Midnight Sailing, page 17
“So you agreed,” Larkin prompted.
“No, I hadn’t time. Before I could say either yes or no, we heard you coming across the deck. There was no light in my cabin, and I closed the porthole. But I saw Bonner strike you and escape. I didn’t sleep all night, as you may imagine. ‘I sat up, waiting for him to come back. It was nearly four o’clock when I saw him go past on the deck outside. I waited a while longer, and when he didn’t come in, I put on my raincoat and went out to look for him. I found him—dead!”
“Where was he?” Larkin demanded.
“Exactly where you saw him an hour later. I didn’t touch him.”
“Then how did you know he was dead?”
“Well, I did touch him. I felt his pulse. But I didn’t move him.”
“And you didn’t call anyone, either. You didn’t send for Dr. Bioki to confirm your opinion.”
“I intended to,” moaned Jeremy Hood. “I had every intention. But first I wanted that affidavit Bonner threatened me with. It was my chance to destroy the evidence of my own lapse …”
“So you killed Bonner to get it?”
“I didn’t! He was already dead. I swear it!”
“The other day you swore to a lot of lies. You swore you hadn’t been out of your cabin since San Francisco. You swore you didn’t know Arthur Bonner. You—”
“I’m telling the truth now; Mr. Larkin! Believe me!”
“Go on. What next? You destroyed the affidavit.”
“No, I didn’t. There wasn’t any. Bonner was bluffing. I went through all his pockets.”
“And they were empty?”
“No, not empty. There were no affidavits, but there was a set of photographs. Photostats, I guess. Plans.”
“Plans?” Larkin flung away his cigarette. He got up, stood in front of Hood. He asked eagerly, “What kind of plans?”
“I don’t know exactly. Machinery of some sort,” said Hood. “One of them looked as if it might be a cannon.”
“Where are these photostats?” Larkin broke in.
“In my cabin. I hid them in one of my portfolios, with the color prints.”
“Why did you take them to your cabin? Why didn’t you leave them where you found them?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Larkin. I was frightened. I didn’t mean to take them. But I’d just finished looking through Bonner’s pockets when I heard someone walking along the deck. I turned and saw that Mrs. Greeve. She was quite intoxicated and could hardly stand. I was terrified that she would think I had killed Bonner. Then I thought perhaps she was too much under the influence to have noticed anything. I went toward her and said, ‘Good evening.’ She gave a little cry and bolted for her cabin. I ran for my own stateroom. It wasn’t until I’d locked myself in that I realized I’d carried the things with me. I wanted to get rid of them, but I was afraid someone would see me throwing them overboard.”
“You could have burned them.”
“Not the hypodermic, Mr. Larkin.”
“So you have the hypodermic! Where—?”
“Wait. When you came to question me, after Bonner’s burial, I began thinking about the hypodermic. When you left, I got it out and examined it. There were a few drops of liquid left in it, and I must have got some on my fingers. I put it away again and tried to read. I moistened my finger to turn a page and experienced a bitter, acrid taste. The tip of my, tongue was quite numb. Does morphine do that, Mr. Larkin?”
“Morphine is bitter, I’m not sure about the numbing effect.”
“Anyhow, I was frightened. I thought I’d poisoned myself. I hurried to see Dr. Bioki.”
“Who was with the doctor when you knocked?”
“Nobody,” said Hood.
“You told Cuttle you didn’t go in because the doctor was busy.”
“I said that because I was afraid to tell the truth. Dr. Bioki was alone when I opened the door. He was already dead.”
“Then what?”
“I hurried off to hide the hypodermic.”
“Where?”
Jeremy Hood smiled wanly. A crafty look came into his eyes. He asked, “What do you want with it?”
“I’ll take it to a laboratory in Honolulu and have them analyze whatever’s left in the barrel. There must be at least a deposit of some kind.”
“Very well,” said Hood. “I’ll give you the hypodermic if you do something for me. You must convince the captain and Mr. Cuttle that I’m innocent of murder. Whenever Cuttle lets me out of that locked cabin, I’ll get you the hypodermic.”
“How do I know you’re not lying again?”
