“Not only me,” Kinnaird said. “I’m no keener on frostbite than anyone else. Dr. Jolly insisted that everyone who could should take turns sending out the S.O.S.’s. Wasn’t hard. There was a pre-set mechanical call-up, and all anyone had to do was to send this and listen in on the earphones. If any message came through, I was across to the met office in a flash. It was actually Hewson here who contacted the ham operator in Bodd and Jeremy who got through to that trawler in the Barents Sea. I carried on from there, of course. Apart from them, there were Dr. Jolly and Naseby to give a hand, so it wasn’t so bad. Hassard, too, took a turn after the first day–he’d been more or less blinded on the night of the fire.”
“You remained in charge throughout, Dr. Jolly?” I asked.
“Bless my soul, no. Captain Folsom was in a pretty shocked condition for the first twenty-four hours, but when he’d recovered from that, he took over. I’m only a pillroller, old boy. As a leader of men and a dashing man of action–well, no, quite frankly, old top, I don’t see myself in that light at all.”
“You did damned well all the same.” I looked around at the company. “That most of you won’t be scarred for life is due entirely to the quick and highly efficient treatment Dr. Jolly gave you under almost impossible circumstances. Well, that’s all. Must be a pretty painful experience for all of you, having to relive that night again. I can’t see that we can ever hope to find out how the fire started, just one of those chancein-a-million accidents, what the insurance companies call an act of God. I’m certain, Hewson, that no shadow of negligence attaches to you and that your theory on the outbreak of the fire is probably correct. Anyway, although we’ve paid a hellishly high cost, we’ve learned a lesson: never again to site a main fuel store within a hundred yards of the camp.”
The meeting broke up. Jolly bustled off to the sick bay, not quite managing to conceal his relish at being the only medical officer aboard who wasn’t _hors de combat_. He had a busy couple of hours ahead of him: changing bandages on burns, checking Benson, X-raying Zabrinski’s broken ankle and resetting the plaster.
I went to my cabin, unlocked my case, took out a small wallet, relocked my case, and went to Swanson’s cabin. I noticed that he wasn’t smiling quite so often now as when I’d first met him in Scotland. He looked up as I came in in answer to his call and said without preamble, “If those two men still out in the camp are in any way fit to be moved, I Want them both aboard at once. The sooner we’re back in Scotland and have some law in on this the happier I’ll be. I warned you that this investigation of yours would turn up nothing. Lord knows how short a time it will be before someone else gets it. For God’s sake, Carpenter, we have a murderer running loose.”
“Three things,” I said. “Nobody’s going to get it any more, that’s almost for certain. Secondly, the law, as you call it, wouldn’t be allowed to touch it. And, in the third place, the meeting this morning was of some use. It eliminated three potential suspects.”
“I must have missed something that you didn’t.”
“Not that. I knew something that you didn’t. I knew that under the floor of the laboratory were about forty Nife cells in excellent condition–but cells that had been used.”
“The hell you did,” he said softly. “Sort of forgot to tell me, didn’t you?”
“In this line of business I never tell anyone anything unless I think he can help me by having that knowledge.”
“You must win an awful lot of friends and influence an awful lot of people,” Swanson said dryly.
“It gets embarrassing. Now, who could have used those cells? Only those who left the bunkhouse from time to time to send out the S.O.S.’s. That cuts out Captain Folsom and the Harrington twins–there’s no question of any of the three of them having left the bunkhouse at any time. They weren’t fit to. So that leaves Hewson, Naseby, Dr. Jolly, Jeremy, Hassard and Kinnaird. Take your choice. One of them is a murderer.”
“Why did they want those extra cells?” Swanson asked. “And if they had those extra cells why did they risk their lives by relying on those dying cells that they did use? Does it make sense to you?”
“There’s sense in everything,” I said. “If you want evasion, Carpenter has it.” I brought out my wallet, spread cards before him. He picked them up, studied them and returned them to my wallet.
“So now we have it,” he said calmly. “Took you quite a while to get around to it, didn’t it? The truth, I mean. Officer of M.I.6. Counter-espionage. Government agent; eh? Well, I won’t make any song and dance about it, Carpenter, I’ve known since yesterday what you must be: you couldn’t be anything else.” He looked at me in calm speculation. “You guys never disclose your identity unless you have to.” He left the logical question unspoken.
“Three reasons why I’m telling you. You’re entitled to some measure of my confidence. I want you on my side. And because of what I’m about to tell you, you’d have known anyway. Have you ever heard of the Perkin-Elmer Roti satellite missile-tracker camera?”
“Quite a mouthful,” he murmured. “No.”
“Heard of Samos? Samos III?”
“Satellite and Missile Observation System?” He nodded. “I have. And what conceivable connection could that have with a ruthless killer running rampant on Drift Station Zebra?”
So I told him what connection it could have. A connection that was not only conceivable, not only possible, not only probable, but absolutely certain. Swanson listened very carefully, very attentively, not interrupting even once, and at the end of it he leaned back in his chair and nodded. “You have the right answer, no doubt about that. The question is, who? I just can’t wait to see this bastard under armed guard.”
“You’d clap him in irons straight away?”
“Good God!” He stared at me. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I do. I’d leave him be. I think our friend is just a link in a very long chain, and if we give him enough rope, he’ll not only hang himself, he’ll lead us to the other members of the chain. Besides, I’m not all that sure that there _is_ only one murderer: killers have been known to have accomplices before now, Commander.”
“Two of them? You think there may be two killers aboard my ship?” He pursed his lips and squeezed his chin with a thoughtful hand, Swanson’s nearest permissible approach to a state of violent agitation. Then he shook his head definitely. “There may only be one. If that was so, and I knew who he was, I’d arrest him at once. Don’t forget, Carpenter, we’ve hundreds of miles to go under the ice before we’re out into the open sea. We can’t watch all six of them all the time, and there are a hundred and one things that a man with even only a little knowledge of submarines could do that would put us all in mortal danger. Things that wouldn’t matter were we clear of the ice: things that would be fatal under it.”
“Aren’t you rather overlooking the fact that if the killer did us in, he’d also be doing himself in?”
“I don’t necessarily share your belief in his sanity. All killers are a little crazy. No matter how excellent their reasons for killing, the very fact that they do kill makes them abnormal. You can’t judge them by normal standards.”
He was only half right, but unfortunately that half might apply in this case. Most murderers kill in a state of extreme emotional once-in-a-lifetime stress and never kill again. But our friend in this case had every appearance of being a stranger to emotional stress of any kind–and, besides, he’d killed a great deal more than once.
“Well,” I said doubtfully, “perhaps. Yes, I think I do agree with you.” I refrained from specifying our common ground for agreement. “Who’s your candidate for the high jump, Commander?”
“I’m damned if I know. I listened to every word that was said this morning. I watched the face of each man who spoke–and the faces of the ones who weren’t speaking. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since and I’m still damned if I have a clue. How about Kinnaird?”
“He’s the obvious suspect, isn’t he? But only because he’s a skilled radio operator. I could train a man in a couple of days to send and receive in Morse. Slow, clumsy, he wouldn’t know a thing about the instrument he was using, but he could still do it. Any of them may easily have been competent enough to operate a radio. The fact that Kinnaird is a skilled operator may even be a point in his favor.”