Death in the Andamans (17 page)

The clock in the hall struck the quarter to midnight as he tiptoed across the silent ballroom and descended the stairs to the hall where old Iman Din lay stretched upon his thin mattress, his turban on the floor beside him and a cloth draped across his face, sound asleep. It is to be feared that Iman Din, although a Muslim and therefore, theoretically, a teetotaller, had also been celebrating Christmas, and had fallen from grace to the extent of imbibing toddy in the Ross bazaar. As a result, his slumbers were particularly sound and his rhythmic snores did not cease when Dan Harcourt stepped over his recumbent body, and replacing his own shoes drew the bolts of the front door.

But with his hand upon the door-latch, Dan stopped and turned back, for hanging on the hall hatstand was a mackintosh cape with a hood of the type worn by the guards and orderlies in wet weather. ‘Just what the doctor ordered!' thought Dan; and carefully removing it from its peg he fastened it about his own shoulders, pulled the hood over his head, and thus protected against the rain opened the front door and stepped out into the wet night.

The sentry, yawning in his box, challenged him as he passed, and Dan stopped and came across to him: ‘I'm just going out for a breather. Too damned stuffy in the house and I can't sleep. I hope it's all right?'

‘Certainly, sir.' The sentry's wooden countenance relaxed into a grin and became human: ‘Wish I could join yer, sir! Fair feeds me up, standin' about 'ere
____
Christmas night an' all!'

Dan laughed, and pulled out a half-empty packet of Goldflake. ‘Tough luck. Have a cigarette.'

‘Not allowed to smoke on duty, sir,' said the sentry wistfully, averting his eyes from the betraying stub that glowed two feet away among the wet flowerpots where he had thrown it upon hearing approaching footsteps.

‘Keep 'em until you get off,' advised Dan. He pressed the packet into the sentry's grateful hand.

‘Thank you, sir. Much obliged. Good-night, sir.'

‘Good-night.' Dan turned away, and with no warning premonition of danger to send him back to the safety of his room, walked down the steep pathway and disappeared into the cold embrace of the mists.

*   *   *

The Guest House on Ross was a large, two-storeyed building of dismal aspect, standing just below the grounds of the Chief Commissioner's house at the top of the steep road that led up from the pier and the jetty. It had at that date remained empty for some considerable time, and was only used when auditors and such-like governmental wildfowl descended upon the Islands. The
chowkidar
*
, as is the custom of such people, was sound asleep with his blanket pulled well over his head, there was no sign of a police guard, and there appeared to be no one to dispute Dan's entrance.

The outer doors were locked, but it did not take him long to find a window whose latch he could force, nor, having once entered the house, to discover which room was doing duty as a temporary morgue.

They had laid the body of Ferrers Shilto on a trestle table in what must have been the living-room, wrapped in a tarpaulin sheet from which slow drops of brine oozed to fall on to the uncarpeted boards beneath and stray away in thin trickles, so that in that dim, empty room the dark blot of the makeshift catafalque had the appearance of a spider crouched in the centre of a web. Dust lay in a thick layer underfoot except where the feet of Dutt and the stretcher-bearers had disturbed it, and in that wide space of shadows the beam of Dan's pocket torch made a lonely pool of light, before whose wan glow the darkness retreated a few reluctant paces.

Outside the house the rain trickled from the eaves and gutters of the roof, and wisps of sea-fog pressed against the black, winking window-panes like white faces peering in from the night. But inside the air was dank and heavy, and there was no sound to break the silence save the monotonous
drip, drip, drip
of seawater from the still shape under the tarpaulin.

A bat that had been roosting on the gaunt frame of the electric fan swooped down with a rustle of leathery wings and fluttered about Dan's head, and he struck up at it involuntarily with his torch. As he did so, the torch slipped from his grasp, and striking the floor, went out, leaving him in a darkness that was so complete as to seem solid.

After a few minutes of blasphemous but ineffectual groping he remembered he had a box of matches in his pocket, and struck one. The hiss and splutter of its lighting sounded astonishingly loud in the silent room, and by its small flame he saw his torch lying near the open door. But as he reached it the match burnt out, and in the brief moment of dark before his fingers closed upon the cold metal, he thought that he heard something, or someone, move in the blackness beyond the doorway.

