Singing in the Shrouds (2 page)

“Aren’t you? He meant it awfully nicely. But I really do chatter much too much. I should take myself in hand and do something about it, I expect. Good-bye, Father. God bless you.”

“And you, my dear fellow. But I’ll walk with you to the bus.”

“No — please—”

“I should like to.”

They found their way down to the lower deck. Father Jourdain said a word to the sailor at the head of the gangway and both priests went ashore. The sailor watched them pace along the wharf towards the passageway at the far end of which the bus waited. In their black cloaks and hats they looked fantastic. The fog swirled about them as they walked. Half an hour had gone by before Father Jourdain returned alone. It was then a quarter past eleven.

Miss Abbott’s cabin was opposite Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s. Dennis carried the suitcases to it. Their owner unpacked them with meticulous efficiency, laying folded garments away as if for some ceremonial robing. They were of a severe character. At the bottom of the second suitcase there was a stack of music in manuscript. In a pocket of the suitcase was the photograph. It was of a woman of about Miss Abbott’s own age, moderately handsome but with a heavy dissatisfied look. Miss Abbott stared at it, and fighting back a painful sense of desolation and resentment, sat on the bed and pressed clumsy hands between large knees.

Time went by. The ship moved a little at her moorings. Miss Abbott heard Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s rich laughter and was remotely and very slightly eased. There was the noise of fresh arrivals, of footsteps overhead, and of dockside activities. From a more distant part of the passengers’ quarters came sounds of revelry and of a resonant male voice that was somehow familiar. Soon Miss Abbott was to know why. The cabin door had been hooked ajar, so that when Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s friend came into the passage she was very clearly audible. Mrs. Dillington-Blick stood in her own open doorway and said through giggles, “Go on, then, I dare you,” and the friend went creaking down the passage. She returned evidently in high excitement saying, “My dear, it is! He’s shaved it off! The steward told me. It’s Aubyn Dale! My dear, how perfectly gorgeous for you.”

There was another burst of giggling, through which Mrs. Dillington-Blick said something about not being able to wait for the tropics to wear her Jolyon swimsuit. Their further ejaculations were cut off by the shutting of their door.

“Silly fools,” Miss Abbott thought dully, having not the smallest interest in television personalities. Presently she began to wonder if she really would throw the photograph overboard when the ship was out at sea. Suppose she were to tear it up now and drop the pieces in the wastepaper basket? Or into the harbour? How lonely she would be then! The heavily knuckled fingers drummed on the bony knees and their owner began to think about things going overboard into the harbour. The water would be cold and dirty, polluted by the excreta of ships; revolting!

“Oh,
God
!” Miss Abbott said. “How hellishly unhappy I am.”

Dennis knocked at her door.

“Telegram, Miss Abbott,” he fluted.

“Telegram? For me? Yes?”

He unhooked the door and came in.

Miss Abbott took the telegram and shakily opened it. It fluttered between her fingers.

Dennis had lingered. Miss Abbott said shakily, “Can I send an answer?”

“Well — ye-ees. I mean to say—”

“Or telephone? Can I telephone?”

“There’s a ’phone on board, but I seen a queue lined up when I passed.”

“How long before we sail?”

“An hour, near enough, but the ’phone goes off earlier.”

Miss Abbott said distractedly, “It’s very important. Very urgent indeed.”

“ ’Tch, ’tch.”

“Wait. Didn’t I see a call box on the dock? Near the place where the bus stopped?”

“That’s correct,” he said appreciatively. “Fancy you noticing!”

“I’ve time to go off, haven’t I?”

“Plenty of
time,
Miss Abbott. Oodles.”

“I’ll do that. I’ll go at once.”

“There’s coffee and sandwiches on in the dining-room

“I don’t want them. I’ll go now.”

“Cold outside. Proper freezer. Need a coat, Miss Abbott, won’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Oh, very well. Thank you.”

She took her coat out of the wardrobe, snatched up her handbag, and hurried out.

“Straight ahead, down the companionway and turn right,” he called after her and, added, “Don’t get lost in the fog, now.”

