Singing in the Shrouds

CHAPTER 9 Monday the Fourteenth

“Now,” Alleyn demanded, standing over Captain Bannerman. “Now do you believe this murderer’s on board? Do you?”

But as he said it he knew he was up against the unassailable opponent: the elderly man who has made up his mind and is temperamentally incapable of admitting he has made it up the wrong way.

“I’ll be damned if I do,” said Captain Bannerman.

“I am appalled to hear you say so.”

The captain swallowed the end of his drink and clapped the glass down on the table. He looked from Alleyn to Father Jourdain, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “You’ve got this blasted notion into your heads and every footling little thing that takes place you make out is something to do with it. What takes place? Little Miss Brigid is sitting all alone in her deck-chair. Some chap comes up and puts his hands on her shoulders. Playful, like. And what’s unnatural in that? By gum, I wouldn’t blame—” He pulled himself up, turned a darker shade of brick red and continued, “On your own statement, she’s got ideas into her head about these murders. Natural enough, I daresay, seeing how the lot of you can’t let the matter alone but never stop talking about it. She’s startled, like, and jumps up and runs away. Again — natural enough. But you come blustering up here and try to tell me she was nigh-on murdered. You won’t get anywhere with me, that road. Someone’s got to hang on to his common sense in this ship and, by gum, that’s going to be the master.”

Father Jourdain said, “But it’s not the one incident, it’s the whole sequence, as Alleyn has shown us only too clearly. An embarkation paper in the hand of the girl on the wharf. The incident of the doll. The fact that singing was heard. The Peeping Tom at Miss Carmichael’s porthole. Now this. What man among us, knowing these crimes are in all our minds, would play such a trick on her?”

“And what man among you would murder her — tell me that!”

Tim had been sitting with his head between his hands. He now looked up and said, “Sir, even if you do think there’s nothing in it, surely there can be no harm in taking every possible precaution—?”

“What the hell have you all been doing if you haven’t been taking precautions? Haven’t I said just that, all along? Didn’t I”—he pointed his stubby finger at Alleyn—“get them all jabbering about alibis because you asked me to? Haven’t I found out for you that the whole boiling went ashore the night we sailed, never mind if my own deckhand thought I was balmy? Haven’t I given out there’s an undesirable character in my ship’s company, which there isn’t, and ordered the ladies to lock their doors? What the suffering cats more could I have done? Tell me that!”

Alleyn said instantly, “You could, you know, do something to ensure that there’s no more wandering about deserted decks at night in Spanish dresses.”

“I’ve told you. I won’t have any interference with the rights of the individual in my ship.”

“Will you let me say something unofficially about it?”

“No.”

“Will you consider a complete showdown? Will you tell the passengers who I am and why I’m here? It’ll mean no arrest, of course,” Alleyn said, “but with the kind of threat that I believe hangs over this ship I’m prepared to admit defeat. Will you do this?”

“No.”

“You realize that tomorrow is the night when, according to the considered opinion of experts, this man may be expected to go into action again?”

“He’s not aboard my ship.”

“And that Miss Carmichael,” Father Jourdain intervened, “naturally will speak of her fears to the other ladies.”

Tim said, “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Alleyn said. “She’s not going to talk about it. She agrees that it might lead to a panic. She’s a courageous child.”

“She’s been given a shock,” Tim said angrily to the captain, “that may very easily have extremely serious results. I can’t allow—”

“Dr. Makepiece, you’ll be good enough to recollect you have signed on as a member of my ship’s company.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The captain stared resentfully about him, made a petulant ejaculation and roared out, “Damn it, you can tell her to stay in bed all day tomorrow and the next day too, can’t you? Suffering from shock? All right. That gets her out of the way, doesn’t it? Where is she now?”

“I’ve given her a Nembutal. She’s asleep in bed. The door’s locked and I’ve got the key.”

“Well, keep it and let her stay there. The steward can take her meals. Unless you think he’s the sex monster,” said the captain with an angry laugh.

“Not in the sense you mean,” Alleyn said.

“That’s enough of that!” the captain shouted.

“Where,” Father Jourdain asked wearily, “is Mrs. Dillington-Blick?”

