Murder On “B” Deck Read online

  For a moment he clung to the door frame, stunned. Then slowly, with lagging steps, he started back along the passages—thinking—seeking an obscure corner in which to hide his dismay.

  What was it Crane had said about Quarantine? And Mrs. Thornton about the pilot? Was there a chance that this was not all as hopeless as it appeared? Mavis I And the captain! What would the captain say? He supposed he must see the captain at once. Or was it the purser one should see? God, what a mess!

  At an intersection of corridors he met his friend hastening toward the deck to see what had become of him. The gayly jacketed volume was still clutched in the wondering hands. Apologetically, its author reclaimed it.

  “I’ll give it to her myself,” he explained. “Walter, you said something about a drink. It has just occurred to me that I need one.”

  Todd Osborne, seated at a table in the dining room on the lower deck, saw his brother-in-law coming toward him and almost had a stroke. He rose from the table so abruptly that his wife was alarmed. A moment later she, too, had seen the apparition and her cry of disbelief stirred the interest of all within hearing.

  “My soul and body!” she said. “It’s Duns!”

  It was indeed Duns. Fortified by several stiff pegs of whisky, he had recovered his poise and now came forward smiling joyously. He was followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man of almost phenomenal ugliness—his rediscovered friend, the passenger called Walter. The tableau was dramatic.

  But at such moments nothing very shocking occurs, as a rule. When people recover from a surprise they are either angry or amused. In this case, the surprised persons were a little of both. Todd, convalescent from his shock, sank back in his chair with a sardonic laugh, and Mavis, after her miniature scream, frowned ominously. It was promptly in the minds of both that Duns had picked up a steamer acquaintance and had become malted. In the circumstances, neither was inclined to be charitable.

  “So it really did happen!” said Osborne, at length. “You were really carried away.”

  “I’m afraid so,” answered Mollock penitently. “But it may not be as bad as it seems. I want you to know my friend, Walter Ghost. Mr. and Mrs. Todd Osborne, my brother-in-law and my sister. But I guess you know Walter, Mavis.” He looked at his friend as if imploring assistance.

  The observers at the other table were returning to their occupations. The episode had not been as exciting as its promise, and there was their own drinking to be thought of.

  “I think I have had that pleasure,” agreed Ghost, his ugly face lighting up as he bowed. He shook hands with Osborne. “You were quite a little girl then, Mrs. Osborne.” His voice was as remarkable as his eyes. It was a magnificent voice—booming, vibrant, actorish.

  “Of course,” said Mavis, “I remember. You and Duns were at school together.” She turned upon her brother. “We saw you get off the boat with our own eyes!”

  Mollock shrugged helplessly. “I know! I got on again. I came back to give you my book—the one you wanted—and I couldn’t find you. While I was looking for you, the ship started. It was very simple.”

  “Simple!” She looked at him for a moment with tragic eyes, then suddenly was off in a scream of laughter. “Oh, Duns, Duns, you are beyond belief!” But she came around the table and hugged him. “What are you going to do? You can’t go on to Europe.”

  Duns didn’t see that. “Why can’t I?” he wanted to know. “I don’t want to; but I guess I can. By Golly, I guess I’ve got to.”

  “Does he?” She turned her eyes upon Walter Ghost.

  The extraordinary face softened. “It’s a curious affair, Mavis,” answered Ghost. “When Duns told me what had happened, I didn’t believe him. It occurred to me that you and Mr. Osborne might be here, in the dining room, however, and so we came here first. I thought we might all look up the purser and see what was to be done about it. There must be some regulation covering an emergency of this sort.” He smiled and added, “Frankly, I’d like to have him come along.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to get off, Duns,” said Osborne. “This is ridiculous.”

  His wife, however, had veered contrarily. “I don’t see why,” she observed. “It may be a very fortunate accident. Of course, he’d have to get some other clothes.” She looked at his evening raiment with comical dismay.

  “I don’t swim very well, you know,” said Mollock. “Do you want me to jump overboard, Todd?”

