Dangerous Cargo (22 page)

“I’m quite human, Pink.”

“Oh, I dare say. But you are continually blinking your eyes in order to
conceal your feelings.”

He laughed noiselessly. “The Madam put you up to that!”

“Meaning that I haven’t got sense enough to see it for myself!”

“I suppose it never occurred to you that the private secretary to a
millionaire has to damned well learn how to hide his private feelings.”

“I get your point; but I’m not your boss.”

He said: “I like you, Pink.”

“Say it without blinking!” I said.

He laughed. “You’re not exactly a pretty girl, but you have plenty of
oxygen in your composition.”

In spite of my determination to keep cool, Martin always succeeded in
exasperating me in the end. He was an ugly fellow, but there was something
upsetting about his cool ways. He was infernally clever. I wouldn’t answer
him, and he strolled away towards the door into the gymnasium.

“Don’t go in there,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Orders.”

“Do they apply to me?” he asked in surprise.

“I don’t know whether they do or not. But you can’t go in there until I
find out.”

He came back from the door. “What does the Madam expect to prove by the
gymnasium?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you make of this foul business, anyhow, Pink? I’m all at
sea.”

“Same here.”

“The Madam have some theory that she’s working out.”

“Very likely,” I said. “But she never confides her theories to anybody
until they’re proven.”

“Everything points to Adrian, but it doesn’t seem possible that such a
consummate fool would be able to engineer a plot like this.”

“Maybe Adrian, too, has succeeded in concealing his real character from
all of us,” I remarked.

Martin laughed his noiseless laugh, which wasn’t a laugh really, but only
a facial spasm. “One for Pink!” he said. “…But seriously, Pink, I wonder
she doesn’t turn her attention to young Emil. If it’s a motive she’s looking
for, he has as strong a motive as anybody. Through Horace’s death he gets the
girl and the money!”

“Emil and Celia didn’t meet until they came aboard,” I pointed out. “And
this plot was laid before we sailed.”

“Perhaps there were two plots,” he said carelessly.

I didn’t want to get drawn into a discussion of the case, so I didn’t
answer. Martin talked on about this and that until the others began to come
down the stairs.

A table was brought down from the lounge to make it easier for me to take
notes of the proceedings. When Mme. Storey sat down at it with me beside her,
my note-book spread before me, the place immediately took on the aspect of a
court. The others sat on the marble benches against the walls, or stood at
the foot of the stairway. Old Jim, the deck-hand, was now present to give
testimony.

The moment Adrian was brought down from his place of confinement he
started protesting his innocence. “It’s a cruel lie to accuse me of
fratricide! Cruel and silly, because I was locked up when it happened!”

“All right,” said Mme. Storey. “You’ll have full opportunity to defend
yourself directly. First I want to ask the doctor a few questions.”

Tanner had recovered from his extreme terror. He was anxious to testify.
His dull pop-eyes, incapable of expressing any feeling, made him look as if
he were lying whether he was or not. When Mme. Storey asked him to explain
how the needle got into Adrian’s hands, he said:

“Yesterday, after lunch, old Jim came to my surgery and told me that
Adrian was sick and wanted to see me. He said the Captain had given
permission, provided he—I mean Jim, stayed in the room. So I went back
with him. Jim remained standing in the doorway of Adrian’s room, but he
couldn’t hear what we said to each other.

“Adrian was in a rotten state of nerves, but there wasn’t anything else
the matter with him. He told me he was on the verge of a breakdown, and
unless he got a shot of codeine he’d go all to pieces. He said he was
accustomed to taking codeine hypodermically, and he had plenty of the stuff,
but he’d broken his needle. He wanted another. I said I’d have to ask the
Captain’s permission, but Adrian begged so hard not to publish the fact that
he was an addict that I said I would.

“How much did he offer you?” asked Mme. Storey.

Tanner’s eyes bolted. “I’m not supposed to take any fees aboard the ship,”
he muttered.

“I didn’t ask you what you were supposed to take, but what you got in this
case.”

“Nothing.”

“Go ahead.”

“I returned to the surgery and got the needle, also some harmless tablets.
I showed Jim the tablets I was giving Adrian, and slipped him the needle when
I shook hands with him on leaving.”

“What else went with the needle?”

