Midnight Sailing, page 13
Possibly the death of Bioki might be a definite handle to the whole growing mystery (Larkin thought, as he furiously scrubbed his neck). Someone had turned the key on Larkin and Cuttle in the coffin room between decks. This might have been merely the automatic action of a watchman making his rounds, true; or the prank of some steerage passenger eager to laugh at the discomfiture of the European toffs from first-cabin. On the other hand, they might have very well been locked in by someone whose footsteps Larkin had heard, by someone who had been listening to their conversation, listening to Larkin say, “I’ll let Dr. Bioki convince you”—and who had hurried to forestall the interview. It fitted very neatly, very logically. Who could have been listening outside that door between-decks?
Well, there was Jeremy Hood, for instance. Willowby said Hood had left Dr. Bioki’s cabin just before they found the doctor murdered. Hood fitted into Larkin’s theory, too. Since Arthur Bonner had come aboard the ship at San Francisco, it was probable that the murderer was also someone who had come aboard at San Francisco. That would limit the suspects to Larkin, Dorothy Bonner, Charles Frayle, Jeremy Hood, and Cuttle. Larkin and Dorothy were out, of course. So was Cuttle, inasmuch as he was with Larkin when they found the body. Or was Cuttle eliminated completely? After all, the doctor may have been dead half an hour, and Cuttle might have already killed him before he began drinking beer with Larkin.
Still, Jeremy Hood looked like a good bet. Millie Greeve had not actually said that Hood was the man she had seen standing over Arthur Bonner’s body with a flashlight, but she gave a pretty strong impression that he was. Hood had insisted that he had not left his cabin, but he would lie about it, naturally, if he had killed Bonner. Moreover, there was a flashlight in the pocket of Hood’s raincoat and Millie had been pretty definite about the flashlight. However, there were certainly other flashlights aboard—Cuttle’s, for instance—and the loquacious Millie had been both squiffed and frightened when she came upon the scene she had described. He couldn’t accuse Hood of murder simply because the art dealer owned a flashlight—not, at least, until he could discover what Arthur Bonner had in his pockets that Jeremy Hood might have wanted. He was up a blind alley there, unless he could establish a motive. Besides, how could he connect Hood with the attack on General Rodriguez…?
Damn this saltwater soap! No more lather than skimmed milk. And the water was getting cold. Larkin opened the valve; more steam came whistling and drumming into the tub. Larkin drew up his long legs out of range of the gurgling lead pipe.…
And how do the blueprints of the anti-aircraft gun lit into all this? Larkin couldn’t get rid of the idea that they “belonged in the story somehow. There was no doubt that the Bonner family was in some way connected with their disappearance from the Navy Department since the photostats had been in Dorothy’s possession before she passed them on to him, damn her pretty eyes. And if someone thought that Dorothy still had those photostats…?
At the back of Larkin’s mind there was the fear that there might be a grain of truth in the oracular third line of his dispatch to Beasley—that the fate which pursued the Bonners might next strike at Dorothy. Fear? Yes, he might as well admit it—it was fear. He didn’t want anything to happen to the girl. He was getting damned fond of her. In fact, he might even be a little in love with her. Might? Larkin, old man, don’t try to kid yourself. You know damned well that the girl has been playing hell with your biological chemistry ever since you first saw her, the night the ship sailed. You may not have known it then, but you do now. You’ve known it since this morning. When you saw her standing on deck, staring at the body of her brother, something hit you right under the seventh rib—hit you, in fact, like a ton of Cupid’s feathers.
All right, Larkin, then that’s settled. You’ve fallen for her. But you didn’t fall on your head, did you? You can still think. You can still add two and two without getting an answer that sounds like Hearts and Flowers. You’re not losing sight of the fact that the girl is using you—and not too gently, either. She’s using you as a sort of second assistant secret agent. She planted those photostats on you just as nonchalantly as if they didn’t mean your citizenship and a long vacation at Leavenworth if some Federal dick found them in your pocket at Honolulu. She—
Larkin’s train of thought was halted suddenly by a gust of cold air on his bare back. He twisted himself half around. The door was open. Through the swirling clouds of steam he thought he saw the shadowy figure of a man.
