Читать книгу Bear Island - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, John Denis - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

At least Otto wasn’t dead. Even above the sound of the wind and the sound of the sea, the creakings and groanings as the elderly trawler slammed her way into the Arctic gale, Otto’s voice could be distinctly heard at least a dozen feet from his cabin door. What he was saying, however, was far from distinct, the tearing gasps and agonized moans boded ill for what we would see when we opened the door.

Otto Gerran looked as he sounded, not quite in extremis but rapidly heading that way. As Goin had said, he was indeed rolling about the floor, both hands clutching his throat as if he was trying to throttle himself: his normally puce complexion had deepened to a dark and dangerous-looking purple, his eyes were bloodshot and a purplish foam at his mouth had stained his lips to almost the same colour as his face: or maybe his lips were purplish anyway, like a man with cyanosis. As far as I could see he hadn’t a single symptom in common with Smithy and Oakley: so much for the toxicological experts and their learned textbooks.

I said to Goin: ‘Let’s get him on his feet and along to the bathroom.’ As a statement of intent it was clear and simple enough, but its execution was far from simple: it was impossible. The task of hoisting 245 lbs of unco-operative jellyfish to the vertical proved to be quite beyond us. I was just about to abandon the attempt and administer what would certainly be a very messy first aid on the spot when Captain Imrie and Mr Stokes entered the cabin. My surprise at the remarkable promptness with which they had put in an appearance was as nothing compared to my initial astonishment at observing that both men were fully dressed: it was not until I noticed the horizontal creases in their trousers that I realized that they had gone to sleep with all their clothes on. I made a brief prayer for Smithy’s swift and complete recovery.

‘What in the name of God goes on?’ Whatever condition Captain Imrie had been in an hour or so ago, he was completely sober now. ‘Allison says that Italian fellow’s dead and—’ He stopped abruptly as Goin and I moved sufficiently apart to let him have his first glimpse of the prostrate, moaning Gerran. ‘Jesus wept!’ He moved forward and stared down. ‘What the devil—an epileptic fit?’

‘Poison. The same poison that killed Antonio and nearly killed the mate and Oakley. Come on, give us a hand to get him along to the bathroom.’

‘Poison!’ He looked at Mr Stokes as if to hear from him confirmation that it couldn’t possibly be poison, but Mr Stokes wasn’t in the mood for confirming anything, he just stared with a kind of numbed fascination at the writhing man on the floor. ‘Poison! On my ship. What poison? Where did they get it? Who gave it to them. Why should—’

‘I’m a doctor, not a detective. I don’t know anything about who, where, when, why, what. All I know is that a man’s dying while we’re talking.’

It took the four of us less than thirty seconds to get Otto Gerran along to the bathroom. It was a pretty rough piece of manhandling but it was a fair assumption that he would rather be Otto Gerran, bruised but alive, than Otto Gerran, unmarked but dead. The emetic worked just as swiftly and effectively as it had with Smithy and Oakley and within three minutes we had him back in his bunk under a mound of blankets. He was still moaning incoherently and shivering so violently that his teeth chattered uncontrollably, but the deep purple had begun to recede from his cheeks and the foam had dried on his lips.

‘I think he’s OK now but please keep an eye on him, will you?’ I said to Goin. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’

Captain Imrie stopped me at the door. ‘If you please, Dr Marlowe, a word with you.’

‘Later.’

‘Now. As master of this vessel—’ I put a hand on his shoulder and he became silent. I felt like saying that as master of this vessel he’d been awash in scotch and snoring in his bunk when people were all around dropping like flies but it would have been less than fair: I was irritable because unpleasant things were happening that should not have been happening and I didn’t know why, or who was responsible.

‘Otto Gerran will live,’ I said. ‘He’ll live because he was lucky enough to have Mr Goin here stop by his cabin. How many other people are lying on their cabin floors who haven’t been lucky enough to have someone stop by, people so far gone that they can’t even reach their doors? Four casualties so far: who’s to say there isn’t a dozen?’

‘A dozen? Aye. Aye, of course.’ If I was out of my depth, Captain Imrie was submerged. ‘We’ll come with you.’

‘I can manage.’

‘Like you managed with Mr Gerran here?’

We made our way directly to the recreation room. There were ten people there, all men, mostly silent, mostly unhappy: it is not easy to be talkative and cheerful when you’re hanging on to your seat with one hand and your drink with the other. The Three Apostles, whether because of exhaustion or popular demand, had laid the tools of their trade aside and were having a drink with their boss Josh Hendriks, a small, thin, stern and middle-aged Anglo-Dutchman with a perpetual worried frown. Even when off-duty, he was festooned with a mass of strap-hung electronic and recording equipment: word had it that he slept so accoutred. Stryker, who appeared far from overcome by concern for his ailing wife, sat at a table in a corner, talking to Conrad and two other actors, Gunther Jungbeck and Jon Heyter. At a third table John Halliday, the stills photographer and Sandy, the props man, made up the company. No one, as far as I could judge, was suffering from anything that couldn’t be accounted for by the big dipper antics of the Morning Rose. One or two glances of mildly speculative curiosity came our way, but I volunteered no explanation for our unaccustomed visit there: explanations take time but the effects of aconitine, as was being relentlessly borne in upon me, waited for no man.

