Midnight Sailing, page 12
“Yep,” said Cuttle. “That’s part of my job.”
“Then I suppose I have you to thank for bolloxing up my radiograms to and from San Francisco yesterday?”
“It was partly my idea,” Cuttle admitted. “I told the skipper we’d better keep you under control till I had a chance to check up on you.”
“Why?”
“Well, I can’t be too careful. You know what this ship’s got in her hold?”
“Rats?” suggested Larkin.
“Nitrates,” said Cuttle. “Ten thousand tons of nitrates.”
“Well, well.”
“You know what they use nitrates for?”
“Yes,” said Larkin. “Manure.”
“Nope. Gunpowder.” Again William Cuttle almost smiled. If his facial muscles had been physiologically capable of genuinely smiling, it would have been a pitying, superior smile. “They make explosives out of nitrates, it’s war material.”
“What’s that got to do with my using the radio?” Larkin asked.
“Plenty,” said Cuttle. “Inland and Oceanic Underwriters insured this cargo. We been picking up a lot of extra business since Lloyds is fighting shy of war cargoes. Only a lot of things has happened since we wrote the policy on this cargo, which was a month ago, when the ship sailed from Valparaiso. The Chinks and the Japs are mixing it pretty heavy on the other side, the Japs declare a blockade, and Roosevelt says no war cargoes in American bottoms. Well, that makes the Chinks pretty sore, because they ain’t got any bottoms of their own and the Japs’ve got plenty. So my office hears that the Chinks figure to use a few rabbit punches and knuckle-gouges to stop whatever Jap shipments they can, to get even. The office also hears that there’s a Chink agent due to hop this packet at Frisco to scuttle the ship or blow up the cargo. So they jump me aboard to sort of keep an eye on things.”
“And I looked like a Chinese agent to you?”
“I couldn’t take no chances. Some guys’ll do anything for money, even Chinese money. I found out you’re O.K., though. I always find out everything sooner or later.”
“How long have you been sleuthing privately, Mr. Cuttle? Ever since you were ear-high to a keyhole, I’ll bet.”
“I been twenty years in the business,” Cuttle said.
“Twenty years with Inland and Oceanic Underwriters?”
“Five years with them. I used to be with another agency.”
“New York?”
“Yeah. Querm & Mariss.”
“So that’s where you learned to use a blackjack.”
“What blackjack?”
“Querm & Mariss, as I remember, used to be big dealers in strike-breakers, wholesale and retail.”
“We did farm out a few finks now and then,” Cuttle admitted.
“But you never hired out gorillas for anything but strictly legal purposes, like blackjacking pickets?”
“Everything we done was always strictly legal,” said Cuttle. He dropped his half-smoked cigar into his empty glass.
“How about another bottle of beeru?” Larkin suggested.
“I don’t see no objections,” Cuttle replied.
Larkin called for the steward. “Were you ever in the old Juniper Club in Fifty-second Street?” he asked while the fresh bottles were being opened.
“Plenty times,” said Cuttle.
“Were you there the night of the shooting, back in 1930?
“I can’t say exactly. There was so many shootings in the Juniper Club that they never got the smell of burnt powder out of the place between times. I don’t remember ’em apart.”
“I’m talking about the night Arthur Bonner shot a man.”
“Nope. I wasn’t there. I kind of remember it, though.”
“Did you know the man Bonner shot?”
“Probably,” said Cuttle into his beer. “He was a snow peddler, wasn’t he? I knew most of those monkeys.” He put down his glass abruptly. His mouth tightened a little toward his left ear. “Say, what are you trying to pin on me?” he demanded. “I never saw this guy Bonner until this morning. And even then I didn’t know the stiff on the deck was him.”
“You thought it was just a Chinese agent with designs on an insured cargo. That it?”
“Listen. I told you this morning that Bonner was killed by accident—or by a bungler. So don’t try to give me credit for a botched job. I told you the way a smart guy would do the job didn’t I?”
“Yes. You said you would have dropped the corpus delicti over the side—unless you were disturbed. Well, we all make mistakes, Mr. Cuttle.”
“You mean I made a mistake?”
