Midnight Sailing, page 4
“All right, Dorothy,” said Larkin. “Tell Glen. Who did it?”
“Who did what?” The girl’s look of innocence was almost convincing.
“Who,” Larkin asked, “has been trying to perform a tonsillectomy on General Rodriquez?”
“How should I know?”
“You have a pretty good view from this porthole.”
“I’ve been changing into some dry shoes and stockings,” said Dorothy. “I haven’t been watching the neighbors.”
“Didn’t you hear anyone pass to go into my cabin? Or come out?”
“I might have. I didn’t notice particularly.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see anybody go into that cabin? Not even me?”
The girl didn’t reply at once. Using the thick glass of the port for a mirror, she applied a final deft stroke of lipstick, put the finishing touches on her upper lip with the tip of her little finger. At last she looked at Larkin.
“I’ll take my third guess now,” she said. “You’re a detective.”
“Wrong.”
“Then why are you so interested in what happened to General Rodriguez?”
“Because the instinct of self-preservation has always been very strong among us Larkins. And, after all, mayhem has just been committed in my stateroom.”
“How does that affect you?” the girl asked.
“I’m very much afraid,” said Larkin, “that whoever took a swipe at General Rodriguez has the mistaken idea that I’m mixed up in whatever business is taking the general to Japan. He went through my luggage last night, looking for confirmation. And not finding any, he thought he’d play safe by making it look as though I carved up the general.”
“How do you know all this, Glen?” The girl’s eyes had narrowed shrewdly.
“I don’t know,” admitted Larkin. “But it’s a good guess. The deadly weapon used on the general happens to be my razor—stolen by someone who broke open my suitcase.”
The girl stared at him. “Last night?” she asked.
“Yes, last night.”
Dorothy reached one slender hand through the port to touch his cheek. The tapering fingers lingered a brief, caressing instant before they withdrew. She lowered her eyelids. Larkin noticed that the long lashes curled slightly.
“Then how,” she asked softly, “did you manage to shave this morning, Glen?”
Larkin laughed. “I use a safety razor,” he explained. “But since I have a lifelong habit of running out of blades whenever there’s no drug store or barbershop within fifty miles, I always carry an old-fashioned straight-edge for emergencies.”
“I see. And what is this emergency of General Rodriguez’s that you’re suspected of being mixed up in?”
“I don’t know,” said Larkin. “But I think you do.”
“I?”
“You. The first thing you did when we sailed from San Francisco was to look up General Rodriguez.”
“That was a purely social call. I explained—”
“Yes, I remember you explained. A friend told you to look him up—at one-thirty in the morning. Who was the friend?”
Dorothy hesitated. “It’s really none of your business,” she said, “but his name is Pendenning.”
“That wouldn’t be Grover Pendenning, the New York attorney, would it?”
“Wouldn’t it?” There was trace of challenge in the rising inflection of the girl’s voice.
Before Larkin could meet the challenge, he felt someone tap him on the arm. Dr. Bioki was standing behind him, Larkin’s razor clutched in his chubby hand.
“Please,” said Dr. Bioki, “we will on captain small visit ge-make.”
“How’s your patient, Doc?” Larkin asked.
“Not goot,” said Bioki. “But not bad.”
“The general’s not seriously injured?”
“Not so,” said Dr. Bioki. “Neck not bad is ge-cutted.”
“He lost a lot of blood,” said Larkin.
“Bloot,” countered Dr. Bioki with professional unconcern, “is for ladies scaring. Now, to captain, please.”
“Yes, of course,” said Larkin. As he walked away, he noted the fascinated gaze of Dorothy Bonner following the razor in the doctor’s hand.
