“More or less.” She looked more miserable than ever, then her eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“The Strykers of this world are pretty thick upon the ground. The ensuing scene must have been pretty painful.”
“There were two scenes,” she said dully. “Something like it happened on the upper deck the following night. She said she was going to report me to her father–Mr. Gerran. He said-not when she was there, of course–that if I tried to make trouble he’d have me fired. He was a director, you know. Later, when I got, well, friendly with Allen, he said he’d get us both fired if need be and make sure that neither of us would ever again get a job in films. Allen said that this was all wrong, why should we accept this when neither of us had done anything so-”
“So he tried to make him see the error of his ways this morning and got clobbered for his pains. Don’t worry, you’ve neither of you anything to worry about. You’ll find your wounded knight errant next door, Mary.” I smiled and gently touched the swollen cheek. “This should be something to see. Love’s young dream in sticking plaster. You do love him, don’t you, Mary?”
“Of course.” She looked at me solemnly. “Dr. Marlowe.”
“I’m wonderful?”
She smiled, almost happily, and left. Smithy, who must have been watching for her departure, came in almost at once and I told him what had been said.
“Had to be that, of course,” he said. “The truth’s always obvious when it’s hung up in front of you and you’re beaten over the head with a two-by-four to make you take notice. And now?”
“And now, I think, three things. The first, to clear the names of the two love birds next door: that’s not important at this stage but they’re sensitive souls and I think they’d like to be on speaking terms with the rest of the company again. Second thing is, I’ve no intention of being stranded here for the next twenty-two days-two days is a lot more like it: who knows, I might be able to pressure unknown or unknowns into precipitate action.”
“I should have thought there had been enough of that already,” Smithy said.
“You may have a point. Third thing is, I could make life a great deal easier and safer for both of us if we had every person so busy watching every other person that it would make it a great deal more difficult for the disaffected to creep up upon our backs unawares.”
“You touch upon a very sympathetic nerve,” Smithy said. “Your plan into action and at once, I say. A small chat with the assembled company?”
“A small chat with the assembled company. I suggested a couple of hours” lie-down to Allen but I think he and Mary should be there. Would you?”
Smithy left and I went into the living area. Goin, Otto, and the Count, all armed with glasses as was almost every other person there, were still in solemn and low-voiced conclave. Otto beckoned me across.
“One moment,” I said. I went outside, coughed and caught my breath as the bitter air cut into my lungs, then trudged against that snow-filled gale across to the provisions hut. Lonnie was seated on a packing case, lovingly examining the amber contents of a glass against the light from his torch.
“Ha!” he said. “Our peripatetic healer. You know, when one consumes a noble wine like this-”
“Wine?”
“A figure of speech. When one consumes a noble Scotch like this, half the pleasure lies in the visual satisfaction. Ever tried it in the darkness? Flat, stale, strangely lacking in bouquet. There’s a worthwhile monograph here, I’m sure.” He waved his glass in the direction of the crates of bottles by one wall. “Harking back to my earlier allusions to the hereafter, if they can have bars in Bear Island then surely-‘
“Lonnie,” I said, “you’re missing out on the largesse stakes. Otto is dispensing noble wine at this very moment. He’s using very large glasses.”
“I was on the very point of leaving.” He tilted his head and swallowed rapidly. I have a dread of being thought a misanthrope.”
I took this friend of the human race back to the main cabin and counted those there. Twenty-one, myself included, as it should have been: the twenty-second and last, Judith Haynes, was deeply unconscious and would be so for hours. Otto beckoned me a second time and I went across.
“We’ve been having what you might call a council of war,” Otto said importantly. “We’ve arrived at a conclusion and would like to have your opinion.”
“Why mine? I’m just an employee, like everyone else here apart, of course, from the three of you-and Miss Haynes.”
“Consider yourself a co-opted director,” the Count said generously. “Temporary and unpaid, of course.”
“Your opinion would be valued,” Goin said precisely.
“Opinion about what?”
“Our proposed measures for dealing with Allen,” Otto said. I know that in law every man is presumed innocent until proved otherwise. Nor do we have any wish to be inhumane. But simply in order to protect ourselves-”
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” I said. “About protecting ourselves. I wanted to talk to everybody about that. In fact, that’s what I propose to do this very moment.”
“You propose to do what?” Otto could arrange his eyebrows in a very forbidding fashion when he put his mind to it.
“A brief address only,” I said. “It’ll take up hardly any of your time.”
“I can’t permit that,” Otto said loftily. “At least, not until you give us some idea what you have in mind and then we may or may not give our consent.”
“Your permission or lack of it is irrelevant,” I said indifferently. I don’t require permission when I’m talking about something that may affect lives-you know, the difference between living and dying.”
“I forbid it. I would remind you of what you have just reminded me.” Otto had forgotten about the need for conducting delicate matters in conspiratorial murmurs and we had the undivided attention of everyone in the cabin. “You are an employee of mine, sir!”
“And I’ll now perform my last act as a dutiful employee.” I poured myself a measure of Otto’s Scotch which, as he and several others were drinking it, I presumed to be safe to drink. Hcalth to one and all,” I said, “and I don’t mean that lightly or in the conventional sense. We’re going to need it all before we leave this island and let each one of us hope that he or she is not the one who is going to he abandoned by fortune. As for being your employee, Gerran, You can consider my resignation as being effective as from this moment. I do not care to work for fools. More importantly, I do not care to work for those who may be both fools and knaves.”
This, at least, had the effect of reducing Otto to silence for, to judge by the indigo hue his complexion was assuming, he appeared to be having some little difficulty in his breathing. The Count, I observed, had a mildly speculative expression on his face, while Goin’s face held the impassivity of one withholding judgement. I looked round the cabin.
I said: “It is, I know, belabouring the obvious to say that this trip of ours, so far, has been singularly luckless and ill-starred. We have been plagued by a series of tragic and extraordinarily strange events. We had Antonio die. This might have been the merest mischance: it might equally well be that he was the victim of a premeditated murder or the hapless victim of a misplaced murder attempt that was aimed at someone else. Exactly the same can be said of the two stewards, Moxen and Scott. Similar attempts may or may not have been aimed at Mr. Gerran, Mr. Smith, Oakley, and young Cecil here: all I can say with certainty is that if I hadn’t been so lucky as to be in the vicinity when they were struck down at least three of those might have died. You may wonder why I make such a fuss about what could have been a simple, deadly, outbreak of food poisoning : it is because I have reason to believe, without being able to prove it, that a deadly poison called aconitine, which is indistinguishable in appearance from horse-radish, was introduced at specific points into the evening meal we had on the occasion when those people were struck down.”
I checked to see if I had the attention of all those present and I’ve never made a more superfluous check. They were so stunned that they hadn’t even got to the lengths of looking at each other: Otto’s liquid largesse wholly forgotten, they had eyes only for me, ears only for what I was saying, the average university lecturer would have found it a dream of paradise: but then the average university lecturer rarely had the doubtful fortune to chance upon such wholly absorbing subject matter as I had to hand. “