“In bed,” the captain said at once, and added in a hurry, “She left Dale’s suite when I did. I saw her to her cabin.”

“They do lock their doors, don’t they?”

“She did,” said the captain morosely.

Father Jourdain got up. “If I may be excused,” he said. “It’s very late. Past midnight.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said and he also rose. “It’s February the fourteenth. Good-night, Captain Bannerman.”

He had a brief session with Father Jourdain and Tim. The latter was in a rage. “That bloody old man,” he kept saying. “Did you ever know such a bloody old man!”

“All right, all right,” Alleyn said. “We’ll just have to go on under our own steam. The suggestion, by the way, to keep Miss Carmichael in bed for twenty-four hours has its points.”

Tim said grandly that he’d consider it. Father Jourdain asked if they were to do anything about the other women. Could they not emphasize that as Brigid had had an unpleasant experience it might be as well if the ladies were particularly careful not to wander about the deck at night without an escort.

Alleyn said, “We’ve done that already. But think a minute. Suppose one of them chose the wrong escort.”

“You know, it’s an extraordinary thing,” Father Jourdain said after a moment, “but I keep forgetting it’s one of us. I almost believe in the legend of the unsavoury deckhand.”

“I think it might be a good idea if you suggest a four of bridge or canasta. Mrs. Dillington-Blick plays both, doesn’t she? Get Mrs. Cuddy and Miss Abbott to come in. Or if Dale and the other men will play you might get two fours going. Makepiece will look after Miss Carmichael.”

“What’ll you do?” Tim asked.

“I?” Alleyn asked. “Look on. Look round. Just look. Of course they may refuse to play. In which case we’ll have to use our wits, Heaven help us, and improvise. In the meantime, you probably both want to go to bed.”

“And you, no doubt,” said Father Jourdain.

“Oh,” Alleyn said, “I’m an owl by habit. See you in the morning. Good-night.”

He was indeed trained to put up with long stretches of sleeplessness and faced the rest of the short night with equanimity. He changed into slacks, a dark shirt and rope-soled shoes and then began a systematic beat. Into the deserted lounge. Out on to the well deck, past the little verandah where the two chaise longues stood deserted. Round the hatch, and then to the cabin quarters and their two covered decks.

The portholes were all open. He listened outside each of them. The first cabin, facing aft and to the starboard side, was Mr. Merryman’s. It appeared to be in darkness, but after a moment he saw that a blue point glowed somewhere inside. It was the little night light above the bed. Alleyn stood near the porthole and was just able to make out Mr. Merryman’s tousled head on the pillow. Next came the doorway into the passage bisecting the cabin-quarters and then further along on the starboard side was Mr. McAngus, who could be heard whistling in his sleep. The Cuddys, in the adjoining cabin, the last on the starboard side, snored antiphonally. He turned left and moved along the forward face of the block, past Miss Abbott’s dark and silent cabin and then on to Father Jourdain’s. His light still shone and as the porthole was uncovered Alleyn thought he would have a word with him.

He looked in. Father Jourdain was on his knees before a crucifix, his joined hands pressed edgeways to his lips. Alleyn turned away and walked on to the “suite.” Dale’s light was still up in his sitting-room. Alleyn stood a little to one side of the forward porthole. The curtain across it fluttered and blew out. He caught a brief glimpse of Dale in brilliant pyjamas with a glass in his hand. He turned left past Brigid’s porthole with its carefully drawn curtain and then moved aft to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s cabin. Her light too was still on. He paused with his back to the bulkhead and close to her porthole and became aware of a rhythmic slapping noise and a faint whiff of some aromatic scent. “She’s coping with her neckline,” he thought.

He moved on past the darkened lounge. He had completed his round and was back at Mr. Merryman’s cabin.

He approached the iron ladder leading to the forward well deck and climbed down it. When he had reached the bottom he waited for a moment in the shadow of the centrecastle. On his left was the door through which the figure in the Spanish dress had come on Friday night. It led into a narrow passage by the chief steward’s quarters. Above him towered the centrecastle. He knew if he walked out into the moonlight, the second officer, keeping his watch far above on the bridge, would see him. He did walk out. His shadow, black as ink, splayed across the deck and up the hatch combing.

