Five Passengers from Lisbon, page 18
“Oh, yes.” He lifted his face reassuringly, but she put her fingers on his wrist for a moment nevertheless. He gave her a faint, patient smile and apparently satisfied, she walked to the black glittering port and stared out into nothing. Marcia thought, this is not possible; Mickey cannot have died like this; but she knew it was true.
There was after that another long wait; a corpsman came about midnight with sandwiches and hot cocoa in thick cups on a tray. Luther questioned him, and he told them that the ship was being searched. They had not found the murderer. When Luther asked about Urdiola, he said he was still under
“Then Urdiola couldn’t have done it,” said Daisy Belle. Her face was parchment gray; she was cold and kept her nurse’s coat tight around her tall, spare body. Luther, his face pale too, and his lips blue, handed around the cups of hot cocoa.
Marcia drank slowly, holding it in both her cold hands. There is a state of shock that is almost like an anesthetic; fortunately, under an anesthetic one has no feeling. Marcia thought that once, staring into the brown cocoa, remembering as if from a time long past Mickey’s candid, clear gray eyes, his smile, the things he had said. Also she recalled the thing that Josh Morgan had said which precipitated the search for Mickey. A Nazi war criminal, trying to escape a Europe which was too dangerous for him now that the Americans had come.
Mickey with his hands tragic and maimed by those same Nazis.
She was strongly aware all the time of Gili’s presence across from her, and perhaps Gili was as strongly aware of her. Their eyes did not meet until Josh returned.
He came into the room quickly and everyone looked up with a jerk. His face was very white. The ship had been, by that time, thoroughly searched and no revolver was found and nothing leading to evidence concerning Mickey Banet’s murder had been discovered, he told them tersely.
“What are they going to do?” asked Luther, his face ashen under the brilliant light and the pouches heavy below his tired eyes.
“Investigate as best they can. Hope, I suppose, that somebody saw something and will come forward to say so. They are making an urgent appeal. Anybody who knows of anything at all suspicious is asked to go to the Captain at once.”
“Do you think that will come to anything?” asked Luther after a pause.
“I don’t know. The Captain is coming here. He said he’d be along in a few minutes.”
There was a sharp silence and then Daisy Belle said abruptly: “To ask us if one of us murdered him!”
“Yes,” said Josh quietly. “I suppose they’ll ask that. And they’ll ask you to volunteer any evidence or even, I imagine, any opinions that you may have.”
It was then that Marcia became aware of Gili’s eyes, bright and green and fixed, staring at her thoughtfully. She did not speak, however, but only sat there, her long blonde hair hanging lankly about her face, her eyes fastened upon Marcia in that thoughtful way. Before anyone else spoke the Captain and Colonel Wells came into the room.
Mainly they looked terribly tired. It had been Colonel Wells, a surgeon before he became commanding officer of the medical unit for the Magnolia, who had operated on Mickey. He came to Marcia directly. “I’m sorry,” he said and with a kindliness which reached through the stiff self-control that had erected itself around her like a shell. “I did what I could. Whatever he was, or wasn’t, I’m sorry.” But there was also a sharp and cold question in his eyes.
Captain Svendsen, however, swiftly took matters into his own hands. They all knew, he said, what had happened. If any of them knew anything of the murder or suspected anything they must understand how urgently important it was to tell them. He did not wait for anyone to speak but went on: “Shortly before he was found injured a question of his identity arose.” He turned directly to Marcia. “You were engaged to marry him. You must have known the truth. Colonel Morgan says that he was really a man by the name of Banet, a concert pianist. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Why was he using a false passport? And a false name?”
She told him. It had seemed best to leave Europe as quickly as possible. He had decided to use a passport which had belonged to a friend, André Messac. He had his own photograph substituted.
“Why did he not use his own?”
“He said he had none. He had nothing, no personal possessions. It would take time to secure a passport of his own.”
“If he had turned Nazi he would not have dared to apply for one. He would have been afraid to let his identity be known anywhere in France, wouldn’t he?”
“I suppose so. Yes.”
