Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

Aubyn Dale and Mrs. Dillington-Blick used their own luxurious chaise longues with rubber-foam appointments and had set them up in the little verandah, which they pretty well filled. Although the chaise longues were never occupied till after tea, nobody liked to use them in the meantime.

So while Tim, Brigid and two of the junior officers played deck golf, Miss Abbott and five men were grouped in a shady area cast by the centrecastle between the doors into the lounge and the amidships hatch. Mr. Cuddy slept noisily with a Reader’s Digest over his face. Mr. McAngus dozed, Mr. Merryman and Alleyn read,

Father Jourdain and Miss Abbott laboured at their crossword. It was a tranquil-looking scene. Desultory sentences and little spurts of observation drifted about with the inconsequence of a conversational poem by Verlaine.

Above their heads Captain Bannerman took his afternoon walk on the bridge, solacing the monotony with pleasurable glances at Brigid, who looked enchanting in jeans and a scarlet shirt. As he had predicted, she was evidently a howling success with his junior officers. And with his medical officer, too, reflected the captain. Sensible perhaps of his regard, Brigid looked up and gaily waved to him. In addition to being attractive she was also what he called a thoroughly nice, unspoiled little lady; just a sweet young girl, he thought. Dimly conscious, perhaps, of some not altogether appropriate train of thought aroused by this reflection, the captain decided to think instead of Mrs. Dillington-Blick — a mental exercise that came very easily to him.

Brigid took a long swipe at her opponent’s disc, scuppered her own, shouted “Damn!” and burst out laughing. The junior officers, who had tried very hard to let her win, now polished off the game in an expert manner and regretfully returned to duty.

Brigid said, “Oh, Tim, I am sorry! You must get another partner.”

“Are you sick of me?” Tim rejoined. “What shall we do now? Would you like to have a singles?”

“Not very much, thank you. I need the support of a kind and forebearing person like yourself. Perhaps some of the others would play. Mr. McAngus, for instance. His game is about on a par with mine.”

“Mr. McAngus is mercifully dozing and you know jolly well you’re talking nonsense.”

“Well, who?” Brigid nervously pushed her hair back and said, “Perhaps it’s too hot after all. Don’t let’s play.” She looked at the little group in the shade of the centrecastle. Mr. Merryman had come out of his book and was talking to Alleyn in an admonitory fashion, shaking his finger and evidently speaking with some heat.

“Mr. Chips is at it again,” Tim said. “Poor Alleyn!” He experienced the sensation of his blood running down into his boots. Surely he, Tim Makepiece, a responsible man, a man of science, a psychiatrist, could not have slipped into so feeble, so imbecile an error. Would he have to confess to Alleyn? How could he recover himself with Brigid? Her voice recalled him.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“ ‘Poor Broderick.’ ”

“Is he called Allan? You’ve got down to Christian names pretty smartly. Very chummy of you.”

Tim said after a pause, “I don’t to his face. I like him.”

“So do I. Awfully. We agreed about it before.” Brigid shook her head impatiently. “At any rate,” she said, “he’s not the guilty one. I’m sure of that.”

Tim stood very still and after a moment wetted his lips.

“What do you mean?” he said. “The guilty one?”

“Are you all right, Tim?”

“Perfectly

“You look peculiar

“It’s the heat. Come back here, do.” He took her arm and led her to the little verandah, pushed her down on the sumptuous footrest belonging to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s chaise longue and himself sat at the end of Aubyn Dale’s, “What guilty one?” he repeated.

Brigid stared at him. “There’s no need, really, to take it so massively,” she said. “You may not feel as I do about it.”

“About what ?”

“The business with the D-B’s doll. It seems to me such a beastly thing to have done and I don’t care what anyone says, it was done on purpose. Just treading on it wouldn’t have produced that result. And then, putting the flower on its chest — a scurvy trick, I call it.”

Tim stooped down and made a lengthy business of tying his shoelace. When he straightened up Brigid said, “You are all right, aren’t you? You keep changing colour like a chameleon.”

“Which am I now?”

“Fiery red.”

“I’ve been stooping over. I agree with you about the doll. It was a silly unbecoming sort of thing to do. Perhaps it was a drunken sailor.”

“There weren’t any drunken sailors about. Do you know who I think it was?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Cuddy.”

“Do you, Biddy?” Tim said. “Why?”

“He kept smiling and smiling all the time that Mr. Broderick was showing the doll.”

“He’s got a chronic grin. It never leaves his face.”

“All the same—” Brigid looked quickly at Tim and away again. “In my opinion,” she muttered, “he’s a D.O.M.”

“A what?”

“A dirty old man. I don’t mind telling you, I’d simply hate to find myself alone on the boat-deck with him after dark.”

Tim hastily said that she’d better make sure she never did. “Take me with you for safety’s sake,” he said. “I’m eminently trustworthy.”

Brigid grinned at him absent-mindedly. She seemed to be in two minds about what she should say next.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing. Nothing, really. It’s just-I don’t know — it’s ever since Dennis brought Mrs. D-B’s hyacinths into the lounge on the second day out. We don’t seem to be able to get rid of those awful murders. Everybody talking about them. That alibi discussion the night before Las Palmas and Miss Abbott breaking down. Not that her trouble had anything to do with it, poor thing. And then the awful business of the girl that brought Mrs. D-B’s flowers being a victim and now the doll being left like that. You’ll think I’m completely dotty,” Brigid said, “but it’s sort of got me down a bit. Do you know, just now I caught myself thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be awful if the Flower Murderer was on board.’ ”

Tim had put out a warning hand, but a man’s shadow had already fallen across the deck and across Brigid.

“Dear child!” said Aubyn Dale. “What a pathologically morbid little notion!”

Tim and Brigid got up. Tim said automatically, “I’m afraid we’ve been trespassing on your footrests,” and hoped this would account for any embarrassment they might have displayed.

“My dear old boy!” Dale cried. “Do use the whole tatty works! Whenever you like, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m sure Madame would be enchanted.”

He had an armful of cushions and rugs which he began to arrange on the chaise longues. “Madame tends to emerge for a nice cuppa,” he explained. He punched a cushion with all the aplomb of the manservant in Charley’s Aunt and flung it into position. “There now!” he said. He straightened up, pulled a pipe out of his pocket, gripped it mannishly between his teeth, contrived to tower over Brigid and became avuncular.

“As for you, young woman,” he said cocking his head quizzically at her. “You’ve been letting a particularly lively imagination run away with you. What?”

This was said with such an exact reproduction of his television manner that Tim, in spite of his own agitation, felt momentarily impelled to whistle “Pack Up Your Troubles.” However, he said quickly, “It wasn’t as morbid as it sounded. Brigid and I have been having an argument about the alibi bet and that led to inevitable conjectures about the flower expert.”