Алистер Маклин - The Golden Rendezvous

“One moment, sir.” I’d caught sight of Whitehead making his way up to the bridge and beckoned him across. “Get the bo’sun, tell him to bring a pair of pliers.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll get the pliers–”

“I said ‘Tell the bo’sun to bring them,’ ” I said savagely. “Then ask Mr. Peters for the key to this door. Hurry!”

He hurried. You could see he was glad to escape. Bullen said: “Look here, Mister–”

“Dexter left the bridge because he saw something funny going on. So Ferguson said. Where else but here, sir?”

“Why here? Why not–”

“Look at that.” I took the padlock in my hand. “That bent key. And everything that’s happened has happened because of here.”

“The window?”

“No good. I’ve looked.” I led him round the corner to the single square of plate glass. “Night curtains are still drawn.”

“Couldn’t we smash the damn’ thing in?”

“What’s the point? It’s too late now.”

Bullen looked at me queerly, but said nothing. Half a minute passed in silence. Bullen was getting more worried every second. I wasn’t – I was as worried as could be already. Jamieson appeared, on his way to the bridge, caught sight of us, made to come towards us, then carried on as Bullen waved him away. And then the bo’sun was there, carrying a pair of heavy insulated pliers in his hand.

“Open this damned door,” Bullen said curtly.

MacDonald tried to remove the key with his fingers, failed and brought the pliers into use. With the first tug of the pliers the key in the lock snapped cleanly in half.

“Well,” Bullen said heavily. “That helps.”

MacDonald looked at him, at me, then back at the broken key still held in the jaws of the pliers.

“I didn’t even twist it, sir,” he said quietly. “And if that’s a Yale key,” he added with an air of faint distaste, “then I’m an Englishman.” He handed the key over for inspection. The break showed the grey, rough, porous composition of some base metal. “Home-made, and not very well made at that, either.”

Bullen pocketed the broken key.

“Can you get the other bit out?”

“No, sir. Completely jammed.” He fished in his overalls, produced a hacksaw. “Maybe this, sir?”

“Good man.”

It took MacDonald three minutes’ hard work – the hasp, unlike the padlock, was made of tempered steel – and then the hacksaw was through. He slid out the padlock, then glanced inquiringly at the captain.

“Come in with us,” Bullen said. There was sweat on his brow. “See that nobody comes near.” He pushed open the door and passed inside: I was on his heels.

We’d found Dexter all right, and we’d found him too late. He had that bundle of old clothes look, that completely relaxed huddled shapelessness that only the dead can achieve: face-down, out-flung on the Corticene flooring, he hardly left standing room for Bullen and myself.

“Shall I get the doctor, sir?” It was MacDonald speaking: he was standing astride the storm-sill and the knuckles of the hand holding the door shone bonily through the tautened skin.

“It’s too late for a doctor now, Bo’sun,” Bullen said stonily. Then his composure broke and he burst out violently: “My God, Mister, where’s it all going to end? He’s dead, you can see he’s dead. What’s behind – what murderous fiend – why did they kill him, Mister? Why did they have to kill him? Damn it to hell, why did the fiends have to kill him? He was only a kid, what real harm did young Dexter ever do anybody?” It said much for Bullen at the moment that the thought never even occurred to him that the dead man was the son of the chairman and managing director of the Blue Mail Line. That thought would come later.

“He died for the same reason that Benson died,” I said. “He saw too much.” I kneeled beside him, examined the back and sides of his neck. No marks there at all. I looked up and said: “Can I turn him over, sir?”

“It can’t do any harm now.” Bullen’s normally ruddy face had lost some colour and the lips were clamped in a thin hard line.

I heaved and pulled for a few seconds and managed to get Dexter more or less turned over, half on his shoulders and half on his back. I didn’t waste any time checking his breathing or his pulse; when you’ve been shot three times through the middle of the body the breathing and the pulse are things of the past. And Dexter’s white uniform shirt, with the three small powder-blackened blood-tinged holes just beneath the breastbone, showed indeed that he had been shot three times: the area covering those holes could have been blotted out by a playing card. Somebody had made very sure indeed. I rose to my feet, looked from the captain to the bo’sun, then said to Bullen: “We can’t pass this off as a heart attack, sir.”

“They shot him three times,” Bullen said matter-of-factly.

“We’re up against someone in the maniac class, sir.” I stared down at Dexter, unable to look away from the face racked and twisted by his last conscious moment of life, that fleeting moment of tearing agony that had opened the door to death. “Any one of those bullets would have killed him. But whoever killed him killed him three times, someone who likes pressing a trigger, someone who likes seeing bullets thud into a human being, even although that human being is dead already.”

“You seem very cool about this, Mister.” Bullen was looking at me with a strange look in his eyes.

“Sure I’m cool.” I showed Bullen my gun. “Show me the man who did this and I’ll give him what he gave Dexter. Exactly the same and to hell with Captain Bullen and the laws of the land. That’s how cool I am.”

“I’m sorry, Johnny.” Then his voice hardened again. “Nobody heard anything. How did nobody hear anything?”

“He had his gun close up to Dexter, maybe jammed right against him. You can see the marks of burnt powder. That would help to deaden the sound. Besides, everything points to this person – or those persons – as being professionals. They would have silencers on their guns.”

“I see.” Bullen turned to MacDonald. “Could you get Peters here, Bo’sun. At once.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” MacDonald turned to leave, and I said quickly: “Sir, a word before MacDonald goes.”

“What is it?” His voice was hard, impatient.

“You’re going to send a message?”

“Too right I’m going to send a message. I’m going to ask for a couple of fast patrol boats to be sent out to meet us. At the speed those gas turbine jobs can go they’ll be alongside before noon. And when I tell them I’ve had three men murdered in twelve hours, they’ll come running. I’ve had enough of playing it smart, First. This fake burial to lull their suspicions this morning, to make them think we’d got rid of the only evidence of murder against them. See where it’s got us? Another murdered man.”

“It’s no use, sir. It’s too late now.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t even bother to replace the lid after he left, sir.” I nodded towards the big transmitter-receiver, with its metal lid slightly askew, the securing screws loose. “Maybe he was in a hurry to get away, maybe he just knew there was no point in securing it anyway, we were bound to find it out sooner or later – and sooner rather than later.” I lifted the lid and stood to one side to let Bullen look also.

Nothing was ever surer than that no one would ever use that transmitter again. It was littered inside with torn wire, bent metal, smashed condensers and valves. Someone had used a hammer. There was no guesswork about that: the hammer was still lying among the tangled splintered wreckage that was all that was left of the once complicated innards of the transmitter. I replaced the lid.