Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

But it was one thing to realize all this and a hell of another to sheet it home. When I saw him, as sound asleep as if he’d expiated a deadly crime instead of committing one, I realized there was only one chance of getting him. He had no doubt decided on the line he would take after the body had been found; I would have to give him the kind of shock that would jerk him off it. I fixed it up with Makepiece. When the right moment presented itself, we would confront Merryman with Mrs. Dillington-Blick. He knew he’d made his kill and of course believed her to be his victim. He was relaxed, eased of his fever and immensely enjoying his act. She loomed up on the other side of the window and — it worked .

The fact of the D-B being in her own style a femme fatale muddled the issues, since she quite deliberately went gunning for any male in sight and thus stirred up Cuddy and McAngus to the dizziest heights of middle-aged fatuity. Dale, of course, had merely settled down to a routine shipboard affair. She’s a pretty consistent job of work, I must say, and I don’t mind betting that when she’s got over her vapours she’ll take the whole thing as a sort of back-handed tribute .

For my part, from the outset been hamstrung by captain’s orders, I hope never to be given such a job again. I can even allow myself one brief bellyache, which is this: Why the hell did the D-B have to dress up a queer steward and put him in the verandah? And conversely, why the hell couldn’t she tell me about it? It could have been turned without harm to advantage. Well, there it is; by his death he brought about a denouement grotesquely out-of-drawing to anything in his life .

Well, my darling, an air mail goes out at noon and will bring you this great wad of a letter. I’m staying in the ship until she sails and will return with the official party. In the meantime—

He finished his letter and went out on the bridge. Cape Farewell was discharging cargo. At midnight, having got rid of a bull-dozer, four cars, three tons of unbleached calico, and a murderer, she would continue her voyage to Durban.

He supposed he was unlikely ever to travel in her again.

The End