Bear Island

9

I'm not sure how long the silence went on, a silence that the almost intolerable hiss of the lamps and the ululating moan of the south wind served only to deepen. It must have lasted at least ten seconds, although it seemed many times as long, a seemingly interminable period of time during which nobody moved and nothing moved, not even eyes, for Allen's eyes were fixed on the button in Judith Haynes's hand in fascinated uncomprehension , while every other eye in the room was on Allen. That one small leather-covered button held us all in thrall.

Judith Haynes was the first to move. She rose, very slowly, as if it called for a tremendous effort of both mind and muscle, and stood there for a moment, as if irresolute. She seemed quiet now and very resigned and because this was the wrong reaction altogether I looked past her towards Conrad and Smithy and caught the eyes of both. Conrad lowered his eyes briefly as if in acknowledgement of a signal, Smithy shifted his gaze towards Judith Haynes and when she began to move away from the body of her husband both of them moved casually towards each other to block off. her clearly intended approach to Allen. Judith Haynes stopped, looked at them and smiled.

"That won't be necessary at all," she said. She tossed the button to Allen who caught it in involuntary reaction. He held it in his hand, staring at it, then looked up in perplexity at Judith Haynes, who smiled again.

"You'll be needing that, won't you?" she said and walked in the direction of her allocated room.

I relaxed and was aware that others were doing so also, for I could hear the slow exhalation of breaths of those standing closest to me. I looked away from Judith Haynes to Allen and that was a mistake because I had relaxed too soon, I'd been instinctively aware that the seemingly quiet and sad resignation had been wholly out of character but had put it down to the effects of the shattering shock she had just received.

"You killed him, you killed him!" Her voice was an insane scream but no more insane than the demented fury with which she was attacking Mary Darling who had already stumbled over backwards, the other woman falling on top of her, clawing viciously with hooked fingers. "You bitch, you whore, you filthy slut, you-you murderess! You're the person who killed him! You killed my husband! You! You!" Sobbing and shrieking maniacal invective at the terrified and momentarily paralysed Mary Darling who had already lost her big horn-rimmed spectacles, Judith Haynes wound one hand round the unfortunate Mary's hair and was reaching for her eyes with the other when Smithy and Conrad got to her. Both were big strong men but she fought with such crazed and tigerish ferocity -and they had at the same time to cope with two equally hysterical dogs that it took them quite some seconds to pull her clear and even then she clung with the strength of madness to Mary's hair, a grip that Smithy ruthlessly and without hesitation broke by squeezing her wrist until she shrieked with pain. They dragged her upright and she continued to scream hysterically with all the strength of her lungs, no longer attempting even to mouth words, just that horrible nerve-drilling shrieking like some animal in its dying agony, then the sound abruptly ceased, her legs buckled and Smithy and Conrad eased her to the floor. Conrad looked at me. "Act tiAo?" He was breathing heavily and looked pale.

"No. This is real. Will you please take her to her cubicle?" I looked at the shocked and sobbing Mary but she didn't need any immediate assistance from me, for Allen, his own injuries forgotten, had dropped to his knees beside her, raised her to a sitting position and was using a none-too clean handkerchief to dab at the three deep and ugly scratches that had been torn down the length of her left cheek. I left them, went into my cubicle, prepared a hypodermic and entered the cubicle where Judith Haynes had been taken. Smithy and Conrad were standing watchfully by and had been joined by Otto, the Count, and Goin. Otto looked at the syringe and caught my arm.

"Is that-is that for my daughter? What are you going to do to her? It's all over now, man-good God, you can see she's unconscious."

"And I'm going to see that she bloody well stays that way," I said. "For hours and hours and hours. That way it's best for her and best for all of us. All right, I'm sorry for your daughter, she's had a tremendous shock, but medically I'm not concerned with that, I'm just concerned with how best to treat her for the condition she's in now which is frankly unbalanced , unstable, and highly dangerous. Or do you want to have a look at Mary darling again?"

Otto hesitated but Goin, calmly reasonable as always, came to my help.

"Dr. Marlowe is perfectly right, Otto. And it's for Judith's own good, after such a shock a long rest can only help. This is the best thing for her."

I wasn't so sure about that, I'd have preferred a strait jacket, but I nodded my thanks to Goin, administered the injection, helped bundle her into a zipped sleeping bag, saw that she was covered over and above that with a sufficiency of blankets and left her. I took the dogs with me and put them in my own cubicle-I don't much like having animals, especially highly strung ones, in the company of a person under sedation.

Allen had Mary Darling seated on a bench now but was still dabbing her cheek. She'd stopped sobbing now, was just breathing with long quivering in-drawn gasps and, scratches apart, didn't seem much the worse for an experience that must have been as harrowing as it was brief. Lonnie was standing a few feel? away, looking sorrowfully at the girl and shaking his head.