“And you subscribed to his plan to use a false passport. Why? You must have known that that is a criminal offense.”
At the time it had seemed the only course which might help, quickly, to restore Mickey to himself. Now it seemed futile to try to explain it. She replied: “It seemed right then. We intended to do something about it in Buenos Aires, go to the American consul and tell him the whole story. But then...”
“But then...” prompted Captain Svendsen.
“Then he determined to keep the name of André Messac.” “Why?”
She told him that, too. Mickey had been on the threshold of a great career. It had been taken from him. He had wished, he said, to save his pride and never again to be known as Michel Banet, who had promised so much and done so little.
There was a short silence, so they could hear the throb of the ship’s engines, driving the ship on and on through the fog.
“When did he tell you that?” asked the Captain suddenly. “On the Lerida? On the Magnolia?”
“The night after we were taken aboard the Magnolia”
“And you agreed to keep his real identity a secret?”
She had neither the wish nor the strength to defend herself. “For the time being. Yes.”
“What were you going to do when you arrived in America? Go through life as Mr. and Mrs. André Messac? A false name, a life of lies?”
It was, of course, what she had asked herself almost in so many words. She said: “I thought that he would agree to tell the truth.”
Captain Svendsen turned to Josh. “Will you tell Miss Colfax exactly what you told me while Colonel Wells was operating.” Josh had been leaning against the table, the white sling for his wounded arm looming up brightly. His face looked almost as white. He looked at Marcia, and crossed to pull up a small chair near her. He sat down and leaned forward to take her hand. “Marcia, I knew André Messac. That is, I knew an André Messac in Paris. As you told me when I questioned you about him it is not an uncommon name. Still it was not exactly a common name, either. André was murdered by the Nazis.” He looked down at her hand for an instant, his face set and grave.
The Captain showed anger and impatience—a deep-lying anger because of things the Nazis had done, things he had seen, things he had heard, which could never be undone, another and almost as biting an anger because he could not yet lay hold of the horrible thing he had brought aboard his ship with the passengers he had rescued from the Lerida lifeboat, because his strong red hands longed to do so, because he had to get back to the bridge, because he did not know what to do, because the very complexity of his emotions angered him. Captain Svendsen said: “Colonel Morgan, during the first fall of the war, joined a group of French resistance men. André Messac was one of them. So was Michel Banet. André Messac was arrested suddenly by the Germans and shot. Colonel Morgan was always of the opinion that he was betrayed by one of his own men. He thinks that man was the man who came on this ship using André Messac’s name. He thinks it was Michel Banet. What do you know about it?”
“He could not have been a Nazi. Mickey was arrested by the Nazis. He was tortured by the Nazis...”
Josh looked up into her eyes. “Everybody who was tortured,” said Josh, with a queer sad note in his voice, “was not a hero. One stands torture, another does not. The Germans knew that; that was why they tortured. They wanted information about other people. They wanted to break and twist and turn. They had a double lever with Michel Banet; pain and the maiming of his fingers which meant his whole life. I think he gave in. I think he turned Nazi at once, within a day or two of his imprisonment and torture. Unfortunately for him, it was already too late to save his hands, but he could save his life, and did. By telling everything he knew. I’ve always thought that André Messac was betrayed by one of a very small group because André was so”—he hesitated—“so very intelligent. So cool, so rigid about plans and strict discipline. He foresaw the day that was to come. He knew that first winter how important to France the French resistance movement would become. He was a genius for organization. Even then he realized how unsafe it would be for men to know too much of each other in that organization. Even then, in the beginning, he arranged it so you knew the fewest possible names, the fewest possible men who were allied to you. Michel Banet was one of the few who knew André Messac was our leader. I knew it. Perhaps a few others. But Michel Banet was arrested, and almost immediately André was arrested and shot. I did not know that Michel Banet had betrayed. I only knew that André must have been betrayed. Banet had disappeared. The rumor was that he was killed, too. The Germans were in Paris. War between the United States and Germany seemed inevitable. I got back home, as I told you, and into the army. But you don’t forget people like André. Well, when I knew that a man had turned up on this ship using that name, when I saw that man and knew it was not his name but a man I had known to be taken by the Germans only a day or so before André was murdered, I”—he stared down again at his hand still holding hers—“I had to find out the truth.”