Allen and Mary darling we found in the otherwise deserted lounge, more green-faced than ever but clasping hands and gazing at each other with the rapt intensity of those who know there will be no tomorrow: their noses were so close together that they must have been cross-eyed from their attempts to focus. For the first time since I’d met her Mary darling had removed her enormous spectacles—misted lenses due to Allen’s heavy breathing, I had no doubt—and without them she really was a very pretty young girl with none of that rather naked and defenceless look that so often characterizes the habitual wearer of glasses when those are removed. One thing was for sure, there was nothing wrong with Allen’s eyesight.

I glanced at the liquor cupboard in the corner. The glass-fronted doors were intact from which I assumed that Lonnie Gilbert’s bunch of keys were capable of opening most things: had they failed here I would have looked for signs of the use of some other instrument, not, perhaps, the berserk wielding of a fire-axe but at least the discreet employment of a wood chisel: but there were no such signs.

Heissman was asleep in his cabin, uneasily, restlessly asleep, but clearly not ill. Next door Neal Divine, his bed-board raised so high that he was barely visible, looked more like a medieval bishop than ever, but a happily unconscious one this time. Lonnie was sitting upright in his bunk, his arms folded across his ample midriff, and from the fact that his right hand was out of sight under the coverlet, almost certainly and lovingly wrapped round the neck of a bottle of purloined scotch, and the further fact that he wore a beatific smile, it was clear that his plethora of keys could be put to a very catholic variety of uses.

I passed up Judith Haynes’s cabin—she’d had no dinner—and went into what I knew to be, at that moment, the last occupied cabin. The unit’s chief electrician, a large, fat, red-faced and chubby-cheeked individual rejoicing in the name of Frederick Crispin Harbottle, was propped on an elbow and moodily eating an apple: appearances to the contrary, he was an invincibly morose and wholly pessimistic man. For reasons I had been unable to discover, he was known to all as Eddie: rumour had it that he had been heard to speak, in the same breath, of himself and that other rather better-known electrician, Thomas Edison.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘We’ve got some cases of food poisoning. You’re not one of them, obviously.’ I nodded towards the recumbent occupant of the other bed, who was lying curled up with his back to us. ‘How’s the Duke?’

‘Alive.’ Eddie spoke in a tone of philosophical resignation. ‘Moaning and groaning about his bellyache before he dropped off. Moans and groans nearly every night, come to that. You know what the Duke’s like, he just can’t help himself.’

We all knew what he was like. If it is possible for a person to become a legend within the space of four days then Cecil Golightly had become just that. His unbridled gluttony lay just within the bounds of credibility and when Otto, less than an hour previously, had referred to him as a little pig who never lifted his eyes from the table he had spoken no more than the truth. The Duke’s voracious capacity for food was as abnormal as his obviously practically defunct metabolic system, for he resembled nothing so much as a man newly emerged from a long stay in a concentration camp.

More out of habit than anything I bent over to give him a cursory glance and I was glad I did, for what I saw were wide-open, pain-dulled eyes moving wildly and purposelessly from side to side, ashen lips working soundlessly in an ashen face and the hooked fingers of both hands digging deep into his stomach as if he were trying to tear it open.

I’d told Goin that I’d be back in Otto’s cabin in five minutes: I was back in forty-five. The Duke, because he had been so very much longer without treatment than Smithy, Oakley or Gerran, had gone very, very close to the edge indeed, to the extent that I had on one occasion almost given up his case as being intractably hopeless, but the Duke was a great deal more stubborn than I was and that skeletal frame harboured an iron constitution: even so, without almost continuous artificial respiration, a heart stimulant injection and the copious use of oxygen, he would surely have died: now he would as surely live.

‘Is this the end of it, then? Is this the end?’ Otto Gerran spoke in a weakly querulous voice and, on the face of it, I had to admit that he had every right to sound both weak and querulous. He hadn’t as yet regained his normal colour, he looked as haggard as a heavily-jowled man ever can and it was clear that his recent experience had left him pretty exhausted: and with this outbreak of poisoning coming on top of the continuously hostile weather that had prevented him from shooting even a foot of background film, Otto had reason to believe that the fates were not on his side.

‘I should think so,’ I said. In view of the fact that he had aboard some ill-disposed person who was clearly a dab hand with some of the more esoteric poisons this was as unwarrantedly optimistic a statement as I could remember making, but I had to say something. ‘Any other victims would have shown the symptoms before now: and I’ve checked everyone.’