Larkin and Dr. Bioki mounted to the bridge, where three Jap officers were squinting through sextants, trying for sights on the elusive, cloudhidden disk of a recalcitrant sun. Beyond, Captain Fujiwara was in the charthouse. The master of the Kumo-maru was a dapper little man with small, apparently lidless eyes that sometimes glittered with canny humor. He was at the moment engaged in disbudding the potted azaleas which shared the charthouse with a collection of night-blooming cereus. The captain listened to Dr. Bioki’s long discourse in Japanese, punctuated by impatient gestures with Larkin’s razor, but he did not look at the ship’s physician. His small, almost feminine hands continued their business of disbudding the azaleas. Flowers, Larkin had already noticed, were very important to Captain Fujiwara. The dining saloon was given over, horticulturally, to begonias and citron-scented nephrodium fern. The single bathroom that served first class was encumbered with hanging orchids and a potted Otaheite orange.…
“Ah, so-des’ ka!”
The doctor had stopped talking.
The captain looked up from his azaleas at last and there was no longer a humorous gleam in his eyes. He drew in his breath sharply.
“You attack General Rodriguez,” he said to Larkin in precise, clipped syllables.
“I did no such thing.”
“General say you attack him,” repeated the diminutive commander. “He say you rob him.”
“The general must be delirious.”
Again Captain Fujiwara inhaled sharply. He said, “This not your razor?”
“That’s my razor,” Larkin admitted. “It was stolen from my luggage last night.”
“General say you rob him of package of commercial papers. You permit search, of course.”
“Why should I?” protested Larkin. “On the back of my ticket it says your line is not responsible for valuables unless deposited with the purser. Why didn’t the general put his valuable papers in the safe?”
“Safety of passengers cannot be deposited in safe,” said the captain testily. “Am also responsible for safety of passengers. You refuse search?”
“If you give me a description of what you’re looking for,” said Larkin, “I’ll be glad to prove I haven’t got it.”
The captain and the ship’s doctor conferred briefly in Japanese. Then the captain said, “Missing document contains signature of General Rodriguez. It is agreement with Pan-American Vanadium Corporation.
“Then go ahead and search,” said Larkin. “I haven’t got it. Where will we begin?”
“On person,” said Captain Fujiwara.
A brief but thorough examination of Larkin’s wet clothes yielded nothing.
“I’d like to be present when you search my luggage,” said Larkin.
“Luggage just now being searched by purser, Mr. Yamata,” said the captain, picking up a telephone. He called “Moshi-moshi!” into the instrument several times. There was a long silence during which the receiver vibrated shrilly. The captain said, “Ah, so-des’ ka!” in a puzzled tone and hung up.
“Search is completed,” he said. “Mr. Yamata find nothing.”
“There is luggages in hold,” suggested Dr. Bioki.
“No,” said Captain Fujiwara. “If Mr. Larkin is in cabin with razor, he cannot be in hold hiding documents.”
“Quite,” agreed Dr. Bioki. “Then explanation how?”
“My suggestion is,” volunteered Larkin, “that General Rodriguez didn’t see the man who attacked him. He was unconscious when I came into the cabin. I was the first person he saw when he came to, and he’s assuming that I’m the man who knocked him out.”
“Perhaps,” said Captain Fujiwara.
“Then I’m exonerated?”
“For present,” said the captain. He had resumed disbudding his azaleas, but his mind was obviously else-where. His delicate hands moved with brusque, nervous gestures.
Larkin left the bridge and went down the steep, ladder-like stairs. As he set foot on the main deck, the steward handed him an envelope.
“Why-aress, Mistah Rah-kin,” said the steward.
Larkin snatched the envelope, ripped it open eagerly. It was Beasley’s reply, of course. He unfolded the radiogram—then frowned at the text. It read: Larpin, Stemship Kumomaru sodirup kaw agln busleq.
Larkin re-read the message a dozen times, trying to make sense of the cryptic words. So far as he knew, Seven Seas Newspaper Alliance had no special code. Press rates and cable-ese contractions made one unnecessary. Besides, the unequal length of the meaningless combinations of letters made it seem unlikely that Beasley was using one of the Standard telegraphic codes. Very probably the message had been garbled in transmission. “Busleq,” for instance, was undoubtedly “Beasley.”
He clumped back to the stern of the ship, poked his head into the wireless cabin thrust the message under the broad nose of the owlish young operator.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded.
