Ice Station Zebra

9

"I'm sorry to have to bother you with all these questions," I said pleasantly. "But that's the way it is with all government departments. A thousand questions in quadruplicate and each of them more pointlessly irritating than the rest. But I have this job to do and the report to be radioed off as soon as possible, and I would appreciate all the information and cooperation you can give me. First of all, has anyone any idea at all how this damned fire started?"

I hoped I sounded like a Ministry of Supply official, which was what I'd told them I was, making a Ministry of Supply report. I'd further told them, just to nip any eyebrow-raising in the bud, that it was the Ministry of Supply's policy to send a doctor to report on any accident where loss of life was involved. Maybe this was the case. I didn't know and I didn't care.

"Well, I was the first to discover the fire, I think," Naseby, the Zebra cook, said hesitantly. His Yorkshire accent was very pronounced. He was still no picture of health and strength, but, for all that, he was a hundred per cent improved on the man I had seen yesterday. Like the other eight survivors of Drift Ice Station Zebra who were present in the wardroom that morning, a long night's warm sleep and good food had brought about a remarkable change for the better. More accurately, like seven others. Captain Folsom's face had been so hideously burned that it was difficult to say what progress he was making, though he had certainly bad a good enough breakfast, almost entirely liquid, less than half an hour previously.

"It must have been about two o'clock in the morning," Naseby went on. "Well, near enough two. The place was already on fire. Burning like a torch, it was. I — "

"What place?" I interrupted. "Where were you sleeping?"

"In the cookhouse. That was also our dining hail. Furthestwest hut in the north row."

"You slept there alone?"

"No. Hewson, here, and Flanders and Bryce slept there also. Flanders and Bryce, they're-they were-lab technicians. Hewson and I slept at the very back of the hut, then there were two big cupboards, one on each side, that held all our food stores, then Flanders and Bryce slept in the dining hail itself, by a corner of the galley."

"They were nearest the door?"

"That's right. I got up, coughing and choking with smoke, very groggy, and I could see flames already starting to eat through the east wall of the hut. I shook Hewson, then ran for the fire extinguisher: it was kept by the door. It wouldn't work. Jammed solid with the cold, I suppose. I don't know. I ran back in again. I was blind by this time. You never saw smoke like it in your life. I shook Flanders and Bryce and shouted at them to get out; then I bumped into Hewson and told him to run and wake Captain Folsom here."

I looked at Hewson. "You woke Captain Folsom?"

"I went to wake him, but not right away. The whole camp was blazing like the biggest Fifth of November bonfire you ever saw, and flames twenty feet high were sweeping down the lane between the two rows of huts. The air was full of flying oil, a lot of it burning. I had to make a long swing to the north to get clear of the oil and the flames."

"The wind was from the east?"

"Not quite. Not that night. Southeast, I would say. Eastsoutheast would be more like it. Anyway, I gave a very wide berth to the generator house — that was the one next to the dining hall in the north row — and reached the main bunkhouse. That was the one you found us in."

"Then you woke Captain Folsom?"

"He was already gone. Shortly after I'd left the dining hall, the fuel drums in the fuel-storage hut — that was the one directly south of the main bunkhouse — started exploding. Like bloody great bombs going off, they were, the noise they made. They would have waked the dead. Anyway, they woke Captain Folsom. He and Jeremy here" — he nodded at a man sitting across the table from him — "had taken the fire extinguisher from the bunkhouse and tried to get close to Major Halliwell's hut."

"That was the one directly west of the fuel store?"

"That's right. It was an inferno. Captain Folsom's extinguisher worked well enough, but he couldn't get close enough to do any good. There was so much flying oil in the air that even the extinguisher foam seemed to burn."

"Hold on a minute," I said. "To get back to my original question. How did the fire start?"

"We've discussed that a hundred times among ourselves," Dr. Jolly said wearily. "The truth is, old boy, we haven't a clue. We know «where» it started, all right: match the huts destroyed against the wind direction that night and it could only have been in the fuel store. But how? It's anybody's guess. I don't see that it matters a great deal now."

"I disagree. It matters very much. If we could find out how it started, we might prevent another such tragedy later on. That's why I'm here. Hewson, you were in charge of the fuel store and generator hut. Have you no opinion on this?"