Her manner had been so disturbed that it aroused his curiosity. He went out on the deck and was in time to see her running along the wharf into the fog. “Runs like a man,” Dennis thought. “Well, it takes all sorts.”

Mr. and Mrs. Cuddy sat on their respective beds and eyed each other with the semi-jocular family air that they reserved for intimate occasions. The blowers on the bulkhead were pouring hot air into the cabin, the porthole was sealed, the luggage was stowed, and the Cuddys were cosy.

“All right so far,” Mrs. Cuddy said guardedly.

“Satisfied, dear?”

“Can’t complain. Seems clean.”

“Our own shower and toilet,” he pointed out, jerking his head at a narrow door.

“They’ve all got that,” she said. “I wouldn’t fancy sharing.”

“What did you make of the crowd, though? Funny lot, I thought.”

“R. C. priests.”

“Only the one. The other was seeing-off. Do you reckon R. C?”

“Looked like it, didn’t it?”

Mr. Cuddy smiled. He had a strange thin smile, very broad and knowing. “They look ridiculous to me,” he said.

“We’re moving in high society, it seems,” Mrs. Cuddy remarked. “Notice the furs?”

“And the
perfume
! Phew!”

“I’ll have to keep my eye on you, I can see that.”

“Could you catch what was said?”

“Quite a bit,” Mrs. Cuddy admitted. “She may talk very la-de-dah, but her ideas aren’t so refined.”

“Reely?”

“She’s a man-eater.”

Mr. Cuddy’s smile broadened. “Did you get the flowers?” he asked. “Orchids. Thirty bob each, they are.”

“Get on!”

“They are! It’s a fact. Very nice, too,” Mr. Cuddy said with a curious twist in his voice.

“Did you see what happened with the other lady reading over the elderly chap’s shoulder? In the bus?”

“Did I what! Talk about a freezer! Phew!”

“He was reading about those murders. You know. The Flower Murderer. They make out he leaves flowers all scattered over the breasts of his victims. And sings.”

“Before or after?”

“After, isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Cuddy asked with enormous relish.

Mr. Cuddy made an indefinite noise.

His wife ruminated, “It gives me the creeps to think about. Wonder what makes him go on so crazy.”

“Women.”

“That’s right. Put it all on the ladies,” she said good-naruredly. “Just like a man.”

“Well, ask yourself. Was there much in the paper?”

“I couldn’t see properly, but I think so. It’s on all the placards. They haven’t got him, of course.”

“Wish we’d got a paper. Can’t think how I forgot.”

“There might be one in the lounge.”

“What a hope!”

“The old chap left his in the bus. I noticed.”

“Did you? You know,” Mr. Cuddy said, “I’ve got quite a fancy for the evening paper. I might stroll back and see if it’s there. The bus doesn’t go till eleven. I can just do it.”

“Don’t be long. You know what I’m like. If you missed the boat—”

“We don’t sail till midnight, dear, and it’s only ten to eleven now. I won’t be more than a few minutes. Think I’d let you go out to sea with all these fascinatin’ sailors?”

“Get along with you!”

“Won’t be half a tick. I’ve got the fancy for it.”

“I know I’m silly,” Mrs. Cuddy said, “but whenever you go out — to the lodge or anything — I always get that
nervous
.”

“Silly girl. I’d say come too, but it’s not worth it. There’s coffee on down below.”

“Coffee essence, more like.”

“Might as well try it when I get back. Behave yourself now.”

He pulled a steel-grey felt hat down almost to his ears, put on a belted raincoat, and looking rather like the film director’s idea of a private detective, he went ashore.

Mrs. Cuddy remained, anxious and upright, on her bunk.

Aubyn Dale’s dearest friend, looking through the porthole, said with difficulty, “Darling, it’s boiling up for a peashuper-souper. I think perhaps we ought to weep ourselves away.”

“Darling, are you going to drive?”

“Naturally.”

“You
will
be all right,
won’t
you?”

“Sweetie,” she protested, “I’m never safer than when I’m plastered. It just gives me that little something other drivers haven’t got.”

