Sixty Days to Live (36 page)

‘Listen, my friends. As long as the present weather conditions
last it is impossible for Oliver to discover our position on the earth’s surface. That in itself is not so vitally important; but the fact that we have not sighted land since the coming of the deluge is beginning to worry me. For all we know we may have been swept right out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and may drift there for weeks without coming anywhere near one of the mountain ranges which must still be left standing above the water. We started out with food enough to keep us alive for two months but it certainly will not last that length of time if one of you continues to steal it.’

Varying expressions of amazement greeted his remark, and Sam said at once: ‘Are you suggesting that somebody has been raiding the stores the whole time?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ Gervaise replied quietly, ‘as it was only three days ago that I first noticed a shortage; but I’ve kept a careful check on things since and there is no question about it, one of you is going below at night and helping yourselves to additional rations.’

They all shook their heads and there was a chorus of denials but Gervaise went on insistently:

‘It wouldn’t matter so much if any of you felt you weren’t getting enough to eat and asked for a little extra. Or, if the guilty party feels that would be an exhibition of greed, it wouldn’t affect us very seriously if they confined themselves to taking an additional handful of biscuits or a tin of salmon or something of that kind. The trouble is that whoever is making these raids upon our stores cannot possibly eat all that they are taking. In the last three days enough food has disappeared to have fed the lot of us during that time. Goodness knows what the person who takes it does with the balance after he’s had his midnight meal. But there it is.’

‘How very extraordinary,’ murmured Lavina.

‘It’s mighty serious,’ Hemmingway said quickly. ‘If the same amount of food that we use for our rations each day is disappearing every night, the stores will only last one month instead of two; and, including the two days before the flood that we spent in the Ark, we’ve been here getting on for a fortnight already.’

In vain they argued and speculated. While several of them had secretly believed that Lavina had been responsible for the shortage of Turkish cigarettes they nearly all suspected now
that it was Derek who had been at the food. He was far the heartiest eater among them and had complained on several occasions of what he called the ‘messy trifles’ that Margery served up at some of their meals. Yet there was not the least evidence against him any more than against any of the others.

On the following day Gervaise found that another half-dozen tins of food had disappeared and, when he opened a fresh case of cigarettes, he discovered that somebody had been there before him and removed a good half of its contents.

That afternoon Sam got Hemmingway on his own for the moment and said: ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about these raids on the stores and I’m sure I know who it is.’

‘Who?’ asked Hemmingway.

‘Derek,’ whispered Sam. ‘It’s certainly not Gervaise or he would never have raised the matter at all; it can’t be Oliver because he couldn’t open cases with one of his arms still in a sling. You can count the two girls out; I haven’t done it; and I know you much too well to imagine that you’d ever do a rotten thing like that—so it must be Derek.’

‘Perhaps,’ Hemmingway agreed. ‘He’s always talking about good, square meals and what he’d give to see an underdone steak again. But what I can’t understand is, why he should take so much more than he requires each time?’

‘Can’t you?’ Sam smiled a little grimly. ‘I’ve got a theory about that. You know how badly he was beaten up before he escaped from London; then he had concussion just before we got him into the sphere. I believe that’s affected his brain, not badly, but enough to make him irresponsible. He may even have blank periods when he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I’ll tell you another thing that makes me think he’s got a screw loose—the way he’s always staring at Lavina.’

Hemmingway suppressed a smile. One did not have to be mad in order to derive a pleasure from looking at Sam’s young wife. But although he had had ample opportunity to observe for himself the way in which Derek was always following Lavina with his eyes he did not think that any useful purpose could be served by admitting it and possibly aggravating the jealousy which the easy-going Sam was now showing for the first time.

‘I can’t say I’ve noticed it,’ he shrugged. ‘Derek and Lavina are pretty thick, of course, but that’s quite natural because they’ve
been friends for so long. You may be right about the food, though. Anyhow, we might keep watch to-night and see if he sneaks out of the cabin when he thinks we’re all asleep.’