"None. It «must» have been electrical, but how I can't guess. It's possible that there was a leakage from one of the fuel drums and that oil vapor was present in the air. There were two black heaters in, the fuel store, designed to keep the temperature up to zero Fahrenheit so that the oil would always flow freely. Arcing across the make and break of the thermostats might have ignited the gas. But it's only a wild guess, of course.

"No possibility of any smoldering rags or cigarette butts being the cause?"

Hewson's face turned a dusky red. "Look, mister, I know my job. Burning rags, cigarette butts, I know how to keep a bloody fuel store — "

"Keep your shirt on," I interrupted. "No offense. I'm only doing «my» job." I turned back to Naseby. "After you'd sent Hewson to rouse Captain Folsom, what then?"

"I ran across to the radio room — that's the hut due south of the cookhouse and west of Major Halliwell's — "

"But those two lab technicians — Flanders and Bryce, wasn't it? — surely you made sure they were awake and out of it before you left the dining hail?"

"God help me, I didn't." Nasehy stared down at the deck, his shoulders hunched, his face bleak. "They're dead. It's my fault they're dead. But you don't know what it was like inside that dining hail. Flames were breaking through the east wall, the place was full of choking smoke and oil, I couldn't see, I could hardly breathe. I shook them both and shouted at them to get out. I shook them hard and I certainly shouted loud enough."

"I can bear him out on that," Hewson said quietly. "I was right beside him at the time."

"I didn't wait," Naseby went on. "I wasn't thinking of saving my own skin. I thought Flanders and Bryce were all right and that they would be out the door on my heels. I wanted to warn the others. It wasn't — it wasn't until minutes later that I realized there was no sign of them. And then-well, then it was too late."

"You ran across to the radio room. That's where you slept, Kinnaird, wasn't it?"

"That's where I slept, yes." His mouth twisted. "Me and my mate Grant, the boy that died yesterday. And Dr. Jolly slept in the partitioned-off east end of the hut. That's where he had his surgery and the little cubby hole where he carried out his tests on ice samples."

"So your end would have started to go on fire first?" I said to Jolly.

"Must have done," he agreed. "Quite frankly, old chap, my recollection of the whole thing is just like a dream — a nightmare, rather. I was almost asphyxiated in my sleep, I think. First thing I remember was young Grant bending over me, shaking me and shouting. Can't recall what he was shouting, but it must have been that the hut was on fire. I don't know what I said or did, probably nothing, for the next thing I clearly remember was being hit on both sides of the face, and not too gently, either. But, by Jove, it worked. I got to my feet, and he dragged me out of my office into the radio room. I owe my life to young Grant. I'd just enough sense left to grab the emergency medical kit that I always kept packed."

"What woke Grant?"

"Naseby here woke him," Kinnaird said. "He woke us both, shouting and hammering on the door. If it hadn't been for him, Dr. Jolly and I would both have been goners. The air inside that place was like poison gas, and I'm sure if Naseby hadn't shouted on us, we would never have woken up. I told Grant to wake the doctor while I tried to get the outside door open."

"It was locked?

"The damned thing was jammed. That was nothing unusual at night. During the day, when the heaters were going full blast to keep the huts at a decent working temperature, the ice around the doors tended to melt. At night, when we got into our sleeping bags, we turned our heaters down, and the melted ice froze hard around the door openings, sealing it solid. That happened most nights in most of the huts — usually had to break our way out in the morning. But I can tell you that I didn't take too long to burst it open that night."

"And then?"

"I ran out," Kinnaird said. "I couldn't see a thing for black smoke and flying oil. I ran maybe twenty yards to the south to get some idea of what was happening. The whole camp seemed to be on fire. When you're woken up like that at two in the morning, half blinded, half asleep and groggy with fumes, your mind isn't at its best but thank God I'd enough left of my mind to realize that an S.O.S. radio message was the one thing that was going to save our lives. So I went back inside the radio hut."

"We all owe our lives to Kinnaird." Speaking for the first time was Jeremy, a burly, red-haired Canadian who had been chief technician on the base. "And if I'd been a bit quicker with my hands, we'd all have been dead."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, mate, shut up," Kinnaird growled.

"I won't shut up," Jeremy said soberly. "Besides, Dr. Carpenter wants a full report. I was the first out of the main bunkhouse after Captain Folsom. As Hewson said, we tried the extinguisher on Major Halliwell's hut. It was hopeless from the beginning, but we had to do it — after all, we knew there were four men trapped in there. But, like I say, it was a waste of time. Captain Folsom shouted that he was going to get another extinguisher and told me to see how things were in the radio room.