“Nothing!” cried Tanner excitedly. “Nothing but some soda mint tablets. I
swear it!…Why, if Horace was killed with that needle some terrific poison
must have been used. I have nothing of that sort in my pharmacy. You can
search it! I don’t even know of a poison that would act so quickly!”

“We’ll go into that later,” she said quietly. “If you are an honest man,
why didn’t you tell me this when I first questioned you?”

“I didn’t want to take the responsibility of accusing Adrian,” he
mumbled.

“You mean you had been paid to keep your mouth shut!”

Tanner’s head sunk down.

“This doesn’t prove anything!” put in Adrian excitedly. “I can explain it
all quite easily.”

“Oh, no doubt!” said Mme Storey dryly. “But wait a minute…Jim! Does your
account of these two visits agree with the doctor’s?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jim, in distress, “but I never knowed the doctor
slipped him anything.”

“Of course you didn’t!”

“I should have been present myself,” said Les Farman, scowling. “But I was
so busy! And I didn’t feel that I ought to make the man wait for medical
assistance!”

“Never mind it now,” said Mme. Storey. “One can’t foresee
everything…Jim! Did Mr. Adrian Laghet have any other visitors?”

“No, ma’am. Only the Captain and me.”

“Let me explain,” cried Adrian.

“All right, go ahead!” said Mme. Storey.

“What the Doctor said was perfectly true,” said Adrian eagerly. “I asked
for the needle for the purpose he said, and he brought it to me. I had the
codeine.”

“Captain,” said Mme. Storey, “wasn’t he searched when he was locked
up?”

“Yes, Madam. I’ll swear there was no codeine on him, nor anything else of
that sort.”

“It was in my dressing-case which was fetched to me afterwards,” said
Adrian. “In a secret pocket.”

My employer looked inquiringly at Les.

“I doubt it!” he said strongly. “I searched the dressing-case.”

“Well, let it go for the moment. The essential thing is, how did the
needle get down here in the pool?”

“It’s not the same one,” said Adrian confidently.

“Oh, indeed! Can you produce the needle the doctor gave you?”

“No. I threw it out of the porthole.”

Mme. Storey’s eyebrows went up. “Oh! you threw it out of the porthole! Why
did you do that when you have been so crazy to get it?”

“Well, I got to thinking things over,” Adrian said dramatically, “and it
scared me the hold that stuff was beginning to get on me. I made up my mind
I’d suffer anything sooner than become a slave to it. And I threw the needle
through the porthole. It’s at the bottom of the ocean!”

“Very commendable,” said Mme. Storey, with deceitful sympathy. “So the
habit was beginning to get a hold over you?”

Adrian was a born romancer. His big brown eyes rolled in agony. “Oh, it
was awful!” he groaned. “That craving! I fought against it, but it was too
strong for me. I was beginning to lose my self-respect!” His face registered
a bright hope. “But I think the worst is over now. I haven’t had any of the
stuff for three days. The craving is not so strong as it was.”

“Take off your coat,” said Mme. Storey softly. “Roll up your left
shirt-sleeve.”

He saw the pit he had digged for himself, and fear leaped up in his eyes.
“Oh, the marks of the needle are all healed now,” he said.

Mme. Storey opened her little bag and took out a magnifying glass. “The
wounds heal, but the marks do not disappear for a long time. This glass will
show me.”

Adrian, staring at her, breathing fast, made no move to take off his
coat.

“Or perhaps you used the right arm,” she said casually. “Some do. Show me
both arms.”

“I didn’t use the needle on my arms,” he muttered.

“On your legs, then?” she said calmly. “Well, this is no time for modesty.
Show me.”

“What difference does it make?” said Adrian nervously. “What’s it got to
do with Horace, anyway?”

“It has this to do with Horace,” she answered with a steady look. “You
have never used a hypodermic needle on yourself. You didn’t want this needle
for yourself. You are lying!”

Adrian hung his head. For a moment he was at a loss. But only for a
moment. His wits came to his aid again. “You are right, I lied,” he murmured,
as if crushed with shame. Just the same, I noticed him looking sideways to
see if his story was getting across. “I lied just to make a better story. Not
for the reason you think.”

“Well, what’s the true version?” she asked dryly.

“It’s true that I never possessed a hypodermic needle,” he said. “I have
never used one on myself. But I wanted to do so. I had the bottle of codeine.
Had used it for toothache. And I was nearly crazy under the false accusation
that had been made against me. I thought if I could give myself a shot of
codeine I could get some rest.”