On the fo’castle two bells sounded. Alleyn watched the seaman who had rung them come down and cross the deck towards him.

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night, sir,” the man replied and sounded surprised.

Alleyn said, “I thought I’d go up into the bows and see if I could find a cap-full of cool air.”

“That’s right, sir. A bit fresher up there.”

The man passed him and disappeared into shadow. Alleyn climbed up to the fo’castle and stood in the bows. For a moment or two he faced the emptiness of the night. Beneath him, in a pother of phosphorescence, the waters were divided. “There is nothing more lonely in the world,” he thought, “than a ship at sea.”

He turned and looked at the ship, purposeful and throbbing with her own life. Up on — the bridge he could see the second officer. He waved with a broad gesture of his arm and after a moment the second officer replied, slightly, perhaps ironically.

Alleyn returned to the lower deck. As he climbed down the ladder, a door beneath him, leading into the seamen’s quarters in the fo’castle, opened and somebody came out. Alleyn looked down over his shoulder. The newcomer, barefooted and clad only in pyjama trousers, moved out, seemed to sense that he was observed and stopped short.

It was Dennis. When he saw Alleyn he made as if to return.

Alleyn said, “You keep late hours, steward.”

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Broderick. You quite startled me. Yes, don’t I? I’ve been playing poker with the boys,” Dennis explained. “Fancy you being up there, sir, at this time of night.”

Alleyn completed his descent. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “It’s the heat, I suppose.”

Dennis giggled. “I know. Isn’t it terrific!”

He edged away slightly.

“What’s it like in your part of the world?” Alleyn asked. “Where are your quarters?”

“I’m in the glory-hole, sir. Down below. It’s frightful.”

“All the same, I fancy it’s healthier indoors.”

Dennis said nothing.

“You want to be careful what you wear in the tropics. Particularly at night.”

Dennis looked at his plump torso and smirked.

Alleyn waited for a moment and then said, “Well, I shall take my own advice and go back to bed. Goodnight to you.”

“Good morning, sir,” said Dennis pertly.

Alleyn climbed up to the bridge deck. When he got there he looked back. Dennis still stood where he had left him but after a moment turned away and went back into the fo’castle.

At intervals through the rest of the night Alleyn walked round his beat but he met nobody. When the dawn came up he went to bed and slept until Dennis, pallid, glistening, and silent, brought in his morning tea.

That day was the hottest the passengers had experienced. For Alleyn, it began with a radioed report in code from Inspector Fox, who was still sweating away with his checks on alibis. Apart from routine confirmations of Mr. McAngus’s appendicial adventure and Aubyn Dale’s departure for America, nothing new had come to hand. The Yard, Fox intimated, would await instructions, which meant, Alleyn sourly and unfairly reflected, that if he made an arrest before Cape Town, somebody would be flown over with a spare pair of handcuffs or something. He made his way, disgruntled, to continue observation on the passengers.

They were all on the lower deck. Brigid, who was still rather white, had flatly refused to stay in bed and spent most of the day in or near the bathing pool, where an awning had been erected and deck-chairs set out. Here she was joined by Tim and at intervals by one or two of the others. Only Miss Abbott, Mr. McAngus and Mrs. Cuddy refrained from bathing, but they too sat under the awning and looked on.

At noon Mrs. Dillington-Blick took to the water and the appearance was in the nature of a star turn. She wore a sort of bathing negligée which Aubyn Dale, who escorted her, called a “bewilderment of nonsense.” It was all compact of crisp cotton frills and black ribbons, and under it Mrs. Dillington-Blick was encased in her Jolyon swimsuit which belonged to a group advertised as being “for the Queenly Woman.” She had high-heeled thonged sandals on her feet and had to be supported down the companion-ladder by Aubyn Dale, who carried her towel and sun-shade. At this juncture only Brigid, Tim, Alleyn and Mr. Cuddy were bathing. The others were assembled under the awning and provided an audience for Mrs. Dillington-Blick. She laughed a great deal and made deprecatory moues. “My dears!” she said. “Look at me!”

“You know,” Brigid said to Tim, “I really do admire her. She actually cashes in on her size. I call that brilliant.”