"The place was ablaze from end to end. As I came around as close as I could to the door at the west end I saw Naseby here bending over Dr. Jolly, who'd keeled over as soon as he had come out into the fresh air. He shouted to me to give him a hand to drag Dr. Jolly clear, and I was just about to when Kinnaird came running up. I saw that he was heading straight for the door of the radio room." He smiled without humor. "I thought he had gone off his rocker. I jumped in front of him to stop him. He shouted at me to get out of the way. I told him not to be crazy, and he yelled — you had to yell to make yourself heard above the roar of the flames — that he had to get the portable radio out, that all the oil was gone, and the generator and the cookhouse with all the food were burning up. He knocked me down, and the next thing I saw was him disappearing through that door. Smoke and flames were pouring through the doorway. I don't know how he ever got out alive."

"Was that how you got your face and hands so badly burned?" Commander Swanson asked quietly. He was standing in a far corner of the wardroom, having taken no part in the discussion up till now but missing nothing, all the same. That was why I had asked him to be present; just because he was a man who missed nothing.

"I guess so, sir."

"That should earn you a trip to Buckingham Palace," Swanson murmured.

"The hell with Buckingham Palace," Kinnaird said violently. "How about my mate, eh? How about young Jimmy Grant? Can he make the trip to Buckingham Palace? Not now he can't, the poor bastard. Do you know what he was doing? He was still «inside» the radio room when I went back in, sitting at the main transmitter, sending out an S.O.S. on our regular frequency. His clothes were on fire. I dragged him off his seat and shouted to him to grab some Nife cells and get out. I caught up the portable transmitter and a nearby box of Nife cells and ran through the door. I thought Grant was on my heels, but I couldn't hear anything, what with the roar of flames and the bursting of fuel drums, the racket was deafening. Unless you'd been there, you just can't begin to imagine what it was like. I ran far enough clear to put the radio and cells in a safe place. Then I went back. I asked Naseby, who was still trying to bring Dr. Jolly round, if Jimmy Grant had come out. He said he hadn't. I started to run for the door again, and, well, that's all I remember."

"I clobbered him," Jeremy said with gloomy satisfaction. "From behind. I had to."

"I could have killed you when I came round," Kinnaird said morosely. "But I guess you saved my life at that."

"I certainly did, brother." Jeremy grimaced. "That was my big contribution that night. Hitting people. After Naseby had brought Dr. Jolly round, he suddenly started shouting, 'Where's Flanders and Bryce, where's Flanders and Bryce!' Those were the two who had been sleeping with him and Hewson in the cookhouse. A few others had come down from the main bunkhouse by that time, and the best part of a minute had elapsed before we realized that Flanders and Bryce weren't among them. Naseby started back for the cookhouse at a dead run. He was making for the doorway, only there was no doorway left, just a solid curtain of fire where the doorway used to be. I swung at him as he passed, and he fell and hit his head on the ice." He looked at Naseby. "Sorry again, Johnny, but you were quite crazy at the moment."

Naseby rubbed his jaw and grinned wearily. "I can still feel it. And God knows you were right."

"Then Captain Folsom arrived, along with Dick Foster, who also slept in the main bunkhouse," Jeremy went on. "Captain Folsom said he'd tried every other extinguisher on the base and that all of them were frozen solid. He'd heard about Grant being trapped inside the radio room and he and Foster were carrying a blanket apiece, soaked with water. I tried to stop them but Captain Folsom ordered me to stand aside." Jeremy smiled faintly. "When Captain Folsom orders people to stand aside… well, they do just that."

"He and Foster threw the wet blankets over their heads and ran inside. Captain Folsom was out in a few seconds, carrying Grant. I've never seen anything like it: they were burning like human torches. I don't know what happened to Foster, but he never came out. By that time the roofs of both Major Halliwell's hut and the cookhouse had fallen in. Nobody could get anywhere near either of those buildings. Besides, it was far too late by then. Major Halliwell and the three others inside the major's hut and Flanders and Bryce inside the cookhouse must have been dead already. Dr. Jolly doesn't think they would have suffered very much: asphyxiation would have got them, like enough, before the flames did."

"Well," I said slowly, "that's as clear a picture of what must have been a very confusing and terrifying experience as we're ever likely to get. It wasn't possible to get anywhere near Major Halliwell's hut?"

"You couldn't have gone within fifteen feet of it and hoped to live," Naseby said simply.

