Neither Eddie’s nor Hendriks’s cubicles revealed any item of interest, while the only thing I learned from a brief glance at Sandy’s room was that he was just that modicum less scrupulous in obtaining his illicit supplies than Lonnie: Sandy stocked up on Otto’s Scotch by the bottleful. The Three Apostles’s quarters I passed up: a search in there would, I was convinced, yield nothing. It never occurred to me to check on Conrad.
It was just after three o’clock, with the light beginning to fade from the sky, when I returned to the main cabin. Lonnie and the other two should have contacted Otto and the others a long time ago, their return, I should have thought, was considerably overdue. Mary, who had eaten-or said she had-gave me steak and chips, both of the frozen and precooked variety, and I could see that she was worried. Heaven knew she had enough reason to be worried about a great number of things but I guessed that her present worry was due to one particular cause.
“Where on earth can they all be?” she said. “I’m sure something must have happened to them.”
“He’ll be all right. They probably just went farther than they intended, that’s all.”
“I hope so. It’s getting dark and the snow’s starting-” She broke off. and looked at me in embarrassed accusation. “You’re very clever, aren’t you?”
“I wish to God I were,” I said, and meant it. I pushed my almost uneaten meal away and rose. “Thank you. Sorry, and it’s nothing to do with your cooking, but I’m not hungry. I’ll be in my room.”
“It’s getting dark,” she repeated inconsequentially.
“I won’t be long.”
I lay on my cot and looked at my haul from the various cabins. I didn’t have to look long and I didn’t have to be possessed of any outstanding deductive powers to realise the significance of what I had before me. The salary lists were very instructive but not half so enlightening as the correspondence between Otto’s chequebooks and Goin’s bankbook. But the map-more precisely the detailed inset of the Evjebukta-was perhaps the most interesting of all. I was gazing at the map and having long, long thoughts about Mary Stuart’s father when Mary Stuart herself came into my room.
“There’s someone coming!”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. It’s too dark and there’s snow falling.”
“What direction?”
“That way.” She pointed south.
“That’ll be Hendriks and the Three Apostles!” I wrapped the papers up into a small towel and handed them to her. “Hide those in your room.” I turned my medical bag upside down, brought a small coach screwdriver from my pocket and began to unscrew the four metal studs that served as floor rests.
“Yes, yes, of course.” She hesitated. “Do you mind telling me-”
“There are shameless people around who wouldn’t think twice of searching through a man’s private possessions. Especially mine. If I’m not here, that’s to say.” I’d removed the base and now started working free the flat black metal box that had fitted so snugly into the bottom.
“You’re going out.” She said it mechanically, Eke one who is beyond surprise. “Where?”
“Well, I’m not dropping in at the local, and that’s for sure.” I took out the black box and handed it to her. “Careful. Heavy. Hide that too-and hide it well.”
“But what–”
“Hurry up. I hear them at the door.”
She hurried up. I screwed the base of the bag back in position and went into the main cabin. Hendriks and the Three Apostles were there and from the way they clapped their arms together to restore circulation and in between sipped the hot coffee that Mary had left on the stove, they seemed to be more than happy to be back. Their happiness vanished abruptly when I told them briefly of Judith Haynes’s death and although, like the rest of the company, none of them had any cause to cherish any tender feelings towards the dead woman, the simple fact of the death of a person they knew and that this fresh death, suicide though it had been, had come so cruelly swiftly after the preceding murders, had the immediate effect of reducing them to a state of speechless shock, a state from which they weren’t even beginning to recover when the door opened and Otto lurched in. He was gasping for Mr. and seemed close to exhaustion although such symptoms of physical distress, where Otto was concerned, were not in themselves necessarily indicative of recent and violent exertion: even the minor labour of tying his shoelaces made Otto huff and puff in an alarming fashion. I looked at him with what I hoped was a proper concern.
“Now, now, Mr. Gerran, you must take it easy,” I said solicitously. “I know this has been a terrible shock to you-”
“Where is she?” he said hoarsely. “Where’s my daughter? How in God’s name-”
“In her cubicle.” He made to brush by me but I barred his way. “In a moment, Mr. Gerran. But I must see first that-well, you understand?” He stared at me under lowered brows then nodded impatiently to show that he understood, which was more than I did, and said: “Be quick, please.”