“It’s fascinating,” Tim agreed. “Do look! She’s standing there like a piece of baroque, waiting to be unveiled.”

Dale performed this ceremony. Alleyn, who was perched on the edge of the pool near the steps that led down into it, watched the reaction. It would have been untrue to say that anybody gasped when Mrs. Dillington-Blick relinquished her bathing-robe. Rather, a kind of trance overtook her fellow passengers. Mr. Cuddy, who had been frisking in the waters, grasped the rim of the pool and grinned horridly through his wet fringe. Mr. Merryman, who wore an old-fashioned gown and an equally old-fashioned bathing-dress and whose hair had gone into a damp fuzz like a baby’s, stared over his spectacles, as startled as Mr. Pickwick in the Maiden Lady’s four-poster. Mr. McAngus, who had been dozing, opened his eyes and his mouth at the same time and turned dark red in the face. On the bridge, Captain Bannerman was transfixed. Two deckhands stood idle for several seconds round a can of red lead and then self-consciously fell to work with their heads together.

Mrs. Cuddy tried to catch somebody’s eye but, failing to do so, stared in amazement at her infatuated husband.

Miss Abbott looked up from the letter she was writing, blinked twice and looked down again.

Father Jourdain, who had been reading, made a slight movement with his right hand. Alleyn told himself it was absurd to suppose that Father Jourdain had been visited by an impulse to cross himself.

Brigid broke the silence. She called out, “Jolly good! Come in, it’s heaven.”

Mrs. Dillington-Blick put on a bathing cap, removed her sandals, precariously climbed the ladder up to the rim of the pool, avoided looking at Mr. Cuddy and held out her hands to Alleyn.

“Launch me,” she invited winningly and at the same moment lost her balance and fell like an avalanche into the brimming pool. The water she displaced surged over the edges. Alleyn, Mr. Cuddy, Brigid and Tim bobbed about like flotsam and jetsam. Aubyn Dale was drenched. Mrs. Dillington-Blick surfaced, gasping and astounded, and struck out for the nearest handhold.

“Ruby!” Aubyn Dale cried anxiously, as he dashed the seawater from his face. “What have you done?”

For the first time in the voyage Mr. Merryman burst into peals of ungovernable laughter.

This incident had a serio-comic sequel. While Mrs. Dillington-Blick floated in a corner of the pool, clinging to the edges, Mr. Cuddy swam slyly alongside and with a quick grab pulled her under. There was a struggle from which she emerged furious and half-suffocated. Her face was streaked with mascara, her nose was running and her bathing cap was askew. She was a terrible sight. Alleyn helped her up the submerged steps. Dale received her on the far side and got her down to deck level.

“That horrible man!” she choked out. “That horrible man!”

Mr. McAngus also hurried to her side while Mr. Cuddy leered over the rim of the pool.

A ridiculous and rather alarming scene ensued. Mr. McAngus, in an unrecognizably shrill voice, apostrophized Mr. Cuddy. “You’re an unmitigated bounder, sir,” he screamed and actually shook his fist in Mr. Cuddy’s wet face.

“I must say, Cuddy!” Dale said, all restraint and seemly indignation. “You’ve got an extraordinary idea of humour.”

Mr. Cuddy still leered and blinked. Mrs. Cuddy from her deck-chair cried anxiously, “Dear! You’re forgetting yourself.”

“You’re an ape, sir!” Mr. McAngus added and he and Dale simultaneously each placed an arm round Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

“I’ll look after her,” said Dale coldly.

“Let me help you,” said Mr. McAngus. “Come and sit down.”

“Leave her alone. Ruby, darling—”

“Oh, shut up, both of you!” said Mrs. Dillington-Blick. She snatched up her robe and made off — a mountain of defaced femininity.

Mr. Merryman continued to laugh, the other gentlemen separated and Mr. Cuddy swam quietly about the pool by himself.