The Captain said: “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you warn me...?”
Josh lifted his head. His face was very white and he looked as if he did not see Marcia, did not see anything but a somber and terrible picture that hovered in his thoughts. “Because I had to kill him with my own hands,” said Josh.
There was a long silence in the lounge with its blank and glistening ports and its red cushions. Then the Captain cried: “But he said a woman did it!” He looked at Marcia. Everyone looked at Marcia except Josh who, with his dark head bent, stared down at her hand and his own, locked together.
17
Colonel Wells cleared his throat and stepped forward. “We might question Miss Colfax,” he said.
“All right,” said the Captain, “question her. If she murdered him, will she admit it? If she took that revolver, will she say so? If she knew he was a Nazi...”
Suddenly Marcia took in the sense of the Captain’s words. “Mickey said a woman shot him?” she cried.
And Josh told her.
“Before Banet died he made a—a sort of statement. He was conscious for a minute or two; he was under drugs; he seemed fairly strong and as if he might make it, really. He said that a woman had killed him and he said that he’d explain or something like that later.”
He paused and the silence in the lounge was so sharp it was as if somebody had screamed. Josh went on: “But he died before he spoke again.”
And that sharp and terrible moment of listening, of heightened terrible silence passed.
But to somebody in that room, Marcia thought suddenly, there had been a second of terror while Josh quoted Mickey’s words and then paused before he added that Mickey had said no more. Somebody had waited for a name.
Somebody? All of them. She glanced swiftly around the room and everybody else was doing the same thing. Covertly, swiftly, eyes searching and speculative, suspicion unveiled and bright.
Then the Captain said heavily and pointblank: “If you killed him, Miss Colfax, it would be better for you to say so now.”
“No, no, I didn’t....”
“Did you know that he was a Nazi?”
“No.”
“But you admit that you knew he was traveling under a false name and that you connived in his deception?”
“Not connive...”
“You knew it?”
“Yes.”
Colonel Wells said slowly: “Whoever killed him must have made two attempts: the first one, that night on the deck when Banet was knocked out. Miss Colfax couldn’t have done that, for she was attacked the same night, about the same time as Banet. Certainly by the same person who attacked Banet, so...”
“Oh, no,” cried Josh. He put down Marcia’s hand and got up. “Oh, no! I did that. I hit Banet.”
“You...” began the Captain, his great fist doubling up. “That was you....”
“I told you that I wanted to kill him with my own hands.” “You didn’t tell me that you had tried,” said the Captain grimly. “Did you shoot him?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Josh. “But I wanted to. I’d been wanting to for five years....That is, I’d been wanting to kill whoever it was that betrayed André Messac. I heard there was an André Messac on board, among the Lerida survivors....”
“I told you,” snapped Captain Svendsen.
“Yes. I thought, but André Messac is dead; he was reported dead. Then I thought, perhaps he’s alive. Yet I—I realized that he couldn’t be alive; so it couldn’t be the same man. In that case, you see, it would have to be another André Messac, or somebody using his name. If it was somebody using his name I had to find out why.”
Captain Svendsen’s face was red with anger. Colonel Wells said pacifically: “It was your duty to report the thing to the Captain.”
“Yes, I suppose it was. But I simply never thought of that. I only wanted to see the man using that name. So I looked for him on deck that night. The instant he came along under the light I recognized him. I’d heard him play many times. And I saw red. There isn’t any other way to explain it,” said Josh simply. “I saw him and it was like a flash of—of electricity or something. There was Michel Banet, using André’s name and passport, the same man I’d thought might have betrayed André. So I hit him. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t question, I didn’t—well, I suppose I didn’t know what I was doing. Except,” said Josh very clearly, “that it was what I’d wanted to do for five years....”