“You’ll have to decide that for yourself, Mr. Larkin. After all, I’ve told you all this voluntarily.”
Larkin hesitated. He lit a cigarette. “Very well,” he said at last. “I’ll do my best with Guttle, Where’s the needle?”
“I’ll tell you when Cuttle releases me,” said Hood. “Good night, Mr. Larkin. You must go now. I will wait here for the steward to take me back to my prison.”
“I’ll wait with you,” said Larkin.
“No.” Hood got up and turned out the light. “The steward specified I must wait alone. Good night.”
Larkin hesitated. He was still suspicious of the old man’s game, still not satisfied that Hood was telling the truth. There seemed nothing he could do about it.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Hood,” he said. He groped for the door, flung it open. There was no one in the dim corridor. He went out, made his way to the upper deck.
He stood at the starboard rail for a few moments to finish his cigarette, to watch the weird, shifting, glittering patterns of the phosphorescent sea, to think, to contemplate the stars. The stars … There was something vaguely disturbing about the way the Big Dipper swung low to the horizon off the starboard bow.
“I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Larkin aloud.
The Big Dipper was in the wrong place. Last night and on previous clear nights, the Big Dipper and the Pole Star had been astern, off the starboard quarter. Tonight they had moved 50 degrees, perhaps 60 or even more, toward the bow. Even a landlubber like Larkin, even without benefit of sextant, knew what that meant.
The Kumo-maru had changed her course. The Kumo-maru was no longer heading for Honolulu. The Kumo-maru was in all likelihood steaming on a great circle course directly for Japan.
Chapter Twenty-seven: JURISDICTION ON THE HIGH SEAS
Dazzling reflections of sunlight on the morning sea shone through the porthole to project a moving panel of green-and-gold lace upon the ceiling of Stateroom C. William Cuttle came in and closed the door behind him. He pushed his derby back from his forehead, approached the lower berth and stared at the considerable mound beneath the disordered blanket. Then he removed his hat and brought the stiff brim down sharply and resoundingly on the highest and broadest part of the mound. Instantly a mop of bright orange hair appeared at’ the other end.
“Hello, dearie,” said Millicent Greeve sleepily.
“Can that dearie routine,” said Cuttle. “Get up. You move today.”
“Where to, Billie?”
“Back to your own cabin,” said Cuttle. “Come on.”
“But you promised you’d protect me.”
“Sure, I know,” said Cuttle. “But you must be full o’ protection by this time. You don’t think I’m going to let you sleep in here all the way to Yokohama, do you?”
Mrs. Greeve raised herself on one elbow. Her chubby fingers made futile efforts to fluff out her astonishing hair. The result was even more astonishing. “All right,” she said petulantly. “If you won’t protect me, maybe somebody else will. Mr. Larkin said he’d protect me.”
“That guy,” said Cuttle.
“He’s nice,” said Mrs. Greeve.
“Anyhow I’m tired o’ being Sir Gallantine and sleeping around in empty cabins,” said Cuttle. “I like to sleep where I shave.”
“That’s okay by me, Bill,” said Mrs. Greeve coyly.
William Cuttle put his hat back on. “I never mix business and monkey business,” he said. “Get up.”
“I can’t get up, Bill. I haven’t had my beer yet.”
“Do you have beer in bed every morning? I thought that was just for hangovers.”
“For hangovers I have two bottles,” Mrs. Greeve explained, “and one at breakfast.”
“All right. I’ll get your beer and then you move. You don’t have to worry, about anything because I still got this bird Hood locked up, and I’m going to keep him locked up. Besides, people are beginning to think you might have fell overboard.”
“People know where I am,” said Mrs. Greeve, “because the steward knows, and if the steward knows, then everybody knows. I mean stewards are like that.”
Cuttle sat down and bit off the end of a cigar. “Listen,” he said. “I’m checking up on stories these birds have been handing me. Willowby, for instance. The steward says Willowby left his cabin about midnight the night this guy Bonner was killed. Willowby says he was with you. What about it?”
“That’s right, George Willowby was over in second, having a rum-gum-and-lime with us girls, only there wasn’t any gum or limes. But he went back early. I mean he left about two o’clock because his neuralgia began hurting him again. He had neuralgia pretty bad.”