It was the only incident of note in an otherwise torpid day. After luncheon all the passengers went to their respective cabins and Alleyn allowed himself a couple of hours’ sleep. He woke, as he had arranged with himself to wake, at four o’clock and went down to tea. Everybody was limp and disinclined to talk. Dale, Mr. McAngus, and Mr. Cuddy had evidently decided to calm down. Mr. Merryman’s venture into the pool had brought on his “touch of the sun” again. He looked feverish and anxious and actually didn’t seem to have the energy to argue with anyone. Brigid came over to him. She very prettily knelt by his chair, and begged him to let her find Tim and ask him to prescribe. “Or at least take some aspirin,” she said. “I’ll get some for you. Will you?” She put her hand on his but drew it away quickly.

“I think I may have a slight infection,” he said in explanation and positively added, “But thank you, my dear.”

“You’re terribly hot.” She went away and returned with the aspirin and water. He consented to take three tablets and said he would lie down for a little while. When he went out they all noticed that he was quite shaky.

“Well,” Mr. Cuddy said, “I’m sure I hope it’s nothing catching.”

“It’s not very considerate,” Mrs. Cuddy said, “to sit round with everybody if it is. How are you feeling, dear?”

“Good, thanks, dear. My little trouble,” Mr. Cuddy said to everybody, “has cleared up nicely. I’m a box of birds. I really quite enjoy the heat, something a bit intoxicating about the tropics, to my way of thinking.”

He himself was not urgently intoxicating. His shirt had unlovely dark areas about it, the insides of his knees were raddled with prickly heat and his enormous hands left wet patches on everything they touched. “I’m a very free perspirer,” he said proudly, “and that’s a healthy sign, I’m told.”

The observation met with a kind of awed silence, broken by Mr. McAngus.

“Has everybody seen?” he asked, turning his back on Mr. Cuddy. “There’s going to be a film tonight. They’ve just put up a notice. On the boat-deck, it’s going to be.”

There was a stir of languid interest. Father Jourdain muttered to Alleyn, “That disposes of our canasta party.”

“How lovely!” Mrs. Dillington-Blick said. “Where do we sit?”

“I think,” Mr. McAngus fluted, at once tripping up to her, “that we all sit on deck-chairs on the top of the hatch. Such a good idea! You must lie on your chaise longue, you know. You’ll look quite wonderful,” he added with his timid little laugh. “Like Cleopatra in her barge with all her slaves round her. Pagan, almost.”

“My dear!”

“What’s the film?” Dale asked.

“Othello. With that large American actor.”

“Oh, God!”

“Mr. Merryman will be pleased,” said Brigid, “It’s his favourite. If he approves, of course.”

“Well, I don’t think he ought to come,” Mrs. Cuddy at once objected. “He should consider other people.”

“It’ll be in the open air,” Miss Abbott countered, “and there’s no need, I imagine, for you to sit next to Mr. Merryman.”

Mrs. Cuddy smiled meaningly at her husband.

Brigid said, “But how exciting! Orson Welles and everything! I couldn’t be better pleased.”

“We’d rather have a nice musical,” said Mrs. Cuddy. “But then we’re not arty, are we, dear?”

Mr. Cuddy said nothing. He was looking at Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

The film version of Othello began to wind up its remarkable course. Mr. Merryman could be heard softly invoking the retribution of the gods upon the head of Mr. Orson Welles.

In the front row Captain Bannerman sighed windily, Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s jaw quivered, and Dale periodically muttered, “Oh, no!” Alleyn, who was flabbergasted by the film, was able to give it only a fraction of his attention.

Behind the captain’s party sat the rest of the passengers, while a number of ship’s officers were grouped together at one side. Dennis and his fellow stewards watched from the back.

The sea was perfectly calm, stars glittered with explosive brilliance. The cinema screen, an incongruous accident, with a sterile life of its own, glowed and gestured in the surrounding darkness.

Brigid caught her breath and Tim reached for her hand. They were moved by a single impulse and by one thought — that it was superbly right for them to listen together to this music.

“Promethean heat,” Father Jourdain murmured appreciatively.

The final movement emerged not entirely obscured by the treatment that had been accorded it. A huge face loomed out of the screen.

A white cloth closed like a shroud about Desdemona’s face and tightened horridly.

The screen was no longer there. At their moment of climax Othello and Desdemona were gone and their audience was in darkness. The pulse of the ship’s engines emerged and the chief engineer’s voice saying that a fuse had blown somewhere. Matches were struck. There was a group of men round the projector. Alleyn produced his torch, slipped out of his seat, which was at the end of the row, and walked slowly along the hatch.