“Hey, you!” Larkin splashed upright, hurdled the porcelain parapet of the tub. His wet feet slid out from under him and he landed on his back with a moist plop! When he got to his knees, the shadow in the doorway had vanished.
Snatching a towel around his middle, he made his dripping way toward the door. His clothes had fallen from the hook and were lying in a heap. He picked them up and saw his wallet and fountain pen still lying on the floor.
A chill of apprehension crawled down his spine. He jabbed his hand into his breast pocket, then successively into all his other pockets. He looked again on the floor. Gone. No doubt about it.
The envelope Dorothy had confided to him was gone. The anti-aircraft photostats which he was to deliver to the Naval Ministry in Tokyo in the fond and trusting belief that they constituted some mysterious agreement with the Pan-American Vanadium Corporation had been stolen.
Larkin poked his head out the door. The deck was deserted except for the steward who sauntered by with a bugle pressed to his lips. The steward pointed the bugle at Larkin, blew a series of quavering notes that resembled the trumpet call from Leonore Overture No. 3. Then, lowering his instrument, he announced:
“Dinnah now ready, prease.”
Larkin slammed the door, started feverishly to dress.
Chapter Twenty: THE VANISHEDNEEDLE
Shipboard routine, like a chain letter, carries on under its own momentum. To the steward’s department, murder is no more cause than a storm at sea for interrupting the schedule of meals. Dinner is served at dinner hour, whether the passengers are in an eating mood or not. And tonight the passengers were definitely not in the mood, Larkin remarked as he entered the dining saloon.
A tense, almost tangible silence hung suspended over the long table. The atmosphere was heavy with hostility and suspicion. The passengers watched each other from under lowered eyelids as they went through the motions of dining. Larkin was aware of taut nerves, dread-filled hearts, unexpressed accusations on all sides of him as he sat down. Even Captain Fujiwara had barely touched the bowl of rice before him. His tiny eyes glittered with cold fire.
Only William Cuttle was actually eating with relish; Cuttle and Charles Frayle. What was Frayle doing at the first-cabin table?
“Hello, Frayle,” said Larkin. “I see the class barriers are down this evening.”
“I hope you’re not too put out,” said Frayle.
‘I brought Frayle here,” said Cuttle. “I been giving him the Q and A.”
“You mean you haven’t cracked the case yet, Gumshoe?” demanded Larkin in mock surprise. “That’s fine. I was getting ready to feel slighted because you hadn’t questioned me.”
“I got plenty to ask you,” Cuttle said. “I ain’t satisfied that you didn’t get me away from Doc Bioki’s cabin on purpose to go below decks. And where’ve you been the last twenty minutes since the chow call?”
Larkin made a mysterious gesture with his left forefinger.
“Mr. Larkin has been bathing,” announced Mr. Shima, patting his lips daintily with the tip of his napkin.
“Glad you can notice the improvement,” said Larkin.
“We heard your steam pipes, Mr. Larkin,” Willowby volunteered. “No one has any secrets aboard this ship.”
“Except the gentleman who killed Dr. Bioki,” said Mr. Shima.
“And the chef,” Larkin amended, as he stared at the plate the steward set in front of him. “What’s this, steward? Apple dumplings?”
“Veeru cattoretsu,” said the steward.
“And in English?”
“Yes,” said the steward. “Japanese say, Nikkuyaki.’”
“They’re veal cutlets, breaded,” explained Dorothy Bonner from across the table.
Larkin made a slight incision with knife and fork. “Doubtless an approximation known as Mock Ingesta,” he said, “or Tokyo Schnitzel.”
Dorothy did not smile. No one smiled. Dorothy’s glance went right through him like a shaft of lightning. He gave up trying to be funny. It was no effort, because he had just noticed that Mrs. Greeve’s seat was vacant. “
Where’s Millie?” he asked. “Sleeping it off?”
“I don’t know,” was all Dorothy said, but her intonation said a good deal more.
“She’s not in the stateroom?”
“No.”