“You know all about his private pains, don’t you?”
“Not all,” said Mrs. Greeve. “I mean, I knew George Willowby about five years ago. He was in Panama for a week between boats.”
“Listen,” said Cuttle. “Did you get protected by Willowby coming up the Mexican Coast last week?”
“Why, no, Bill.”
“Willowby says somebody stole his passport after the ship left Acapulco.”
“Yes, I know,” said Millicent Greeve. “He was furious. I mean he was raving mad, because he couldn’t go ashore at San Francisco.”
“What do you know about it?” Cuttle asked.
“Me? Why, only what I’ve told you. You don’t think I took it, do you?”
“I was just asking,” said Cuttle.
“What would I do with his old passport?” Millie demanded indignantly.
“I dunno,” said Cuttle. “Only I hear that British passports bring good prices in Shanghai these days.”
“Bill! I never stole anything in my life. I ought to make you apologize. Bill, kiss me.”
“What for?”
“Kiss me and I’ll get up and go to my own cabin.”
“That’s a bargain,” said Cuttle.
He deposited his cigar on the washstand.…
The white walls of Stateroom B echoed to the nasal and bronchial noises of General Rodriguez’s morning toilet. His throat injury, Larkin remarked drowsily, had not altered the pitch or volume of the general’s barking, gargling, coughing and honking. Larkin watched the bearded Peruvian through half-closed eyes as he finished dressing and went out.
The door had scarcely closed before it opened again. Sato, the steward, came in with a breakfast tray. “No doubt Mistar Rah-kin sureeping rate,” said Sato, “so am bringing ritto break-fasto. Japanese say: Asa-meshi.”
“Why are you so good to me, Sato?” Larkin asked, sniffing suspiciously at the tray.
Sato removed two battered metal dish-covers, dis-closing a forbidding heap of inch-thick toast and a mysterious-looking creation that was either a fragment of tiger pelt or an omelette.
“Sommu day,” said Sato, “Mistah Rah-kin can be goodu faw me.”
Larkin watched the steward curiously. Sato made no move to leave the cabin. “Is this the day, Sato?”
“No,” said the steward. “Tsoo soon.” He continued to wait expectantly.
“What’s on your mind, then?”
“Mistah Wirrowby have misray passopawto,” said the steward. “You know?”
“I’ve heard Willowby beefing that his passport was stolen, yes,” Larkin replied. “What of it?”
“Passopawto not quite totarry missing,” said the Steward. “See, Mistah Rahkin?” Sato stepped over to General Rodriguez’s berth, with a singly deft movement rolled back the mattress. He reached down below the life-jacket racks, brought out a blue-covered British passport.
Larkin jumped out of bed. He held out his hand. “How long has that been in here?” he demanded.
“Discovah same changing bed-sheetsu lasto week.”
Larkin quickly thumbed over the pink pages of the passport. He idly remarked George Willowby’s photograph, the vital statistics: “Born: Poole, Dorset … Jan. 9,1900 … Chemist… Height, 5 ft. 10½ in., weight…”
“Maybe,” suggested the steward, with a sly, sidelong glance at Larkin, “should notify Mistah Wirrowby.”
“No,” said Larkin, looking for a pencil.
“Maybe should notify captain?”
“Not yet.” Larkin wrote down the number of Willowby’s passport, handed the document back to Sato. “Let’s leave it where you found it, for the time being,” he told the steward. “I want to see what happens.”
“Yes.” Sato replaced the passport, rolled the mattress into place, began making the bed. Over his shoulder he said, “Maybe Mistah Frayu take Mistah Wirrowby’s passopawto.”
“Why?” Larkin asked.
“Maybe Mistah Frayu is Japanese spy.”
“Sato, you intrigue me. What makes you say that?”
“Maybe Mistah Frayu robbing you, Mistah Rah-kin.”
“Robbing me?”
“One evening dinnah-time, somebody robbing you in bass-room. Yes?”
“Yes, indeed. Did you see Frayle come out of the bathroom ’that night while I was in there?”