None of the passengers had stirred but there was a certain amount of movement among the stewards, some of whom, including Dennis, had already left.

“The circuit’s gone,” a voice near the projector said and another added, “That’s the story. Hold everything.” One of the figures disentangled itself and hurried away.

“ ‘Put out the light,’ ” a junior officer quoted derisively, “ ‘and then put out the light.’ ” There was a little gust of laughter. Mrs. Cuddy, in the middle of the third row, tittered. “He stifles her, doesn’t he, dear? Same thing again! We don’t seem to be able to get away from it, do we?”

Miss Abbott said furiously, “Oh, for pity’s sake!”

Alleyn had reached the edge of the hatch. He stood there, watching the backs of the passengers’ chairs, now clearly discernible. Immediately in front of him were Tim and Brigid, their hands enlaced, leaning a little towards each other. Brigid was saying, “I don’t want to pull it to pieces yet. After all there are the words.”

A figure rose up from the chair in the middle of the row. It was Mr. Merryman.

“I’m off,” he announced.

“Are you all right, Mr. Merryman?” Brigid asked.

“I am nauseated,” Mr. Merryman rejoined, “but not for the reason you suppose. I can stomach no more of this slaughterous — this impertinent travesty — Pray excuse me.”

He edged past them and past Father Jourdain, moved round the end of the row and thus approached Alleyn.

“Had enough?” Alleyn asked.

“A bellyful, thank you.”

He sat on the edge of the hatch, his back ostentatiously presented to the invisible screen. He was breathing hard. His hand which had brushed against Alleyn’s was hot and dry.

“I’m afraid you’ve still got a touch of your bug, whatever it is,” Alleyn said. “Why don’t you turn in?”

But Mr. Merryman was implacable. “I do not believe,” he said, “in subjecting myself to the tyranny of indisposition. I do not, like our Scottish acquaintance, surrender to hypochondriacal speculations. On the contrary, I fight back. Besides,” he added, “in this Stygian gloom, where is the escape? There is none. J’y suis, et j’y reste.”

And so in fact he remained. The fuse was repaired, the film drew to its close. An anonymous choir roared its anguish and, without benefit of authorship, ended the play. The lights went up and the passengers moved to the lounge for supper. Mr. Merryman alone remained outside, seated in a deck-chair by the open doors and refusing sustenance.

Alleyn, and indeed all of them, were to remember that little gathering very vividly. Mrs. Dillington-Blick had recovered her usual form and was brilliant. Dressed in black lace, though not that of her Spanish dress, and wreathed in the effulgence of an expensive scent that had by now acquired the authority of a signature tune, she held her customary court. She discussed the film — it had, she said, really upset her. “My dear! That ominous man! Terrifying! But all the same — there’s something. One could quite see why she married him.”

“I thought it disgusting,” Mrs. Cuddy said. “A black man. She deserved all she got.”

Mrs. Dillington-Blick laughed. She and Aubyn Dale, Alleyn noticed, kept catching each other’s eye and quickly looking away again. Neither Mr. Cuddy nor Mr. McAngus could remove his gaze from her. The captain hung over her; even Miss Abbott watched her with a kind of brooding appreciation while Mrs. Cuddy resentfully stared and stared. Only Brigid and Tim, bent on their common voyage of discovery, were unmindful of Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

Presently she yawned, and she even managed to yawn quite fetchingly.

“I’m for my little bed,” she announced.

“Not even a stroll round the deck?” asked the captain.

“I don’t think so, really.”

“Or a cigarette on the verandah?” Dale suggested loudly.

“I might.”

She laughed and walked over to the open doors. Mr. Merryman straggled up from his deck-chair. She wished him goodnight, looked back into the lounge and smiled intimately and brilliantly at Mr. McAngus. “Goodnight,” she repeated softly and went out on the deserted deck.

Father Jourdain caught his breath. “All right,” Alleyn muttered. “You carry on here.”

Tim glanced at Alleyn and nodded. The captain had been buttonholed by Mr. McAngus and looked restive. Brigid was talking to Mr. Merryman, who half rose, bestowed on her an old-fashioned bow and sank groggily back into his chair. Aubyn Dale was drinking and Mr. Cuddy was in the grasp of his wife, who now removed him.