“I think,” said Larkin, “that Dr. Cuttle over there might be wanting to ask Millie some questions.”
“Plenty of time,” said Cuttle, shoveling up a spoonful of bright lavender cornstarch pudding. “I don’t guess Mrs. Greeve got off the boat.”
“I wonder,” said Larkin. “How long has she been missing, Dorothy?”
“She got up and went out about half an hour after you left,” the girl said. “She said she was going out for a sedative.”
“Was she going to see Dr. Bioki?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Maybe Mr. Willowby can tell us,” Larkin said. “He’s been playing concierge outside of Dr. Bioki’s door all afternoon.”
“See here, Larkin.” Willowby’s small dark mustache bristled with grave concern. “Your, joking exaggerations are in extremely bad taste, considering the circumstances. It was quite by accident that I saw Mr. Hood coming out of the doctor’s cabin, and if I’d known what—”
“But you didn’t see me come out of the doctor’s cabin!” protested Jeremy Hood shrilly. “I wasn’t in the cabin!”
“I distinctly saw you closing the door,” Willowby insisted.
“Yes, I closed the door, but I wasn’t inside. I told Mr. Cuttle I wasn’t inside!” Hood’s lower jaw was quivering. His gray wrinkled face was even grayer than before. “I told Mr. Cuttle that I knocked on the doctor’s door, but that I didn’t go in because someone else was in there with Dr. Bioki. So I closed the door and went away.”
“Who was in there?” Larkin asked.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see. I only wish I had taken the trouble to look.”
“It probably doesn’t matter,” said Larkin. “Mr. Cuttle, being a detective, very likely has the information already. No doubt he has discovered the man’s identity by examining footprints, cigarette ash, and a lock of hair.”
“Sure I know who it is.” Cuttle’s dessert spoon clattered against his plate as he pursued the last shivering remnants of his purple pudding. “It was either Rodriguez or Frayle. The general says he was having his bandage changed so he didn’t see nobody. And Frayle here is standing on his constitutional rights. He ain’t saying nothing.”
“Of course not.” Frayle laughed softly, as his gaze sought out Dorothy Bonner. He continued to look at her with sly laughter in his eyes as he said, “I’ve had nothing to do with all this and I refuse to be badgered by any self-appointed investigator. The only man on this ship with any authority over me is the captain, and I’ll be glad to give him any information I can—if he asks for it.”
“He’ll ask,” said Cuttle.
Captain Fujiwara gave a preoccupied nod. He said something in Japanese to the purser.
“Did you mention the hypodermic to the captain, Gumshoe?” Larkin asked.
“I got other things to think about,” Cuttle replied.
“You didn’t find it in Dr. Bioki’s cabin, of course.”
“I didn’t see none,” said Cuttle. “There was a tray of instruments on the desk. That’s where the knife come from. But there wasn’t any needle.”
“I say, Larkin.” A frown creased George Willowby’s bulging forehead and the outer corners of his eyes slanted downward intently as he leaned across the table. “What hypodermic is this you’re talking about? A clue of some sort?”
“It might be,” said Larkin. “The man we buried this afternoon was a, morphine addict, but he had no hypodermic, apparently. Mr. Cuttle suggests that the man was robbed by some of the steerage passengers while lying dead on the deck. So, to settle the argument, I’m offering a hundred dollars re ward, and no questions asked, to anyone who can produce the syringe. Would you broadcast my offer in Japanese to the steerage passengers and the crew, captain?”
Captain Fujiwara was listening attentively. He pointed his quill toothpick at Larkin and said, “Quite good idea. Mr. Yamata will make bulletin, posting same tonight.”
“But what’s the purpose of this, Mr. Larkin?” was Jeremy Hood’s vibrato question. His birdlike glance hopped nervously from face to face as he continued, “What will you prove by the hypodermic, Mr. Larkin?”
“Mr. Larkin’s studying up to be a detective,” said Cuttle with a broad wink intended for the entire passenger list. “Mr. Larkin’s got theories. So he’s got to find clues to fit his theories. He works backwards.”
