Death in the Middle Watch (6 page)

“No,” said Carolus.

“Well, all I can say is, if you'll excuse me, you can't be much of a detective. I should have thought it was obvious.”

“It was. Too obvious. At least that could be the explanation. It could have been what you were meant to think.” Carolus paused. “Or it could not, of course. Another thing, Leacock. Do you remember Mrs Travers?”

“Mrs Travers? You mean Mrs Darwin, surely?”

“No. I meant Mrs Travers. Do you remember her on the ship about a year ago?”

Leacock grinned.

“I should think I do. Quite a bit of talk it caused.”

“What caused?”

“We get used to that sort of thing. Nothing out of the way on these cruises. But there it was—her old man out of the way and her running round with this Darwin fellow. No wonder they had to get married. If you'd been on board at the time you'd have seen it coming.”

“Indeed.”

“You say he's joining us at Lisbon. That'll be a funny turnout.”

“You think so?”

“No worse than any of the others. Look at that Lady Spittals. Call her a lady?”

“Don't you?”

“Well, it depends what you mean by a lady. If it's being a lady to meet the Second Engineer every night when her old man's gone to bed, I suppose she is one. But it's not what I've been brought up to think a lady is. Then there's that blonde. You must have seen her. One of the last to come on board.”

It was evident that Leacock had found a topic after his own heart.

“What about her?” asked Carolus innocently.

“What about her? Well the Mate's had it off with her already and the Chief Steward's got his eye on her, too. I mean to say. I'm not saying she's not all right. I daresay she is for anyone who likes that type. Only you can tell what she comes on a cruise for, can't you?”

Leacock laughed boisterously.

“Isn't she with a young man? A passenger?”

“That's what he was hoping. Not a chance when this lot they call officers got their eyes on her. And have you seen that thin piece of goods? Rabbit-mouthed sort. I saw you talking to her the first day out. Fancy her, do you?”

Carolus did not answer. Anything he could say would sound unbearably priggish.

“I thought you did,” said Leacock. “Noticed right away. We shall be in to Lisbon the day after tomorrow so you'll be able to take her ashore.”

“When do we get in?”

“Tomorrow night. Into the Tagus, that is. We come in and lie outside the port till daylight.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Regular every trip. So many hours out from Southampton. Up the Tagus overnight, then in to the docks for you lot to go ashore. Though what you find to do all day I can't imagine. I always wait till we get to Tunis where you can enjoy yourself. But that's how it is every trip. Never varies. Anyway, I wish you luck with that tall thin one. Not my type, but I daresay it suits you. Now if you was to say the blonde it would be different.”

“Thank you, Leacock. I think you've given me all the information I wanted.”

“Glad to oblige. I don't know what you're trying to find out but anyway … Cheerio, then. See you on deck some time.”

Leacock lumbered out and Carolus decided to get some fresh air.

He was amused to see Mr Gorringer being an Edwardian escort to Mrs Darwin. They were pacing the deck side by side and in seemingly deep conversation.

“Do you know Mrs Darwin?” the headmaster called to Carolus. “My former history master, Carolus Deene,” he explained.

“We have met,” said Mrs Darwin, without any great warmth.

“Mrs Darwin had been telling me that she will be joined by her husband in the port of Lisbon,” went on Mr Gorringer. “He is flying out from England while we plough our way through the sea. What an age we live in!”

“Guy likes flying,” Mrs Darwin explained. “He was in the Royal Air Force during the war.”

“Indeed? A splendid service. My own unhappy lot was to be prevented by duty from taking part in actual combat. I was however one of that often derided faction, the Home Guard.
Memorable days for me! Your husband will complete the cruise with us, I trust?”

“I expect so. But you never know with Guy. He goes flying off when you least expect it.”

“Ah, yes. These business tycoons. I know something of their ways. Here today, on an aeroplane bound for New York tomorrow. But I assure you, dear Mrs Darwin, that whatever your husband's movements you will not be left unescorted on this ship. I shall consider it my pleasurable duty to look after you. Ah, I see Lady Spittals approaching with her usual smile. She is indeed the very life and soul of the ship, is she not?”

“Hullo!” called Lady Spittals. “Win anything in the sweepstake on the ship's run this morning?”

“I fear not.” said Mr Gorringer. “Did Fortune treat you any better?”

“Yes. I won a fiver. Not bad, was it? Of course Lazybones wouldn't bother to buy a ticket. That's Sir Charles. Couldn't leave his book, I suppose.”

“Yes. I've noticed that Sir Charles Spittals is a great reader.”

“Great reader! He can't hardly take his eyes off the page. I tell him, aren't you coming down to see the film? I say. But he won't budge. As for dancing …”

“There you touch on a tender spot, Lady Spittals. I myself am a notable failure in that respect. I am willing enough, even anxious to assist, but fear that my clumsiness would cause embarrassment to a partner.”

“It's a good thing you know it, that's all,” said Lady Spittals. “Half of them don't. Have you put your name down for the deck tennis, though?”

“Oh yes, indeed. I feel we should essay every sport even though we have no experience. I trust you have done the same, Deene?”

But Carolus seemed to be interested in something far out at sea, and did not answer.

He was however, fully awake during the following night when, as if drawn by those curious instincts of his, he pulled on his clothes and left his cabin. The group he found outside the Purser's office had much in common with the trio he had found on deck on the first night out. The Captain was there and Mr Porteous but instead of the deck-hand Leacock, Carolus found the Purser and Dr Yaqub Ali. They were talking not excitedly but with quiet seriousness.

The doctor said: “There is no doubt, I'm afraid, that it was murder.”