“Why, no. I did, Mr. Cuttle. I seem to have cast aspersions on your professional skill. I apologize. Shall we have some more beer? Steward!”
“Now listen, Larkin—”
“You’ve dropped cigar ashes all over your gardenia, Mr. Cuttle. Ruined it, practically. First thing we know you’ll be raiding the captain’s azaleas for a boutonniere, and that—Oh, steward. What’s the Japanese for ‘Bring two more bottles of beer’?”
“Beeru-o mo futa-bin motte kite kudasai,” said the steward.
“Make a note of that, Mr. Cuttle. Another language lesson. All right, steward, two more beers—in any language. And now what about that lesson you were going to give me in questioning suspects, Mr. Cuttle?”
“You go to hell,” growled Cuttle, biting off the end of a fresh cigar.
When they had finished the third round of beers, Larkin said, “Why don’t we go below, Gumshoe, and have a look at that Chinese coffin I was talking about last night?”
“What for?” Cuttle countered. “You found your stowaway, didn’t you?”
“I still want to know how he got aboard,” said Larkin, getting up. “It might be good practice for a guy learning to be a detective.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cuttle said.
They went down through the steerage. The lower deck was littered with orange peels and shaven-headed children. Most of the adults were sitting on their bunks, eating. Several enterprising passengers had set themselves up in the catering business and were cooking buckwheat noodles and white, rubbery, bean-curd over charcoal braziers for sale to their fellow Orientals. Chopsticks clicked against porcelain bowls.
“Smells, don’t it?” said Cuttle.
“Sulphur and brimstone and eternal damnation,” Larkin said.
“They fumigated the ship at San Pedro,” Cuttle explained. “Rats.”
Larkin opened the bulkhead door and led the way into the corridor that ran toward the cargo hold. He stopped in front of the last door on the right.
“This is it,” he said.
Cuttle pulled the door open, explored the interior with the beam of his flashlight, then stepped in. Larkin followed.
The oblong box from the Shung Wah Chinese-American Mortuary was still on the floor, and the empty coffins, were standing against the wall. The door slammed shut with a resounding bang.
Cuttle whirled, dropped his flashlight as his right hand plunged under his coat for the left armpit.
Larkin laughed. “That’s just the roll of the ship, Gumshoe,” he said. “Not jumpy, are you?”
“I don’t trust nobody,” said Cuttle.
“Pick up your light,” said Larkin, “and let’s have a look at this.”
Under the glare of the pocket lamp, Larkin slipped his fingers under the top edge of the oblong box. The lid lifted off easily.
“I’ll be double damned!” said Cuttle.
There was no corpse, but the interior of the coffin was ingeniously outfitted. The sides, top and bottom were thickly padded, and there were hand-grips at the sides so that the occupant could brace himself against rough handling. There were a dozen small air vents, and a system of catches by which the lid could be locked or opened from the inside. Brackets at one end held emergency rations. Two bottles of water, a loaf of stale bread, and a length of sausage.
Larkin ran his hands along all the corners, pinched and probed the padded lining of the pseudo coffin. “Funny,” he said, “but I got the impression that you said Bonner was a morphine addict.”
“That’s right,” said Cuttle.
“Do you think he might have been a reformed addict?”
“Nope,” said Cuttle. “Some of that needlework on his arm looked pretty new.”
“Did you ever hear of a man using a loaf of bread and a hunk of sausage to shoot himself full of morphine, Cuttle?”
“Nope,” said the detective, “and neither did you.”
“Then where’s the hypodermic?”
“I’ll bite; where is it?”
“It’s not here, obviously. And I didn’t see any on the body. Did you?”
“I went through his pockets before they sewed him in canvas,” Cuttle said. “There wasn’t nothing in ’em.”
“I’d like to find that needle, Gumshoe.”
“You won’t,” said Cuttle. “You’ll be looking for a needle in a smokestack, but you won’t find it. It’s probably chucked overboard.”
“Who chucked it overboard, Gumshoe?”
“Why, the guy that frisked the body, looking for loose change, before the watchman found it. I still ain’t sold on your murder theory, Larkin,”
Larkin frowned. He fished a cigarette from his pocket, let it dangle unlighted from his lips, as he stared pensively into space. Suddenly he slapped Cuttle on the chest.