"And what happened afterward?"

"I took charge, old boy," Jolly said. "Wasn't much to take charge of, though, and what little there was to be done could be done only by myself — fixing up the injured, I mean. I made 'em all wait out there on the ice cap until the flames had died down a bit and there didn't seem to be any more likelihood of further fuel drums bursting. Then we all made our way to the bunkhouse, where I did the best I could for the injured men. Kinnaird here, despite pretty bad burns, proved himself a first-class assistant doctor. We bedded down the worst of them. Young Grant was in a shocking condition — 'fraid there never really was very much hope for him. And — well, that was about all there was to it."

"You had no food for the next few days and nights?"

"Nothing at all, old boy. No heat, either, except for the stand-by Coleman lamps that were in the three remaining huts. We managed to melt a little water from the ice, that was all… By my orders everyone remained lying down and wrapped up in what was available in order to conserve energy and warmth." -

"Bit rough on you," I said to Kinnaird. "Having to lose any hard-earned warmth you had every couple of hours in order to make those S.O.S. broadcasts."

"Not only me," Kinnaird said. "I'm no keener on frostbite than anyone else. Dr. Jolly insisted that everyone who could should take turns sending out the S.O.S.'s. Wasn't hard. There was a pre-set mechanical call-up, and all anyone had to do was to send this and listen in on the earphones. If any message came through, I was across to the met office in a flash. It was actually Hewson here who contacted the ham operator in Bodd and Jeremy who got through to that trawler in the Barents Sea. I carried on from there, of course. Apart from them, there were Dr. Jolly and Naseby to give a hand, so it wasn't so bad. Hassard, too, took a turn after the first day — he'd been more or less blinded on the night of the fire."

"You remained in charge throughout, Dr. Jolly?" I asked.

"Bless my soul, no. Captain Folsom was in a pretty shocked condition for the first twenty-four hours, but when he'd recovered from that, he took over. I'm only a pillroller, old boy. As a leader of men and a dashing man of action — well, no, quite frankly, old top, I don't see myself in that light at all."

"You did damned well all the same." I looked around at the company. "That most of you won't be scarred for life is due entirely to the quick and highly efficient treatment Dr. Jolly gave you under almost impossible circumstances. Well, that's all. Must be a pretty painful experience for all of you, having to relive that night again. I can't see that we can ever hope to find out how the fire started, just one of those chancein-a-million accidents, what the insurance companies call an act of God. I'm certain, Hewson, that no shadow of negligence attaches to you and that your theory on the outbreak of the fire is probably correct. Anyway, although we've paid a hellishly high cost, we've learned a lesson: never again to site a main fuel store within a hundred yards of the camp."

The meeting broke up. Jolly bustled off to the sick bay, not quite managing to conceal his relish at being the only medical officer aboard who wasn't «hors de combat». He had a busy couple of hours ahead of him: changing bandages on burns, checking Benson, X-raying Zabrinski's broken ankle and resetting the plaster.

I went to my cabin, unlocked my case, took out a small wallet, relocked my case, and went to Swanson's cabin. I noticed that he wasn't smiling quite so often now as when I'd first met him in Scotland. He looked up as I came in in answer to his call and said without preamble, "If those two men still out in the camp are in any way fit to be moved, I Want them both aboard at once. The sooner we're back in Scotland and have some law in on this the happier I'll be. I warned you that this investigation of yours would turn up nothing. Lord knows how short a time it will be before someone else gets it. For God's sake, Carpenter, we have a murderer running loose."

"Three things," I said. "Nobody's going to get it any more, that's almost for certain. Secondly, the law, as you call it, wouldn't be allowed to touch it. And, in the third place, the meeting this morning was of some use. It eliminated three potential suspects."

"I must have missed something that you didn't."

"Not that. I knew something that you didn't. I knew that under the floor of the laboratory were about forty Nife cells in excellent condition — but cells that had been used."

"The hell you did," he said softly. "Sort of forgot to tell me, didn't you?"

"In this line of business I never tell anyone anything unless I think he can help me by having that knowledge."

"You must win an awful lot of friends and influence an awful lot of people," Swanson said dryly.

"It gets embarrassing. Now, who could have used those cells? Only those who left the bunkhouse from time to time to send out the S.O.S.'s. That cuts out Captain Folsom and the Harrington twins — there's no question of any of the three of them having left the bunkhouse at any time. They weren't fit to. So that leaves Hewson, Naseby, Dr. Jolly, Jeremy, Hassard and Kinnaird. Take your choice. One of them is a murderer."