  Todd Osborne gestured eloquently. “You ought to have jumped overboard before we sailed,” he retorted. “But Mr. Ghost is right. We must see the purser at once—the captain, if necessary. Mrs. Thornton said something about the pilot. I don’t suppose she knows anything about it, but if there’s a chance you ought to take it.” He got to his feet again. “Shall we go now?”

  The purser, immersed in his several woes, was not pleased to see them. He was besieged by impatient men and menacing women, all concerned with matters of sublime unimportance. He caught Ghost’s eye, however, and nodded. Ghost, it appeared, was a person of consequence. Todd Osborne noted the nod of recognition, and wondered.

  “What is it, Mr. Ghost?”

  Ghost explained the situation briefly and without apologies. “It’s unfortunate,” he concluded, “but the question is: what’s to be done about it?”

  At the first hint of the predicament, the purser had frowned and turned reproachful eyes upon Mollock. Now he shook his head. “It’s unusual,” he said, “very unusual.”

  The novelist felt himself blushing and hated himself for it. He coughed nervously and asked: “What about—ah—what about Quarantine, Mr. Jennings? I understood from a friend that I might—ah—get off the ship when you stopped at Quarantine.” He persisted, in thought and speech, in capitalizing the word as if it were the name of a seaport.

  The purser grinned. “You didn’t hear that from Mr. Ghost, anyway.”

  “No,” smiled Ghost, “that’s an idea I hadn’t heard. Ships don’t stop at Quarantine, Duns, except when they’re entering a port. But what about the pilot, Jennings? Would he take Mr. Mollock back with him?”

  A fascinated group was by this time listening with all its ears. Somebody had been carried off by the liner I The tall, good-looking fellow, there—Mollock, his name was.

  The purser seemed dubious. “He might, I suppose. It’s against orders, though. Well, it’s the only chance, and it’s up to the pilot. If he says No, that’s all there is to it. You understand that we can’t stop the ship and take you back, don’t you, Mr. Mollock?”

  Mollock said that he understood perfectly.

  “Well, I’ll speak to the captain,” concluded Jennings, “and he’ll probably speak to the pilot. That’s all we can do. As I say, it’s against orders; but maybe that won’t make any difference. If it weren’t for Mr. Ghost, here, I tell you straight, sir, I wouldn’t take it up at all.”

  Mollock was understood to murmur that he was very grateful to Mr. Jennings and Mr. Ghost.

  Ghost was inclined to be vigorous and jovial. “Oh, rot, Jennings,” he observed. “Of course the pilot’ll take him. For one thing, who’s going to know anything about it? And for another, what difference does it make? I’ll gamble there’s many a ship news reporter could tell us what the inside of a pilot boat looks like. I don’t mean to say that it won’t be a decent thing for the pilot to do—but it won’t be the first time it’s happened.”

  His alert eye noted a significant movement of Osborne’s hand toward a side trousers pocket, and his own hand fell crushingly on the bridegroom’s wrist. Apparently it was Osborne’s idea that every man had his price.

  “No, if Mr. Mollock wants to go back,” continued Walter Ghost, “he’ll have to go, that’s all. You’ll have to fix it up, Jennings. How are your nerves, Duns? You’ll have to go over the rail, you know, stick, hat, and all! The ladder thumps against the side, and the ship rolls, and the spray is flying, and it’s pretty dark out there, an hour after midnight. For my own part—” He finished on an upward inflection, smiling whim
sically.

  For an instant Mollock saw the picture, exaggerated by his remarkable imagination: the sheer black wall of the vessel’s side—the thin, swaying ladder of rope with its twisting wooden cleats—and at the foot, miles and miles below, a tiny, bobbing boat with a lantern in its stern. His heart skipped a beat, then raced more riotously than ever. Darkness—and huge, crested waves from the liner’s wake—and himself in his thin gray overcoat, tossing, tossing toward the distant shore. It was a romantic picture, and singularly unattractive.

  “As a matter of fact,” contributed Jennings, “that pilot boat won’t get in for a couple of days. It hangs around in the harbour for the next incoming ship, you know. Maybe it would get in by Tuesday. Would that be all right, Mr. Mollock?”

