstall...a widder who lives next door to ’im. Old John wouldn’t ’ave anybody livin’ in with him.”
“And after the last ferry across, I suppose somebody rowed him back across the river.”
“In winter season. In summer when there’s two ferries, the Falbright Belle leaves Falbright ten minutes after the Jenny’s last trip and we both get ’ome on her. Which reminds me. ’Ow am I gettin’ back to Elmer’s Creek? I’ll ’ave a job gettin’ a row over now.”
“If you’ll wait a bit longer, the police launch’ll take you.
“They should be in any time. They can’t go on searching all night. The tide’ll be in soon...4.27 high to-day.”
“The Jenny’ll float off the sandbank before then. I could ’ave cried to see ’er there when we left ’er to-night. She’s not much to look at...not much of a ship, but to see ’er there, like an old duck tryin’ to swim in two inches of water...It cut me up, straight it did. I’ve been on ’er a long time.”
“The harbour men are there now, looking after her.”
“I ought to be with ’em, you know. Nobody knows them engines like me. Last time I went on me ’olidays and Mack Oliver took over as engineer for a week, the skipper went daft. They couldn’t run the crossin’ in the usual quarter-hour on account of not havin’ enough steam.”
“Is that so? Don’t you worry. The old Jenny’ll be waiting for you in the morning.”
“But wot about the skipper? That’s wot bothers me.”
“Jefferson’ll have to pilot her across.”
Webb looked for a place to spit.
“Jefferson! Skipper in the children’s yachtin’ pool, that’s where ’e oughter be.”
“He’s all right. Spent a long time on the Iceland run.”
“Do you remember the time he ran the Belle right into the pier? Frisky little ship, the Belle. The Jenny was always stiddy...”
The telephone rang.
A rapid conversation from the other end, punctuated by Yes’ and ‘No’ from Sergeant Archer, a large, beefy man with a red face, slant eyes and heavy eyebrows like moustaches themselves.
“Phew!”
Archer laid the instrument down very gently.
“Poor Old John!”
Webb lumbered to his feet.
“What for? Why poor?”
“They’ve found him under the pier where the ebb must have carried him and the new tide must have floated him out . . .”
“Is ’e dead?”
Poor Webb’s protruding glaucous eyes stood out farther than ever.
“Dead as a door nail.”
“Wot of? Was ’e drowned?”
“They didn’t say. They’re just bringing the body in to the mortuary, so you’d better come down with me and identify him.”
“Won’t somebody else do?”
Webb was a rough man but a soft-hearted one and he didn’t like death or anything connected with it.
“They asked if you were here and said you’d better...” “All right. Are they ‘ere now?”
“They will be. Better be gettin’ along if you want to see Elmer’s Creek before dawn.”
They rose, went through a little inner door at the back of the office, and down two flights of spiral stone stairs. The place smelled of damp and old stone, like descending into a tomb. Webb shivered and put up the collar of his reefer coat.
They reached at length a small room with four receptacles like ovens let in the walls. The refrigerators of the unhappy dead who had left life suddenly or violently and waited there for the law to pass them for burial and peace. A door to the left led to the laboratory where the police surgeon worked.
Webb gazed round with startled eyes, dubiously watching the four closed doors as though fearful that, at any moment, they might fly open and reveal their grisly contents.
“You needn’t look so scared, Joe. There’s nothing in those things just at present...Sometimes, in the holiday season, what with road accidents and such like, we get a houseful now and then.”
“Don’t...I can’t stand it.”
“We’ve all got to come to it.”
“Not now, please, sergeant. I’m not feelin’ very well.”
Outside they heard the ambulance draw up softly with a gentle screech of brakes. Doors opened and then a procession, headed by the cheerful custodian of the morgue, who also helped the surgeon in his macabre researches. A small man, like a robin, with a bald head, prominent false teeth, a shabby grey suit, and a sloppy shirt and soft collar.
“This way, gentlemen.”
The guardian of the dead smiled, displaying all his dentures like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
The sheeted remains of Captain John Grebe were wheeled in on a trolley. The custodian opened one of the ovens and with delicate fingertips drew out a rubber-tyred shelf to which the body was transferred.
A police Inspector joined the party, carrying a sheaf of notes in one hand and his flat cap in the other.
“You Joseph Webb?”
Webb nodded. He couldn’t speak. His throat was dry and constricted with a great fear.
The Inspector gently drew back the sheet and revealed a face, peaceful in death, in spite of all that had been done to its owner.
A long face, rugged and tanned, covered with close-clipped whiskers ending in a small torpedo beard. A mighty Roman nose, a firm jaw, and hair receding from the broad high brow and leaving a bald patch between the large well-shaped ears. They had closed the blue eyes in their deep sockets, lined with tiny wrinkles.
“Recognize him?”
Webb nodded and tried to speak but only made a noise which sounded like a great sob.
“John Grebe?”
Webb nodded again and then remembering he’d been brought up a Catholic, even if, with the years, he’d drifted away, he crossed himself awkwardly, more out of a desire to show some kind of respect for the dead than anything else.
“Was ’e drowned?”
“No. Stabbed in the back and probably pushed overboard.”
Webb stiffened and then sagged like a sack of flour.
“Come on.”
The kindly sergeant could see he’d had enough.
From the direction of the sea they heard the triumphant siren of the Jenny, now back in the river.
Webb held on to the white-tiled wall for a minute and then pointed upwards as though about to ask if his old captain would now be safely in heaven.
“Could I ’ave jest another tot o’ that rum? This ’as turned me up good an’ proper.”
“We’ll see what we can find.”
“Who’d ’ave wanted to do poor old Captain John in?” Webb was asking it as they corkscrewed their way slowly up the stone stairs again, back to the humdrum and routine of life in the police station.
And the local police were still asking the same question three days later, in spite of all their inquiries, when the Chief Constable decided to call in Scotland Yard.
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Crime In Leper's Hollow Page 27