"Why did they want those extra cells?" Swanson asked. "And if they had those extra cells why did they risk their lives by relying on those dying cells that they did use? Does it make sense to you?"

"There's sense in everything," I said. "If you want evasion, Carpenter has it." I brought out my wallet, spread cards before him. He picked them up, studied them and returned them to my wallet.

"So now we have it," he said calmly. "Took you quite a while to get around to it, didn't it? The truth, I mean. Officer of M.I.6. Counter-espionage. Government agent; eh? Well, I won't make any song and dance about it, Carpenter, I've known since yesterday what you must be: you couldn't be anything else." He looked at me in calm speculation. "You guys never disclose your identity unless you have to." He left the logical question unspoken.

"Three reasons why I'm telling you. You're entitled to some measure of my confidence. I want you on my side. And because of what I'm about to tell you, you'd have known anyway. Have you ever heard of the Perkin-Elmer Roti satellite missile-tracker camera?"

"Quite a mouthful," he murmured. "No."

"Heard of Samos? Samos III?"

"Satellite and Missile Observation System?" He nodded. "I have. And what conceivable connection could that have with a ruthless killer running rampant on Drift Station Zebra?"

So I told him what connection it could have. A connection that was not only conceivable, not only possible, not only probable, but absolutely certain. Swanson listened very carefully, very attentively, not interrupting even once, and at the end of it he leaned back in his chair and nodded. "You have the right answer, no doubt about that. The question is, who? I just can't wait to see this bastard under armed guard."

"You'd clap him in irons straight away?"

"Good God!" He stared at me. "Wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. Yes, I do. I'd leave him be. I think our friend is just a link in a very long chain, and if we give him enough rope, he'll not only hang himself, he'll lead us to the other members of the chain. Besides, I'm not all that sure that there «is» only one murderer: killers have been known to have accomplices before now, Commander."

"Two of them? You think there may be two killers aboard my ship?" He pursed his lips and squeezed his chin with a thoughtful hand, Swanson's nearest permissible approach to a state of violent agitation. Then he shook his head definitely. "There may only be one. If that was so, and I knew who he was, I'd arrest him at once. Don't forget, Carpenter, we've hundreds of miles to go under the ice before we're out into the open sea. We can't watch all six of them all the time, and there are a hundred and one things that a man with even only a little knowledge of submarines could do that would put us all in mortal danger. Things that wouldn't matter were we clear of the ice: things that would be fatal under it."

"Aren't you rather overlooking the fact that if the killer did us in, he'd also be doing himself in?"

"I don't necessarily share your belief in his sanity. All killers are a little crazy. No matter how excellent their reasons for killing, the very fact that they do kill makes them abnormal. You can't judge them by normal standards."

He was only half right, but unfortunately that half might apply in this case. Most murderers kill in a state of extreme emotional once-in-a-lifetime stress and never kill again. But our friend in this case had every appearance of being a stranger to emotional stress of any kind — and, besides, he'd killed a great deal more than once.

"Well," I said doubtfully, "perhaps. Yes, I think I do agree with you." I refrained from specifying our common ground for agreement. "Who's your candidate for the high jump, Commander?"

"I'm damned if I know. I listened to every word that was said this morning. I watched the face of each man who spoke — and the faces of the ones who weren't speaking. I haven't stopped thinking about it since and I'm still damned if I have a clue. How about Kinnaird?"

"He's the obvious suspect, isn't he? But only because he's a skilled radio operator. I could train a man in a couple of days to send and receive in Morse. Slow, clumsy, he wouldn't know a thing about the instrument he was using, but he could still do it. Any of them may easily have been competent enough to operate a radio. The fact that Kinnaird is a skilled operator may even be a point in his favor."

"Nife cells were removed from the radio cabin and taken to the laboratory," Swanson pointed out. "Kinnaird had the easiest access to them. Apart from Dr. Jolly who had his office and sleeping quarters in the same hut."

"So that would point a finger at Kinnaird or Jolly?"

"Well, wouldn't it?"

"Certainly. Especially if you will agree that the presence of those tinned foods under the lab floor also points a finger at Hewson and Naseby, both of whom slept in the cookhouse, where the food was stored, and that the presence of the radio-sonde balloon and the hydrogen in the lab also points a finger at Jeremy and Hassard, one a met officer and the other a technician who would have had the easiest access to those items."

