Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

“All right,” Alleyn said without turning. “It’s too late, of course, but you’d better see if there’s anything you can do.”

Tim had come up with Captain Bannerman behind him. Alleyn stood aside. “Only Dr. Makepiece, please,” he said. “I want as little traffic as possible.”

Tim stooped over the body.

In a moment he had straightened up.

“But, look here!” he said. “It’s not — it’s — it’s—”

“Exactly. But our immediate concern is with the chances of recovery. Are there any?”

“None.”

“Sure?”

“None.”

“Very well. Now, this is what we do—”

Captain Bannerman and Tim Makepiece stood side by side exactly where Alleyn had placed them. The light in the deck-head shone down on the area round the chaise longue. It was dappled with irregular wet patches, most of which had been made by large naked feet.

Alleyn found that they were overlaid by his own prints and Tim’s and by others which he examined closely.

“Espadrilles,” he said, “size nine.”

The wearer had approached the chaise longue, stood beside it, turned and made off round the starboard side.

“Running,” Alleyn said, following the damp prints. “Running the deck, then stopping as he got into the light, then turning and stopping by the hatch and then carrying on round the centrecastle to the port side. Not much doubt about that one.”

He turned back towards the verandah, pausing by a tall locker near its starboard corner. He shone his torch behind this. “Cigarette ash and a butt.”

He collected the butt and found it was monogrammed and Turkish.

“How many can you get?” he muttered, showing it to Tim, and returned to the verandah, from where he pursued the trace of the wet naked feet. Their owner had come to the port side companion-ladder from the lower deck and the swimming pool. On the fifth step from the top there was a large wet patch.

He returned to Captain Bannerman.

“In this atmosphere,” he said, “I can’t afford to wait. I’m going to take photographs. After that we’ll have to seal off the verandah. I suggest, sir, that you give orders to that effect.”

Captain Bannerman stood lowering at him. “This sort of thing,” he said at last, “couldn’t have been anticipated. It’s against common sense.”

“On the contrary,” Alleyn rejoined, “it’s precisely what was to be expected.”

The passengers sat at one end of the lounge behind shut doors and drawn blinds. Out of force of habit each had gone to his or her accustomed place and the scene thus was given a distorted semblance of normality. Only Mr. Merryman was absent. And, of course, Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

Alleyn himself had visited the unattached men in their cabins. Mr. Merryman had been peacefully and very soundly asleep, his face blank and rosy, his lips parted and his hair ruffled in a cockscomb. Alleyn decided for the moment to leave him undisturbed. Shutting the door quietly, he crossed the passage. Mr. McAngus in vivid pyjamas had been doing something with a small brush to his hair, which was parted in the middle and hung in dark elf locks over his ears. He had hastily slammed down the lid of an open box on his dressing-table and turned his back on it. Aubyn Dale, fully dressed, was in his sitting-room. He had a drink in his hand and apparently he had been standing close to his door, which was not quite shut. His manner was extraordinary — at once defiant, terrified, and expectant. It was obvious also that he was extremely drunk. Alleyn looked at him for a moment and then said, “What have you been up to?”

“I? Have a drink, dear boy? No? What d’you mean, up to?” He swallowed the remains of his drink and poured out another.

“Where have you been since you left the lounge?”

“What the devil’s that got to do with you?” He lurched towards Alleyn and peered into his face. “Who the bloody hell,” he asked indistinctly, “do you think you are?”

Alleyn took him in the regulation grip. “Come along,” he said, “and find out.”

He marched Dale into the lounge and deposited him in the nearest chair.

Tim Makepiece had fetched Brigid and Mrs. Cuddy. Mr. Cuddy, recovered from his faint, had been allowed to change into pyjamas and dressing-gown, and looked ghastly.

Captain Bannerman, lowering and on the defensive, stood beside Alleyn.

He said, “Something’s happened tonight that I never thought to see in my ship and a course of action has to be set to deal with it.”

He jerked his head at Alleyn. “This gentleman will give the details. He’s a Scotland Yard man and his name’s A’leen not Broderick and he’s got my authority to proceed.”

Nobody questioned or exclaimed at this announcement It was merely accorded a general look of worried bewilderment. The captain nodded morosely at Alleyn and then sat down and folded his arms.

Alleyn said, “Thank you, sir.” He was filled with anger against Captain Bannerman, an anger not unmixed with compassion and no more tolerable for that. At least half the passengers were scarcely less irritating. They were irresponsible, they were helpless, two of them were profoundly silly, and one of them was a murderer. He took himself sharply to task and began to talk to them.

He said, “I shan’t, at the moment, elaborate or explain the statement you’ve just heard. You will, if you please, accept it. I’m a police officer. A murder has been committed and one of the passengers of this ship, almost certainly, is responsible.”

Mr. Cuddy’s smile, an incredible phenomenon, was stamped across his face like a postmark. His lips moved. He said with a kind of terrified and incredulous jocosity, “Oh, go on!” His fellow passengers looked appalled, but Mrs. Cuddy dreadfully and incredibly tossed her head and said, “Mrs. Blick, isn’t it? I suppose it’s a remark I shouldn’t pass, but I must say that with that type of behaviour—”

“No!” Father Jourdain interposed very strongly. “You must stop. Be quiet, Mrs. Cuddy!”

“Well, I must say!” she gasped and turned to her husband. “It is Mrs. Blick, Fred, isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear.”

Alleyn said, “It will become quite apparent before we’ve gone very much further who it is. The victim was found a few minutes ago by Mr. Cuddy. I am going to take statements from most of you. I’m sorry I can’t confine the whole business to the men only and I hope to do so before long. Possibly it’s less distressing for the ladies, who are obviously not under suspicion, to hear the preliminary examination than it would be for them to be kept completely in the dark.”

He glanced at Brigid, white and quiet, sitting by Tim and looking very young in a cotton dressing-gown and with her hair tied back. Tim, when he fetched her from her cabin, had said, “Biddy, something rather bad has happened to somebody in the ship. It’s going to shock you, my dear.”

She had answered, “You’re using the doctor’s voice that means somebody has died.” And after looking into his face for a moment: “Tim—? Tim, can it be the thing I’ve been afraid of? Is it that?”

He told her that it was and that he was not able just then to say anything more. “I’ve promised not,” he had said. “But don’t be frightened. It’s not as bad as you’ll think at first. You’ll know all about it in a few minutes and — I’m here, Biddy.”

So he had taken her to join the others and she sat beside him, watching and listening to Alleyn.

He turned to her now. “Perhaps,” he said, “Miss Carmichael will tell me at once when she went to her cabin.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “It was just after you left. I went straight to bed.”