Singing in the Shrouds

CHAPTER 11 Arrest

The four men in the lounge behaved exactly as if Mrs. Cuddy had uttered an indecency. They looked anywhere but at the Cuddys, they said nothing, and then after a moment eyed Alleyn surreptitiously, as if they expected him to take drastic action.

His voice broke across the little void of silence.

“Why did he do what, Mrs. Cuddy?”

“Eth,” Mr. Cuddy said, “for God’s sake choose your words. They’ll be thinking things, Eth. Be careful.”

She didn’t take her eyes off him, and though she seemed to disregard completely what he had said to her, Alleyn thought that she was scarcely aware of anybody else in the room. Mr. Cuddy returned her gaze with a look of terror.

“You know how I feel about it,” she said, “and yet you go on. Making an exhibition of yourself. I blame her, mind, more than I do you; she’s a wicked woman, Fred. She’s poking fun at you. I’ve seen her laughing behind your back with the others. I don’t care,” Mrs. Cuddy went on, raising her voice and indicating the inarticulate back of Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s deck chair, “if she hears what I say. What’s happened is her fault; she’s as good as responsible for it. And you had to go and chase after her and get yourself mixed up with a corpse. I hope it’ll be a lesson to you.” A kind of spasm twitched at her mouth and her eyes overflowed. She ended as she had begun. “Oh, Fred,” Mrs. Cuddy said again, “why did you do it!”

“I’m sorry, dear. It was just a bit of fun.”

“Fun!” Her voice broke. She went up to him and made a curious gesture, a travesty of playfulness, shaking her fist at him. “You old fool!” she said and without a word to anyone else bolted out of the room.

Mr. Cuddy made a slight move as if to follow her but found himself confronted by Alleyn. He stood in the middle of the room, half smiling, scanning the faces of the other men.

“You don’t want to misunderstand Mrs. Cuddy,” he ventured. “I’m not a violent man. I’m quiet.”

Captain Bannerman cleared his throat. “It looks to me,” he said, “as if you’ll have to prove that.” He glanced at the open doors to the deck, at the back of Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s chair and at Brigid, who sat on the edge of the hatch with her chin in her hands.

“This is a man’s job,” he said to Alleyn. “For God’s sake, keep the women out of it,” and with some emphasis shut the doors.

Alleyn had been speaking to Tim. He said, “Very well. For the moment.”

The captain pulled chairs up to the biggest table in the room, motioning Alleyn to sit at one end and himself taking the other. “I like to see things done shipshape,” he muttered and his longing for a boardroom could be sensed. Aubyn Dale and Mr. McAngus at once took chairs. Tim, after a moment’s hesitation, followed suit. Mr. Cuddy hung off, winding the cord of his dressing-gown round his spatulate fingers. Mr. McAngus, with trembling fingers, lit one of his medicated cigarettes.

Father Jourdain came back and, in response to a gesture from the captain, also sat at the table.

“That’s more like it,” sighed Captain Bannerman and made a clumsy ducking movement at Alleyn.

“Carry on, if you please, Mr. A’leen,” he said.

But Aubyn Dale, who for some time had been casting fretful glances at the bar, cut in. “Look, I need a drink. Is there anything against my ringing for the steward?”

“Which steward?” Captain Bannerman asked, and Dale said, “God, I forgot.”

“We’ll do our drinking,” the captain pronounced, “later. Mr. Cuddy, I’ll thank you to take a seat.”

Mr. Cuddy said, “That’s all right, Captain. Don’t rush us. I’d still like to know why we don’t send for Merryman,” and he pulled out his chair, sat back in it with an affectation of ease, and stared, nervously impertinent, at Alleyn.

Aubyn Dale said, “I must say, seeing this gets more like a board meeting every second, I don’t see why Merryman should have leave of absence. Unless—” He paused and the others stirred, suddenly alert and eager. “Unless—”

Alleyn walked to the head of the table and surveyed its occupants. “If this were a normal investigation,” he said, “I would see each of you separately while the others were kept under observation. In these circumstances I can’t do that; I am taking each of your statements now in the presence of you all. That being done I shall send for Mr. Merryman.”