"That's right, confuse things," Swanson said irritably. "As if they weren't confused enough already."

"I'm not confusing things. All I'm saying is that if you admit a certain possibility for a certain reason, then you must admit similar possibilities for similar reasons. Besides, there are points in Kinnaird's favor. He risked his life to go back into the radio room to bring out the portable transmitter. He risked almost certain suicide, when he tried to go in the second time to bring out his assistant, Grant, and probably would have died if Jeremy hadn't clobbered him. Look what happened to that man Foster who went in there immediately afterward with a wet blanket over his head: he never came out.

"Again, would Kinnaird have mentioned the Nile cells if he had any guilt complex about them? But he did. That, incidentally, might have been why Grant, the assistant radio operator, collapsed in there and later died — Kinnaird had told him to bring out the other Nife cells, and he was overcome because he stayed there too long looking for things that had already been removed from the hut. And there's one final point: we have Naseby's word for it that the door of the radio room was jammed, presumably by ice. Had Kinnaird been playing with matches a few moments previously, that door wouldn't have had time to freeze up."

"If you rule Kinnaird out," Swanson said slowly, "you more or less have to rule Dr. Jolly out, too." He smiled. "I don't see a member of your profession running around filling people full of holes, Dr. Carpenter. Repairing holes is their line of business, not making them. Hippocrates wouldn't have liked it."

"I'm not ruling Kinnaird out," I said. "But I'm not going off half cocked and pinning a murder charge on him, either. As for the ethics of my profession, would you like a list of the good healers who have decorated the dock in the Old Bailey? True, we have nothing on Jolly. His part in the proceedings that night seems to have consisted in staggering out from the radio room, falling flat on his face, and staying there till pretty near the end of the fire. That, of course, has no bearing upon whatever part he might have taken in the proceedings prior to the fire. Though against that possibility there's the fact of the jammed door, the fact that Kinnaird or Grant would have been almost bound to notice if he had been up to something. Jolly's bunk was at the back of the radio room, and he would have had to pass Kinnaird and Grant to get out, not forgetting that he would also have to stop to pick up the Nife cells. And there is one more point in his favor — an apparent point, that is. I still don't think that Benson's fall was an accident, and if it was no accident it is difficult to see how Jolly could have arranged it while he was at the foot of the sail and Benson at the top, and it's even more difficult to see why he should have stood at the foot of the sail and let Benson fall on top of him."

"You're putting up a very good defense case for both Jolly and Kinnaird," Swanson murmured.

"No. I'm only saying what a defense lawyer would say."

"Hewson," Swanson said slowly. "Or Naseby, the cook. Or Hewson «and» Naseby. Don't you think it damned funny that those two, who were sleeping at the back or east side of the cookhouse, which was the first part of the hut to catch fire, should have managed to escape while the other two — Flanders and Bryce, wasn't it? — who slept in the middle should have suffocated in there? Naseby said he shouted at them and shook them violently. Maybe he could have shouted and shaken all night without result. Maybe they were already unconscious — or dead. Maybe they had seen Naseby or Hewson or both removing food supplies and had been silenced. Or maybe they had been silenced «before» anything had been removed. And don't forget the gun. It was hidden in the gas tank of the tractor, a pretty damned funny place for a man to hide anything. But nothing funny about the idea occurring to Hewson, was there? He was the tractor driver. And he seems to have taken his time about getting around to warning Captain Folsom. He said he had to make a wide circuit to avoid the flames but apparently Naseby didn't find it so bad when he went to the radio room. Another thing — a pretty telling point, I think, he said that when he was on the way to the bunkhouse the oil drums in the fuel store started exploding. If they only started exploding then, how come all the huts — the five that were eventually destroyed, that is — were already uncontrollably on fire? They were uncontrollably on fire because they were saturated by flying oil so the first explosions must have come a long time before then. And, apart from warning Folsom — who had already been warned — Hewson doesn't seem to have done very much after the fire started."

"You'd make a pretty good prosecuting counsel yourself, Commander. But wouldn't you think there's just too much superficially against Hewson? That a clever man wouldn't have allowed so much superficial evidence to accumulate against him? You would have thought that at least he would have indulged in a little fire-fighting heroics to call attention to himself."

"No. You're overlooking the fact that he would never have had reason to expect that there would be any investigation into the causes of the fire. That the situation would never arise where he — or anyone else, for that matter-would have to justify his actions and behavior if accusations were to be leveled against him."

