Death in the Middle Watch (13 page)

“So Li-Co is on the floor upstairs and none of the girls dare to go near him. I daren't go either so as you are a friend of his will you go?”

“Who said I was a friend of his?”

“You say you are a sailor. That's what Li-Co is. Also the other man. I can tell them. You take him away in a taxi so he keeps out of trouble. Everything is known round here and someone will tell the police and they come and shut me up. And take Li-Co too.”

“Too bad,” said Carolus, “All right, I'll have a look at Li-Co.”

“Then you take him with you to the ship, that's right?”

“Let me see him,” said Carolus and Madame Fifi led the way through the lighted door, closing it firmly behind her. A small man, pockmarked and diseased-looking, took over as guardian.

“He doesn't let the girls pass,” commented Madame Fifi. “They're very much afraid of him. Come upstairs.”

Again she led the way, but at the top of the stairs she turned.

“That's it. Number Four. Over there. That's where you'll find Li-Co.”

She seemed impatient to go downstairs again and left Carolus standing there. After a moment he knocked at the door of number four, and when there was no reply from within knocked louder. When he had knocked once more he tried the handle and found that the door was locked.

He stood back and kicked at the lower panel.

“Not so loud!” called Madame Fifi. “It will bring the police!”

“That's just what we need,” said Carolus. “Go and call them! Are you sure he's in here?”

“Yes. Yes. He's there!”

Carolus kicked at the lock itself and at last the door fell open.

The room stank. Cheap perfume, perspiration and another acrid smell. On the floor was Leacock with a bloody wound in his shoulder. He was dead.

Why the shoulder? Carolus wondered stupidly. Then there came back to him from a school classroom the words of Old Buzzy who used to teach him classics.

“Between the shoulder blades,” he had said of a Greek or Roman statue (Carolus couldn't remember which) illustrated in his textbook of a young man committing suicide by driving a sword downward from the left shoulder.

“Quickest way to the heart,” said Old Buzzy and not until this moment did Carolus realize that it was true.

He kept his head. He went slowly to the door and began descending the stairs. He guessed that Madame Fifi knew what he had seen, but he had no intention of admitting it and so become involved in a highly unpleasant situation.

“He's all right,” he said. “Sleeping it off. Don't disturb him for a while. I will come back later for him with a taxi and bring some friends to carry him if he can't walk. You say the man he fought was also a sailor?”

“I think so. He wore no uniform. But since he was that man's friend …”

“Yes, yes. He too has probably gone to get a taxi. We will take him on the ship very soon. You keep quiet, continue with your ordinary business and all will be well.”

Then Carolus walked out into the narrow street and made for the slightly wider one where his taxi had left him. By the luckiest of chances one of the minicabs—the only ones to be found in Tunis, he realized—approached him. He screwed himself into it and managed to tell the driver that he should go straight out to La Goulette where his ship lay.

When he came aboard the
Summer Queen
he was grudgingly greeted by a deckhand he had once seen talking with Leacock.

“You haven't seen anything of my mate while you were ashore, have you?” this one asked and Carolus, pretending to be preoccupied, managed not to answer. He made for the Bridge and was relieved to find both Captain Scorer and Mr Porteous.

“I'm afraid you've lost your best deckhand,” he said bluntly.

“What do mean by ‘lost'? Leacock has gone ashore, with permission.”

“He won't return,” said Carolus, “and I advise you to sail as soon as possible.”

“What is all this?” asked the Captain impatiently.

“I'm telling you about Leacock. He's been murdered.”

Porteous excelled himself in asking inane questions.

“Where? he gasped.

“Shortest way down to the heart.”

“What's the matter with you, Deene? I meant where was he when he … met with an accident?”

“In a brothel. And it was no accident,” said Carolus sharply.

“You mean to say that Leacock has been murdered?” said Porteous.

“That's what I said.”

Porteous's next was of course “How?”

“Longish knife. Into the heart. By this time his blood will be seeping through into the room below. If you don't get the ship out of this port within about half an hour I doubt if you'll be allowed to sail at all. Your cruisers will contemplate mudflats for the next week or so while you're attending enquiries.”

