Алистер Маклин - Bear Island

The saloon, I decided, was the place for me. It had, as I recalled, a very comfortable corner bulkhead settee where I could wedge myself and, more importantly, protect my back. The lockers below the settee seats had a splendid assortment of fleecy steamer rugs, another legacy, like the lockless doors, from the previous owner. Best of all, it was a brightly lit and public place, a place where people were liable to come and go even at that late hour, a place where no one could sneak up on you unawares. Not that any of this would offer any bar to anyone so ill-disposed as to take a potshot at me through the saloon’s plate glass windows. It was, I supposed, some little consolation that the person or persons bent on mayhem had not so far chosen to resort to overt violence, but that hardly constituted a guarantee that they wouldn’t: why the hell couldn’t the publishers of reference books emulate the prestigious Encyclopaedia Britannica and do away with bookmarks altogether?

It was then that I recalled that I’d left the board of Olympus Productions in full plenary session up in the saloon. How long ago was that? Twenty minutes, not more. Another twenty minutes, perhaps, and the coast would be clear. It wasn’t that I harboured any particular suspicion towards any of the four: they might just consider it very odd if I were to elect to sleep up there for the night when I’d a perfectly comfortable cabin down below.

Partly on impulse, partly to kill some of the intervening time, I decided to have a look at the Duke, to check on his condition, to ensure him a restful night by promising he’d be back on full rations come breakfast time and to find out if Sandy had been telling the truth. His was the third door to the left: the second to the right was wide open, the door stayed back at 90 degrees. It was Mary Stuart’s cabin and she was inside but not asleep: she sat in a chair wedged between table and bunk, her eyes wide open, her hands in her lap.

‘What’s this, then?’ I said. ‘You look like someone taking part in a wake.’

‘I’m not sleepy.’

‘And the door open. Expecting company?’

‘I hope not. I can’t lock the door.’

‘You haven’t been able to lock the door since you came aboard. It doesn’t have a lock.’

‘I know. It didn’t matter. Not till tonight.’

‘You – you’re not thinking that someone might sneak up and do you in while you’re sleeping?’ I said in a tone of a person who could never conceive of such a thing happening to himself.

‘I don’t know what to think. I’m all right. Please.’

‘Afraid? Still?’ I shook my head. ‘Fie on you. Think of your namesake, young Mary Darling. She’s not scared to sleep alone.’

‘She’s not sleeping alone.’

‘She isn’t? Ah, well, we live in a permissive age.’

‘She’s with Allen. In the recreation room.’

‘Ah! Then why don’t you join them? If it’s safety you wrongly imagine you need, why then, there’s safety in numbers.’

‘I do not like to play – what you say – gooseberry.’

‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ I said and went to see the Duke. He had colour, not much but enough, in his cheeks and was plainly on the mend. I asked him how he was.

‘Rotten,’ said the Duke. He rubbed his stomach.

‘Still pretty sore?’

‘Hunger pains,’ he said.

‘Nothing tonight. Tomorrow, you’re back on the strength – forget the tea and toast. By the way, that wasn’t very clever of you to send Sandy up to raid the galley. Haggerty nabbed him in the act.’

‘Sandy? In the galley?’ The surprise was genuine. ‘ I didn’t send him up.’

‘Surely he told you he was going there?’

‘Not a word. Look, Doc, you can’t pin–’

‘Nobody’s pinning anything on anybody. I must have taken him up wrong. Maybe he just wanted to surprise you – he said something about you feeling peckish.’

‘I said that all right. But honest to God–’

‘It’s all right. No harm done. Good night.’

I retraced my steps, passing Mary Stuart’s open door again. She looked at me but said nothing so I did the same. Back in my cabin I looked at my watch. Five minutes only had elapsed, fifteen to go. I was damned if I was going to wait so long, I was feeling tired again, tired enough to drop off to sleep at any moment, but I had to have a reason to go up there. For the first time I devoted some of my rapidly waning powers of thought to the problem and I had the answer in seconds. I opened my medical bag and extracted three of the most essential items it contained – death certificates. For some odd reason I checked the number that was left – ten. All told, thirteen. I was glad I wasn’t superstitious. I stuffed the certificates and a few sheets of rather splendidly headed ship’s notepaper – the previous owner hadn’t been a man to do things by half – into my briefcase.

I opened the cabin door wide so as to have some light to see by, checked that the passage was empty and swiftly unscrewed the deck-head lamp. This I dropped on the deck from gradually increasing heights starting with about a foot or so until a shake of the lamp close my ear let me hear the unmistakable tinkle of a broken filament. I screwed the now useless lamp back into its holder, took up my briefcase, closed the door and made for the bridge.

The weather, I observed during my very hurried passage across the upper deck and up the bridge ladder, hadn’t improved in the slightest. I had the vague impression that the seas were moderating slightly but that may have been because of the fact that I was feeling so tired that I was no longer capable of registering impressions accurately. But one aspect of the weather was beyond question: the almost horizontally driving snow had increased to the extent that the masthead light was no more than an intermittent glow in the gloom above.

Allison was at the wheel, spending more time looking at the radarscope than at the compass, and visibility being what it was, I could see his point. I said: ‘Do you know where the captain keeps his crew lists? In his cabin?’

‘No.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘In the chart-house there.’ He hesitated. ‘Why would you want those, Dr Marlowe?’

I pulled a death certificate from the briefcase and held it close to the binnacle light. Allison compressed his lips.

‘Top drawer, port locker.’

I found the lists, entered up the name, address, age, place of birth, religion and next of kin of each of the two dead men, replaced the book and made my way down to the saloon. Half an hour had elapsed since I’d left Gerran, his three co-directors and the Count sitting there, and there all five still were, seated round a table and studying cardboard-covered folders spread on the table before them. A pile of those lay on the table, some more were scattered on the floor where the rolling of the ship had obviously precipitated them. The Count looked at me over the rim of his glass: his capacity for brandy was phenomenal.

‘Still abroad, my dear fellow? You do labour on our behalf. Much more of this and I suggest that you be co-opted as one of our directors.’

‘Here’s one cobbler that sticks to his last.’ I looked at Gerran. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve some forms to fill up. If I’m interrupting some private session–’

‘Nothing private going on here, I assure you.’ It was Goin who answered. ‘Mainly studying our shooting script for the next fortnight. All the cast and crew will have one tomorrow. Like a copy?’

‘Thank you. After I’ve finished this. Afraid my cabin light has gone on the blink and I’m not much good at writing by the light of matches.’

‘We’re just leaving.’ Otto was still looking grey and very tired but he was mentally tough enough to keep going long after his body had told him to stop. ‘I think we could all do with a good night’s sleep.’