"I've said it before and I say it again. People like that «never» take a chance. They always act on the assumption that they «may» be found out."

"How could they be found out?" Swanson protested. "How could they possibly expect to have suspicion aroused?"

"You don't think it possible that they suspect we're on to them?"

"No, I don't."

"That wasn't what you were saying last night after that hatch fell on me," I pointed out. "You said it was obvious that someone was on to me."

"Thank God all I have to do is the nice, uncomplicated job of running a nuclear submarine," Swanson said heavily. "The truth is, I don't know what to think any more. How about this cook fellow — Naseby?"

"You think he was in cahoots with Hewson?"

"If we accept the premise that the men in the cookhouse who were not in on this business had to be silenced, and Naseby wasn't, then he must have been, mustn't he? But, damn it, how about his attempt to rescue Flanders and Bryce?"

"May just have been a calculated risk. He saw how Jeremy flattened Kinnaird when he tried to go back into the radio room a second time and perhaps calculated that Jeremy would oblige again if he tried a similar but fake rescue act."

"Maybe Kinnaird's second attempt was also fake," Swanson said. "After all, Jeremy had already tried to stop him once."

"Maybe it was," I agreed. "But Naseby. If he's your man, why should he have said that the radio-room door was jammed with ice and that he had to burst it open? That gives Kinnaird and Jolly an out — and a murderer wouldn't do anything to put any other potential suspect in the clear."

"It's hopeless," Swanson said calmly. "I say let's put the whole damned crowd of them under lock and key."

"That would be clever," I said. "Yes, let's do just that That way we'll never find out who the murderer is. Anyway, before you start giving up, remember it's even more complicated than that. Remember you're passing up the two most obvious suspects of all — Jeremy and Hassard — two tough, intelligent birds who, if they were the killers, were clever enough to see that «nothing» pointed the finger against them. Unless, of course, there might have been something about Flanders and Bryce that Jeremy didn't want anyone to see, so he stopped Naseby from going back into the cookhouse. Or not."

Swanson almost glared at me. Watching his submarine plummeting out of control beyond the 1,000-feet mark was something that rated, maybe the lift of an eyebrow; but this was something else again. He said: "Very well, then, we'll let the killer run loose and wreck the «Dolphin» at his leisure. I must have very considerable confidence in you, Dr. Carpenter. I feel sure my confidence will not be misplaced. Tell me one last thing. I assume you are a highly skilled investigator. But I was puzzled by one omission in your questioning. A vital question, I should have thought."

"Who suggested moving the corpses into the lab, knowing that by doing so he would be making his hiding place for the cached material a hundred per cent fool-proof?"

"I apologize." He smiled faintly. "You had your reasons, of course."

"Of course. You're not sure whether or not the killer is on to the fact that we are on to him. I'm sure. I know he's not. But had I asked that question, he'd have known immediately that there could be only one reason for my asking it. Then he would have known I was on to him. Anyway, it's my guess that Captain Folsom gave the order, but the original suggestion, carefully camouflaged so that Folsom may no longer be able to pin it down, would have come from another quarter."

Had it been a few months earlier, with the summer Arctic sun riding in the sky, it would have been a brilliant day. As it was, there was no sun, not in that latitude and so late in the year; but, for all that, the weather was about as perfect as it was possible for it to be. Thirty-six hours — the time that had elapsed since Hansen and I had made that. savage trip back to the «Dolphin» — had brought about a change that seemed pretty close' to miraculous. The knifing east wind had died completely. That flying sea of ice spicules was no more. The temperature had risen at least twenty degrees, and the visibility Was as perfect as visibility on the winter ice pack ever is.

Swanson, sharing Benson's viewpoint on the crew's oversedentary mode of existence and taking advantage of the fine weather, had advised everyone not engaged in actual watch-keeping to take advantage of the opportunity offered to stretch their legs in the fresh air. It said much for Swanson's powers of persuasion that by eleven that morning the «Dolphin» was practically deserted; and of course the crew, to whom Drift Ice Station Zebra was only so many words, were understandably curious to see the place, even the shell of the place, that had brought them to the top of the world.

I took my place at the end of the small line being treated by Dr. Jolly. It was close to noon.before he got around to me. He was making light of his own burns and frostbite and was in tremendous form, bustling happily about the sick bay as if it had been his own private domain for years.