“We're due to sail at midnight,” said Porteous. “We can't go before that. Some of the passengers may be still ashore.”

“You do what you like, but I'd advise you to get the hell out of here before they find Leacock.”

Porteous became the man of action.

“Have a check made, Captain Scorer. See who's still ashore and whether any of the crew are. We'll sail as soon as we can.”

“I devoutly hope that's soon enough.”

“In a
brothel
,” said Porteous, and then, as Carolus anticipated, “What was he doing in a brothel?”

“I leave you to guess,” said Carolus sweetly.

“No, don't go, Deene,” pleaded Porteous. “Have you any idea how the poor fellow came to meet his death?”

“Yes. Like Christopher Marlowe. In a drunken brawl.”

“With another sailor? In that case we must take every step to bring the man to justice.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“Fairly obvious, isn't it?” said Porteous, regaining some of his old superior manner. “You would scarcely expect to find a woman in a brothel, would you?”

“I should scarcely expect to find anyone else,” Carolus replied gravely. “But I see what you mean. Leacock was murdered, they tell me, in a place known as Madame Fifi's, by a
fellow sailor, but neither of them was in uniform. They quarrelled, believe it or not, over a girl, a middle-aged whore to be exact, who was apparently Leacock's choice whenever the ship came into Tunis.”

“Great heavens!”

“That is when he wasn't too drunk to see one from another,” went on Carolus.

“I thought he was our best man,” groaned Porteous.

“He may have been a good seaman,” admitted Carolus. Then he turned and said seriously to Porteous, “Look here. I think I can clear up this whole mess as soon as we reach London. But only on one condition. If it becomes known to anyone aboard, to
anyone
mark you, I can do nothing at all. I mean this. This ship, like Shakespeare's isle, is full of noises and there are ears attuned to the least rumour from them. Let it be known to one single person that you are aware of what has happened to Leacock and you're a ruined man. He has been left adrift here. That's all.”

“Why are you so emphatic?”

“Because I want to prove my theory's right and I shall never do so if the slightest murmur of what I have told you gets about. I will do what I can to check gossip among the passengers, but you and Captain Scorer must see that it never starts.”

“Believe me, I have no wish to circulate anything so unpleasant, anything that disturbs the holiday spirit so much.”

“To hell with your holiday spirit and your cruisers and the whole bloody outfit. This is murder and I mean to bring it home. So for God's sake keep your mouth shut and tell Scorer to do the same.”

“You make me think you know more than you're willing to say.”

“Think what you bloody well like. Think I killed Leacock, if you like, or that Lady Spittals did …”

“What has Lady Spittals to do with it?”

“Nothing. I'm trying to make you see how ridiculous you can be. I don't mind what you think about Leacock or anything else, only if you talk about it, you'll never organize another cruise. I promise you that. Do you know a woman named Grahame-Willows?”

“Yes. Sits near me in the dining room.”

“I thought so. She's stocked with misinformation that can only have come from you. So hold her off, for God's sake. Tell her that Leacock has been taken to hospital, run over, whatever you like, but don't let her catch a hint of what I've told you.”

“Does she gossip much?”

“She lives on it and sustains half the other passengers on it too.”

“She seemed a very harmless person.”

“She's dangerous, I tell you. There's just a chance, Porteous,
just
a chance, that if you keep your mouth shut I shall get the murderer arrested. It's a slim chance, because there's so much talk aboard this ship. But if I don't succeed, I warn you, you'll have had it. Goodbye Summertime Cruises for good. So get that into your head.”

C
AROLUS WAS NOT BLUFFING
. It was true, and he knew it, that if it was noised about the ship that Leacock had been killed in Tunis, his chances of a successful conclusion to the case were nil. Hitherto the bumbling allocations of Mr Gorringer and Mrs Stick's admiring quotations from the lady at the table where we sit and all the other tittle-tattle on board were faintly amusing to him; now they were dangerous. Carolus realized that his one hope lay in that most difficult of duties, now as in wartime, security of information.