"Poor, poor lassie," he said quietly. "Poor little girl."

"She'll be all right," I said. If I do a halfway job the scratches won't even scar." I looked at Stryker's body and decided that its removal to the tractor shed was clearly the first priority: apart from Lonnie and Allen no one had eyes for anything else and even although out of sight would not necessarily be out of mind the absence of that mutilated body could hardly fail to improve morale.

I wasn't talking about young Mary." Lonnie had my attention again.

I was thinking about Judith Haynes. Poor, lonely lassie." I looked at him closely but I should have known him well enough by then to realise that he was incapable of either dissimulation or duplicity: he looked as sad as he sounded.

"Lonnie," I said, "you never cease to astonish me." I lit the oil stove, put some water on to heat, then turned to Stryker. Both Smithy and Conrad were waiting and words were unnecessary. Lonnie insisted on coming with us, to open doors and hold a flashlight: we left Stryker in the tractor shed and went back to the main cabin. Smithy and Conrad went inside but Lonnie showed no intentions of following them. He stood there as if deep in thought, seemingly oblivious of a wind now strong enough to have to lean against, of a thickening driving snow now approaching the proportions of a blizzard, of the intense and steadily deepening cold. I think I'll stay out here a bit," he said. "Nothing like a little fresh air to clear the head."

"No, indeed," I said. I took the torch from him and directed its beam at the nearest hut. In there. On the left." Wherever else Olympus Productions may have fallen short in the commissariat department, it hadn't been in the line of alcoholic stimulants.

"My dear fellow." He retrieved his torch with a firm grasp. I personally supervised its storage."

"And not even a lock to contend with," I said.

"And what if there was? Otto would give me the key."

"Otto would give you a key?" I said carefully.

"Of course. Do you think I'm a professional safe-cracker who goes around festooned with strings of skeleton keys? Who do you think gave me the keys to the lounge locker on the Morning Rose

"Otto did?" I said brightly.

"Of course."

"What kind of blackmail are you using, Lonnie?"

"Otto is a very very kind man," Lonnie said seriously. I thought I'd told you that?"

"I'd just forgotten." I watched him thoughtfully as he plodded purposefully through the deep snow towards the provisions hut, then went inside the main cabin. Most of the people inside, now that Stryker had gone, had transferred their attention to Allen who was clearly self-consciously aware of this, for he no longer had his arm around Mary although he still dabbed at her cheek with a handkerchief. Conrad, who had clearly become more than a little smitten by Mary Stuart for he'd sought out her company whenever possible in the past two days, was sitting beside her chafing one of her hands-I assumed she'd been complaining of the temperature which was still barely above freezing-and although she seemed half-reluctant and was smiling in some embarrassment, she wasn't objecting to the extent of making a song and dance about it. Otto, Goin, the Count, and Divine were talking in low voices near one of the oil stoves: Divine, not surprisingly, was there not in the capacity of a contributor to the conversation but as a bartender for he was laying out glasses and bottles under Otto's fussy direction. Otto beckoned me across.

"After what we've just been through," he said, I think we're all badly in need of a restorative." That Otto should be lashing out so recklessly with his private supplies was sufficient indication of the extent to which he had been shaken. "It will also give us time to decide what to do with him."

"Who?"

"Allen, of course."

"Ah. Well, I'm sorry, I'm afraid you gentlemen will have to count me out for both drink and deliberations." I nodded to Allen and Mary Darling, both of whom were watching us with some degree of apprehension.

"A little patching up to do there. Excuse me."

I took the now hot water from the oil stove, brought it into my cubicle, put a white cloth on the rickety table that was there, laid out a basin, instruments, and what medicaments I thought I'd require then returned to where Conrad and Mary Stuart were sitting in the main body of the cabin.

Like all the other little groups in the cabin they were talking in voices so low as to be virtually whispering, whether from a desire for privacy or because they still felt themselves to be in the presence of death I didn't know. Conrad, to my complete lack of surprise, was now industriously massaging her other hand and as that was her left or faraway one I assumed that he hadn't had to fight for it.

I said: "I'm sorry to interrupt the first aid but I want to patch up young Allen a bit. I wonder if "Mary dear will look after Mary darling for a bit?"

"Mary dear?" Conrad raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"To distinguish her from Mary darling," I explained. "It's what I call her when we're alone in the long watches of the night." She smiled slightly but that was her only reaction.

"Mary dear," Conrad said appreciatively. I like it. May I call you that?"

I don't know," she said mock-seriously. "Perhaps it's copyright."

"He can have the patent under licence," I said. I can always rescind it. What were you two being so conspiratorial about?"

"Ah, yes," Conrad said. "Your opinion, Doe. That stone out there, I mean the lump of rock Stryker was clobbered with. I'd guess the weight about seventy pounds. Would you?"

"The same."