The operator blinked through his thick spectacles. He looked at the radiogram and grinned. “O. K., pal.”
“That’s what you think,” said Larkin. “But it doesn’t make sense. Can’t you get me a copy that does?”
The operator’s grin disappeared. He blinked again. “Wakarimasen” he said.
“I’m beginning to suspect,” said Larkin, “that your English just misses being fluent.”
“Yes,” said the operator. “Notto very undahstando Ingurish.”
Larkin sighed and reached for another blank. He wrote: Beasley Sevseanews Sanfrancisco reply rebrother arrived haywire repeat giving code if any also need biography general juan rodriguez ex-peru—Larkin.
“See what you can do with this,” he said, as he tossed the form over.
“O.K., pal,” said the operator solemnly.
Chapter Six: STOWAWAY?
The Kumo-maru’s second-class accommodations were just aft of amidships and a deck below the first cabin. Otherwise there was little, material difference, except that the staterooms were a trifle smaller and the cockroaches a trifle larger. But to Dorothy Bonner, as she went down the dingy, second-class stairway, her heart pounding violently, it seemed that she was invading a strange and hostile domain. The public room at the foot of the stairs had the same bare white walls, the same green baize on the long table. The same insidious, sulphurous smell pervaded the atmosphere, yet there were other odors, too—a reek of strong tobacco and sour beer, and the incongruous, cloying scent of cheap perfume.
Dorothy looked about her in the hope that she would see Charles Frayle at once, but he was not there. Two men sat at one end of the table—a turbaned Hindu and a gaunt, Slavic-looking giant, arguing volubly in broken English. At the other end were five women. Four of them instantly caught Dorothy’s attention. They were young, pretty in a dark, coarse way, each with a carelessly vivid make-up, each with the same resigned air of bored laissez aller that was reflected in the powder smears on the shoulders and collars of their gaudy, sleazy lounging pajamas, in the run-over heels of their stained, feathered slippers. Two of them, elbows on the green baize, were playing a listless game with large Spanish cards. One was winding up a portable phonograph. A fourth was drinking beer and talking to a woman Dorothy recognized with a start as Millicent Greeve. Before Dorothy could retreat, Mrs. Greeve came forward to greet her, glass in hand.
“Why, darling, what are you doing over here?” she gushed. “Slumming? I mean, you must sit down and meet my friends.”
“I… I just came down to ask if you’d heard the news about General Rodriguez,” said Dorothy. “Someone tried to kill him.”
“That old goat,” said Mrs. Greeve.
The two girls stopped playing cards. One of them laughed and said something in Spanish.
“Paquita says she hopes it’s nothing trivial,” Mrs. Greeve interpreted. “The girls don’t like the general. I mean nobody does, much. He’s known in every—in all the countries of Latin America, and … Darling, pardon me for not introducing you. This is Paquita and Dolores and Lola. And that’s Rosita. Girls, this is Dorothy. We bunk together.”
“How do you do?” said Dorothy.
Rosita started the phonograph. The metallic strains of an orquesta tipica filled the smoky air with the rhythm of Cielito Lindo.
“The girls are old friends,” said Mrs. Greeve, raising her voice above the phonograph. “I mean, I’m an old friend of their families in Panama. I promised their mothers I’d sort of look out for them on this trip. Chaperon them, I mean. They’re going to Shanghai. Or they were. I don’t know what they’ll do now, poor things, with those bombs dropping all over the place. They’re entertainers, I mean. They’re really very clever.”
“I’m sure they are,” Dorothy murmured.
“You will sit down and smoke a cigarette,” said Mrs. Greeve.
“I really can’t,” said Dorothy. She caught sight of Charles Frayle standing in the passageway across the room, his feet wide apart, his elbows extended at an angle of jaunty nonchalance. He motioned to her with a nod of his head, turned and walked away. Dorothy added, “I have an appointment … One of the officers … See you all later … Pleased to have met you …”
She hurried after Frayle. He was far ahead of her, going down the corridor with long, imperious strides. She followed him past white stateroom doors. The corridor seemed interminable, lifting and twisting with the motion of the ship. The worn strip of red carpet underfoot came to an end, and her heels clicked on the steel deck. Behind her Rosita’s phonograph was singing Las Mañanitas in a sad, sweet, slightly nasal tenor.