The alternate watches that they agreed upon proved, after all, to be quite unnecessary for the simple reason that when Derek failed to appear at dinner that evening Gervaise went below to look for him and found him lying face downwards, unconscious, on the engine-room floor, and by the time they had got him up through the trap-door and tucked up in his bunk it was quite clear that, even if he wished to, he would not be in a condition to do any raiding that night.

He had a nasty cut on the back of his head. When they had bathed it, bandaged it, and brought him round, Gervaise sent everybody else out of the cabin and began questioning him.

Derek’s story was that he had gone down to clean the heating apparatus at about six o’clock and had nearly finished working on it when he had heard the sound of footfalls behind him. He had been just about to turn when somebody had rushed at him and struck him on the back of the head, knocking him out. As he had not even glimpsed his attacker he could not possibly give any account of him and, as Sam, Hemmingway and Gervaise himself had all been below decks on various errands between seven and seven-thirty, it might have been any one of them.

Although he would not say so, Gervaise thought that Sam must be the culprit. No one knew better than her father the extraordinary fascination which Lavina exercised over men. Hemmingway, as far as he could see, appeared to be immune from it as, although he was friendly, it was with a detached friendliness and he never went out of his way to amuse or intrigue her. But Derek had been in love with her and she with him three years ago. That Derek was still in love with her Gervaise was quite certain, and his shrewd old eyes had not missed the fact that Sam was perfectly well aware of Derek’s passion.

Sam was a very even-tempered man so, at first sight, it hardly seemed likely that he would have made this murderous attack on Derek. But the conditions under which they had been living for the last fortnight were so far outside the normal that they were calculated to upset the balance of any but the most stable brain, and even the fact that they were all living right on top of each other was enough to fray the strongest nerves. If Sam really
resented Derek’s attention to his wife and had been bottling up his feelings for some days, the sight of them constantly together could easily have driven him to such a state of suppressed fury that, when he had gone below that evening, he might have given way to a sudden temptation and have struck Derek down on the spur of the moment.

The next day Derek was feeling better and as he loathed staying in bed he wanted to get up, but Lavina insisted that, as there was a risk that delayed concussion might set in, he must be good and remain lying down for the day. But she sugared the pill by promising to come and talk to him.

After lunch, when the others were dozing or reading in the lounge, she settled herself in a chair beside his bunk. Having exchanged a few of their usual flippancies, she asked:

‘Derek, who’d you really think attacked you? You must have some idea?’

‘I don’t
think
. I know,’ said Derek angrily, ‘it was Hemmingway.’

‘But how can you be certain if you didn’t see him?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? He knows I’m in love with you and he’s jealous—jealous as hell—because you hardly look at him; whereas you call me “darling” and it’s me you turn to whenever you want to dance or play the fool.’

‘Oh,’ she shrugged, ‘that’s nothing. We’ve ragged about together since we were children. What makes you think that he’s in love with me, though? He doesn’t show any signs of it as far as I can see.’

‘No, he doesn’t show it. In fact, one would almost think that he dislikes you, at times. But I’ll bet he’s in love with you, all the same.’

‘I haven’t even tried to flirt with him; so why should he be?’

‘Why not?’ Derek demanded. “Still waters”—all that sort of thing. How could any man who was shut up with you in this bally tin tub day after day
help
falling in love with you? It’s all I can do to keep my hands off you when you’re strutting round showing yourself off. He must have seen that and made up his mind to try and out me first and Sam afterwards in order to get you for himself.’

Lavina shook her head. ‘No, Derek, I simply don’t believe
it; but, as you’ve raised the matter, you have been rather overdoing things yourself. Sam hasn’t said anything because he knows quite well that he can trust me; but he’s been awfully grumpy lately and I’m sure it’s owing to the way you look at me. You really must try and control yourself a bit more.’

‘God knows, I try; but whose fault is it that I get so het up? I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it as soon as I got a chance. For God’s sake stop wandering about the place in swim-suits. It isn’t decent and it’s calculated to send any man off his rocker.’