Alleyn said, “Good-night, everybody.” He followed the Cuddys into the passageway, turned left and went out to the deck by the port side door. He was just in time to see Mrs. Dillington-Blick disappear round the verandah corner of the engine house. Before he could reach it she returned, paused for a second when she saw him and then swam gaily towards him.

“Just one gulp of fresh air,” she said rather breathlessly. She slipped her arm through his and quite deliberately leaned against him.

“Help me negotiate that frightful ladder, will you? I want to go down to the lower deck.”

He glanced back at the lounge. There they all were, lit up like a distant peep show.

“Why the lower deck?”

“I don’t know. A whim.” She giggled. “Nobody will find me for one thing.”

The companion ladder was close to where they stood. She led him towards it, turned and gave him her hands.

“I’ll go backwards. You follow.”

He was obliged to do so. When they reached the promenade deck she took his arm again.

“Let’s see if there are ghost fires tonight.”

She looked over the side still holding him.

Alleyn said, “You’re much too dangerous a person for me, you know.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do indeed. Right out of my class. I’m a dull dog.”

“I don’t find you so.”

“How enchanting of you,” Alleyn said. “I must tell my wife. That’ll larn her.”

“Is she very attractive?”

Suddenly, in place of the plushy, the abundant, the superbly tended charms now set before him, Alleyn saw his wife’s head with its clearly defined planes, its delicate bone and short, not very tidy hair.

He said, “I must leave you, I’m afraid. I’ve got work to do.”

“Work? What sort of work, for heaven’s sake?”

“Business letters. Reports.”

“I don’t believe you. In mid-ocean!”

“It’s true.”

“Look! There are ghost fires.”

“And I don’t think you’d better stay down here by yourself. Come along. I’ll see you to your cabin.”

He put his hand over hers. “Come along,” he repeated. She stared at him, her lips parted.

“All right!” she agreed suddenly. “Let’s.”

They returned by the inside stairway and he took her to her door.

“You’re rather nice,” she whispered.

“Lock your door, won’t you?”

“Oh, good heavens!” said Mrs. Dillington-Blick and bounced into her cabin. He heard her shoot her bolt and he returned quickly to the lounge.

Only Father Jourdain, Tim and Captain Bannerman were there. Miss Abbott came in by the double doors as Alleyn arrived. Tim furtively signalled “thumbs up,” and Father Jourdain said “Everybody seems to be going to bed early tonight.”

“It’s not all that early,” Captain Bannerman rejoined, staring resentfully at Miss Abbott.

She stopped dead in the middle of the room and with her eyes downcast seemed to take in the measure of her own unwantedness.

“Good-night,” she said grudgingly and went out.

Father Jourdain followed her to the landing. “By the way,” Alleyn heard him say, “I got that word in the Ximenes. It’s ‘holocaust.’ ”

“How brilliant!” she said. “That should be a great help/’

“I think so. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Father Jourdain came back: “ ‘Safely stowed,’ ” he quoted and smiled at Alleyn.

Alleyn asked sharply, “Where’s everybody else?”

“It’s O.K.,” Tim rejoined. “The women are all in their cabins; at least I suppose you’ve accounted for the D-B, haven’t you?”

“And the men?”

“Does it matter? Cuddy went off with his wife and McAngus, very properly, by himself. Merryman toddled off some time after that.”

“And Dale?”

“He left after the Cuddys,” Tim said.

“I think,” Father Jourdain observed, “that someone must have gone out on deck?”

“Why?”

“Only because I thought I heard someone singing.” His voice faded and his face blanched. “But there’s nothing in that!” Father Jourdain ejaculated. “We can’t panic every time somebody sings.”

“I can!” Alleyn said grimly.

“With the women all in their cabins? Why?”

Captain Bannerman interjected, loudly scoffing, “You may well ask why! Because Mr. Ah-leen’s got a bee in his bonnet. That’s why!”

“What had McAngus got to say to you?” Alleyn asked him.

The captain glowered at him. “He reckons someone’s been interfering with his hyacinths.”

“Interfering?”