I asked Mary here if she could lift a rock like that above her head and she said don't be ridiculous."

""Unless she's an Olympic weight-lifter in disguise, well, yes, you are ridiculous. She couldn't. Why?"

"Well, just look at her." He nodded across at the other Mary. "Skin and bone, just skin and bone. Now how-"

I wouldn't let Allen hear you."

"You know what I mean. A rock that size. "Murderess," Judith Haynes called her. Well, so OK, she was out there looking with the others, but how on earth-"

I think Miss Haynes had something else in mind," I said. I left them, beckoned to Allen then turned to Smithy who was sitting close by. I require a surgery assistant. Feeling up to it now?"

"Sure." He rose. "Anything to take my mind off Captain Imrie and the report be must be writing out about me right now."

There was nothing I could do to Allen's face that nature couldn't do better so I concentrated on the gash on the back of his head. I froze it, shaved the area around it and jerked my head to Smithy to have a look.

He did this and his eyes widened a little but he said nothing. I put eight stitches in the wound and covered it with plaster. During all of this we hadn't exchanged a word and Allen was obviously very conscious of this. He said: "You haven't got much to say to me, have you, Dr. Marlowe?"

"A good tradesman doesn't talk on the job."

"You're just thinking what all the others are thinking, aren't you?"

I don't know. I don't know what all the others are thinking. Well, that's it. Just comb your hair straight back and no one will know you're prematurely bald."

"Yes. Thank you." He turned and faced me, hesitated and said: It does look pretty black against me, doesn't it?"

"Not to a doctor."

`You-you mean you don't think I did it?"

"It's not a matter of thinking. It's a matter of knowing. Look, all in all you've had a pretty rough day, you're more shaken up than you realise and when that anaesthetic wears off you're going to hurt a bit. Your cubicle's next to mine, isn't it?"

"Yes, but-"

"Go and lie down for a couple of hours."

"Yes, but-"

"And I'll send Mary through when I've finished with her."

He made to speak, then nodded wearily and left. Smithy said: "That was nasty. The back of his head, I mean. It must have been one helluva clout."

"He's been lucky that his skull isn't fractured. Doubly lucky in that he's not even concussed."

"Uh-huh." Smithy thought for a moment. "Look, I'm not a doctor and I'm not very good at Goining phrases but doesn't this put a rather different complexion upon matters?"

"I am a doctor and it does."

He thought some more. "Especially when you have a close look at Stryker?"

"Especially that."

I brought Mary Darling in. She was very pale, still apprehensive and had a little girl lost look about her but she had herself under control. She looked at Smithy, made as if to speak, hesitated, changed her mind and let me get on with doing what I could. I cleaned and disinfected the scratches, taped them up carefully and said: "It'll itch like fury for a bit but if you can resist the temptation to haul the plasters off then you'll have no scars.

"Thank you, Doctor. I'll try." She looked very wan. "Can I speak to you, please?"

"Of course." She looked at Smithy and I said: `You can speak freely.

I promise you it will go no further."

"Yes, yes, I know, but-"

"Mr. Gerran is dispensing free Scotch out there," Smithy said and made for the door. "I'd never forgive myself if I passed up an experience that can happen only once in a lifetime."

She had me by the lapels even before Smithy had the door fully closed behind him. There was a frantic worry in her face, a sick misery in the eyes that made me realise just how much it had cost her to maintain her composure while Smithy had been there.

"Allen didn't do it, Dr. Marlowe! He didn't, I know he didn't, I swear he didn't. I know things look awful for him, the fight they had this morning , and now this other fight and that button in-in Mr. Stryker's hand and everything. But I know he didn't, he told me he didn't, Allen couldn't tell a lie, he wouldn't tell me a lie! And he couldn't hurt anything, I mean just not kill anybody, I mean hurt anybody, he just couldn't do it! And I didn't do it." Her fists clenched until the knuckles showed she was even, for some odd reason, trying to shake me now and tears were rolling down her face, whatever she'd known in her short life hadn't prepared her for times and situations like those. She shook her head in despair. I didn't, I didn't! A murderess, that's what she called me! In front of everybody, she called me a murderess! I couldn't kill anybody, Dr. Marlowe…I…"

"Mary." I stopped the hysterical flow by the simple process of putting my fingers across her lips. I seriously doubt whether you could dispose of a fly without worrying yourself sick afterwards. You and Allen together well, if it were a particularly obnoxious fly you just might manage it. I wouldn't bet on it, though."

She took my hand away and stared at me: "Dr. Marlowe, do you mean-"

I mean you're a silly young goose. Together, you make a fine pair of silly young geese. It's not that I just don't believe that Allen or you had anything to do with Stryker's death. I know you hadn't."

She sniffed a bit and then she said: "You're an awfully kind person, Dr. Marlowe. I know you're trying to help us-"

"Oh, do shut up," I said. I can prove it."

