Down Among the Dead Men

XXIV

Aboard the Seavett, in Barbara’s cabin, Hurlihan made the sheet of paper rattle in his fingers. “Certainly I came all the way out here so you’d sign another proxy. That fat-headed cop took the other one; wouldn’t give it back.”

She leaned forward on the vanity bench, puckering up her lips, wiping a tiny smudge of carmine from one corner of her mouth with the tip of her little finger. She could see his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, but her eyes were attentive to her own features. “I’m frightfully sorry, Clem. But I’ve changed my mind about the proxy.”

He caught her shoulder roughly, pulled her around, half facing him. “It’s a little late in the day, for that.”

“Circumstances do alter cases, darling.”

“Only one kind that would change your point of view,” he said coarsely. “Who is it this time? Fross? I thought it was queer he was so insistent about coming to the yacht with me, tonight.”

“Don’t be absurd. You know Henry couldn’t have any appeal for me...” She exchanged lipstick for eyebrow pencil. “It’s just that with the police searching for Merrill, it might be better to see what turns up.”

The superintendent refolded the paper angrily, jammed it back in his pocket. “I don’t have to consult the oracles to guess your proxy’ll turn up at the special stockholders’ meeting, — in Hank’s name. But it’s my own damn fault. I knew better than to trust you.”

“Don’t be ugly, darling.” She let her hand rest lightly on his arm. “I’m not siding with anyone else. It’s just that Henry advised me sometime ago to be cautious until we know what’s going to happen to Merrill. Now, if the police should catch him, it might make all the difference in the world.”

He shook her hand off. “There’s always been the chance his ship would be torpedoed and he’d be drowned or burned to death. That never stopped you from going behind his back. If he were dead you wouldn’t be worried about a divorce and you could always hold up the Foundation by court action long enough to get some sort of settlement for yourself. That isn’t what bothers you now. You’re afraid to do anything Merrill might not like because then he might show up and let you take the blame he’s been shouldering on your account.”

“Why are you being nasty?” She was plaintive.

“Because you put me in a bad light with the police. That Lieutenant ran roughshod over me last night, as it was. I told him I spent the week-end on board because you were giving me the proxy. Now if I don’t vote it, he’ll want to know what happens. It’ll look queer. I tell you straight, Barbara, — if they try to pin anything on me, I’m not going to be the goat for you. Not in a homicide case.”

She laughed deep in her throat. “You know I didn’t murder Ansel.”

“Cardiff thinks you did. Your Filipino thought so, or he wouldn’t have quit you. Or maybe he beat it because he helped you dispose of the body.”

“Cle-e-e-em!!”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d been fooling around with Ansel, — and that squarehead would have been a bad person to two-time. Not like some of the others...”

“It hurts me to have you feel that way, darling. But I can’t blame you too much...” she pulled open a dressing-table drawer, drew out a sheet of note paper with a scorpion embossed in gilt in one corner. It was covered with lavender scrawls. “It’s so easy to draw the wrong conclusion when you only have part of the facts. I made the same mistake when I only took Merrill’s particular planet into account—”

“Don’t start on that...”

“...when I should have considered the influence of all the planets, the sun, moon, — horizon and meridian—”

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake.”

The motors rumbled suddenly; the hull began to pulsate. “Cardiff’s getting ready to pull out, Barbara. I’m ducking—”

“Wait, Clem. I can show you. I know who committed the murder—”

Knuckles rapped at the door. Hurlihan. opened it.

Fross stood there, scowling. “Hurry up on deck. Rolf Berger just came aboard. With blood in his eye.”

On deck, Cardiff gave orders:

“Northeast by north. Nothing to port. That’ll be the bell off Execution Rock.”

“Tide’s sweeping us right along even at quarter-speed, Cap’n.”

“Ought to make the shoal about eleven-thirty, if we don’t pile up somewhere.”

“What they really mean by dead reckoning, yes, sir.”

In the Seavett’s saloon, the Executive Director stood straddle-legged in front of the fireplace. The cannel coal glowed cherry-red at his back but its cheerfulness was not reflected on the faces of Barbara or Clem Hurlihan or Henry Sutlee Fross.

“Lawford’s not going to die tonight.” Berger clasped his hands behind his back, thrust his chin forward truculently, “or I wouldn’t be here. But worry about Merrill has nearly done for him, this time. He collapsed; after I found him, and rushed him to the hospital, the doctors said it was a paralytic stroke, — and you know what that means. He won’t be able to take any active part in the business from now on. He knows it. He dictated a memorandum giving me power of attorney and managed to sign it with the last of his strength. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it now. Merrill ought to take charge, now. But the boy isn’t here. And so Lawford asked me to do one tiling for him.” He glanced at his brief case, lying against the bulkhead.

“We’re well aware,” Fross crossed one leg over the other, inspected the snugness of his sock, “of your influence over Mister Ovett in matters of business.”

“You are.” Berger let his voice drop on the verb. “Well, what he asked me to do isn’t a matter of business.” He glared icily at the three of them in turn. “Lawford asks me to act in loco parentis. To look after Merrill. I gave him my word and by the Lord I mean to do it. I’ll take his father’s place in shielding him from the consequences of his own hotheadedness... or the cold-bloodedness of others.”

Hurlihan wriggled his shoulders in discomfort. “I never believed he killed Gjersten. Maybe he knows who did and had his own reason for shielding that person. But I’m for Merrill. Always have been.”

“Pah!” Berger hawked, turned and spat into the coals. “You’re for yourself. And always have been. You and Fross saw that Merrill’d absorbed a lot of half-baked idealism about the obligations of inheritance, — a man should never spend any money he hasn’t earned himself, — that sort of slush. You knew he was friendly with this professional radical. So you made a deal with Joslin. Got him to use his influence with Merrill, induced him to assign his stock to this so-called Foundation. So you, in turn, could control the company through Joslin. Then all you’d have to do was find a way to bring pressure on Merrill.”

Barbara pouted, prettily. “You’re not being quite fair, Mister Berger.”

The Executive Director gestured brusquely. “I don’t intend to be fair. None of you would win any prizes for square dealing; the only way I know how to light fire is with fire. Merrill’s in trouble. I may not be able to save him from that. But I’m not going to stand around and watch you deceive him and trick him and hoodwink him when he can’t protect himself. When he gets back or when he can defend himself, I’ll step out. Until then, you’re out.”

“What the hell!” Hurlihan jumped up.

Fross took off his pince-nez quickly. “I don’t quite understand.”

“You understand, all right. Until Merrill can get his hand on the helm, I’m running the Line. You are no longer our legal counsel, Mister Fross. You are no longer our superintendent, Gem Hurlihan. And you,” he bowed stiffly to Barbara, “remain aboard this yacht only as long as you remain a decent wife.”

“Mister Berger!”

“Merrill may not approve of my actions,” Berger added. “For that reason alone, you two,” he scowled fiercely at Fross and Hurlihan, “will continue to draw your salaries until he decides what to do about you. In the meantime,” he punctuated his statement with bobbing head, “I’m going to have a superintendent who won’t connive behind Merrill’s back. And a lawyer who’ll spend less time trying to put something over on the Line, its president or his son, — and more time to defending Merrill against this charge of murder, — or to finding out who did commit the crime.” He clutched the lapels of this coat, shook them once to indicate he had said his say. “If that’s going to mean trouble for any of you, you’ve had fair warning!”