“Pinching them.”

“Damnation!” Alleyn said and turned to go out.

Before he could do so, however, he was arrested by the sound of thudding feet.

It came from the deck outside and was accompanied by torturous breathing. For a moment the brilliant square cast by the light in the lounge was empty. Then into it ran an outlandish figure, half-naked, wet, ugly, gasping.

It was Cuddy. When he saw Alleyn he fetched up short, grinning abominably. Water ran from his hair into his open mouth.

“Well?” Alleyn demanded. “What is it?”

Cuddy gestured meaninglessly. His arm quivered like a branch.

“What is it? Speak up! Quickly.”

Cuddy lunged forward. His wet hands closed like clamps on AHeyn’s arms.

“Mrs. Dillington-Blick,” he stuttered and the syllables dribbled out with the water from his mouth. He nodded two or three times, came close to Alleyn and then threw back his head and broke into sobbing laughter.

“The verandah?”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” the captain shouted.

Cuddy nodded and nodded.

Alleyn said, “Captain Bannerman, will you come with me, if you please? And Dr. Makepiece.” He struck up Cuddy’s wet arms and thrust him aside. He started off down the deck with them both at his heels.

They had gone only a few paces when a fresh rumpus broke out behind them. Cuddy’s hysterical laughter had mounted to a scream.

Father Jourdain shouted, “Dr. Makepiece! Come back!”

There was a soft thud and silence.

Captain Bannerman said, “Wait a bit. He’s fainted.”

“Let him faint.”

“But—”

“All right. All right.”

He strode on down the deck. There was a light in the deck-head over the verandah. Alleyn switched it on.

The Spanish dress was spread out wide, falling in black cascades on both sides of the chaise longue. Its wearer lay back, luxuriously, each gloved hand trailing on the deck. The head was impossibly twisted over the left shoulder. The face was covered down to the tip of the nose by part of the mantilla which had been dragged down like a blind. The exposed area was livid and patched almost to the colour of the mole at the corner of the mouth. The tongue protruded, the plump throat already was discoloured. Artificial pearls from a broken necklace lay scattered across the décolletage, into which had been thrust a white hyacinth.

“All right,” Alleyn said without turning. “It’s too late, of course, but you’d better see if there’s anything you can do.”

Tim had come up with Captain Bannerman behind him. Alleyn stood aside. “Only Dr. Makepiece, please,” he said. “I want as little traffic as possible.”

Tim stooped over the body.

In a moment he had straightened up.

“But, look here!” he said. “It’s not — it’s — it’s—”

“Exactly. But our immediate concern is with the chances of recovery. Are there any?”

“None.”

“Sure?”

“None.”

“Very well. Now, this is what we do—”

Captain Bannerman and Tim Makepiece stood side by side exactly where Alleyn had placed them. The light in the deck-head shone down on the area round the chaise longue. It was dappled with irregular wet patches, most of which had been made by large naked feet.

Alleyn found that they were overlaid by his own prints and Tim’s and by others which he examined closely.

“Espadrilles,” he said, “size nine.”

The wearer had approached the chaise longue, stood beside it, turned and made off round the starboard side.

“Running,” Alleyn said, following the damp prints. “Running the deck, then stopping as he got into the light, then turning and stopping by the hatch and then carrying on round the centrecastle to the port side. Not much doubt about that one.”

He turned back towards the verandah, pausing by a tall locker near its starboard corner. He shone his torch behind this. “Cigarette ash and a butt.”

He collected the butt and found it was monogrammed and Turkish.

“How many can you get?” he muttered, showing it to Tim, and returned to the verandah, from where he pursued the trace of the wet naked feet. Their owner had come to the port side companion-ladder from the lower deck and the swimming pool. On the fifth step from the top there was a large wet patch.

He returned to Captain Bannerman.

“In this atmosphere,” he said, “I can’t afford to wait. I’m going to take photographs. After that we’ll have to seal off the verandah. I suggest, sir, that you give orders to that effect.”

Captain Bannerman stood lowering at him. “This sort of thing,” he said at last, “couldn’t have been anticipated. It’s against common sense.”

“On the contrary,” Alleyn rejoined, “it’s precisely what was to be expected.”