"Prove it? Prove it?" There was some hope in the sick eyes, she didn't know whether to believe me or not, and then it seemed that she decided not to, for she shook her head again and said numbly: "She said I killed him."

"Miss Haynes was speaking figuratively," I said, which is not the same thing at all, and even then she was wrong. What she meant was that you were the precipitating factor in her husband's death, which of course you weren't."

"Precipitating factor?"

"Yes." I took her hands from my now badly crushed lapels, held them in mine and looked at her in my best avuncular fashion. "Tell me, Mary darling, have you ever dallied in the moonlight with Michael Stryker?"

"Me? Have I?"

"Mary!"

"Yes," she said miserably. I mean no, no I didn't."

"That's very clear," I said. "Let's put it this way. Did you ever give Miss Haynes reason to suspect that you had been? Dallying, I mean."

"Yes." She sniffed again. "No. I mean he did." I kept my baffled expression in cold storage and looked at her encouragingly. "He called me into his cabin, just the day we left Wick, that was. He was alone there. He said that he wanted to discuss some things about the film with me."

"A change from etchings," I said.

She looked at me uncomprehendingly and went on: "But it wasn't about the film he wanted to talk. You must believe me, Dr. Marlowe. You must!"

I believe you."

"He closed the door and grabbed me and then-"

"Spare my unsullied mind the grisly details. When the villain was forcing his unwelcome attentions upon you there came the pit-a-pat of feminine footsteps in the corridor outside whereupon the villain rapidly assumed a position where you appeared to be forcing your unwelcome attentions upon him and when the door opened-to reveal, of course, none other than his better half-there he was, fending off the licentious young continuity girl and crying, "No, no, Nanette, control yourself, this can never be" or words to that effect."

"More or less." She looked more miserable than ever, then her eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"The Strykers of this world are pretty thick upon the ground. The ensuing scene must have been pretty painful."

"There were two scenes," she said dully. "Something like it happened on the upper deck the following night. She said she was going to report me to her father-Mr. Gerran. He said-not when she was there, of course -that if I tried to make trouble he'd have me fired. He was a director, you know. Later, when I got, well, friendly with Allen, he said he'd get us both fired if need be and make sure that neither of us would ever again get a job in films. Allen said that this was all wrong, why should we accept this when neither of us had done anything so-"

"So he tried to make him see the error of his ways this morning and got clobbered for his pains. Don't worry, you've neither of you anything to worry about. You'll find your wounded knight errant next door, Mary." I smiled and gently touched the swollen cheek. "This should be something to see. Love's young dream in sticking plaster. You do love him, don't you, Mary?"

"Of course." She looked at me solemnly. "Dr. Marlowe."

"I'm wonderful?"

She smiled, almost happily, and left. Smithy, who must have been watching for her departure, came in almost at once and I told him what had been said.

"Had to be that, of course," he said. "The truth's always obvious when it's hung up in front of you and you're beaten over the head with a two-by-four to make you take notice. And now?"

"And now, I think, three things. The first, to clear the names of the two love birds next door: that's not important at this stage but they're sensitive souls and I think they'd like to be on speaking terms with the rest of the company again. Second thing is, I've no intention of being stranded here for the next twenty-two days-two days is a lot more like it: who knows, I might be able to pressure unknown or unknowns into precipitate action."

I should have thought there had been enough of that already," Smithy said.

"You may have a point. Third thing is, I could make life a great deal easier and safer for both of us if we had every person so busy watching every other person that it would make it a great deal more difficult for the disaffected to creep up upon our backs unawares."

"You touch upon a very sympathetic nerve," Smithy said. "Your plan into action and at once, I say. A small chat with the assembled company?"

"A small chat with the assembled company. I suggested a couple of hours" lie-down to Allen but I think he and Mary should be there. Would you?"

Smithy left and I went into the living area. Goin, Otto, and the Count, all armed with glasses as was almost every other person there, were still in solemn and low-voiced conclave. Otto beckoned me across.

"One moment," I said. I went outside, coughed and caught my breath as the bitter air cut into my lungs, then trudged against that snow-filled gale across to the provisions hut. Lonnie was seated on a packing case, lovingly examining the amber contents of a glass against the light from his torch.

"Ha!" he said. "Our peripatetic healer. You know, when one consumes a noble wine like this-"

"Wine?"

"A figure of speech. When one consumes a noble Scotch like this, half the pleasure lies in the visual satisfaction. Ever tried it in the darkness?

Flat, stale, strangely lacking in bouquet. There's a worthwhile monograph here, I'm sure." He waved his glass in the direction of the crates of bottles by one wall. "Harking back to my earlier allusions to the hereafter, if they can have bars in Bear Island then surely-'

"Lonnie," I said, "you're missing out on the largesse stakes. Otto is dispensing noble wine at this very moment. He's using very large glasses."

