Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

I looked at Bullen. “With your permission, sir, Macdonald and I will go and have a look at the lifeboats. We might as well waste our time that way as in any other.”

He knew what I meant all right and nodded. Captain Bullen was beginning to look slightly hunted. He was the ablest, the most competent master in the Blue Mall; but nothing in his long training and experience had ever been designed to cope with a situation like this. And so Macdonald and I duly wasted our time. There were three lifeboats equipped with hand-cranked transmitters for emergency use if the Campari sank or otherwise had to be abandoned. Or they had been equipped with them. But not any more. The transmitters were gone. No need to waste time or make a racket smashing up sets when all you have to do is to drop them over the side. Our murderous friend hadn’t missed a single trick.

When we got back to the captain’s cabin, where we had been told to report, there was something in the atmosphere that I didn’t like at all. They say you can smell fear. I don’t know about that, but you can sense it and you could certainly sense it in that cabin at nine o’clock that morning. The fear, the atmosphere of trapped helplessness, the sense of being completely at the mercy of unknown and infinitely powerful and ruthless forces made for an atmosphere of nervously brittle tension that I could almost reach out and touch.

Mcllroy and Cummings were there with the captain and so, too, was our second mate, Tommy Wilson. He had had to be told; the stage had been reached now where every officer would have to be told, so Bullen said, in the interests of their own safety and self-defence. I wasn’t so sure. Bullen looked up as we came through the door; his face was grim and still, a thinly opaque mask for the consuming worry that lay beneath.

“Well?”

I shook my head, took a seat; Macdonald remained standing, but Bullen gestured him irritably to a chair. He said, to no one in particular, “I suppose that accounts for all the transmitters on the ship?”

“As far as we know, yes.” I went on: “Don’t you think we should have White up here, sir?”

“I was about to do that.” He reached for the phone, spoke for a moment, hung up, then said roughly, “Well, mister, you were the man with all the bright ideas last night. Got any this morning?” Just to repeat the words makes them sound harsh and unpleasant, but they were curiously empty of any offence; Bullen didn’t know which way to turn and he was grasping at straws. “None. All we know is that Dexter was killed at eight twenty-six this morning, give or take a minute. No question about that. And at that moment most of our passengers were at breakfast; no question about that either. The only passengers not at breakfast were Miss Harcourt, Mr. Cerdan and his two nurses, Mr. and Mrs. Piper from Miami, and that couple from Venezuela — old Hournos and his wife — and their daughter. Our only suspects, and none of them makes any sense.”

“And all of those were at dinner last night when Brownell and Benson were killed,” Mcllroy said thoughtfully, “except the old man and his nurses. Which leaves them as the only suspects, which is not only ridiculous but far too obvious. I think we’ve already had plenty of proof that whatever the people behind all this are guilty of, being obvious is not one of them. Unless, of course,” he added slowly, “some of the passengers are working in collusion with each other.”

“Or with the crew,” Tommy Wilson murmured.

“What?” old Bullen gave him the full benefit of his commodore’s stare. “What did you say?”

“I said the crew,” Wilson repeated clearly. If old Bullen was trying to frighten Tommy Wilson he was wasting his time. “And by the crew I also include the officers. I agree, sir, that I heard — or knew if those murders for the first time only a few minutes ago, and I admit that I haven’t had time to sort out my thoughts. On the other hand, I haven’t had the chance to become so involved as all the rest of you are. With all respects, I’m not so deeply lost in the wood that I can’t see the trees. You all seem to be convinced that it must be one or more of our passengers responsible your chief officer here seems to have set this bee firmly in all your bonnets but if a passenger were in cahoots with one of the crew, then it’s quite possible that that member of the crew was detailed to hang round in the vicinity of the wireless office and start laying about him when necessary.”

“You said the chief officer was responsible for planting this idea in our minds,” Bullen said slowly. “What do you mean by that?”

“No more than I said, sir. I only…” Then the implications of the captain’s question struck him. “Good God, sir! Mr. Carter? Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No one thinks you’re crazy,” Mcllroy put in soothingly. Our chief engineer had always regarded Wilson as a bit of a mental bantamweight, but you could see him slowly revising his opinion. “The crew, Tommy. What makes you suspect the crew?”

“Elimination, motive, and opportunity,” Wilson said promptly. “We seem to have more or less eliminated the passengers. All with alibis. What are the usual motives?” He asked of no one in particular.

“Revenge, jealousy, gain,” said Mcllroy. “Those three.”

“There you are, then. Take revenge and jealousy. Is it conceivable that any of our passengers should have their knives so deeply stuck in Brownell, Benson, and Dexter as to want to kill them all? Ridiculous. Gain? What could that bunch of bloated plutocrats want with any more lucre?” He looked round slowly. “And what officer or man aboard the Campari couldn’t do with a little more lucre? I could, for one.”

“Opportunity, Tommy,” Mcllroy prompted him gently. “Opportunity, you said.”

“I don’t have to go into that,” Wilson said. “Engineer and deck crews could be eliminated at once. The engineering side, except for officers at mealtimes, never go anywhere near the passenger and boat decks. The bo’sun’s men here are only allowed there in the morning watch, for washing down decks. But” — he looked round him again, even more slowly every deck officer, radio officer, radar operator, cook, galley slave, and steward aboard the Campari has a perfect right to be within a few yards of the wireless office at any time; no one could question his presence there. Not only that a knock came at the door and assistant chief steward White came in, hat in hand. He was looking acutely unhappy and looked even more so when he saw the extent and composition of the welcoming committee.

“Come in and sit down,” Bullen said. He waited till White had done this, then went on: “Where were you between eight and half-past eight this morning, White?”

“This morning. Eight and half-past.” White was immediately all stiff outrage. “I was on duty, sir, of course. I…”

“Relax,” Bullen said wearily. “No one is accusing you of anything.” then he said, more kindly: “We’ve all had some very bad news, White. Nothing that concerns you directly, so don’t get too apprehensive. You’d better hear it.”

Bullen told him, without any trimmings, of the three murders, and the one immediate result was that everyone present could immediately remove White from the list of suspects. He might have been a good actor, but not even an Irving could have turned his colour from a healthy red to a greyish pallor at the touch of a switch, which was what White did. He looked so bad, his breathing got so quick and shallow that I rose hastily and fetched him a glass of water. He swallowed it in a couple of gulps.

“Sorry to upset you, White,” Bullen went on. “But you had to know. Now then, between eight and eight-thirty: how many of your passengers had breakfast in their rooms?”