'Well," I said, "the pill-rolling competition wasn't so fierce after all, was it? I'm damned glad there was a third doctor around. How are things on the medical front?"

"Coming along not too badly, old boy," he said cheerfully. "Benson's picking up very nicely. Pulse, respiration, blood pressure close to normal, level of unconsciousness very slight now, I should say. Captain Folsom's still in considerable pain, but no actual danger, of course. The rest have improved a hundred per cent, little thanks to the medical fraternity. Excellent food, warm beds, and the knowledge that they're safe have done them more good than anything we could ever do. Anyway, it's done me a lot of good, by Jove!"

"And them," I agreed. "All your friends except Folsom and the Harrington twins have followed most of the crew on to the ice, and I'll wager that if you had suggested to them forty-eight hours ago that they'd willingly go out there again in so short a time, they'd have called for a straitjacket."

"The physical and mental recuperative power of homo sapiens," Jolly said jovially. "Beyond belief at times, old lad, beyond belief. Now, let's have a look at that broken wing of, yours."

So he had a look, and because I was a colleague and therefore inured to human suffering, he didn't spend any too much time in molly-coddling me, but by hanging on to the arm of my chair and the shreds of my professional pride, I kept the roof from falling in on me. When he was finished he said, "Well, that's the. lot, except for Brownell and Bolton, the two lads out on the ice."

"I'll come with you," I said. "Commander Swanson is waiting pretty anxiously to hear what we have to say. He wants to get away from here as soon as possible."

"Me too," Jolly said fervently. "But what's the commander so anxious about?"

"Ice. You never know the hour or minute it starts to close in. Want to spend the next year or two up here?"

Jolly grinned, thought it over for a moment, then stopped grinning. He said apprehensively, "How long are we going to be under this damned ice? Before we reach the open sea, I mean?"

"Twenty-four hours, Swanson says. Don't look so worried, Jolly. Believe me, it's far safer under this stuff than among it."

With a very unconvinced look on his face, Jolly picked up his medical kit and led the way from the sick bay. Swanson was waiting for us in the control room. We climbed up the hatches, dropped down over the side, and walked over to the drift station.

Most of the crew had already made their way out there. We passed numbers of them on the way back; most of them looked grim or sick or both, and didn't even glance up as we passed. I didn't have to guess why they looked as they did; they'd been opening doors that they should have left closed.

With the sharp rise in outside temperature and the effect of the big electric heaters having been burning there for twenty-four hours, the bunkhouse hut was now, if anything, overheated, with the last traces of ice long vanished from walls and ceiling. One of the men, Brownell, had recovered consciousness and was sitting up, supported, drinking soup provided by one of the two men who had been keeping watch over him.

"Well," I said to Swanson, "here's one ready to go."

"No doubt about that," Jolly said briskly. He bent over the other, flolton, for some seconds, then straightened and shook his head. "A very sick man, Commander, very sick. I wouldn't care to take the responsibility of moving him."

"I might be forced to take the responsibility myself," Swanson said bluntly. "Let's have another opinion on this." His tone and words, I thought, could have been more diplomatic and conciliatory; but if there were a couple of murderers aboard the «Dolphin», there was a thirty-three and a third per cent chance that Jolly was one of them, and Swanson wasn't forgetting it for a moment.

I gave Jolly an apologetic half-shrug, bent over Bolton, and examined him as best I could with only one hand available for the task. I straightened and said, "Jolly's right. He is pretty sick. But I think he might just stand the transfer to the ship."

"'Might just' is not quite the normally accepted basis for deciding the treatment of a patient," Jolly objected.

"I know it's not. But the circumstances are hardly normal, either."

"I'll take the responsibility," Swanson said. "Dr. Jolly, I'd be most grateful if you would supervise the transport of those two men back to the ship. I'll let you have as many men as you want right away."

Jolly protested some more, then gave in with good grace. He supervised the transfer, and very competent he was about it, too. I remained out there a little longer, watching Rawlings and some others dismantling heaters and lights and rolling up cables, and after the last of them was gone and I was alone, I made my way around to the tractor shed.

The broken shaft of the knife was still in the tank of the tractor. But not the gun and not the two magazines. Those were gone. And whoever had taken them, it hadn't been Dr. Jolly; he hadn't been out of my sight for two consecutive seconds between the time he'd left the «Dolphin» and the time of his return to it.

At three o'clock that afternoon we dropped down below the ice and headed south for the open sea.