Алистер Маклин - The Golden Rendezvous

The door in the ship’s side clanged shut, Captain Bullen handed over the Bible to a cadet, the engine revs mounted and the Campari was back in business again. And the first item on the agenda was breakfast.

In my three years aboard the Campari I had rarely seen more than half a dozen passengers in the dining-saloon for breakfast. Most of them preferred to have it served in their suites or on the private verandas outside their suites. Barring a few apéritifs, followed by Antoine’s or Henriques’s superb cooking, there was nothing to beat a good funeral to bring out the sociable best in our passengers. There could only have been seven or eight missing altogether.

I had a full complement at my table except, of course, for the invalid, Mr. Cerdan. I should have been on watch but the captain had decided that, as there was a very able quartermaster on the wheel and no land within seventy miles, young Dexter, who usually stood the watch with me, could stand it alone for the length of breakfast.

No sooner had I pulled in my chair than Miss Harrbride fixed her beady eyes on me.

“What on earth’s happened to you, young man?” she demanded.

“To tell you the truth, Miss Harrbride, I don’t really know myself.”

“You what ?”

“It’s true.” I put on my best shamed-face. “I was standing up on the boat-deck last night and the next thing I knew I was lying in the scuppers with my head cut – I must have struck it against the davit when I fell.” I had my story all prepared. “Dr. Marston thinks it was a combination of sunstroke – I was loading cargo most of the day yesterday and I can assure you that the sun was very hot – and the fact that owing to our troubles in Kingston and the delay caused by it, I haven’t had very much sleep in the past three days.”

“I must say things do keep happening aboard the Campari ,” Miguel Carreras said. His face was grave. “One man dead from a heart attack or whatever it was, another missing – they haven’t found our chief steward yet, have they?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“And now you get yourself banged up. Let’s sincerely hope that’s the end of it.”

“Troubles always happen in threes, sir. I’m sure this is the end of it. We’ve never before–”

“Young man, let me have a look at you,” a peremptory voice demanded from the captain’s table. Mrs. Beresford, my favourite passenger. I twisted round in my seat to find that Mrs. Beresford, who normally sat with her back to me, had herself completely turned round in hers. Beyond her, the Duke of Hartwell, unlike the previous night, was having no trouble at all in devoting his entire attention to Susan Beresford: the usual counter-attraction on his right, in the best traditions of the theatrical world, rarely rose before noon. Mrs. Beresford studied me in silence for the best part of ten seconds.

“You don’t look well at all, Mr. Carter,” she pronounced finally. “Twisted your neck, too, didn’t you? You didn’t have to turn around in your chair to talk to me.”

“A little,” I admitted. “It’s a bit stiff.”

“And hurt your back into the bargain,” she added triumphantly. “I can tell from the peculiar way you sit.”

“It hardly hurts at all,” I said bravely. It didn’t, in fact, hurt me in the slightest, but I hadn’t yet got the hang of carrying a gun in my waistband and the butt kept sticking painfully into my lower ribs.

“Sun-stroke, eh?” Her face held genuine concern. “And lack of sleep. You should be in bed. Captain Bullen, I’m afraid you’re overworking this young man.”

“That’s what I keep telling the captain, ma’am,” I said, “but he doesn’t pay any attention to me.”

Captain Bullen smiled briefly and rose to his feet. His eyes, as they roved slowly over the room, held the expression of one who wanted both attention and quiet: such was the personality of the man that he got it in three seconds flat.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. The Duke of Hartwell regarded the tablecloth with that smell-of-bad-fish expression he reserved for tenants wanting a cut in rent and merchant navy captains who forgot to preface public addresses with the words “Your Grace.”

“I am most distressed,” the captain went on, “as I am sure you are all distressed by the events of the past twelve hours. That we should lose our chief wireless officer through death by natural causes is, God knows, bad enough: but that our chief steward should vanish the same evening – well, in thirty-six years at sea I have never known anything like it.

“What happened to Chief Steward Benson we cannot say with any certainty: but I hazard a guess and at the same time issue a warning. There are literally hundreds of recorded cases of men vanishing overboard during the night and I have little doubt but that Benson’s death is due to the same reason which probably accounts for 99 per cent, of all the other cases. Even on the most experienced sailors the effect of leaning over the rail at night and watching the black water passing below has a weirdly hypnotic effect. I think it’s something akin to the vertigo that affects a great number of people, people who are convinced that if they go near, say, the parapet of a high building, some strange force will make them topple over, no matter what their conscious minds may say. Only, with leaning over the rails of a ship, there is no fear. Just a gradual mesmerism. A man just leans farther and farther over until his centre of gravity is suddenly displaced. And then he is gone.”

As an alibi or explanation for Benson’s disappearance it was as good as any: as a general statement it was also, unfortunately true.

“And so, ladies and gentlemen, I would counsel you all, most strongly, never to approach the ship’s rail at night unless you are accompanied by someone else. I would be most grateful if you would all bear that strongly in mind.”

I looked round the passengers as far as my stiff neck would allow. They would bear it in mind, all right. From now on, wild horses wouldn’t drag them near the Campari ’s rails at night.

“But,” Bullen went on emphatically, “it will help neither of those unfortunate men and only do ourselves a great disservice if we allow ourselves to brood over those things. I cannot ask you to dismiss those deaths from your minds at once, but I can ask you not to dwell on them. On a ship, as elsewhere, life must go on – especially, I might say, on a ship. You are aboard the Campari to enjoy the cruise: we are aboard to help you enjoy it. I would be most grateful if you would give us your every assistance to get shipboard life back to normal as soon as absolutely possible.”

There was a subdued murmur of agreement, then Julius Beresford, rising from his seat beside the captain, was on his feet.

“Do you mind if I say a few words, sir?” He could have bought the Blue Mail Line without even denting his bank balance, but still he asked permission to speak and called old Bullen “sir.”

“Certainly, Mr. Beresford.”

“It’s just this.” Julius Beresford had addressed too many board meetings to be anything other than completely at ease when speaking to people, no matter how many million dollars they represented. “I agree, and agree completely with everything our captain has said. Captain Bullen has said that he and his crew have a job to do and that that job is to look after the every comfort and convenience of his passengers: under the rather sad circumstances in which we have to meet this morning, I think that we, the passengers, have also a job to do – to make things as easy as possible for the captain, officers and crew and help them bring things back to normal as soon as possible.