I was on the very point of leaving." He tilted his head and swallowed rapidly. I have a dread of being thought a misanthrope."

I took this friend of the human race back to the main cabin and counted those there. Twenty-one, myself included, as it should have been: the twenty-second and last, Judith Haynes, was deeply unconscious and would be so for hours. Otto beckoned me a second time and I went across.

"We've been having what you might call a council of war," Otto said importantly. "We've arrived at a conclusion and would like to have your opinion."

"Why mine? I'm just an employee, like everyone else here apart, of course, from the three of you-and Miss Haynes."

"Consider yourself a co-opted director," the Count said generously.

"Temporary and unpaid, of course."

`Your opinion would be valued," Goin said precisely.

"Opinion about what?"

"Our proposed measures for dealing with Allen," Otto said. I know that in law every man is presumed innocent until proved otherwise. Nor do we have any wish to be inhumane. But simply in order to protect ourselves-"

"I wanted to talk to you about that," I said. "About protecting ourselves.

I wanted to talk to everybody about that. In fact, that's what I propose to do this very moment."

"You propose to do what?" Otto could arrange his eyebrows in a very forbidding fashion when he put his mind to it.

"A brief address only," I said. "It'll take up hardly any of your time."

I can't permit that," Otto said loftily. "At least, not until you give us some idea what you have in mind and then we may or may not give our Consent."

"Your permission or lack of it is irrelevant," I said indifferently. I don't require permission when I'm talking about something that may affect lives-you know, the difference between living and dying."

I forbid it. I would remind you of what you have just reminded me."

Otto had forgotten about the need for conducting delicate matters in conspiratorial murmurs and we had the undivided attention of everyone in the cabin. "You are an employee of mine, sir!"

"And I'll now perform my last act as a dutiful employee." I poured myself a measure of Otto's Scotch which, as he and several others were drinking it, I presumed to be safe to drink. Health to one and all," I said, "and I don't mean that lightly or in the conventional sense. We're going to need it all before we leave this island and let each one of us hope that he or she is not the one who is going to he abandoned by fortune. As for being your employee, Gerran, You can consider my resignation as being effective as from this moment. I do not care to work for fools. More importantly, I do not care to work for those who may be both fools and knaves."

This, at least, had the effect of reducing Otto to silence for, to judge by the indigo hue his complexion was assuming, he appeared to be having some little difficulty in his breathing. The Count, I observed, had a mildly speculative expression on his face, while Goin's face held the impassivity of one withholding judgement. I looked round the cabin.

I said: "It is, I know, belabouring the obvious to say that this trip of ours, so far, has been singularly luckless and ill-starrei. We have been plagued by a series of tragic and extraordinarily strange events. We had Antonio die. This might have been the merest mischance: it might equally well be that he was the victim of a premeditated murder or the hapless victim of a misplaced murder attempt that was aimed at someone else.

Exactly the same can be said of the two stewards, Moxen and Scott. Similar attempts may or may not have been aimed at Mr. Gerran, Mr. Smith, Oakley, and young Cecil here: all I can say with certainty is that if I hadn't been so lucky as to be in the vicinity when they were struck down at least three of those might have died. You may wonder why I make such a fuss about what could have been a simple, deadly, outbreak of food poisoning: it is because I have reason to believe, without being able to prove it, that a deadly poison called aconitine, which is indistinguishable in appearance from horse-radish, was introduced at specific points into the evening meal we had on the occasion when those people were struck down."

I checked to see if I had the attention of all those present and I've never made a more superfluous check. They were so stunned that they hadn't even got to the lengths of looking at each other: Otto's liquid largesse wholly forgotten, they had eyes only for me, ears only for what I was saying, the average university lecturer would have found it a dream of paradise: but then the average university lecturer rarely had the doubtful fortune to chance upon such wholly absorbing subject matter as I had to hand.

"And then we have the mysterious disappearance of Halliday. I have no doubt that the cause of his death could be established beyond doubt if an autopsy could be carried out, but as I've equally no doubt that the unfortunate Halliday lies on the floor of the Barents Sea this can never be possible. But it is my belief-and this, again, is but conjecture-that he died not from any form of food poisoning but because he had a nightcap from a poisoned whisky bottle that was intended for me." I looked at Mary Stuart: huge eyes and parted lips in a white shocked face, but I was the only one who saw it.

I pulled down the collar of my duffle coat and showed them the impressively large and impressively multicoloured bruise on the left-hand side of my neck.

"This, of course, could have been self-inflicted. Or maybe I just slipped somewhere and banged myself. Or take this odd business of the smashed radio. Somebody with an aversion to radios perhaps and suchlike outwards manifestations of what we choose to call progress or someone who found the Arctic just too much for him and had to take it out on something-you know, the equivalent of going cafard in the desert.

