Death in the Middle Watch (5 page)

“Yes. I see the situation. What happened?” asked Carolus.

“All of a sudden he seemed to collect himself as you might say, turned round and went off as if someone was after him.”

“So now the lady at the table where you sit was able to ring for the real steward?”

“No, she didn't. It was a choice of that or locking the door, and that's what she decided and in my opinion it was the best thing she could do. How was she to know that if she rung her bell this other one wouldn't come back to answer it? Then where would she be? So she jumped out, locked the door and jumped into bed again. Of course that's what she ought to have done in the first place.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Carolus.

“But I haven't told you the funny part. This wasn't meant to be her cabin, not before she came on board the ship. She'd been given another cabin which she didn't fancy because the washbasin had to be repaired. It wouldn't have taken a minute, as I told her, and they keep men specially for anything like that. Then she wouldn't have had all this trouble. But she went to the Chief Steward, he calls himself, and he said she could have the double cabin meant for a Mr and Mrs Darwin, him having cancelled at the last minute, and her having been put in a single cabin somewhere else. Another funny thing is this Mrs Darwin is the very woman whose husband died and was buried at sea list year that I told you about.

“It's my idea,” went on Mrs Stick, “that whoever he was that came creeping in expected to see this man Darwin and as likely as not murdered him.”

“Really, Mrs Stick, once you get the idea of murder you seem to see it everywhere. You hear of a steward wearing grey flannel trousers and you think it means …”

“Well, you must own it's funny. They all wear black. And the lady at the table where we sit said he looked horrible. like one of
those you read about attacking anyone in railway carriages. You can think what you like, sir, but even Stick, who doesn't listen to a lot of nonsense, thinks there's something funny going on.”

“I suppose the lady at the table where you sit didn't recognize the man who came to her cabin?”

“No. She didn't.”

“It was not, for instance, the man who she saw ‘behaving in a funny way' when she had gone on deck the previous evening?”

“Not unless he'd grown a beard in the meantime. This one she said who looked horrible had a beard, like a lot of the stewards.”

Carolus thanked her for informing him so promptly and went in search of Mr Porteous. He found him being expansive at the bar.

“Have one?” he asked Carolus. “I know it's a bit early …”

“Porteous, I've come to the conclusion that our attempts to hush things up are useless. Everyone on board knows about the incident, whatever it was, of the night before last and it will be only a question of time before they realize that I'm here to watch things for you. I think we should anticipate that and tell them what my job is. They may have useful information.”

“Aren't you rather rushing things? We know now that no one is missing.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Passenger list complete.”

“Then how do you account for the clothes left by the ship's rail, the stifled cry and the rest?”

“I'm afraid Leacock must have imagined the stifled cry. Unless, of course, someone was attempting to stow away and when he found he was discovered made an end of himself.”

“It sounds most improbable. You think it was a stowaway who …”

“It seems the only solution.”

Carolus looked rather serious.

“In that case I should like to examine the overcoat, jacket and shoes.”

“I'll have them taken to your cabin at once, but I may tell you there's nothing noticeable about them. Not even a name-tab and nothing in the pockets.”

“That in itself is noticeable. But what I want you to do is this. Tell the Captain, and anyone else you think should know, exactly what I'm doing here, and ask them to give me any assistance they can.”

“Yes. I agree to that,” said Mr Porteous as though he was making a large concession.

“And I want to have a talk with that deckhand, Leacock.”

“I don't know what you'll gain by it but I see no objection.”

“This morning?” stipulated Carolus.

“I daresay that can be arranged.”

Carolus nodded and after some time went to his cabin where he found, thrown carelessly across the bunk, a brown raincoat and a tweed jacket. A pair of black shoes were beside the bunk on the floor.

He set to work to make a close examination of these and found, as he rather anticipated, that a maker's name had been removed from behind the collars of both the jacket and raincoat, denoting, he decided, that the jacket was a product of mass tailoring. He felt inside the wallet pocket but no tailor's name had been removed from there.

Otherwise, nothing. Every pocket was empty and only a forensic examination by experts was likely to reveal anything more. The shoes gave him no more information than the clothes, though here, he knew, he was more at a loss. An examination not necessarily in the police laboratories would
reveal a great deal about the man who had worn them, probably his habits, certainly his walk. But Carolus was no microscope or magnifying-glass man. He trusted little more than his instincts, his gift of logic and insight into motives. These pieces of possible evidence meant nothing to him. He decided that before he was likely to make any further progress, he must wait for the man Leacock. Of him he had great hopes.

Meanwhile he went out on deck and was in time to hear an announcement made over the loudspeaker system which was audible in every part of the ship. He had been dismayed, when he had first come on board, to hear the self-consciously refined voice of a female member of the staff giving instructions with exaggerated politeness.

“Will all cruisers please take their passports to the office in the central lobby?” she had said ingratiatingly. “Will Mr Rutherford kindly come to the Purser's office immediately, please?” And so on.

Now it was a male voice, loud and commanding as befitted the Captain of the
Summer Queen
.

“This is your Captain speaking,” he announced. “I want first to wish you all a very happy cruise and to assure you that we on our side will do everything we can to make it a pleasant one.

“It appears that certain rumours have been circulating and those of you who have been on cruises before will know that this is unfortunately no rarity. Somehow things get about which have no foundation in fact, and we who are responsible for giving you a good time do what we can to prevent them. Let me say at once that the story of someone calling ‘Man Overboard' in the small hours of yesterday morning was a very foolish practical joke on the part of one of the cruisers. Nothing of the sort had any basis in fact, and such tricks will not be repeated. Summertime Cruises take every precaution to
prevent that sort of thing, so I hope that if any of you have felt the least alarm, you will now relax and enjoy yourselves. Thank you for listening and have a good time.”