Pressing the switch of the torch he found to his intense relief that the bulb had not been broken, for once more a yellow beam of light beat back the shadows, and he flashed it about the room and through the doorways. But there was no one there, and except for himself and the dead man the house appeared to be empty. Nevertheless, he found to his disgust that his hands were shaking and that his breathing had quickened as though he had been running.

Of all the damned nonsense! thought Dan savagely: I'm getting as bad as that screaming woman Ruby Whatsername. Astonishing how an empty house at night can give one the jitters! Psychological, I suppose
____
He steadied himself with an effort and walked up to the rickety trestle table and its quiet occupant. And it was only then that he saw that the coverings of tarpaulin had been roughly stitched about the body. Evidently they intended to bury it like this if no coffin could be produced in time. Dan fumbled in his pocket, and producing a small penknife, ripped out the coarse stitches and drew back the impromptu shroud.

The stiff folds of tarpaulin fell back with a curious crackling sound and Ferrers Shilto's white face, still wearing that look of incredulous astonishment, gazed up at him, wide-eyed. And suddenly all nervousness left Dan Harcourt and he was once again a doctor, cool and impersonal, and this thing on the table before him was merely part of a doctor's job. He slipped off the heavy mackintosh cape he wore, and turning back the cuffs of his dinner-jacket, bent over the table and began his examination. It did not take him long.

It was perhaps five minutes later that he straightened up with a long-drawn sigh and pulled down his cuffs again. He had seen everything that he had wanted to see, and knew everything that he had wanted to know.

He heard no sound, nor did he see the shadow that moved in the shadows behind him. But suddenly and inexplicably he was aware of danger. Some sixth sense, stronger than reason, rang an imperative alarm bell in his brain, calling on him to turn.

A board creaked behind him and he spun round …

*   *   *

An hour later the sentry outside Government House saw a caped and hooded figure walk rapidly up the path towards the house. It nodded a brief greeting to him as it passed, but did not speak, and the sentry, mellowed by illicit cigarettes, followed the dim figure with a grateful gaze.

‘I 'ope 'e's enjoyed 'is little stroll,' mused Private Alfred Reginald Weekes: ‘
Er-iaw-ooh!
Gawd! I couldn't 'arf do with a bit of shut-eye!'

He heard the front door close softly, and then the sounds of bolts being gently pressed home.

Inside the house the clock struck half past one.

12

‘Val, come here a minute. What do you make of this?'

Valerie, on her way to breakfast, paused beside Copper who was thoughtfully examining the intricate carving of the stairhead.

‘What is it? Oh, a moth. No, it isn't; it's only a bit of that pink feather stuff off Ruby's dressing-gown.'

‘I know,' said Copper. ‘But what is it doing here? She never came past here last night. That is, not unless she was prowling around after we'd all gone to bed.'

‘What would she want to prowl here for?' asked Valerie reasonably, ‘she's got everything she wants in her own rooms.' She reached out, and removing the small scrap of pink swansdown stood for a moment turning it between her fingers and frowning. ‘Perhaps she was only taking her insomnia for an airing. Unless, of course, she was
____
' Valerie broke off abruptly, and turning away said: ‘Come on, Coppy, or the eggs will be stone cold. Good-morning, Nick.'

‘'Morning, Val. Hullo, Coppy. Have either of you seen Dan?'

‘Not yet,' said Valerie, preceding him into the dining-room. ‘Why?'

‘He wasn't in his bed when I woke up, and he appears to have neglected his ablutions this morning.'

‘You'd probably been snoring and he was only too glad to get out,' suggested Copper lightly. ‘Good-morning, everyone.' She seated herself at the table and poured out a cup of coffee: ‘I expect you'll find he's gone for a walk to get up an appetite for breakfast.'

‘What — in this weather? Not bloody likely! The fog's so thick you could cut slices out of it with a spoon. And being of a charitable and Christian disposition, I will ignore your first and offensive suggestion.'