“Why the hell should he be the kingpin?” Dale demanded and then took the plunge. “Unless, by God, he did it!”

“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn rejoined, “sat in the deck-chair now occupied by Mrs. Dillington-Blick. He was still there when the men left this room. He commanded a view of the deck, each side of it. He could see both approaches to the verandah. He is, therefore, the key witness. His temperament is not complaisant. If he were here he’d try to run the whole show. I therefore prefer to let you account for yourselves now and bring him in a little later.”

“That’s all very well,” Mr. Cuddy said. “But suppose he did it. Suppose he’s the Flower Murderer. How about that?”

“In that case, being ignorant of what you have all told me, he may offer a statement that one of you can disprove.”

“So it’ll be our word,” Dale said, “against his?”

“With this reservation. That he was in a position to see you all, and none of you, it seems, was able to see him or each other. He can speak about you all, I hope. Each of you can only speak for himself.”

Mr. McAngus said, “I don’t know why you all want him; he makes me feel uncomfortable and silly.”

“Ah, for God’s sake!” Dale ejaculated. “Can’t we get on with it!”

Alleyn, still standing, put his hands on the back of his chair and said, “By all means. This is the position as far as we’ve gone. I suggest that you consider it.”

They were at once silent and uneasily attentive.

“Three of you,” Alleyn said, “have given me statements about your movements during the crucial time — the time, a matter of perhaps eight minutes, between the moment when Mrs. Dillington-Blick left this room and the moment when Mr. Cuddy came back with an account of his discovery of the body. During those eight minutes the steward Dennis was strangled, I believe in mistake for Mrs. Dillington-Blick. None of the three statements corroborates either of the other two. We have a picture of three individuals all moving about, out there in the semi-dark, without catching sight of each other. For myself, I was the first to go. I met Mrs. Dillington-Blick by the verandah to which she went — I’m sorry to put it like this but there’s no time for polite evasions — as a decoy. No doubt she assured herself that Dennis was there and she was about to take cover when I appeared. To get rid of me she asked me to help her down the port side companion-ladder to the lower deck. I did so and then saw her to her cabin and returned here. Mr. Cuddy, in the meantime, had changed, gone below and then to the pool by way of the starboard side on the lower deck. Miss Abbott, who left after he did, walked round this deck and stood for some minutes on the starboard side. She remembers that she saw somebody in the pool.

“Mr. McAngus says he left by these double doors, stood for a time by the passengers’ quarters on the port side and then went to his cabin and to bed. Nobody appeared to have noticed him.

“Mr. Dale, I imagine, will now admit that his first statement, to the effect that he went straight to his cabin, was untrue. On the contrary, he was on deck. He hid behind a locker on the starboard side near the verandah corner hoping to overhear some cruelly ludicrous scene of mistaken identity. He afterwards went into the verandah, presumably discovered the body, returned to his cabin and drank himself into the state from which he has at least partially recovered

“I resent the tone—” Dale began.

“You’ll have to lump the tone, I’m afraid. I now want to know what, if anything, you heard from your hiding place and exactly what you did and saw when you went into the verandah. Do you propose to tell me?”

“Captain Bannerman—”

“No good coming at me,” said the captain. “You’re in a tight spot, Mr. Dale, and truth had better be your master.”

Dale smacked the palm of his hand down on the table. “All right! Turn on me. The whole gang of you and much good may it do you. You badger and threaten and get a man tied up in knots until he doesn’t know what he’s saying. I’m as anxious as anyone for this bloody murderer to be caught. If I could tell you anything that’d bring him to book I would. All right. I did what you say, I sat behind the locker. I heard Miss Abbott go past. Tramp, tramp. She walks like a man. I couldn’t see her, but I knew it was Miss Abbott because she was humming a churchy tune. I’ve heard her before. And then, it was quiet. And then, after a bit, somebody else went by. Going towards the verandah. Tip-toe. Furtive. I heard him turn the corner and I heard somebody — Dennis, I suppose — it was rather high-pitched — make a little sound. And then—” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “Then there were other sounds. The chair legs scraped. Somebody cried out. Only once and it was cut short. Then there was another sort of bumping and scraping. Then nothing. I don’t know for how long. Then the tip-toe footsteps passed again. A bit faster but not running and somebody singing, as Cuddy said. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles.’ In a head-voice. Falsetto. Only a phrase of it and then nothing.”