Frayle disappeared around a corner. Dorothy hurried on, past the open door of the oilers’ and firemen’s mess, bare tables with wooden tubs of steaming rice, dried fish, odorous daikon like huge yellow radishes; past the engine-room hatch with its steel gratings, its greasy smell of hot metal, its whirr and thump of machinery.
As she rounded the corner, Charles Frayle swept her into his arms and kissed her. She closed her eyes and let him kiss her again. A feeling of peace pervaded her tingling nerves. It was so comfortable, being kissed by Charlie Frayle, being loved by him. He was such a masterful, domineering, independent person with everyone else, and so tender, almost boyishly compliant with her. She felt secure when he held her in his arms.
“Cold waters to a thirsty soul,” he said.
She opened her eyes. He was smiling complacently. She said, “Charlie, someone tried to kill Rodriguez.”
His smile did not change. “I know,” he said. “What of it?”
“Rodriguez says whoever did it stole his Pan-American Vanadium contracts,” the girl said.
“That’s nothing to weep about. So much the better.”
“But if someone is trying to break up the deal, they may try to get our copies next. They may try to kill you next, Charlie.”
“It’s been tried before,” Frayle said. “It’s been tried in South Africa and Peru and once in Washington. It never works.”
“Charlie, I’m afraid! They’re going to turn this ship inside out, looking for those Rodriguez documents. Suppose they find my copy—on you?”
“All right. Suppose,” said Frayle lightly.
“Rodriguez will claim it,” Dorothy said. “I’m sure now he’s going to freeze us out—he or whoever tried to kill him. Charlie, I can’t let that happen. It’s all I’ve got.”
“Except me,” said Frayle. His dimples appeared.
“Of course, you, Charlie, but—Charlie, give me the envelope. I can take care of it so they’ll never find it.”
Frayle hesitated. The tiny shrewd lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. Without a word he reached into his breast pocket for a long envelope, watched the girl fold it before she slipped it into the bosom of her dress. “Feel better now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Still afraid, though?”
“A little.”
“You won’t have to be any more.” Frayle put his arm around her shoulders. “I’m moving up into first cabin. I’ve fixed it with the purser.”
“Had you better, Charlie? After all, the precautions we’ve taken, not to be seen together—you traveling in second? Hadn’t you better wait until after Honolulu?”
“No,” said Frayle. “The situation has changed. I’ve arranged a cabin for the two of us. The captain will marry us. Tonight.”
“Charlie, no! Not tonight!” The words tumbled out. Dorothy was surprised at her own vehemence, more surprised than Charlie Frayle, apparently, to judge by his unchanged expression. She wondered why she had been so spontaneous in her contradiction. She knew she was going to marry Charlie Frayle. They had decided to get married after they had arrived in Japan. She was terribly fand of Charlie—and terribly grateful to him. She didn’t know what she would have done without him after the brutal tragedy of her father’s death. He had taken care of everything with that sure, confident, decisive way of his. And yet he had never tried to dominate her. On the contrary, he was the only man she had ever known who regarded her as a personality of her own, not merely as Pongee Bonner’s daughter, a walking bank account. Charlie was a darling. Why this sudden, strange resistance to his proposal?
“What’s the matter, puss?” Frayle was saying. “Don’t you love me any more?”
“It’s not that, Charlie. You know how I feel about you. But you promised I’d have time to reconstruct my emotional ego—after the shock of father’s death.”
“The time’s up,” said Frayle.
“Is it a matter of hours, dear?”
“It’s a matter of a very few days. We’ll have to be married before the ship reaches Honolulu. And the sooner the better.”
“Why, dear?”
“Sentimental and biological considerations aside,” said Frayle, “I’ve discovered that you’ll have to be protected—from yourself. You told that delightful brother of yours that we were sailing on this ship, didn’t you?”
“I—may have,” Dorothy admitted.