“How terrifying.”

“To show you how completely in control I am, I suggest that it might be better to leave before we’re utterly fogged down. Oh, dear! I fear I am now going into a screaming weep. Where’s my hanky?”

She opened her bag. A coiled mechanical snake leaped out at her, having been secreted there by her lover, who had a taste for such drolleries.

This prank, though it was received as routine procedure, a little delayed their parting. Finally, however, it was agreed that the time had come.

“ ’Specially,” said their dearest male friend, “as we’ve killed the last bottle. Sorry, old boy. Bad form. Poor show.”

“Come on,” said their dearest girl friend. “It’s been smashing, actually. Darling Auby! But we ought to go.”

They began elaborate leave-takings but Aubyn Dale said he’d walk back to the car with them.

They all went ashore, talking rather loudly, in well-trained voices, about the fog, which had grown much heavier.

It was now five past eleven. The bus had gone, the solitary taxi waited in its place. Their car was parked further along the wharf. They stood around it, still talking, for some minutes. His friends all told Dale many times how much good the voyage would do him, how nice he looked without his celebrated beard, how run down he was, and how desperately the Jolyon swimsuit programme would sag without him. Finally they drove off waving and trying to make hip-hip-hooray with their horn.

Aubyn Dale waved, shoved his hands down in the pockets of his camel’s-hair coat, and walked back towards the ship. A little damp breeze lifted his hair, eddies of fog drifted past him. He thought how very photogenic the wharves looked. The funnels on some of the ships were lit from below and the effect, blurred and nebulous though it now had become, was exciting. Lights hung like globes in the murk. There were hollow indefinable sounds and a variety of smells. He pictured himself down here doing one of his special features and began to choose atmospheric phrases. He would have looked rather good, he thought, framed in the entrance to the passageway. His hand strayed to his naked chin and he shuddered. He must pull himself together.

The whole idea of the voyage was to get away from his job; not to think of it, even. Or of anything else that was at all upsetting. Such as his dearest friend, sweetie though she undoubtedly was. Immediately, he began to think about her. He ought to have given her something before she left. Flowers? No, no. Not flowers. They had an unpleasant association. He felt himself grow cold and then hot. He clenched his hands and walked into the passageway.

About two minutes later the ninth and last passenger for the
Cape Farewell
arrived by taxi at the docks. He was Mr. Donald McAngus, an elderly bachelor, who was suffering from a terrible onset of ship-fever. The fog along the Embankment had grown heavier. In the City it had been atrocious. Several times his taxi had come to a stop, twice it had gone off its course, and finally, when he was really feeling physically sick with anxiety, the driver had announced that this was as far as he cared to go. He indicated shapes, scarcely perceptible, of roofs and walls and the faint glow beyond them. That, he said, was where Mr. McAngus’s ship lay. He had merely to make for the glow and he would be aboard. There ensued a terrible complication over the fare, and the tip; first Mr. McAngus undertipped and then, in a frenzy of apprehension, he overtipped. The driver adopted a pitying attitude. He put Mr. McAngus’s fibre suitcases into their owner’s grip and tucked his cardboard box and his brown paper parcel under his arms. Thus burdened, Mr. McAngus disappeared at a shambling trot into the fog and the taxi returned to the West End of London.

The time was now eleven-thirty. The taxi from the flower shop was waiting for his fare and P. C. Moir was about to engage him in conversation. The last hatch was covered, the
Cape Farewell
was cleared, and Captain Bannerman, master, awaited his pilot.

At one minute to twelve the siren hooted.

P. C. Moir was now at the police call box. He had been put through to the C.I.D.

“There’s one other thing, sir,” he was saying, “beside the flowers. There’s a bit of paper clutched in the right hand, sir. It appears to be a fragment of an embarkation notice, like they give passengers. For the
Cape Farewell
.”

He listened, turning his head to look across the tops of half-seen roofs at the wraith of a scarlet funnel with a white band. It slid away and vanished smoothly into the fog.

“I’m afraid I can’t board her, sir,” he said. “She’s sailed.”