passenger ships by 100 per cent, which means that the longshoremen are
losing stevedoring money pretty fast. They’ve gone on strike-and the
chances are, so many words have been said on both sides, that they’ll
stay on strike when they do nab dr. caroline. If.”
“Traitor,” said miss harrbride. “Thirteen generations!”
“So we stay away from the east coast, eh?” carreras senior asked.
“Meantime, anyway?”
“As long as possible, sir. But new york is a must. When, I don’t
know. But if it’s still strike-bound, we might go up the st. Lawrence
first. Depends.”
“Romance, mystery, and adventure.” carreras smiled. “Just like
your brochure said.” he glanced over my shoulder. “Looks like a
visitor for you, mr. carter.” I twisted in my seat. It was a visitor
for me. Rusty williams-rusty, from his shock of flaming hair-was
advancing towards me, whites immaculately pressed, uniform cap clasped
stiffly under his left arm. Rusty was sixteen, our youngest cadet,
desperately shy and very impressionable. Cadets were not normally
allowed in the dining room and rusty’s eyes were goggling as they took
in the young ladies at the captain’s table, but he managed to haul them
back to me as he halted by my side with a perceptible click of his
heels. “What is it, rusty?” age-old convention said that cadets should
always be addressed by their surnames, but everyone called rusty just
that. It seemed impossible not to. “The captain’s compliments, sir.
Could he see you on the bridge, please, mr. carter?”
“I’ll be right up.” rusty turned to leave and I caught the gleam
in susan beresford’s eye, a gleam that generally heralded some crack at
my expense. This one predictably would be about my indispensability,
about the distraught captain sending for his trusty servant when all was
lost, and although I didn’t think she was the sort of girl to say it in
front of a cadet, 1 wouldn’t have wagered pennies on it, so I rose
hastily to my feet, said, “excuse me, miss harrbride, excuse me,
gentlemen,” and followed rusty quickly out of the door into the
starboard alleyway. He was waiting for me. “The captain is in his
cabin, sir. He’d like to see you there.”
“What? you told me-”
“I know, sir. He told me to say that. Mr. jamieson is on the
bridge”-george jamieson was our third officer-“and captain Bullen is in
his cabin. With mr. cummings.” I nodded and left. I remembered now
that cummings hadn’t been at his accustomed table as i’d come out,
although he’d certainly been there at the beginning of dinner. The
captain’s quarters were immediately below the bridge and I was there in
ten seconds. I knocked on the polished teak door, heard a gruff voice,
and went in. The blue mail certainly did its commodore well. Even
captain Bullen, no admirer of the sybaritic life, had never been heard
to complain of being pampered. He had a three room-and-bathroom suite,
done in the best millionaire’s taste, and his day cabin, in which I now
was, was a pretty fair guide to the rest-wine-red carpet that sunk
beneath your feet, darkly crimson drapes, gleaming sycamore panelling,
narrow oak beams overhead, oak and green leather for the chairs and
settee. Captain Bullen looked up at me when I came in. He didn’t have
any of the signs of a man enjoying the comforts of home. “Something
wrong, sir?” I asked. “Sit down.” he waved to a chair and sighed.
“There’s something wrong all right. Banana-legs benson is missing.
White reported it ten minutes ago.” banana-legs benson sounded like the
name of a domesticated anthropoid or, at best, like a professional
wrestler on the small-town circuits, but, in fact, it belonged to our
very suave, polished, and highly accomplished head steward, frederick
benson: benson had the well-deserved reputation of being a very firm
disciplinarian, and it was one of his disgruntled subordinates who, in
the process of receiving a severe and merited dressing-down, had noticed
the negligible clearance between benson’s knees and rechristened him as
soon as his back was turned. The name had stuck, chiefly because of its
incongrmity and utter unsuitability. White was the assistant chief
steward. I said nothing. Bullen didn’t appreciate anyone, especially
his officers, indulging in double-takes, exclamations, or fatuous
repetition. Instead I looked at the man seated across the table from
the captain: howard cummings. Cummings, the purser, a small, plump,
amiable, and infinitely shrewd irishman was, next to Bullen, the most
important man on the ship. No one questioned that, though cummings
himself gave no sign that this was so. On a passenger ship a good
purser is worth his weight in gold and cummings was a pearl beyond any
price. In his three years on the campari friction and trouble among-and
complaints from-the passengers had been almost completely unknown.