Mr Porteous said “Oh God!” but Carolus coolly asked
what
was murder.

“An unfortunate lady passenger,” said the doctor. “A Mrs Darwin. Some considerable violence was used.”

“Knife? Club? Or strangled?”

“Strangled, apparently. I haven't been able to make a definite decision but I think there is no doubt.”

“Wasn't her door locked?” asked Carolus.

It was the Purser who answered.

“No, Mr Deene,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It was not wished to alarm the cruisers. If we had issued general instructions it would certainly have caused alarm. For many of them it would have spoilt their holiday.”

“It might have saved a woman's life,” said Carolus. Then perhaps recalling Leacock's account of single women on a holiday cruise, he added, “Unless she opened the door of her own accord.”

This seemed to cheer Mr Porteous.

“You think she may have done?”

Carolus could not answer in Leacock's words because he
was
, in fact, paid to think.

“It's a possibility,” he said.

“She has seemed rather friendly with one of the passengers,” said the Purser, “though I have no idea whether that has anything to do with it. She was sitting in the saloon with him all yesterday evening, a Mr Gorringer.”

Carolus turned on him.

“Don't be a fool, Ratchett,” he said. “They were playing Scrabble.”

As though to relieve the tension the doctor said, “Scrabble? What on earth is that?”

Someone answered rather contemptuously. “It's a game.” Then the Purser said, speaking directly to the Captain, “I have locked the door, sir. I think we may leave things as they are until the morning.”

“And in the morning?” Carolus asked, “what do you intend to do? Report it to the Port Authorities?”

Porteous answered him.

“No need for that at all. The doctor is quite uncertain of the manner of the woman's death. There may even be some uncertainty about whether she
is
dead. Isn't that so, Dr Yaqub Ali?” He hurried on before the doctor could answer. “There is no need to report it to anyone. The lady is indisposed—in her cabin.”

“You can't get away with this, Porteous,” Carolus said. “It wasn't certain that a man was overboard. It is quite certain that a woman has been killed.”

Porteous began, “Let's say, for the sake of argument …”

“There's no argument,” said Carolus.

“What you should be concerned with, Mr Deene,” said Porteous, “is the identity of the murderer. You can safely leave
the matter of reporting this occurrence to the Captain and me. Have you any idea what it would mean if we reported it? Half the Portuguese police on board, the ship not allowed to leave port, the passengers cross-examined, their holidays completely spoilt … After all, you undertook to do your best to prevent anything like this happening. It is up to you to clear up the mystery, not to go running to the police of a foreign country. This is a British ship.”

Carolus turned sharply away.

But before he went to his cabin he said, “There's one thing you're overlooking. The woman's husband is due to come on board today. What are you going to tell him?”

Like Pontius Pilate, he did not wait for an answer.

T
HE FIRST MAN
C
AROLUS
sought in the morning was the Purser. He avoided Mr Gorringer taking his before-breakfast stroll on deck, did not go in to breakfast, and found the Purser in his cabin.

“I don't think Porteous and Scorer have the ghost of a chance of getting away with this,” he said. “But that will be their funeral. I want to know whether anyone came on board last night.”

Mr Ratchett nodded. “I thought you were going to ask that,” he said. “Yes, quite unexpectedly at around one o'clock. A clerk from the agent's office.”

“Name?” queried Carolus.

“Costa Neves. We know him well. He comes on board as a matter of course, but I've never known him do so on the night we lay off in the Tagus. We're usually alongside by nine o'clock in the morning and he comes on then.”

“What brought him out to the ship?”

“The usual documents. But they could have been attended to this morning.”

“How did he come out?”

“In the agent's launch.”

“So you lowered the gangplank?”

“Yes. Costa Neves is a little lame.”

“Was anyone in the launch with him?”

“Only the two boatmen who are always with the launch. I know them both.”

“Surely you could not identify them in the dark from on deck, Mr Ratchett?”

“Near enough. I know the two, you see.”

“You mean that because you know the boatmen usually with the launch, you assumed that these were the two?”

“I suppose that was it. But since Costa Neves said nothing, it was a pretty safe assumption.”

“Leaving the possibility that the launch brought almost anyone out to the ship?”

“Why should it? I know Costa Neves. See him every trip.”

“Does he know any of the passengers?”

“Oh, I shouldn't think so. He only speaks a little English and when he comes aboard he's usually pretty busy. Why? You're not suggesting he killed Mrs Darwin?”

“No. But he could have. Or someone he brought aboard with him.”

“He brought no one aboard. I watched him come up the gangplank. He and the two boatmen came alone in the launch. And for the whole time the launch was alongside there was a man at the top of the gangplank.”

“Which man?”

“Leacock. He's our most reliable deckhand.”

“I'm not entirely satisfied with that. But let it pass for the moment. Who occupied the cabin next to Mrs Darwin?”

“Sir Charles and Lady Spittals.”

“And opposite?”

“Miss Berry.”

“I intend to interview them. If they ask me questions I shall tell them the truth. I won't be part of what I consider a conspiracy.”

Yet a few minutes later, when Carolus met Mr Gorringer coming up from the dining room, he found himself—while not actually lying—at least not going out of his way to proclaim the truth.

“I hear that our friend Mrs Darwin is not well this morning,” Mr Gorringer said. “I had hoped to escort her ashore to show her some of the sights of the capital of our oldest ally.”

“Pity. I'm afraid you'll have to go alone. Unless you care to invite Miss Berry.”

“My dear Deene, far be it from me to appear to be in the least critical of one of our fellow-passengers, but I have noticed the lady you mention seeming somewhat eager in her approach to the male sex. I might find her an embarrassment.”