“By God, Gumshoe, maybe you’re right,” he exclaimed. “Maybe we’re both right! And if we are, there’s still a chance of finding the hypodermic. If somebody did go through Bonner’s pockets just for the sake of petty larceny, then he’s probably hanging on to anything he thinks might bring a few cents at a hock shop. I’ll put up a hundred bucks reward on behalf of the Seven Seas Newspaper Alliance for the return of the needle—no questions asked. I’ll get the skipper to broadcast the offer in Japanese, to the crew and steerage.…”
“Think you got something there, do you, Larkin.?”
“I’m pretty damned sure.”
“Lay you ten to one you can’t convince me.”
“I won’t have to,” Larkin said. “I’ll let Dr. Bioki convince you. Come on, Gumshoe. Let’s go up and talk to the doc.”
Cuttle grunted skeptically, turned and reached for the doorknob, grunted again … with surprise this time. He turned the knob both ways, then rattled it furiously. The door was locked.
He wheeled, shone his flashlight into Larkin’s eyes. “What the hell kind of monkey business are you trying to pull?” he growled.
Larkin blinked. “Listen!” he said.
Cuttle listened. The faint tread of footsteps could be heard retreating down the corridor outside.
“Who the hell?” Cuttle demanded.
“You’re the detective,” said Larkin. “Who?”
In reply Cuttle began beating upon the door with the butt of his flashlight, his free fist, both feet. To the terrific drumming he added a profane obbligato of bellowed threats to kick the so-and-so bottom out of the such-and-such ship unless he was released immediately.
The roaring and pounding continued for nearly five minutes before an astonished seaman unlocked the door. The seaman said something in Japanese.
“What’s he saying, Linguist?” Larkin asked.
“I dunno,” said Cuttle, staring down at the key in the outside of the door, “but he’s probably telling me that no detective ought to walk into a room, leaving a key in the lock outside.”
“Let’s call on the doc,” said Larkin.
Three minutes later they were standing in the dining saloon, knocking at the ship’s surgeon’s stateroom. When they had knocked twice, the door behind them opened and George Willowby stuck his head out.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Looking for Dr. Bioki?”
“Guess,” said William Cuttle.
“I’m sure the doctor’s there,” said Willowby. “I saw Mr. Hood coming out of the cabin just a moment ago.”
Cuttle knocked once more, then flung the door open.
Dr. Bioki was inside, all right. He was sitting in his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The haft of a surgeon’s bistoury protruded from between his shoulder blades.
Chapter Nineteen: ADD THIEVERY
“I’ll be double damned!” said Cuttle. He put his hand under Dr. Bioki’s chin, lifted the drooping head.
The chubby face retained its Buddha-like serenity, but its bronze ruddiness had become the waxen pallor of death. There was a trickle of blood on the chin, and splashes of blood on the thick volume of Handbuch der Physiologische Chemischen Analyse which lay open on the little desk in front of the doctor. The crimson blot transformed the German text into a hand-illumined page from an old Gothic missal.
Cuttle’s fingers were red when he withdrew them. The doctor’s head dropped back limply.
“No doubt you’ve noticed,” said Larkin, “that rigor mortis hasn’t yet set in, and that therefore—”
“Get out of here!” Cuttle ordered.
Larkin ignored him. He reached for the dead surgeon’s hand. “In fact,” said Larkin, “the body is still warm, proving—”
“Get out!” snapped Cuttle. “This is one murder I’m going to handle my own way.”
“I didn’t know there was another murder you didn’t handle your own way,” said Larkin innocently. “In fact, Gumshoe, this is probably just an accident, too. That surgical knife probably just dropped—”
“Out!” Cuttle roared.
“Listen, Gumshoe, I—”
Cuttle flung a straight left that caught Larkin just below the Adam’s apple. Larkin reeled backward through the door. Before he could regain his balance he had crashed into the steward who was on his way from the galley pantry to the bridge with a tray of food for the officers on watch.