Yet for him to appear serious about it, to attempt indignantly to deny whatever wild stories might be told, was almost equally unsafe. He could not plead or threaten anyone into keeping silence. His only hope was that the facts about the events in Tunis might never reach the ship. In that case he might be able to rely on the fanciful embroideries of Mrs Grahame-Willows, or the pompous theorizing of Mr Gorringer, to account for Leacock's disappearance. It was too much to hope that Leacock's absence from his duties would be unnoticed by the passengers.

His first action on the following morning was to ask the Purser for a list of all members of the ship's company who had been ashore yesterday and also of the passengers. To explain this to the Purser and anyone else who might think it an
unusual request, he asked the Captain, one of the two people of necessity in his confidence, to have it explained that Leacock was believed to have met with a street accident and been taken to hospital. It was hoped that someone had seen the incident and would give evidence about it. Even this was dangerous for, as Carolus knew, to circulate a false story to cover a true one often defeated its ends. The listener to all rumours who was actually on this ship was keenly aware of the truth. It was necessary to make that listener believe that he or she was the only one to know it. That there was such a listener, Carolus had not the slightest doubt.

Moreover, if that listener thought that Carolus himself had learned the truth, his own life could be in danger. His best course of action was to show good humour in the face of any sinister rumour-mongering, as though Leacock's failure to return to the ship was in no way remarkable, an incident, as it was to most of the passengers, to be expected on a cruise like this.

When he studied the list the Purser brought him, he had a few mild surprises. The Purser mentioned with exaggerated casualness that he himself had been ashore for a short time.

“I don't suppose that interests you,” laughed Mr Ratchett.

“Oh, but it does. What time did you go?”

“I've no idea. Somewhere about seven, I should think.”

“And came back?

“I was on board at half-past nine,” said the Purser, growing a little sharp in his manner. “But what possible interest that could have I …”

“Thanks for the list, anyway,” interrupted Carolus. At the head of it was Mr Hugh Gorringer, M.A.

“He insists on the M.A.,” explained the Purser.

Carolus nodded. He could well believe it. Next to him was Mrs Agatha Grahame-Willows. Yes. He thought so. Then Gavin Ritchie and Rita Latour. Together at last, as Carolus
had noted. Dr Yaqub Ali had been ashore in the earlier part of the day but had returned to the ship soon after lunch. Alexander Carlisle, however, had been one of the last to return before the ship sailed, while Sir Charles and Lady Spittals had come only a little earlier. Susan Berry had been ashore, as Carolus knew, but he looked in vain for the name of the Second Engineer. He wondered whether the tall girl would admit to her new friendship and decided to put his list away for a time and ask her.

Miss Berry smiled radiantly.

“Yes, Mr Deene,” she said. “I did go ashore in Tunis and had a wonderful time.”

Carolus could not very well ask for details and waited.

“But not with someone from this old ship. I've never seen such a stuffy lot! Call this a holiday cruise? It's been more like a funeral. I went ashore alone and met a most charming Tunisian gentleman. Quite young. He was beautifully dressed and has lots of friends in England. So I say pooh to the
Summer Queen
and everyone on board!”

“What time did you come back to the ship?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Susan dreamily. “Mohammed had a car and we went out a long way. I didn't want to come back at all, but he told me at the last minute that he needed some money to have the car repaired and put some more petrol in, so I came back here.”

A non sequitur, but Carolus followed it.

“Did you meet anyone as you came aboard?”

“Only Mr and Mrs Popple. They're so dull like everyone else in this ship. They scarcely took any notice of Mohammed. As for that Dr Runwell, he was positively rude!”

“How? Why?”

“He came up behind Mohammed and me just as we reached the gangway and said something to Mohammed in
some other language. I don't know what it was, but Mohammed did not seem to like it and went off without saying goodnight again. Then Dr Runwell turned round to me and said, ‘Time you were on board, young lady.' I hate being called ‘young lady' like that and I told, him so but he almost pushed me up the gangplank. Not very nice, was it?”