"So far, nothing but conjecture. An extraordinary and even more extraordinarily unconnected series of violent and tragic mishaps, one might claim, Coincidence is an accepted part of life. But not, surely, Coincidence multiplied to the nth degree like this, that would have to lie at the very farthest bounds of possibility. I think you would admit that if we could prove the existence, beyond any doubt, of a carefully premeditated and carefully executed crime, then the other violent happenings must cease to be regarded as conjectural Coincidences and considered as being what they then would be, deliberately executed murders in pursuit of some goal that can't yet even be guessed at but must be of overwhelming importance!'

They weren't admitting anything, or, at least, if they were admitting anything to themselves they weren't saying it out loud, but I think it was really a case of their minds having stopped working, not all their minds, there had to be one exception, probably more.

"And we have this one proven crime," I went on. "The rather clumsily executed murder of Michael Stryker which was at the same time an attempt, and not a very clever attempt, to frame young Allen here for something he never did. I don't think the murderer had any special ill-will towards Allen, well, no more than he seems to have for the general run of mankind: he just wanted to divert any possible suspicion from himself. I think if you'd all had time enough to think about it you'd have come to the eventual conclusion that Allen couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it: with a doctor in the house, if you'll excuse the phrase, he hadn't a hope in hell.

"Allen says he has no recollection at all about what happened. I believe him absolutely. He's sustained a severe blow on the back of the head-the scalp is open to the bone. How he escaped a fractured skull, far less concussion, I can't imagine. It certainly must have rendered him unconscious for a considerable period. Which leads one to assume that this assailant was still in excellent shape after what was clearly this coup-de-gi-dee. Are we to assume then that Allen, after having been knocked senseless, immediately leapt up and smote his assailant hip and thigh? That doesn't make any kind of sense at all. What does make sense, what is the only answer, is that the unknown crept up behind Allen and laid him out, not with his hands but with some heavy and solid object-probably a stone, there's more than enough lying around. Having done this he proceeded to cut the unconscious Allen up about the face, ripped his coat and tore off a couple of buttorls-all to give the very convincing impression that he'd been in a fight.

"The same thing, but this time on a lethal scale, happened to Stryker.

I'm convinced that it was no accident that Allen was merely knocked unconscious while Stryker was killed-our friend, who must be a bit of an expert in such matters, knew just how much weight to bring to bear in each case, by no means as easy a matter as you might think. Then this ghoul, in a stupid attempt to create the impression that Stryker had been the other party to the fight, proceeded to rough up Stryker's face as he had done Allen's: I leave it to you to form your own estimate of just how evil must be the mind of a man who will deliberately set about mutilating the face of a dead man."

I left them for a little to form their own estimates. For the most part they looked neither sick nor revolted: their reactions were mainly of shock and minds still consciously fighting against comprehension. No glances were exchanged, no eyes moved: their eyes were only for me.

Stryker had a split upper lip, a tooth missing, and a reddish rough mark on his temple which I think must have been caused by another stone very probably all the injuries were inflicted in this fashion to avoid any telltale marking of the hands or knuckles. Had those injuries been sustained in the course of a fight there would have been extensive bleeding and fairly massive bruising: there were no signs of either because Stryker was dead and circulation had ceased before those wounds were caused. To complete what he thought would be a most convincing effect, the murderer then closed the dead man's hand round one of the buttons torn from Allen's coat. Incidentally, there were no signs whatever of the churned up snow one would have expected to find at the scene of a fight: there were two sets of tracks leading to the place where Stryker lay, one set leading away. No fuss, no commotion, just a quick if not particularly clean dispatch." I sipped some more of Otto's Scotch-it must have come from his own private supply for it was excellent stuff-then asked in my best lecturer's fashion: "Are there any questions?"

Predictably, there were none. They were all clearly far too busy asking themselves questions to have any time to put any to me. I went on: "I think you'd agree, then, that it now seems extremely improbable that any of the four previous deaths were the results of innocent Coincidence. I think that only the most gullible and the most navve would now be prepared to believe that those deaths were unconnected and not the work of the same agent. So what we have is, in effect, a mass murderer.

A man who is either mad, a pathological killer, or a vicious and evil monster who finds it essential to murder with what can be only an apparent indiscrimination in order to achieve God knows what murky ends. He may, it is possible, be all three of those at once. Whatever he is or whoever he is, he's in this cabin now. I wonder which one of you it is?"

For the first time their eyes left me as they looked quickly and furtively at one another as if in the ludicrous hope that they might by this means discover the identity of the killer. None of them examined one another as closely as I observed them all over the rim of my glass, if one pair of eyes remained fixed on mine it could only be because its owner knew who the murderer was and didn't have to bother to look around: but I knew, even as I watched them, that I had no real foundation for any such hope, the murderer may have been no great shakes at physiology but he was far too clever to walk into what, for an intelligent man with five deaths on his conscience, must have been a very obvious trap indeed. I was certain that there wasn't a pair of eyes before me that didn't flicker surreptitiously around the cabin. I waited patiently until I had their combined attention again.