Larkin went down in a shower of rich brown soy sauce, broken crockery, green tea, pickled seaweed, daikon, rice, and thin pink slices of raw fish. He was up instantly, a rather ludicrous figure as he combed the rice grains from his hair with indignant, sticky fingers. But no one laughed—not Cuttle, who had drawn his gun, nor the terrified steward, nor George Willowby, who continued to stare wide-eyed from the door of his stateroom.
“Close that door, you!” Cuttle demanded. Willowby’s door shut with a bang. “Lock it, steward. Lock all the doors, whether there’s anybody behind ’em or not. Then lock the door to the outside deck—after Mr. Larkin has gone out. And get the captain, steward.”
Larkin glanced again at Cuttle’s gun. Then he saluted the detective gravely with extended thumb and upright fingers. “Nice work, Gumshoe,” he said. “I hope you can crack this case with your knuckles. If not, I’ll lend you my brains later.”
Cuttle glowered in silence as Larkin turned and walked out.
The Kumo-maru was rocking like a tired old lady as she plodded on into the last florid vestiges of the sunset. It would soon be dark—too late to catch the evening papers with a radio bulletin, and plenty of time before the night wire opened. He would wait, therefore, to see if Cuttle produced anything with his private investigation. Meanwhile, Larkin reflected as he wiped the soy sauce from one ear with his handkerchief, he might do something to make himself less pungently reminiscent of an Oriental restaurant. He might take a bath, for instance.
With great misgivings Larkin approached the intricate and mysterious plumbing of the single bathroom that served all first-cabin passengers. The installation was a compromise between Occidental and Oriental bathing customs, complicated by the exigencies of shipboard, the advanced age of the Kumomaru, and the horticultural bent of Captain Fujiwara. Besides, the door didn’t close very well.
The entrance to the bathroom was at the after side of the superstructure, near the galley. The tub was a high, ponderous porcelain affair of Early Victorian architecture, raised on four cast-iron pedestals with lions’ claws. It took a man as tall as Larkin to step in at a single stride. There was one heavy brass tap that furnished cold sea water. A lead pipe ran down from the ceiling and snaked into one end of the tub, through which, by manipulating a valve as big as a saucer, the bather could let steam into his bath until the water was heated to the proper temperature. The valve needed packing, apparently, because it was perpetually sighing, and occasionally the end of the lead pipe gave a slight hiccough of steam.
On the floor was a set of square wooden stools and several wooden buckets filled with fresh water—a concession, the late Dr. Bioki had previously explained to Larkin, to the Japanese custom of soaping oneself before soaking in hot water.
Overhead swung Captain Fujiwara’s collection of South American orchids in wire baskets, thriving in the steamy atmosphere. In one corner an Otaheite orange was growing in a bamboo-bound wooden tub.
As Larkin was undressing, the door swung inward with a roll of the ship. Larkin kicked it closed. There was a hook on the door, but the staple was gone from the jamb. On second thought, Larkin opened the door again, wadded his handkerchief against the frame, slammed the door shut. The wadding would keep it shut.
Larkin filled the tub and opened the steam valve. The steam roared and belched and gurgled from the lead pipe. The air was filled with warm, billowing vapor, and a loud, constant snapping, as bubbles of steam condensed and collapsed on contact with the sea water. The banging and clatter of the steam was a general warning to the rest of the cabin passengers that someone was taking a bath. Only a deaf person could make the mistake of walking into the bathroom while it was in use.
Larkin hung the last of his clothes on a hook and groped his way through the steam-filled room toward the tub. He managed to turn off the steam-valve without scalding himself to death, although he nearly upset the Otaheite orange as he fumbled for his cake of saltwater soap. Keep it up, Larkin (he told himself), you’re fumbling very well today. You fumble ideas even better than you do soap. You certainly fumbled a hot one when you failed to go straight to old Doc Bioki as soon as you began to worry over those wide, staring eyes of Arthur Bonner dead on the foredeck. And now Doc Bioki is dead, too, and Bonner is lying at the bottom of the Pacific and you’ll never be able to find out whether or not Bonner might not have been dead before he fell and cracked his skull against the iron deck cleat. True, the doctor may not have been able to say either, without an autopsy. Or perhaps he did know, and that was why he had refused to perform the autopsy. And why he, in turn, had been killed. The doc had seemed such a nice, harmless old guy.…