  Mollock’s finger tips went swiftly to his temples in a gesture of despair. “Just a minute, please,” he begged. “Excuse me! I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  He hurried out on to the promenade and, slipping through the strolling groups of passengers, sought a dark corner of the forward boat deck, where only a pair of lovers were ensconced. Ignoring them, he stood in the shadow of one of the lifeboats and leaned outward to the blowing night. Below him the water boiled and hissed, and the sharp spray sprang upward and bit him upon the lips. The breeze rushed past on wings of sinister melody. New York was already far behind in the blackness. For a long moment he stood there, looking downward; then his lips moved.

  “I can’t do it,” he murmured, only half aloud. But it was not suicide that he was thinking of. It was Ghost’s vivid picture of a dancing pilot boat, and a marionette in top hat and spiketails blown dizzily on a swaying ladder.

  He cast his eyes upward, and the vast panorama of star-set space gleamed down upon him like the lights of a distant city. A curious peace came slowly to soothe his troubled soul. The breeze blew more softly now; its melody was more alluring. The lovers were whispering in the shadows behind him. The minutes passed, and he continued to stand in his obscure corner looking out across the water.

  They were out of the river now. The fussy tugs had tooted their last salutes and gone their several ways. The towers and turrets of Manhattan had vanished in the enveloping darkness. The Statue of Liberty was far astern. Somewhere off to the side, in the wind and gloom, the low flat back of a land monster was slipping backward into the night—the shores of Long Island perhaps, or of Sandy Hook. God knew which! And did it matter?

  Voices sounded at length from the bridge, and a group of men came out of some place and started to walk toward the captain’s ladder. In their midst strode a tall, overcoated fellow, roughly capped and smoking a cigar: the pilot, no doubt, getting ready for his departure. Mollock watched them with a curious detachment that took no thought of their significance.

  “Now or never!” whispered a faint voice inside him; but his inner ears were deaf, for he knew at last that it would be never. His harassed mind had reached a mighty decision and his troubled soul was at rest. Pilots henceforth might come and they might go, but to Dunstan Mollock they would be no more than moving pictures upon a screen.

  A smile of seraphic content blossomed upon his lips; and he turned to answer the accusing chorus of his discoverers. The angry Jennings was at their head, slightly restrained by the soothing voice of Walter Ghost.

  Mollock fumbled in his coat tails for his pocket lighter. “I’m not going back,” he announced. “I’ve got some money on me, and I guess I can get more if I need it.” He glanced defiantly at Jennings. “If you can find me a place to sleep, Mr. Jennings, I’ll sign up for the whole voyage—now.” He glanced at his sister. “As for my clothes, Todd can lend me some of his till we get to England.”

  He glanced at Walter Ghost, who was grinning like an amused cat. “I’m going to Europe, at last, Walter—on this boat!”

  Chapter Two

  “‘The peoples of earth,’” observed Dunstan Mollock, quoting shamelessly from one of his lesser stories, “‘are divided into four classes: criminals, victims of criminals, detectives, and readers of detective literature. Each division, of course, has its subdivisions, which are obvious. The fourth class comprises a majority of mankind and is responsible for the other three.’”

  Miss Harrington laughed silverly. “Haven’t you forgotten the writers of detective literature?” she asked. “Or are they members of your first division?”

  He answered her seriously, but with a twinkle in his eye. “If anything, they are members of the second division. However, each of the divisions is growing—notably, I think, the detective class. Only the fact that for every detective there must be a criminal, and for every criminal a victim, prevents the detective division from increasing so hugely as to threaten the supremacy of the reading brigade.”

  She nodded. “I know! The detective instinct is in every one of us. Even Aunt Julia has it. I have no doubt that at this minute she is snooping about looking for me.”

  “If she finds us,” said Mollock, “we’ll tell her we were testing her ability.”

  Gazing rapturously upon the petite loveliness that was Miss Dhu Harrington, the novelist realized that he had been quite wrong in his notion that all the goodlooking girls left the ship before it sailed. About the plus-fours he had been triumphantly right, and he flattered himself that he looked rather well in Todd Osborne’s second-best outfit. It pleased him to think that Miss Dhu Harrington also thought so.

