Stiffly, clumsily, I rose and headed back towards the cabin. The trip back was easier than the outwards one for it was downhill and by following my own tracks I was able to avoid most of the involuntary descents into the sunken snowdrifts that had punctuated my climb. Even so, it was nearer one o’clock than noon when I approached the cabin.
I was only a few paces distant when the main door opened and Mary Stuart appeared. One look at her and my heart turned over and something cold and leaden seemed to settle in the pit of my stomach. Dishevelled hair, a white and shocked face, eyes wild and full of fear, I’d have had to be blind not to know that somewhere, close, death had walked by again.
“Thank God!” Her voice was husky and full of tears. “Thank God you’re here! Please come quickly. Something terrible has happened.”
I didn’t waste time asking her what, clearly I’d find out soon enough, just followed her running footsteps into the cabin and along the passage to Judith Haynes’s opened door. Something terrible had indeed happened but there had been no need for haste. Judith Haynes had fallen from her cot and was lying sideways on the floor, half-covered by her blanket which she’d apparently dragged down along with her. On the bed lay an opened and three-part empty bottle of barbiturate tablets, a few scattered over the bed: on the floor, its neck still clutched in her hand, lay a bottle of gin, also three-parts empty. I stooped and touched the marble forehead: even allowing for the icy atmosphere in the cubicle, she must have been dead for hours. Make it a long sleep, she’d said to me: make it a long sleep.
“Is she-is she-?” The dead make people speak in whispers.
“Can’t you tell a dead person when you see one?” It was brutal of me but I felt flooding into me that cold anger that was to remain with me until we’d left the island.
“I-I didn’t touch her. I-”
“When did you find her?”
“A minute ago. Two. I’d just made some food and coffee and I came to see-”
“Where are the others? Lonnie, Sandy, Eddie?”
“Where are– I don’t know. They left a little while ago–said they were going for a walk.” A likely tale. There was only one reason that would make at least two of the three walk as far as the front door. I said: “Get them. You’ll End them in the provision shed.”
“Provision shed? Why would they be there?”
“Because that’s where Otto keeps his Scotch.”
She left. I put the gin bottle and barbiturate bottle to one side, then I lifted Judith Haynes onto the bed for no better reason than that it seemed cruel to leave her lying on the wooden floor. I looked quickly around the cubicle, but I could see nothing that could be regarded as untoward or amiss. The window was still screwed in its closed position, the few clothes that she had unpacked neatly folded on a small chair. My eye kept returning to the gin bottle. Stryker had told me and I’d overheard her telling Lonnie that she never drank, had not drunk alcohol for many years: an abstainer does not habitually carry around a bottle of gin just on the offchance that he or she may just suddenly feel thirsty.
Lonnie, Eddie, and Sandy came in, trailing with them the redolence of a Highland distillery, but that was the only evidence of their sojourn in the provision shed, whatever they’d been like when Mary had found them, they were shocked cold sober now. They just stood there, staring at the dead woman and saying nothing: understandably, I suppose, they thought there was nothing they could usefully say.
I said: “Mr. Gerran must be informed that his daughter is dead. He’s gone north to the next bay. He’ll be easy to find-you’ve only got to follow the Sno~Cat’s tracks. I think you should go together.”
“God love us all.” Lonnie spoke in a hushed and anguished reverence. “The poor girl. The poor poor lassie. First her man-and now this. Where’s it all going to end, Doctor?”
“I don’t know, Lonnie. Life’s not always so kind, is it? No need to kill yourselves looking for Mr. Gerran. A heart attack on top of this we can do without.”
“Poor little Judith,” Lonnie said. “And what do we tell Otto she died of? Alcohol and sleeping tablets-it’s a pretty lethal combination, isn’t it?”
“Frequently.”
They looked at each other uncertainly, then turned and left. Mary Stuart said: “What can I do?”
“Stay there.” The harshness in my voice surprised me almost as much as it clearly surprised her. I want to talk to you.”
I found a towel and a handkerchief, wrapped the gin bottle in the former and the barbiturate bottle in the latter. I had a glimpse of Mary watching me, wide-eyed, in what could have been wonder or fear or both, then crossed to examine the dead woman, to see whether there were any visible marks on her. There wasn’t much to examine-although she’d been in bed with blankets over her, she’d been fully clothed in parka and some kind of fur trousers. I didn’t have to look long. I beckoned Mary across and pointed to a tiny puncture exposed by pushing back the hair on Judith Haynes’s neck. Mary ran the tip of her tongue across dry lips and looked at me with sick eyes.
“Yes,” I said. “Murdered. How do you feel about that, Mary dear?” The term was affectionate, the tone not.
“Murdered!” she whispered. “Murdered!” She looked at the wrapped bottles, licked her lips again, made as if to speak and seemingly couldn’t.
“There may be some gin inside her,” I conceded. Possibly even some barbiturate. I’d doubt it, though-it’s very hard to make people swallow anything when they’re unconscious. Maybe there are no other fingerprints on the bottles-they could have been wiped off. But if we find only her forefinger and thumb round the neck-well, you don’t drink three-quarters of a bottle of gin holding it by the finger and thumb.” She stared in fascinated horror at the pinprick in the neck and then I let the hair fall back. I don’t know, but I think an injection of an overdose of morphine killed her. How do you feel about it, Mary dear?”
She looked at me pitifully but I wasn’t wasting my pity on the living. She said: “That’s the second time you said that. Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s partly your fault-and it may be a very large part-that she’s dead. Oh, and very cleverly dead, I assure you. I’m very good at finding those things out-when it’s too damn late. Rigged for suicide-only, I know she never drank. Well?”
“I didn’t kill her! Oh, God, I didn’t kill her! I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!”
“And I hope to God you’re not responsible for killing Smithy, too,” I said savagely. “If he doesn’t come back, you’re first in line as accessory. After murder.”
“Mr. Smith!” Her bewilderment was total and totally pathetic. And I was totally unmoved. She said: “Before God, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. And you won’t know what I’m talking about when I ask you what’s going on between Gerran and Heissman. How could you, a sweet and innocent child like you? Or you wouldn’t know what’s going on between you and your dear lovable Uncle Johann?”
She stared at me in a dumb animal-like misery and shook her head. I struck her. Even although I was aware that the anger that was in me was directed more against myself than at her still it could not be contained and I struck her and when she looked at me the way a favourite pet would look at a person who has shot it but not quite killed it I lifted my hand again but this time when she closed her eyes and flinched away turning her head to one side I let my hand drop helplessly to my side then did what I should have done in the first place, I put my arms around her and held her tight. She didn’t try to fight or struggle, just stood quite still. She had nothing left to fight with any more.
“Poor Mary dear,” I said. “You’ve got no place left to run to, have you?” She made no answer, her eyes were still closed. “Uncle Johann is no more your uncle than I am. Your immigration papers state that your father and mother are dead. It is my belief that they are still alive and that Heissman is no more your mother’s brother than he is your uncle. It is my belief that he is holding them as hostage for your good conduct and that he is holding you as hostage for theirs. I don’t just think that Heissman is up to no good, I know he is, for I just don’t think he’s a criminal operating on an international scale, I know that too. I know that you’re not Latvian but strictly of German ancestry. I know, too, that your father ranked very highly in the Berlin councils of war.” I didn’t know that at all, but it had become an increasingly safe guess. “And I know, too, that there’s a great deal of money involved, not in hard cash but in negotiable securities. All this is true, is it not?”