A chair pivot squealed as Jeremy Hood turned from the table and got to his feet. “You will excuse me, please?”
“Where’s the fire, Hood?” Cuttle demanded. “I ain’t through talking to you yet!”
“If it doesn’t inconvenience you too much, Mr. Cuttle, I should like to be allowed to take a little bicarbonate of soda …”
“Well, O.K.,” said Cuttle, biting off the end of a cigar. “I’ll take you later, then. Frayle’s next. Me and the skipper will talk to you, Frayle. The rest of you clear out of here. You, too, Larkin. Everybody out.”
Larkin joined the exodus. He caught Dorothy Bonner at the entrance to her cabin.
“Get your things, Heavenly One,” he said. “You and I have a heavy date.”
“Have we? When?”
“Now. Don’t stop to powder your nose. It’s important.”
“Millie?”
“More important than that. You.”
“Where?”
“There are two chairs in a secluded corner of the promenade deck, if I’m not mistaken.”
Dorothy hesitated only a second. Then she said, “All right. I’ll get a steamer rug. Meet you topside in five minutes.”
“Right.”
The door closed. The steward came by and handed Larkin an envelope. “Why-aress,” he said. “Just now come.”
Larkin tore open the envelope.
The radiogram read:
Larkin Steamer Kumomaru
Congratulations artbonner murder yarn broke newyork pm finals grabbing eight column banners coast to coast file running story twice daily start dorothys personal history viaradio thousand yord daily takes unlimit total must finish before honolulu federals boarding quarantine arrest girl—beasley
Chapter Twenty-one: TWOSOME ON THE UPPER DECK
Larkin was leaning against the rail, smoking a cigarette when Dorothy came past on her way to the upper deck. He was standing in the shadow and she did not see him. He had a terrific urge to leap up the stairs after her—so he didn’t. His pulses beat lyrically in iambic tetrameter at the thought of the twosome to which she had agreed so readily, yet he knew he ought to dread the interview. He did dread it, in a way. There was a showdown coming, and whatever the issue, he was bound to lose. If he opened his heart to her, poured out his real feelings, he would go on playing the blind stooge until he stuck his neck into the same noose that was waiting for the girl at Honolulu. If he quit playing the meek fall guy and hoisted his true colors, they would seem like enemy colors; he would probably never kiss her again. And at this moment he wanted very much to kiss her, wanted to hold her in his arms more than he had ever wanted any woman in all his life.
He stood a long time looking at the sea, until his cigarette burned down to his lips. At last he tossed the stub away and climbed to the, little promenade deck.
Dorothy was stretched out in a rattan steamer chair with a Hudson Bay blanket tucked about her knees. There was an empty chair beside her, at the after edge of the deck. At first Larkin could see only the light colored stripes of the blanket and the blur of her white beret in the darkness. Then he saw the tiny points of radiance in her eyes as she looked up at him, and the whiteness of the hand she held out to him.
“You’ve kept me waiting, darling,” she said.
It was a light and casual “darling,” probably without significance, but to Larkin it had a warm, melodious sound. Her hand, too, was warm as he grasped it.
“Then I hope you’re furious with me,” he said. “It will set the mood for what I’ve got to say.”
He still held her hand as he sat down beside her.
“Of course I’m not furious.” Her voice was deep and exciting tonight. “I wanted to be by myself for a while. You see, I hadn’t really cried? yet—and you said I should.”
“And did you?”
“A little: But mostly I’ve been lying here and thinking. I’ve been thinking a lot. Too much. So much that it frightens me. So I was just going to stop thinking. I was going to lie here, watching the stars come out, and waiting. Waiting for you, darling, because I want to talk. I think it will do me more good than crying. Do you mind being father confessor, darling?”
Larkin squeezed her hand. “I’m a born listener,” he said. “Do you—?”
“Don’t ask questions, darling. Not yet. I want to answer my own questions first. I can’t go on feeling like a huge interrogation mark. Maybe some of my doubts and uncertainties will rub, off on you. All day I’ve had the feeling that you might help me find the answer. It’s funny. A month ago I thought I knew all the answers.”