“Maybe,” said Sato. He lapsed into silence, as he folded the extra blanket in accordion pleats, twisted it into a double fan, placed it gently at the foot of the bunk. He stepped back to admire his own artistry, then started for the door.
“Wait a minute, Sato,” said Larkin. “Is Mr. Cuttle at breakfast yet?”
“No. Now in bass-room.”
“You’re apparently friendly with Mr. Hood, Sato. Did he happen to mention something in his stateroom he was anxious to give me?”
“Yes,” said the steward. “Nishiki-ye. Kahrah p’rintsu. Very nice.”
“Have you a pass key that will open Mr. Hood’s stateroom?”
“Yes.”
“Will you open it for me? Right now?”
“Yes,” said Sato, without hesitation.
Larkin snatched his wine-red dressing gown from a hook, quickly thrust his arms into the sleeves.
Larkin found the second set of photostats in the Hokusai portfolio—as Jeremy Hood had told him. Or were they the second set? He ran through them-hurriedly. They seemed to be copies of the same blueprints. They might be the same copies. Perhaps Hood was the man who had stolen them from Larkin’s coat hanging in the bathroom, and had invented this story as a way out of a situation that was getting too hot for him. Perhaps he had decided to get clear of the whole business rather than hang for murder. There-was no way of finding out—for the moment.
Larkin turned the photostats over—and his interest instantly quickened On the back of each print was the rubber-stamp of a Baltimore photographer, and the handwritten phrase: “I, Hans Schatzman, photographer and photo-printer residing in Baltimore, State of Maryland, hereby swear that this photostatic copy was made by me, from blueprints furnished by Charles Frayle …” A notary’s seal and signature legalized it.
Larkin did not remember seeing this inscription on the back of the photostats Dorothy Bonner had given him. He did not even remember having looked at the backs. If Hood were telling the truth, therefore—if this was indeed a second set of photostats, and had been in Arthur Bonner’s possession—a good many things might be explained. Why Charles Frayle, for instance, might Have wanted to kill Arthur Bonner …
Slipping the photostats under his pajama jacket, he continued his search of Hood’s portfolios. He was looking through the Hiroshige collection when he heard n exclamation behind him.
“Hello, Gumshoe,” he said, without turning around.
‘How the hell did you get in here?” demanded William Cuttle.
Carefully Larkin pulled his dressing gown tightly around his middle, stood up and faced Cuttle with great deliberation. “I used to be apprentice to a burglar, Gumshoe,” he said. “That was when I was learning to steal pictures for the tabloids. My city editor insisted on his boys knowing how to pick a few simple locks with a beer opener.”
“What are you doing in here?” Cuttle growled.
“I’m cracking your case for you, Gumshoe.”
“I don’t need no help.”
“Know who killed Dr. Bioki, do you?”
“I got a pretty good idea.”
“Is it the same man who persuaded the skipper to cut, out Honolulu, Gumshoe?”
William Cuttle rubbed the end of his nose with his knuckles. “Who told you we was cutting out Honolulu?” he demanded.
“The flag watchman at the last level crossing,” said Larkin. “Do you think Jeremy Hood kidded the skipper into changing his course?”
“Hood ain’t talked to the skipper,” said Cuttle.
“Then, you’d better turn Mr. Hood loose—with apologies.”
“I ain’t turning nobody loose.”
“Hearken to Larkin, Gumshoe. Do you know why Bioki was knocked off?”
“Because he knew too much.”
“Partially correct, Gumshoe. But too general. Let’s put it this way. He was the only person aboard qualified to give medical testimony that might prove that Arthur Bonner was murdered—instead of killing himself accidentally.”
“Maybe,” Cuttle admitted grudgingly.
“At the same time,” Larkin continued, “there remains the question of maritime jurisdiction of United States courts. There’s been murder committed on the high seas on a vessel plying between two American ports. There’s just a chance that the District Federal Court might have a case here—if the U. S. District Attorney in Honolulu so decides. But if the Kumo-maru proceeds directly to Yokohama, the jurisdiction becomes Japanese. And under certain circumstances, the Jap authorities might be less inquisitive than the folks at Honolulu.”
“So what?”
“So since Hood didn’t have the skipper change his course, you’ll turn Hood loose.”