I have no idea who this murderous fiend may be," I said, "but I think I can with certainty say who it isn't. Counting the absent Miss Haynes, there are twenty-two of us in this cabin: to nine of those I cannot see that any suspicion can possibly attach."

"Merciful God!" Goin muttered. "Merciful God! This is monstrous, Dr. Marlowe, unbelievable. One of us here, one of the people we know, one of our friends has the blood of five people on his hands? It can't be!

It just can't be!"

"Except that you know that it must be," I said. Goin made no reply. "To begin with, I myself am in the clear, not because I know I am-we could all claim that-but because two hostile acts have been committed against my person, one of which was intended to be lethal. Further, I was bringing in Mr. Smith here when Stryker was killed and Allen injured." This last was the truth but not the whole truth but only the killer himself would know that and as he was already on to me his opinion was unimportant because he couldn't possibly voice it. "Mr. Smith is in the clear because not only was he unconscious at the time, he was a nearly fatal victim of the poisoner's activities and its hardly likely that he would go around poisoning himself."

"Then that lets me out, Dr. Marlowe!" The Duke's voice was a cracked falsetto, hoarse with strain. It wasn't me, it couldn't-"

"Agreed, Cecil, it wasn't you. Apart from the fact that you were another poisoning victim I don't think-well, I'm not being physically disparaging but I'd think it very unlikely that you could have hoisted that rock that was used to kill Stryker. Mr. Gerran, too, is above suspicion: not only was he poisoned but he was in the cabin here at the time of Stryker's death. Allen obviously, could have had nothing to do with it and neither did Mr. Goin here, although you'll have to take my word for that."

"What does that mean, Dr. Marlowe?" Goin's voice was steady.

"Because when you first saw Stryker's body you turned as white as the proverbial sheet. People can do lots of things with their bodies but they can't switch on and off the epidermal blood supply at will. Had you been prepared for the sight you saw you wouldn't have changed colour. You did. So you weren't prepared. Our two Marys here we'll have to leave out of the reckoning for it would have been a physical impossibility for either of them to have attacked Stryker with that rock. And Miss Haynes, of course, doesn't come into the reckoning at all. Which, by my count, leaves thirteen potential suspects in all." I looked round the cabin and counted.

"That's right. Thirteen. Let's hope it's going to be a very unlucky number for one of you."

"Dr. Marlowe," Goin said. I think you should consider withdrawing your resignation.

"Consider it withdrawn. I was beginning to wonder what I'd do for food anyway." I looked at my now empty glass then at Otto. "Seeing that I'm now back on the strength, as it were, would it be in order-"

"Of course, of course." Otto, looking stricken, sunk heavily onto a providentially sturdy stool and insofar as it was possible for over two hundred weights of lard to look like a punctured balloon, he looked like a punctured balloon. "Dear God, this is ghastly. One of us here is a murderer. One of us here has killed five people!" He shivered violently although the temperature had by this time risen well above freezing point. "Five people. Dead. And the man who did it is here!"

I lit a cigarette, sipped a little more of Otto's Scotch and waited for some further contributions to the conversation. Outside, the wind had strengthened until it was now a high and lonesome moaning sound that set the teeth on edge, a moan that regularly climbed up the register into a weird and eldritch whistling as the wind gusted and fell away: everyone appeared to be listening to it and listening intently, a weirdly appropriate litany for the fear and the horror that was closing in on their minds, a fit requiem for the dead Stryker. A whole minute dragged by and no one spoke so I took up the conversational burden again.

"The implications will not have escaped you," I said. "At least, when you have had as much time to think about them as I've had, they won't.

Stryker is dead-and so are four others. Who should want them dead? Why should they have dieX Is there a reason, a purpose behind those slayings? Have we a psychopathic murderer amongst us? If there is a purpose, has it been achieved:" If it hasn't-or if the killer is a psychopath-which one of us is going to be next? Who is going to die tonight?

Who is going to go to his cubicle tonight knowing that anyone, a crazed killer, it may be, is going to enter at any time-or even, possibly one's own roommate may be waiting his turn with a knife or a suffocating pillow?

In fact, I should think that the roommate possibility might be by far the more likely-for who would do anything so crazily obvious as that? Except, of course, a crazy man. SO, before us, we have what you might call a sleepless vigil. Perhaps we can all keep it up for one night. But for twenty-two nights-can we keep it up for twenty-two nights? Is there any one of us here who can be sure of still being alive when the Morning Rose returns?"

