Maiden Voyage

FIFTY-SIX

On his way to the dining lounge with Grace Bunyon, his admirer and second, Mr. Duncan Wilkes was intercepted by Dr. Fields.

"May I have a private word with you?" asked Dr. Fields. "I do apologize, Miss Bunyon, but it's rather important."

Mr. Wilkes beckoned to the chief steward. "Will you escort this lady into luncheon, please?" he asked; then, to Grace, "I won't be more than a minute, my dear. Please excuse me."

Dr. Fields led Mr. Wilkes by the arm to the small sofa in the anteroom and offered him a seat.

"If you're thinking that you're going to persuade me to give up this contest because of my health," he said, "I'm afraid you've got yourself another think coming. I know what's wrong with me. Heart, blood pressure, all that kind of thing. But this is a challenge, and I've never given up on a challenge in the whole of my life, no matter what it's done to my health. I'm going to see this through to the bitter end."

But Dr. Fields was more subtle than to tackle Mr. Wilkes head-on.

Instead, he said thoughtfully, "It's not your health that I'm concerned about, Mr. Wilkes. I can see that you're suffering from a heart condition. But you're a big, strong fellow. A few extra meals won't hurt you, as long as you take care to lose all the surplus weight when you get back to America. No, it's Mr. Kretchmer's health that concern me more. I'm afraid that one or two more meals and he's going to become seriously ill. If not fatally ill."

Dunkan Wilkes made a suspicious face. "Are you serious? What's the matter with him?"

Dr. Fields said softly, "Beebe's Syndrome."

Duncan Wilkes waited for Dr. Fields to say more, but he didn't. Instead, he looked at the newspaper proprietor over his crescent-shaped half-glasses and pursed his lips as if he had just uttered the terrible and immortal words of the British death sentence: You shall be taken from there to a place of execution...

"Well," puffed Duncan Wilkes. He tugged out his handkerchief and mopped his face and his neck. "Beebe's Syndrome, hey?"

Dr. Fields nodded.

"And it could be fatal?"

"I would have thought so. And quite soon, if Mr Kretchmer doesn't give up this excessive eating."

"Have you spoken to Mr. Kretchmer?"

"How can I?" asked Dr. Fields. "I'm not his personal doctor. I'm only a ship's sawbones. It would be quite improper of me to give him my diagnosis without conferring with his own practitioner first; and, of course, that's impossible."

Duncan Wilkes said, "This ... Beebe's Syndrome. What exactly is it?'

Dr. Fields lowered his gaze. "It's a degeneration of the pancreatic effulgence brought about by the over-inducement of fats. There's no cure, apart from a strict vegetarian diet, and plenty of mineral water."

Duncan Wilkes thought about this fiercely for a long time, then took out a cigar from an embossed alligator case and gripped it between his teeth. "And one more meal could kill him, hey?"

Dr. Fields nodded, with even greater solemnity.

"He did go in for this contest of his own free will," argued Duncan Wilkes. "He must have known there were risks to his health, just as I know that there's a risk to mine."

"Unless his doctor has already told him that he's suffering from Beebe's Syndrome, he wouldn't necessarily be aware that there's anything wrong with him,' said Dr. Fields, quietly.

"I see," said Duncan Wilkes. "So what you're saying is that if I continue with this contest, knowing that he's sick that way, I may personally be responsible for killing him? A kind of gastronomic homicide?"

"You would certainly be morally liable, if not legally,' said Dr. Fields.

Duncan Wilkes took his cigar out of his mouth and shook his head. "I sure do hate to have to give up on a challenge," he said. "If I throw my towel in now, because of this, then I can tell you that it's the first time in my life I've ever given in."

Dr. Fields raised his eyes again. "I'm sure the Lord God won't see it as giving in. The Lord God will see it as a truly Christian act. It's called self-sacrifice."

"Well, I suppose you're right. I'd hate to have to account for Mr. Kretchmer's death at the Pearly Gates."

He hesitated for a moment more, and then he said, "All right. You win. I'll concede the contest. I'm just about sick up to here with all this rich French cooking anyhow. It'll be quite a luxury to eat a dry cracker and drink a glass of water, and nothing else."

Dr. Fields said, "You're a man in a million, Mr. Wilkes. I thank you. You can be sure that what you've done today won't be forgotten."

Mr. Wilkes shook Dr. Fields by the hand and then went into luncheon. The dining lounge was already crowded, and there was a spatter of applause as Mr. Wilkes walked between the tables to the corner where he and Mr. Kretchmer had been sitting for the past two days. Instead of sitting down, however, Mr. Wilkes leaned forward and whispered something in Grace Bunyon's ear. Grace Bunyon frowned at first, but then she smiled and nodded.

"Mr. Kretchmer, Miss Chibnall," she announced, in her clearest, most dramatic voice. "Mr. Wilkes has decided to surrender the eating contest. He offers you his heartiest congratulations, and hopes that you will join him in some Melba toast and Spa water."

There was a great deal of cheering and hand-shaking, and a babble of conversation that almost drowned the orchestra's unsteady version of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling". Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kretchmer shook hands. Mr. Wilkes kissed Henrietta Chibnall, who cried. Mr. Kretchmer shook hands with the chief steward and with Oliver Lennox, the quartermaster, and then with Lord Willunshaw. Mary Pickford kissed Mr. Wilkes, and Douglas Fairbanks kissed Grace Bunyon. Grace Bunyon kissed Philip Carter-Helm, and Claude Graham-White kissed Catriona. Catriona shook hands with both Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kretchmer.

Mark Beeney didn't appear at luncheon; he was still working in his stateroom with John Crombey. George Welterman also stayed in him stateroom, dictating a series of furious letters to Keys' major investors, and also to the New York newspapers, deploring the treatment he had received aboard the Arcadia (although he would later tear most of them up).

But it was Maurice Peace who was happiest of all that lunchtime. Not only had he won 1,654 pounds when Mr. Duncan Wilkes had conceded the eating contest, but he had managed to do so without Mr. Duncan Wilkes having to suffer a heart attack. And to top everything, he brill.

He was seated next to Mr. Kearney, from the Association of Irish Underwriters, and between mouthfuls of fresh-baked bread roll and brill, he told him about the time he had made a living selling Irish sweepstakes tickets in Paris. "At one time, just before the draw, I had a single solitary two-dollar ticket left, and I took it into the men's bar at the Paris Ritz. But nobody was interested. They were either anti-Irish, or they were anti-gambling. Well, I went on and on trying to sell this one ticket until a gentleman at the other end of the bar who was heartily sick of my sales pitch gave me two dollars for it, just to shut me up. That ticket won him $139,000. And do you know who he was? Mr. William C. Procter, the president of Procter & Gamble, who personally owned ninety-nine and forty-four hundredths per cent of Ivory soap."