“In tune?” Alleyn asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Was the voice in tune?”

Dale said, “Well, really! Oh, yes. Yes. Perfectly in tune,” and gave a half laugh.

“Thank you. Go on. What did you do next?”

“I was going to come out but I heard another voice.”

He screwed round in his chair and jerked his head at Cuddy. “You,” he said. “It was your voice. Unmistakably. You said, ‘All alone?’ ” He aped a mellifluous, arch enquiry. “I heard you go in. Wet feet on the deck. And then, after a pause, you made a sort of retching noise and you ran out, and I suppose you bolted down the deck.”

“I’ve explained everything,” Mr. Cuddy said. “I’ve told them. I’ve concealed nothing.”

“Very well,” Alleyn said. “Keep quiet. And then, Mr. Dale?”

“I waited. Then I thought I’d just go round and ask what had happened. I must have had some sort of idea there was something wrong; I realize that now. It was — it was so deadly quiet.”

“Yes?”

“So I did. I went in. I said something, I don’t remember what, and there was no answer. So I–I got out my cigarette lighter and flashed it on — Oh, God, God!”

“Well?”

“I couldn’t see much at first. It seemed funny he didn’t say anything. I put the flame nearer and then I saw. It was hell. Like that doll. Broken. And the flowers. The deck was wet and slippery. I thought, ‘I’ve done this; it’s my fault. I arranged it and she’ll say I did. Let somebody else discover it!’ Something like that. I’d had one or two drinks over the night and I suppose that’s why I panicked. I ran out and round the deck, past the locker. I heard Cuddy’s voice and I saw him by the doors here. I ducked down behind the hatch and heard him tell you. Then I heard you walk past on the other side and I knew that you’d gone to look. I thought, ‘It’s too late for me to tell them. I’m here. I’ll be involved.’ So I made for the forward end of the deck.”

“Father Jourdain,” Alleyn said, “I think you must at that time have been by the entrance to this room looking after Mr. Cuddy, who had fainted. Did you see Mr. Dale?”

“No. But, as you say, I was stooping over Mr. Cuddy. I think my back was turned to the hatch.”

“Yes,” Dale said. “Yes, it was. I watched you. I don’t remember much else except — my God, yes!”

“What have you remembered?”

Dale had been staring at his hand clasped before him on the table. He now raised his head. Mr. McAngus sat opposite him. They seemed to be moved by some common resentment.

“Go on,” Alleyn said.

“It was when I’d gone round the passengers’ block to the port side. I wanted a drink damn badly, and I wanted to be by myself. I’d got as far as the entrance into the passage and waited for a bit to make sure nobody was about. Ruby — Mrs. Dillington-Blick — was in her cabin. I could hear her slapping her face. I wondered if I’d tell her and then — then I smelt it.”

“Smelt what?”

Dale pointed at Mr. McAngus. “That. One of those filthy things he smokes. It was quite close.”

Mr. McAngus said, “I have already stated that I waited for a little on deck before I went to my cabin. I have said so.”

“Yes. But where? Where were you? I couldn’t see you and yet you must have been quite close. I actually saw the smoke.”

“Well, Mr. McAngus?” Alleyn asked.

“I — don’t exactly remember where I stood. Why should I?” He ground out his cigarette. A little malodorous spiral rose from the butt.

Dale said excitedly, “But the deck’s open and there was the light from her porthole. Why couldn’t I see him!”

“The door giving on the passage opens back on the outside bulkhead,” Alleyn said. “Close to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s porthole. Were you standing behind that door, Mr. McAngus?”

“Hiding behind it, more like,” Mr. Cuddy eagerly exclaimed.

“Well, Mr. McAngus?”