“Seconds only.” I looked at Mary Stuart. “Some brandy for Mr. Gerran.”
What I had to do in Judith Haynes’s cubicle took only ten seconds. I didn’t want Otto asking awkward questions about why I’d so lovingly wrapped up the gin and barbiturate bottles, so, holding them gingerly by the tops of the necks, I unwrapped them, placed them in reasonably conspicuous positions and summoned Otto. He hung around for a bit, looking suitably stricken and making desolate sounds, but offered no resistance when I took his arm, suggested that he was achieving nothing by remaining there and led him outside.
In the passage he said: “Suicide, of course?”
“No doubt about that.”
He sighed. “God, how I reproach myself for–”
“You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with, Mr. Gerran. You saw how completely broken she was at the news of her husband’s death. Just plain, old-fashioned grief.”
“It’s good to have a man like you around in times like those,” Otto murmured. I met this in modest silence, led him back to his brandy and said: “Where are the others?”
“Just a few minutes behind. I ran on ahead.”
“How come Lonnie and the other two took so long to find you?” It was a marvellous day for shooting. All background. We just kept moving on, every shot better than the last one. And then, of course, we had this damned rescue job. My God, if ever a location unit has been plagued with such ill luck–“
“Rescue job?” I hoped I sounded puzzled, that my tone didn’t reflect my sudden chill.
“Heyter. Hurt himself.” Otto lowered some brandy and shook his head to show the burden of woes he was carrying. “He and Smith were climbing when he fell. Ankle sprained or broken, I don’t know. They could see us coming along Lerner’s Way, heading more or less the way they’d gone, though they were much higher, of course. Seems Heyter persuaded Smith to carry on, said he’d be all right, he’d attract our attention.” Otto shook his head again and drained his brandy. “Fool!”
“I don’t understand,” I said. I could hear the engine of the approaching Sno-Cat.
Instead of just lying there till we came within shouting distance he tried to hobble down the hill towards us. Of course his blasted ankle gave way-he fell into a gully and knocked himself about pretty badly. God knows how long he was lying there unconscious, it was early afternoon before we heard his shouts for help. A most damnable job getting him down that hill, just damnable. Is that the Sno-Cat out there?”
I nodded. Otto heaved himself to his feet and we went towards the front door together. I said: “Smithy? Did you see him?”
“Smith?” Otto looked at me in faint surprise. “No, of course not. I told you, he’d gone on ahead.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’d forgotten.”
The door opened from the outside just as we reached it. Conrad and the Count entered, half-carrying a Heyter who could only hop on one leg. His head hung exhaustedly, his chin on his chest, and his pale face was heavily bruised on both the right cheek and temple.
We got him onto a couch and I eased off. his right boot. The ankle was swollen and badly discoloured and bleeding slightly where the skin had been broken in several places. While Mary Stuart was heating some water, I propped him up, gave him some brandy, smiled at him in my most encouraging physician’s fashion, commiserated with him on his ill luck and marked him down for death.
12
Otto’s stocks of liquid cheer were taking a severe beating. It is a medical commonplace that there are those who, under severe stress, resort to the consumption of large quantities of food. Olympus Productions Ltd. harboured none of those. The demand for food was nonexistent, but, in a correspondingly inverse proportion, alcoholic solace was being eagerly sought and the atmosphere in the cabin was powerfully redolent of that of a Glasgow public house when a Scottish soccer team has resoundingly defeated its ancient enemies from across the border. The sixteen people scattered around the cabin-the injured Heyter apart-showed no desire to repair to their cubicles, there was an unacknowledged and wholly illogical tacit assumption that if Judith Haynes could die in her cubicle anyone could. Instead, they sat scattered around in twos and threes, drinking silently or conversing in murmurs, furtive eyes forever moving around the others present, all deepening a cheerless and doom-laden Mr. which stemmed not from Judith Haynes’s death but from what might or might not be yet another impending disaster: although it was close on seven now, with the darkness almost total and the snow falling steadily out of the north, Heissman, Goin, and Jungbeck had not yet returned.