“And what does that mean?” Smithy asked.
“Some sort of quick-drying paint, I should imagine.”
“Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion,” Smithy said. “I wouldn’t have given Otto the credit.” He shivered. “Maybe it isn’t snowing in here but I’d have you know that I’m very cold indeed. This place reminds me of an iron tomb.”
“It isn’t very cosy. Up and away.”
“A fruitless search, you might say?”
“You might. I didn’t have many hopes anyway.”
“Is that why you changed your mind about their getting on with the making of the film? One minute indifference, the next advising them to press on? So that you could, perhaps, examine their quarters and their possessions when they’re out?”
“Whatever put such a thought in your mind, Smithy?”
“There are a thousand snowdrifts where a person could hide anything.”
“That’s a thought that’s also in my mind.”
We made the trip from the jetty to the main cabin with much greater ease than we had the other way for this time we had the faint and diffuse glow of light from the Colemans to guide us. We scrambled back inside our cubicle without too much difficulty, brushed the snow from our boots and upper clothing and hung the latter up: compared to the interior of the submarine shell the warmth inside the cubicle was positively genial. I took screwdriver and screws and started to secure the window while Smithy, after some references to the low state of his health, retrieved the bottle I’d taken from the provisions shed and took two small beakers from my medical box. He watched me until I had finished.
“Well,” he said, “that’s us safe for the night. How about the others?”
“I don’t think most of the others are in any danger because they don’t offer any danger to the plans of our friend or friends.”
“Most of the others?”
“I think I’ll screw up Judith Haynes’s window too.”
“Judith Haynes?”
“I have a feeling that she is in danger. Whether it’s grave danger or imminent danger I have no idea. Maybe I’m just fey.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Smithy said ambiguously. He drank some Scotch absently. “I’ve just been thinking myself, but along rather different lines. When, do you think, is it going to occur to our directorial board to call some law in or some outside help or, at least, to let the world know that the employees of Olympus Productions are dying off like flies and not from natural causes, either?”
“That’s the decision you would arrive at?”
“If I wasn’t a criminal, or, in this case, the criminal, and had very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around, yes, I would.”
“I’m not a criminal but I’ve very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around either. The moment the law officially steps into the picture every criminal thought, intent, and potential action will go into deep freeze and we’ll be left with five unresolved deaths on our hands and that’ll be the end of it for there’s nothing surer than that we haven’t got a thing to hang on anyone yet. There’s only one way and that’s by giving out enough rope for a hanging job.”
“What if you give out too much rope and our friend, instead of hanging himself, hangs one of us instead? What if there’s murder?”
“In that case we’d have to call in the law. I’m here to do a job in the best way I can but that doesn’t mean by any means I can: I can’t use the innocent as sacrificial pawns.”
“Well, that’s some relief. But if the thought does occur to them?”
“Then obviously we’ll have to try to contact Tunheim-there’s a Meteorological Office radio there that should just about reach the moon. Or we’ll have to offer to try to contact Tunheim. It’s less than ten miles away but in weather conditions like those it might as well be on the far side of Siberia. If the weather cases, it might be possible. The wind’s veering round to the west now and if it stayed in that quarter a trip by boat up the coast might be possible-pretty unpleasant, but just possible. If it goes much north of west, it wouldn’t-those are only open workboats and would be swamped in any kind of sea. By land-if the snow stopped-well, I just don’t know. In the first place, the terrain is so broken and mountainous that you couldn’t possibly use the little Sno-Cat-you’d have to make it on foot. You’d have to go well inland, to the west, to avoid the Misery Fell complex for that ends in cliffs on the east coast. There are hundreds of little lakes lying in that region and I’ve no idea how heavily they may be frozen over, maybe some of them not very much, maybe just enough to support a covering of snow and not a man-and I believe some of those lakes are over a hundred feet deep. You might be ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep in snow. And apart from being bogged-down or drowned, we’re not equipped for winter travel, we haven’t even got a tent for an overnight stop-there isn’t a hope of you making it in one day-and if the snow started falling again and kept on falling I bet Olympus Productions haven’t even as much as a hand compass to prevent you from walking in circles until you drop dead from cold or hunger or just plain old exhaustion.”
“You, you, you’,” Smithy said. “You’re always talking about me. How about you going instead?” He grinned. “Of course, I could always set off for there, search around till I found some convenient cave or shelter, hole up there for the night, and return the next day announcing mission impossible.”
“We’ll see how the cards fall.” I finished my drink and picked up screwdriver and screws. “Let’s go and see how Miss Haynes is.”
Miss Haynes seemed to be in reasonable health. No fever, normal pulse, breathing deeply and evenly: how she would feel when she woke was another matter altogether. I screwed up her window until nobody could have entered her room from the outside without smashing their way in and breaking through two sheets of plate glass would cause enough racket to wake up half the occupants of the cabin. Then we went into the living area of the cabin.
It was surprisingly empty. At least ten people I would have expected to be there were absent, but a quick mental count of the missing heads convinced me that there was no likely cause for alarm in this. Otto, the Count, Heissman, and Goin, conspicuously absent, were probably in secret conclave in one of their cubicles discussing weighty matters which they didn’t wish their underlings to hear. Lonnie had almost certainly betaken himself again in his quest for fresh air and I hoped that he hadn’t managed to lose himself between the cabin and the provisions hut. Allen, almost certainly, had gone to lie down again and I presumed that Mary Darling, who appeared to have overcome a great number of her earlier inhibitions, had returned to her dutiful handholding. I couldn’t imagine where the Three Apostles had got to nor was I particularly worried: I was sure that there was nothing to fear from them other than permanent damage to the eardrums.
I crossed to where Conrad was presiding over a three-burner oil cooker mounted on top of a stove. He had two large pans and a large pot all bubbling away at once, stew, beans and coffee, and he seemed to be enjoying his role of chef not least, I guessed, because he had Mary Stuart as his assistant. In another man I would have looked for a less than altruistic motive in this cheerful willingness, the hail-fellow-well-met leading man playing the democrat to an admiring gallery, but I knew enough of Conrad now to realise that this formed no part of his nature at all: he was just a naturally helpful character who never thought to place himself above his fellow actors. Conrad, I thought, must be a very rara avis indeed in the cinema world.
“What’s all this, then?” I said. `You qualified for this sort of thing. I thought Otto had appointed the Three Apostles as alternate chefs?”
“The Three Apostles had it in mind to start improving their musical technique in this very spot,” Conrad said. I did a self-defence trade with them. They’re practising across in the equipment hut-you know, where the generator is.”
I tried to imagine the total degree of cacophony produced by their tatonal voices, their amplified instruments and the diesel engine in a confined space of eight by eight, but my imagination wasn’t up to it. I said: “You deserve a medal. You too, Mary dear.”
“Me?” She smiled. “Why?”
“Remember what I said about the goodies pairing off with the baddies? Delighted to see you keeping a close eye on our suspect here. Haven’t seen his hand hovering suspiciously long over one of the pots, have you?”