The long indeterminate face under the dyed hair was unevenly pallid. “I admit nothing,” said Mr. McAngus. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you think he might have been there, Mr. Dale?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. You see, I thought he must be in the passage and I waited and then I thought: “I’ve had this!’ And I looked and there was nobody there. So I went straight in. My door’s just on the left. I had a Scotch neat and I daresay it was a snorter. Then I had another. I was all anyhow. My nerves are shot to pieces. I’ve had a breakdown. I’m supposed,” Dale said in a trembling voice, “to be on a rest cure. This has set me all back to hell.”

“Mr. McAngus, did you hear Mr. Cuddy when he came and told us of his discovery? He was hysterical and made a great noise. Did you hear him?”

Mr. McAngus said, “I heard something. It didn’t matter.”

“Didn’t matter?”

“I knew where she was.”

“Mrs. Dillington-Blick?”

“I cannot answer you, sir.”

“You have yourself told us that you left this room by the deck doors, walked round the centrecastle block and then waited for some time on the port side. Do you stick to that statement?”

Mr. McAngus, holding to the edge of the table as if for support, did not take his eyes off Alleyn. He had compressed his mouth so ruthlessly that drops of saliva oozed out of the coners. He inclined his head slightly.

“Very well then—”

“No! No, no!” Mr. McAngus suddenly shouted. “I refuse! What I have done, I have done under compulsion. I cannot discuss it. Never!”

“In that case,” Alleyn said, “we have reached an impasse. Dr. Makepiece, will you be so kind as to ask Mr. Merryman if he will join us?”

Mr. Merryman could be heard coming down the passage. His sharp voice was raised to its familiar pitch of indignation.

“I should have been informed of this,” he was saying, “at once. Immediately. I demand an explanation. Who did you say the man is?”

An indistinguishable murmur from Tim.

“Indeed? Indeed! Then he has no doubt enjoyed the salutary experience popularly assigned to eavesdroppers. This is an opportunity,” the voice continued as its owner drew nearer, “that I have long wished for. If I had been consulted at the outset, the typical, the all-too-familiar pattern of official ineptitude might have — nay, would have been anticipated. But, of course, that was too much to hope for. I—”

The door was opened by Tim, who came in, pulled an eloquent grimace at Alleyn and stood aside.

Mr. Merryman made a not ineffective entrance. He was girded into his dressing-gown. His cockscomb was erect and his eyes glittered with the light of battle. He surveyed the party round the table with a Napoleonic eye.

Captain Bannerman half rose and said, “Come in, Mr. Merryman. Hope you’re feeling well enough to join us. Take a chair.” He indicated the only vacant chair, which faced the glass doors leading to the deck. Mr. Merryman made a slight acknowledgment but no move. He was glaring at Alleyn. “I daresay,” the captain went on, “that it’s in order, under the circumtances, for me to make an introduction. This gentleman is in charge of the meeting. Superintendent A’leen.”

“The name,” Mr. Merryman said at once, “is Alleyn. Alleyn, my good sir. Al-lane is permissible. A’leen, never. It is, presumably, too much to expect that you should have so much as heard of the founder of Dulwich College, an Elizabethan actor who was unsurpassed in his day, Edward Alleyn. Or, less acceptably in my poor opinion, Allane. Good evening, sir,” Mr. Merryman concluded, nodding angrily at Alleyn.

“Over to you,” the captain muttered woodenly, “Mr. Allan.”

“No!” Mr. Merryman objected on a rising inflexion.

“It’s of no consequence,” Alleyn hastily intervened. “Will you sit down, Mr. Merryman?”

“Why not?” Mr. Merryman said and did so.

“I believe,” Alleyn went on, “that Dr. Makepiece has told you what has happened.”

“I have been informed in the baldest manner conceivable that a felony has been committed. I assume that I am about to be introduced to the insupportable longueurs of a police investigation

“I’m afraid so,” Alleyn said cheerfully.