  Miss Harrington, small and blonde, in a chair beside him, was not at any rate dismayed by his presence. She had even been able to tell this rather conceited novelist, without falsehood, that she had read one of his books. It was not a remarkable record, since there were ten or twelve others she had not read, but it sufficed. On the whole, he was excellent company—and she adored detective stories.

  “And you are actually going to write another novel, on this boat?” She inclined her head sidewise and thereby achieved a new and piquant loveliness that disturbed the novelist profoundly. “Do tell me what it’s going to be about, Mr. Mollock! Or is it a secret?”

  By George, she was certainly an alluring little dev—creature! Mollock grinned happily. He was never more at ease than when talking about himself. His acquaintance with the attractive young woman was indeed attributable to that circumstance—partly, at any rate: his superb insolence had helped. Singling her out at a fortuitous moment, he had approached, bowing, and observed: “I am an egocentric and an author. I wish to talk about myself.”

  He gestured vaguely toward the horizon, and a passing steward started toward them, thinking he had been summoned.

  “Not you! Go away, please,” said Mollock crossly. The steward retired, thinking poignant thoughts. “Well, I don’t know that I’ll be able to finish it on the boat. That would be rather a large order, unless I dictated it. You don’t write shorthand, I suppose? But there isn’t any particular secret about it—from you, anyway. I’ve been planning another detective novel for some weeks, and now that I’ve been carried away, what better background could I give it than this voyage?”

  “This voyage! This boat, you mean? And these people?”

  “Why not? I wouldn’t call them by their own names, of course. For instance, you might become Miss Sue Harrison.”

  She giggled at the idea, then was thoughtful. “I don’t like Sue,” she said at last.

  “Well, neither do I,” admitted Mollock. “That just popped into my head.”

  “But you said a detective novel. What could happen on the Latakia that would require a detective? And who would be your detective? Yourself, I suppose.”

  “There could be worse ones,” said Mollock, “although I agree with you that a clever writer of detective stories would not of necessity be a clever detective in life. As for what could happen, why, anything could happen that could happen ashore. Why not?” He began to quote again. “‘Crime is a characteristic of the his detective story was every bit as bad as he had half promised Ghost it would be. What a fool he had been to begin it!

  “Is that
all?” asked Miss Harrington, disappointed.

  “Oh, no, that’s only the beginning. I am just setting the scene, as it were, for the tragedy, which follows immediately. But is there anything any of you would like to ask?”

  Walter Ghost moved restlessly on the bed. “I’m bothered a bit by your mechanical detail, Duns,” he said. “That ‘aft companionway,’ you know, and that sort of thing. Are you sure you’ve got them all straight?”

  Mollock was only slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know that I am, Walter,” he admitted. “I’m still a bit of a duffer about the parts of a ship. I thought maybe you—or Jennings—would give me a hand with that sort of error. There are bound to be mistakes in the first draft, you know.”

  “Oh, of course!” said Ghost. “Very glad to, I’m sure. No, I don’t think anything else occurred to me, Duns.” He subsided on the bed.

  Todd Osborne, bored, blew a thin geyser of smoke at the light cluster. “The only thing that bothered me, Duns,” he volunteered, “was what you said about that fellow Rittenhouse. You said a better man never took office. Never took off his what?”

  His wife swung upon him with a glance that was almost hatred. Miss Harrington smothered a laugh, then blushed scarlet. Aunt Julia seemed merely bewildered.

  Mollock glared at his brother-in-law wrathfully. “You go to grass, Todd!” he said, and resumed his reading.

  “Actually, it was the evening of the second day before the first whisper of trouble reached our official ears. The day had been warm, but the evening called for wraps. The promenade was a scene of some activity, what with the hustling stewards and the numberless pedestrians who toiled around the oval like athletes training for an event. The boat deck, however, was comparatively deserted, and Lavender and I, wrapped in our rugs, looked out into the blowing night and smoked silently.