Howard cummings was a genius in mediation, compromise, the soothing of
ruffled feelings, and the handling of people in general. Captain Bullen
would as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as of trying to
send cummings off the ship. I looked at cummings for three reasons. He
knew everything that went on on the campari, from the secret takeover
bids being planned in the telegraph lounge to the heart troubles of the
youngest stoker in the boiler room. He was the man ultimately
responsible for all the stewards aboard the ship. And, finally, he was
a close personal friend of banana-legs: they had sailed together for ten
years, as chief purser and chief steward, on one of the great
transatlantic liners, and it had been one of the master strokes in the
career of that arch-lurer, lord dexter, when he had lured both those men
away from their ship and installed them aboard the campari. Cummings
caught my look and shook his dark head. “Sorry, johnny, i’m as much in
the dark as you. I saw him shortly before dinner, about ten to eight,
it would have been, when I was having a noggin with the paying guests.”
cummings’ noggin came from a special whisky bottle filled only with
ginger ale. “We’d white up here just now. He says he saw benson in
cabin suite six, fixing it for the night about eight-twenty-half an hour
ago, no, nearer forty minutes now. He expected to see him shortly
afterwards because for every night for the past couple of years,
whenever the weather was good, benson and white have had a cigarette
together on deck when the passengers were at dinner.”
“Regular time?” I interrupted. “Very. Eight-thirty, near enough,
never later than eight thirty-five. But not to-night. At eight-forty
white went to look for him in his cabin. No sign of him there.
Organized half a dozen stewards for a search and still nothing doing.
He sent for me and I came to the captain.” and the captain sent for me,
I thought. Send for old trusty carter when there’s dirty work on hand.
I looked at Bullen. “A search, sir?”
“That’s it, mister. Damned nuisance, just one damned thing after
another. Quietly, if you can.”
“Of course, sir. Can I have wilson, the bosun, some stewards and
a.b.s?”
“You can have lord dexter and his board of directors just so long
as you find benson,” Bullen grunted. “Yes, sir.” I turned to cummings.
“Didn’t suffer from any ill-health, did he? liable to dizziness,
faintness, heart attacks, that sort of thing?”
“Flat feet was all.” cummings smiled. He wasn’t feeling like
smiling. “Had his annual checkup last month from doe marston. One
hundred per cent. The flat feet are an occupational disease.” I turned
back to captain Bullen. “Could I have twenty minutes, perhaps half an
hour, for a quiet look round, sir, first? with mr. cummings. It’s a
calm, windless night. There’s been no word of any shouts, any cries for
help, and as there’s always a good few of the crew on the lower decks at
night the chances are that any thing like that would have been heard.
And he’s not likely to be ill. What i’m getting at is that it’s a
hundred to one against his being in any trouble where he requires
immediate help. If he did require it, he’s probably past all help by
now. I can’t see there’s any harm in waiting another twenty minutes
before raising the alarm.”
“No one’s going to raise any alarm, mister. This is the campari.”
“Yes, sir. But whether it’s broadcast over the tannoy system or
whispered in a dark corner, it’ll make no difference. If benson is
missing and is going to stay that way it will be all over the ship by
midnight to-night. Or earlier.”
“Job’s comforter,” Bullen growled. “All right, johnny, you, too,
howie, see what you can find.”
“Your authority to look anywhere, sir?” I asked. “Within reason,
of course.”
“Everywhere?” I insisted. “Or i’m wasting my time. You know
that, sir.”
“My god! and it’s only a couple of days since that jamaican lot.