“Then perhaps you will be good enough to advise me of the nature of the crime and the circumstances under which it was committed and discovered. Unless, of course,” Mr. Merryman added, throwing back his head and glaring at Alleyn from under his spectacles, “you regard me as a suspect, in which case you will no doubt attempt some elephantine piece of finesse. Do you, in fact, regard me as a suspect?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said coolly. “Together with sundry others. I do. Why not?”

“Upon my word!” he said after a pause. “It does not astonish me. And pray what am I supposed to have done? And to whom? And where? Enlighten me, I beg you.”

“You are supposed at this juncture to answer questions, and not to ask them. You will be good enough not to be troublesome, Mr. Merryman. No,” Alleyn said as Mr. Merryman opened his mouth, “I really can’t do with any more tantrums. This case is in the hands of the police. I am a policeman. Whatever you may think of the procedure, you’ve no choice but to put up with it. And we’ll all get along a great deal faster if you can contrive to do so gracefully. Behave yourself, Mr. Merryman.”

Mr. Merryman put on an expression of mild astonishment. He appeared to take thought. He folded his arms, flung himself back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Very well,” he said. “Let us plumb the depths. Continue.”

Alleyn did so. Without giving any indication whatever of the nature or locale of the crime, an omission which at once appeared to throw Mr. Merryman into an extremity of annoyance, he merely asked for an account in detail of anything Mr. Merryman might have seen from his vantage point in the deck-chair, facing the hatch.

“May I ask,” Mr. Merryman said, still looking superciliously at the ceiling, “why you adopt this insufferable attitude? Why you elect to withold the nature of your little problem? Do I detect a note of professional jealousy?”

“Let us assume that you do,” said Alleyn with perfect good nature.

“Ah! You are afraid—”

“I am afraid that if you were told what has happened you would try to run the show, and I don’t choose to let you. What did you see from your deck-chair, Mr. Merryman?”

A faint, an ineffably complaisant smile played about Mr. Merryman’s lips. He closed his eyes.

“What did I see?” he ruminated, and as if they had joined the tips of their fingers and thumbs round the table, his listeners were involved in a current of heightened tension. Alleyn saw Aubyn Dale wet his lips. Cuddy yawned nervously and McAngus again hid his hands in his armpits. Captain Bannerman was glassy-eyed. Father Jourdain’s head was inclined as if to hear a confession. Only Tim Makepiece kept his eyes on Alleyn rather than on Mr. Merryman.

“What did I see?” Mr. Merryman repeated. He hummed a meditative air and looked slyly round the table and said loudly, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Nothing?”

“For a very good reason. I was sound asleep.”

He broke into a triumphant cackle of laughter. Alleyn nodded to Tim, who again went out.

McAngus, rather shockingly, joined in Mr. Merryman’s laughter. “The key witness!” he choked out, hugging himself. “The one who was to prove us all right or wrong. Fast asleep! What a farce!”

“It doesn’t affect you,” Dale pointed out. “He wouldn’t have seen you anyway. You’ve still got to account for yourself.”

“That’s right. That’s dead right,” Mr. Cuddy cried out.

“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn said, “when did you wake up and go to your room?”

“I have no idea.”

“Which way did you go?”

“The direct way. To the entrance on the starboard side

“Who was in the lounge at that time?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Did you meet anyone?”

“No.”

“May I just remind you of your position out there?”

Alleyn went to the double doors. He jerked the spring blinds and they flew up with a sharp rattle.

The lights were out on deck. In the glass doors only the reflexion of the room and of the occupants appeared — faint, hollow-eyed, and cadaverous as phantoms, their own faces stared back at them.

From a region of darkness there emerged, through these images, another. It moved towards the doors, gaining substance. Mrs. Dillington-Blick was outside. Her hands were pressed against the glass. She looked in.

Mr. Merryman screamed like a ferret in a trap.

His chair overturned. He was round the table before anyone could stop him. His hands scrabbled at the glass pane.

“No. No! Go away. Go away! Don’t speak. If you speak I’ll do it again. I’ll kill you if you speak.”

Alleyn held him. It was quite clear to everybody that Mr. Merryman’s hands, starving against the glass like fish in an aquarium, were ravenous for Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s throat.