The Captain broke in harshly: “You’d wanted to kill Michel Banet?”
“I’d wanted to kill whoever it was who’d betrayed André Messac to the Germans.”
“Then you killed him tonight?”
“No,” said Josh soberly, “I didn’t.”
“But you...” The Captain’s face was swelling with rage again and again Colonel Wells stepped in peaceably. “What did you do?” he asked Josh. “Why didn’t you report it?”
Josh paused for a moment, thinking. He said finally: “The thing I had to do seemed perfectly clear to me. I’ll try to tell you. After I hit him I—well, came to. I realized how stupid it was. I leaned over him and he seemed to be knocked out but not really hurt. I knew he’d pick himself up again in a minute or two and be none the worse for it. I didn’t think he’d seen me. And he’d never known me in the Paris days. I was only one of the audience. I didn’t think that he knew that I had had anything to do with the French underground. I was more in André’s confidence than anybody. I knew a few of the other names. At any rate, it was dark there on the deck and I—well, naturally, I hadn’t stopped to say, ‘Look out, I’m going to hit you,’ or anything of the kind. I just slammed out at him when he came from under the light past me, and I saw his face and knew it and the whole thing seemed to check. It wasn’t even a case of a fight. I just wanted to kill him. Only,” said Josh, “as it happened, I didn’t.”
“Go on,” said Colonel Wells.
“Well, as I say, it was dark where I stood on deck. He passed under a light and then came toward me. I was pretty sure that he didn’t even see me. Later that night I went to his cabin and then I was sure that he didn’t recognize me, and I think that he was honestly puzzled as to just what had happened. He must have known that somebody hit him, yet he pretended not to know that or anything about it. I’ve wondered why,” said Josh.
Again for a moment no one spoke or moved. Then Josh went on: “At any rate, I left him there and tried to get myself together. The thing to do I decided was to keep quiet and find out everything I could about him. If he was guilty, I’d prove it. But I”—he looked again at the Captain and said stubbornly—“I had to do it myself. André was my friend. It was...I had to.”
The Captain glowered at the floor. “Well. Well, go on.” “What did you do then?” asked Colonel Wells.
“I walked on around the deck, thinking. He was a fake. But why? Then I met Marcia and talked to her for a little. I questioned her about him. I didn’t get very far. I went to my quarters, had another smoke, or started to, and suddenly thought I’d better get back and see if I’d hit him”—Josh paused and said rather grimly—“half as hard as I’d intended to. After I’d had time to think, I didn’t want to kill him till I’d found out the whole truth. I wanted to keep him alive. So I went out on deck again, on the port side. I walked around the stern, intending, as I say, to see if I’d really killed Banet, and found Marcia. I didn’t see anybody get away. I hadn’t heard anything, but there she was, and I, at least, was entirely convinced that someone had tried to murder her. You didn’t quite believe it, Captain—neither did you, Colonel Wells, in spite of the mark on her throat. But I had found her and I believed it.”
Had the hands, thought Marcia, that had reached toward her so mercilessly from the shadows of the deck, held that equally merciless revolver that had killed Mickey?
The Captain’s bright, angry blue eyes searched her face. He demanded: “Why should anyone try to murder you, and succeed in killing Banet? And the two Portuguese! There must be a link. What is it?”
Josh said quickly: “Whoever tried to kill her then, tried at least twice again.”
The Captain turned again to Josh, his eyes blazing. “You ought to have told me about Banet!” he cried, and Josh replied obstinately: “I did not believe that Michel Banet had anything to do with the murder of the two Portuguese.”
“You still required a private revenge?” asked Colonel Wells. “In a sense, yes. But there were other reasons. For one thing Marcia—that is, Miss Colfax,” he amended, as if for the first time he realized that he had been calling her Marcia, “was engaged to be married to him; consequently she had to know that he was using another man’s name and she had to know the reason for it. So that was an argument in favor of Banet. I had a certain”—he hesitated and said—“faith in Miss Colfax’s own faith in him. And I had faith in her,” said Josh, very quietly.