‘Really! You amaze me. I quite thought the excitement of seeing a girl’s legs had gone out with the Gaiety Chorus and opera hats. Do you seriously suggest that I’m less attractive in trousers?’

Derek sighed. ‘No. Not really. That’s just the trouble. You get me boiled up whatever you’re wearing.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear; honestly, I don’t mean to. It’s frightful that you should feel the way you do about me, because I am terribly fond of you, but I do beg you to do your damnedest not to show it quite so plainly; otherwise it may lead to the most blood-some row, and we simply
must
avoid anything like that.’

‘All right,’ Derek agreed reluctantly. ‘I’ll do my best. But, all the same, I’m certain it was on your account that Hemmingway tried to murder me.’

It was not until after breakfast the following morning that Lavina managed to get Hemmingway alone. Knowing the others would be busy for a few moments, she said in a low voice: ‘Listen, I want to talk to you.’

‘Go ahead,’ he murmured.

‘That was a queer business about Derek being attacked, and I feel that it’s up to any of us who have ideas about it to get to the bottom of the matter so that we can try and prevent anything of the sort happening again. D’you agree?’

‘Certainly.’

‘All right, then. I know I shouldn’t ask you this, but—are you in love with me?’

‘No,’ said Hemmingway, looking her straight in the eyes.

‘That’s good,’ she nodded. ‘I didn’t think you were.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because Derek believes it was you who attacked him; and that you meant to murder him first and Sam afterwards.’

‘What utter nonsense! You know how I feel about Sam. Is it likely that I’d …’

Lavina held up her hand. ‘Derek’s theory is that you’re in love with me and that you intended to eliminate any possible rivals in order to get me for yourself. On the face of it that may sound fantastic, but men have done queerer things for love, you know.’

His strange eyes held hers and it was only with his mouth that he smiled, before he said: ‘Derek is a fool. He’s in love with you himself and so jealous of your every glance that he’s allowed his imagination to get the better of his common-sense. I give you my word that it was not I who attacked him. As for the rest, I know you think that every man you even sit around with is in love with you, but it just happens that I’m not.’

‘All right, I accept that,’ replied Lavina gravely. ‘But, just in case there was anything in Derek’s theory, I thought I ought to let you know that if any “accident”
did
befall the others I’d shoot anyone I believed to be responsible and, as you may remember, when I do shoot, I shoot to kill!’

Suddenly Hemmingway laughed. ‘You’re a grand person, Lavina. If you like, I’ll lend you my gun.’

Lavina laughed, too. ‘Don’t bother. I don’t think I’ll need one; but if I do, I can always borrow Gervaise’s.’

The sea remained placid, the clouds showed no signs of breaking, and the Ark drifted onwards among the debris which had floated to the surface from the flooded world. For two days there was no further incident to disturb their dull routine although they all continued to be nervy and suspicious of each other. Derek was up and about again; Oliver’s arm was slowly mending. The raids upon the food had ceased, so Gervaise, who had a theory that the thief and Derek’s attacker were one and the same, had begun to hope that whoever had been responsible had taken a hold upon themselves through fright at discovering that they had nearly committed a murder, and that he would be faced with no more unsolved mysteries.

It was, therefore, with an appalling shock that, on coming out of his cabin on the fifteenth morning of the flood, he found his brother lying dead on the living-room floor.

Before he could warn the others Margery had come out of the women’s cabin. Her piercing scream brought the rest of the party running; and in a horrified group they stood staring at
Oliver’s dead body. The back of his head had been smashed to pulp. There could be no doubt that he had been murdered.

His face drawn and anxious, Gervaise looked slowly round. ‘There is only one explanation for this,’ he said huskily, ‘and since there is no possibility of any of us leaving the Ark it is a terrible thing to have to face. One of us is a homicidal maniac’

The full horror of their situation slowly dawned upon them. There was no escape from the Ark. They must remain living cheek by jowl in its narrow confines; yet the brain of one of them had been turned by their terrible experiences and, whoever that person was, while appearing normal for the greater part of the time, he was afflicted with occasional periods of hideous aberration in which he was capable of murder.