From their expressions and the profound silence that greeted this last question it was apparent that no one was prepared to express any such certainty. When I came to consider it myself, instead of just asking them to do so, I realised that the question of continued existence applied more particularly and more strongly to myself than to any of the others for if the killer were no wayward psycho who struck out as the fancy took him but was an ice-cold and calculating murderer with a definite objective in view then I was convinced that I was first on his calling list. I didn't for a moment think that any attempt to dispose of me would be because that was any part of the kilICT'S preconceived plans but solely because I represented a threat to those plans.

"And how are we going to comport ourselves from now on?" I said. "Do we now polarize into two groups, the nine acknowledged innocent giving a very wide berth and a leery eye to the thirteen potentially guilty even although this is going to be a mite hard on, say, twelve of the latter? Shall we be like oil and water and resolutely refuse to mix? Or about your shooting plans for tomorrow. Mr. Gerran and the Count, I believe, are heading for the fells tomorrow, a goodie and a potential baddic-Mr. Gerran is going to make sure that he has at least another goodie along with him to watch his back? Heissman is taking the workboat to reconnoitre possible locations along the Sor-Hamna and perhaps a bit farther south. I believe Jungbeck and Heyter here have volunteered to go along with him. Three of those, you note, whose innocence is not proved. Any white sheep going to go along with black wolf or wolves who may come back and sorrowfully explain that the poor sheep fell over the side and that in spite of their heroic efforts the poor fellow perished miserably. And those splendid precipices at the south of the island-one little well-timed nudge, a deft clicking together of the ankles-well, sixteen hundred feel? is a considerable drop, especially when you bear in mind that it's straight down all the way. A perplexing and a difficult problem, isn't it, gentlemen?"

"This is preposterous," Otto said loudly. "Absolutely preposterous."

"Isn't it?" I said. "A pity we can't ask Stryker his opinion about that. Or the opinions of Antonio and Halliday and Moxen and Scott. When your pale ghost looks down from the limbo, Mr. Gerran, and watches you being lowered into a hole in the frozen snow-do you think it will still look preposterous?"

Otto shuddered and reached for the bottle. "Mat in God's name are we going to do?"

"I've no idea," I said. "You heard what I just said to Mr. Goin. I have reverted to the position of employee. I haven't got my shirt on this film as I heard Mr. Goin say to Captain Imrie that you had. I'm afraid this is a decision to arrive at a directorial level-well, the three directors that are still capable of making decisions."

"Would our employee mind telling us what he means?" Goin tried to smile but it didn't come off, his heart wasn't in it.

"Do you want to go ahead with shooting all your scenes up here or don't you? It's up to you. If we all stay here in the cabin permanently, at least half a dozen awake at any given time, looking with all their eyes and listening with all their ears, then the chances are high that we'll all still be in relatively mint condition by the time the twenty-two days are up. On the other hand, of course, that means that you won't get any of your film shot and you'll lose all your investment. It's a problem I wouldn't like to have to face. That's excellent Scotch you have there, Mr. Gerran."

I can see that you appreciate it." Otto would have liked a touch of asperity in his voice but all he managed to do was to sound worried.

"Don't be so mean." I helped myself. "Those are times that try men's souls." I wasn't really listening to Otto, I was barely listening to myself.

Once before, since leaving Wick, on the occasion when the Count had said something about a surfeit of horse-radish, certain words had had the effect of a touch-paper being applied to a train of gunpowder, triggering off a succession of thoughts that came tumbling in one after the other almost faster than my mind could register them, and now the same thing had happened again, only this time the words had been triggered off by something I'd said myself. I became aware that the Count was speaking, presumably to me. I said: "Sorry, mind on other things, you know."

I can see that." The Count was looking at me in a thoughtful fashion.

"All very well to opt out of responsibility, but what would you do?" He smiled. If I were to co-opt you again as a temporary unpaid director."

"Easy," I said, and the answer did come easily-as the result of the past thirty seconds thinking. I'd watch my back and get on with the ruddy film. ",

"So." Otto nodded, and he, the Count, and Goin looked at one another in apparent satisfaction. "But now, this moment, what would you do?"

"When do we have supper?"

"Supper?" Otto blinked. "Oh, about eight, say."

"And it's now five. About to have three hours kip, that's what I'm going to do. And I wouldn't advise anyone to come near me, either for an aspirin or with a knife in their hand, for I'm feeling very nervous indeed."

Smithy cleared his throat. "Would I get clobbered if I asked for an aspirin now? Or something a bit more powerful to make a man sleep? I feel as if my head has been on a butcher's block."

I can have you asleep in ten minutes. Mind you, you'll probably feel a damn sight worse when you wake up."

Impossible. Lead me to the knock-out drops."

Inside my cubicle I gripped the handle of the small square double-plateglazed window and opened it with some difficulty. "Can you do that with yours?"

"You do have things on your mind. No mangers allocated for uninvited guests."

"All the better. Bring a cot in here. You can borrow one from Judith Haynes's room."

"Of course," he said. "There's a spare one there."