“Excellent!” said Mme. Storey. “But you didn’t use it?”

“Oh, no!” he said with a shudder. “Just as I was about to use it, a
reaction set in, and I pitched the needle and the bottle out of the
porthole!”

“What! the bottle too!” she said. “What a pity! Suppose you had another
toothache!”

“Ah, you don’t believe anything I say!” he said sadly. “What difference
does it make anyway? I never got out of my prison!”

“I wonder!” she said softly. She turned to Les. “Captain, I understand
that there are two keys to the room where Adrian was confined. I assume that
Jim had one of them. Where is the other?”

“I have it, Madam. The boss wanted to keep it, but I told him I couldn’t
be responsible for the prisoner unless I had it, and he gave it to me. Since
then it has been in my pocket, and as you know, I have never had my clothes
off since I took command.”

“Jim,” she said, “has your key to Mr. Adrian’s room ever been out of your
possession?”

The old sailor looked distressed, and moved his feet uneasily. “Only for
two-three minutes, Ma’am.”

“When was that?”

“This morning.”

“How did it happen?”

“Well, Ma’am, when I fixed Mr. Adrian’s breakfast and took it to him, I
found the key weren’t in my pocket. I was in a way, Ma’am. I run back to the
pantry, and there it was lying on the shelf where I fix his tray. It’s only a
little way from his room to the pantry and I had only missed it two-three
minutes.”

“Now, let me get this straight; the pantries and the galley are on B deck,
immediately over our heads?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“On B deck there are watertight doors between each hold, but they are left
open in fine weather, and you can carry the food aft to Mr. Adrian’s room in
number three hold?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Jim, why did you take the key out of your pocket and lay it on the pantry
shelf?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Ma’am.”

“Do you remember taking it out of your pocket?”

The old sailor’s distress increased. “No’m. Can’t say as I exactly
remember doing it.”

“Had you seen the key before this morning?”

“No’m.”

“Then perhaps you did not have it at all.”

Jim scratched his head helplessly.

“Where do you sleep?” asked Mme. Storey.

“In the room next to Mr. Adrian’s. The boss put me there so if Mr. Adrian
wanted anything he could knock on the wall.”

“Do you take off your clothes at night?”

The old sailor’s modesty was alarmed. He glanced around to see if anybody
was laughing. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Are you a sound sleeper?”

“I calc’late so, ‘m.”

“Do you lock your door at night?”

“No’m,” he said in surprise. “It never come into my mind to lock the door
on myself.”

Mme. Storey looked at Les and spread out her hands. “How easy!” she said
ruefully. “Jim is too honest a man to make a good jailer!”

“It’s my fault!” said Les. “I should have warned him!…At first I kept
the key in my own hands and made Jim come for it when he wanted it, but the
boss ordered me to let Jim keep it, in case Adrian ever wanted anything.”

“No use crying over spilt milk,” she said, shrugging. “We must find out
who let Adrian out.”

“I didn’t get out,” said Adrian.

“The five men who are confined on the boat-deck,” Mme. Storey went on;
“can you assure me that none of them have been out?”

“Absolutely,” said Les. “I keep the key to that room, and Jim comes to me
for it. Moreover, either Mr. McLaren or myself is on the bridge at all hours,
and we never forget that room.”

“Nobody on the outside has been in communication with them?”

“Nobody but myself and Jim.”

“The telephone?”

“Disconnected.”

“Then we must look elsewhere,” she said.

“Nobody has been to my room!” cried Adrian. “I swear it! I saw nobody
except Jim and the Doctor from the moment I was locked up there until I was
brought down here this morning!”

There was a ring of desperate truthfulness in his voice, yet it seemed as
if he must be lying. “How did you get out then?” asked Mme. Storey.

“I haven’t been out! This is all guesswork on your part!”

“Not all guesswork!” she said quietly. “We have traced the needle to you.
It next turns up at the bottom of the pool. How did it get here? You were
familiar with Horace’s habit of bathing at seven every morning. I suggest
that you stole down here before that hour and hid yourself in the
dressing-box immediately behind the diving-board. You cut a tiny hole in the
curtain so you could watch for Horace’s coming. You knew that he would walk
out on the board. You had only to reach out and stick the needle in his
leg…”