Valerie said: ‘I'll get one of the servants to hunt him up and tell him that breakfast's ready.' She called a
khidmatgar
*
and gave a brief order in the vernacular.

‘How's your wife this morning, Mr Stock?' inquired Copper. ‘I hope she had a good night?'

‘What's that?' Leonard Stock, who had been surreptitiously endeavouring to read the back of the Reuters news-sheet that was engaging the Chief Commissioner's attention, jumped guiltily and dropped his pince-nez into his coffee.

‘I said that I hoped that your wife had slept well,' said Copper distinctly.

‘Oh yes. Oh yes, quite well, thank you,' replied Mr Stock, fishing around in his coffee cup with a teaspoon. ‘We both passed an excellent night, all things considered.'

‘I only asked,' said Copper mendaciously, ‘because Valerie thought that she heard sounds from your room last night, and wondered if your wife had wanted anything.'

Mr Stock looked slightly taken aback: ‘From our room? I'm sure she must have been mistaken. Ruby would certainly have called out to me if she had wanted anything in the night.'

‘
Called out
to you?' inquired Copper, puzzled.

Leonard Stock flushed pinkly, and abandoning his ineffectual fishing operations with his teaspoon, retrieved his dripping pince-nez with his fingers and gave a little nervous laugh.

‘You see — Ruby prefers a room to herself. She says that I — er — that I occasionally — er — snore. And as she is a very light sleeper and suffers terribly from insomnia, I have had to remove my bed into the dressing-room, which has a proper door, so that she can shut it — the door between the rooms I mean — and not be disturbed. I'm afraid that I myself am a somewhat sound sleeper, but I am sure I would have heard her if she'd got up in the night, because in order to get to the bathroom she would have had to pass through my
____
' He stopped abruptly, and crimsoned as violently as though he had been guilty of unspeakable vulgarity, but Copper's attention had evidently wandered. She was engaged in spreading marmalade on her toast and thinking deeply …

The guest rooms occupied by the Stocks were next to Valerie's, the tiny verandah outside being shared by both rooms, and beyond the bedroom was a large dressing-room which corresponded, on a smaller scale, with the turret room at the opposite end of the house — now occupied by John Shilto. The bathroom led off from this, and as a heavy teak door separated the dressing-room from the bedroom, it was unlikely that Leonard Stock would have heard any but a fairly loud movement from his wife's room once the door was closed between them. Which meant that it would have been perfectly simple for Ruby to slip out of her room into the ballroom without her husband being any the wiser, and if it was true that he snored, she had only to listen for that sound to make sure that he was asleep before moving.

A dark and quite unfounded suspicion of John Shilto slid into Copper's mind; to be instantly rejected. She harboured no illusions as to Mrs Stock's standard of morality, having been regaled with too much local scandal by the island gossips, who had been only too delighted with the opportunity of unloading their choicest titbits on to the newcomer. But John Shilto was not a type likely to appeal to any woman; even one of Mrs Stock's man-collecting proclivities!

Copper glanced across to where he sat silent and morose eating scrambled eggs at the far side of the table. There were heavy dark pouches under his eyes that she did not remember having noticed before, and he looked unshaven and ill and as though he had passed a sleepless night. He's rather like something that's grown up in a cellar, thought Copper; and decided that whatever Ruby Stock had had in mind last night, it could not have been John Shilto!

Another and far more unpleasant thought struck her, and she turned sharply to look at Nick; and was as instantly ashamed of herself. I
am
a toad! thought Copper in sudden contrition, ashamed of her own suspicions: I must have a low, mean, horrid sort of mind. But what
was
Ruby doing, creeping about the house last night? Leonard is right. If she'd wanted anything reasonable she'd have woken up the entire house rather than move a finger to get it herself! And she was barefoot too — she must have been. Those silly feather slippers of hers would have made an awful racket, clicking across the ballroom; and if …

Copper twisted a little sideways in her chair and surreptitiously studied Nick's attractive profile with anxious eyes. Of course it's nonsense! she thought ruefully. I suppose it's only because I'm jealous of that woman that I think of these things. I
am
jealous of her: I suppose I'd be jealous of anyone who looked at him like that. Even Val … Even
Amabel
____
Oh dear!