There was, Carolus noticed, silence among the cruisers who had heard this announcement, and he wondered whether it was a reflection of scepticism. He would have liked to have heard what the lady at the table where we sit had to say about it.

L
EACOCK GAVE A DOUBLE
bang on the cabin door.

“Captain says you want to speak to me,” he said.

He was a powerful man, but not heavy. His hands were enormous and his neck was like rope.

“Something about the night before last, wasn't it?” he continued, as Carolus silently observed him.

“No,” said Carolus finally. “About last night.” Watching Leacock, he saw that he was more than surprised; almost, he thought, startled. But he might be gaining the wrong impression. “Were you on the Middle Watch again?”

“No, sir. On the First Night Watch. Off at twelve o'clock.”

“I see. Were there many passengers about when you went round the saloon?”

“It was empty. No one asleep there
this
time. I didn't see a soul about.”

“None of the stewards?”

“No. If the passengers have all gone to bed they go off duty about eleven.”

“There wasn't, for instance, a man half dressed in steward's uniform?”

Leacock grinned.

“Now I see what you're getting at. I heard about that lady saying someone had come to her cabin half in uniform.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Now, sir.” Leacock spoke as though to a child. “You should never ask anyone how he heard things on a ship like this. Everything goes round. Passengers, crew, no one can help hearing things. One of the stewards told me as a matter of fact about this old biddy imagining a man coming into her cabin. Wishful thinking, he said it was.”

“She said he had a beard.”

“Very likely. They all have them nowadays. The wife wants me to grow one ‘and look like an old-fashioned Player's cigarette?' I asked her. No, thank you.”

“And grey flannel trousers under his white jacket.”

“If you'd been among these cruisers, as they call them, as long as I have, you wouldn't be surprised if she'd seen purple tights, sir. She might have imagined anything.”

“She might. But she didn't. She saw very clearly a man in a white jacket and grey flannel trousers coming into her cabin in which he expected to find someone else.”

Leacock laughed aloud, “Well, I don't suppose he expected to find her, if what the steward says she's like is true.”

“The cabin had been allotted to a Mr and Mrs Darwin. It was a double cabin—number forty-six. Mr Darwin could not leave his business in time and is joining the ship in Lisbon. So the occupants of the cabin were changed. This might account for the intruder's surprise on finding Mrs Grahame-Willows there.”

“Of course I know nothing about that,” said Leacock, “I don't have anything to do with the cabins. My job's on deck. What I thought you wanted to see me about, when the Captain told me that you were a sort of detective, was this business the night before last.”

“I was more interested in the intruder, to tell you the truth.”

Leacock laughed again.

“We get those every trip,” he said. “Whenever there's women travelling alone.”

“So you've said.”

“Now that fellow the night before last was something unusual. Asleep in the saloon when everyone else had gone to bed. What do you make of that?”

“I don't,” said Carolus.

“I mean, it gave me quite a start. I've known drunks lying about the ship, but this fellow wasn't drunk. Not by any means.”

“How do you know?”

“I could see him, couldn't I?”

“Could you? W hat did he look like?”

It seemed that Leacock did not much care for the question.

“Sort of … ordinary,” he said. “Like you might see every day.”

“I thought you said he was unusual?”

“I said finding him there was unusual.”

“What height would you say he was?”

“About my height, I should say. Five foot eleven, that is.”

“No beard?”

“No. Nothing on his face at all. Clean shaven, like me.”

“That's not so usual nowadays. How was he dressed?”

“Can't say I noticed. Or if I did I don't remember. There can't have been anything very striking about him, can there?”

“Was he wearing a raincoat?”

“Now you come to mention it I think he was. The one that was found after he'd gone overboard.”

“Did he wear spectacles?”

Leacock looked narrowly—or was it suspiciously?—at Carolus.

“No,” he said loudly. “No, I'm sure he wasn't. But he might have taken them off, mightn't he? You never know. Remember, he'd just been woken up.”

“Yes. I do remember. You woke him, I believe?”

“Certainly I did. You can't have passengers sleeping all over the ship, can you? He ought to have been in his cabin.”

“How do you know he had one? He wasn't on the passenger list.”

“That's something I know nothing about. You could ask the Purser about that. As far as I know he was a passenger like any other.”

“Except that from what you tell us he was on the point of committing suicide?”

“I wasn't to know that, was I? He didn't look like a man having his last minutes on earth.”

“How did he look, Leacock?”

“I've told you, just ordinary.”

“He didn't seem nervous?”

“Not at all. A bit sleepy if anything.”

“Yet a minute or two later when you'd gone round to the other side of the saloon, he had taken his overcoat and jacket off, undone his shoes and gone over the side?”

“That's what it looked like. That's why I shouted ‘Man Overboard!'”

“Do you still think that's what happened?”

“As we used to say in the Service, sir, I'm not paid to think. That's what it looked like, anyway.”

“You're quite certain that you'd never seen the man before?”

“How can anyone be certain of a thing like that? For all I know we might have travelled in the same railway carriage, or something of the sort. But I don't remember it.”

“You would know him again?”

“Well, not if he's gone over the side, as it seems he has. I shouldn't know him then. Have you ever seen a stiff that's been three or four days in the sea? It's not a pleasant sight I can tell you. They seem to go for their eyes first.”

“There's no evidence except your own that there was such a man. He's not shown on the passenger list.”

Leacock looked hostile and defiant.

“I saw him, all right,” he said.

“But you didn't see him go over the side?”

“Not see him in the act, I didn't. But when a man's there one minute and the next he's gone and his coat and shoes are all that's left of him, you can pretty well tell what's happened, can't you?”