‘Have you now?’ Captain Imrie asked. ‘How about my crew? They eat the same food as you do.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ And I hadn’t. Because of some mental block or simply because of lack of thought, I’d assumed, wholly without reason, that the effects would be confined to the film unit people: Captain Imrie was probably thinking that I regarded his men as second-rate citizens who, when measured against Otto’s valuable and expensive cast and crew, hardly merited serious consideration. I went on: ‘What I mean is, I didn’t know that. That they ate the same food. Should have been obvious. If you’ll just show me—’

With Mr Stokes in lugubrious attendance, Captain Imrie led me round the crew quarters. Those consisted of five separate cabins—two for the deck staff, one for the engine-room staff, one for the two cooks and the last for the two stewards. It was the last one that we visited first.

We opened the door and just stood there for what then seemed like an unconscionably long time but was probably only a few seconds, mindless creatures bereft of will and speech and power of motion. I was the first to recover and stepped inside.

The stench was so nauseating that I came close to being sick for the first time that night and the cabin itself was in a state of indescribable confusion, chairs knocked over, clothes strewn everywhere and both bunks completely denuded of sheets and blankets which were scattered in a torn and tangled mess over the deck. The first and overwhelming impression was that there had been a fight to the death, but both Moxen and Scott, the latter almost covered in a shredded sheet, looked curiously peaceful as they lay there, and neither bore any marks of violence.

‘I say we go back. I say we return now.’ Captain Imrie wedged himself more deeply into his chair as if establishing both a physically and argumentatively commanding position. ‘You gentlemen will bear in mind that I am the master of this vessel, that I have responsibilities towards both passengers and crew.’ He lifted his bottle from the wrought-iron stand and helped himself lavishly and I observed, automatically and with little surprise, that his hand was not quite steady. ‘If I’d typhoid or cholera aboard I’d sail at once for quarantine in the nearest port where medical assistance is available. Three dead and four seriously ill, I don’t see that cholera or typhoid could be any worse than we have here on the Morning Rose. Who’s going to be the next to die?’ He looked at me almost accusingly. Imrie seemed to be adopting the understandable attitude that, as a doctor, it was my duty to preserve life and that as I wasn’t making a very good job of it what was happening was largely my fault. ‘Dr Marlowe here admits that he is at a loss to understand the reasons for this—this lethal outbreak. Surely to God that itself is reason enough to call this off?’

‘It’s a long, long way back to Wick,’ Smithy said. Like Goin, seated beside him, Smithy was swathed in a couple of blankets and, like Otto, he still looked very much under the weather. ‘A lot can happen in that time.’

‘Wick, Mr Smith? I wasn’t thinking of Wick. I can be in Hammerfest in twenty-four hours.’

‘Less,’ said Mr Stokes. He sipped his rum, deliberated and made his pronouncement. ‘With the wind and the sea on the port quarter and a little assistance from me in the engine-room? Twenty hours.’ He went over his homework and found it faultless. ‘Yes, twenty hours.’

‘You see?’ Imrie transferred his piercing blue gaze from myself to Otto. ‘Twenty hours.’

When we’d established that there had been no more casualties among the crew Captain Imrie, in what was for him a very peremptory fashion, had summoned Otto to the saloon and Otto in turn had sent for his three fellow directors, Goin, Heissman and Stryker. The other director, Miss Haynes, was, Stryker had reported, very deeply asleep, which was less than surprising in view of the sedatives I’d prescribed for her. The Count had joined the meeting without invitation but everyone appeared to accept his presence there as natural.

To say that there was an air of panic in the saloon would have been exaggeration, albeit a forgivable one, but to say that there was a marked degree of apprehension, concern and uncertainty would have erred on the side of understatement. Otto Gerran, perhaps, was more upset than any other person present, and understandably so, for Otto had a great deal more to lose than any other person present.

‘I appreciate the reasons for your anxiety,’ Otto said, ‘and your concern for us all does you the greatest credit. But I think this concern is making you over-cautious. Dr Marlowe says that this— ah—epidemic is definitely over. We are going to look very foolish indeed if we turn and run now and then nothing more happens.’

Captain Imrie said: ‘I’m too old, Mr Gerran, to care what I look like. If it’s a choice between looking a fool and having another dead man on my hands, then I’d rather look a fool any time.’

‘I agree with Mr Gerran,’ Heissman said. He still looked sick and he sounded sick. ‘To throw it all away when we’re so near—just over a day to Bear Island. Drop us off there and then go to Hammerfest—just as in the original plan. That means—well, you’d be in Hammerfest in say sixty hours instead of twenty-four. What’s going to happen in that extra thirty-six hours that’s not going to happen in the next twenty-four? Lose everything for thirty-six hours just because you’re running scared?’

‘I am not running scared, as you say.’ There was something impressive about Imrie’s quiet dignity. ‘My first—’

‘I wasn’t referring to you personally,’ Heissman said.

‘My first concern is for the people under my charge. And they are under my charge. I am the person responsible. I must make the decision.’

‘Granted, Captain, granted.’ Goin was his usual imperturbable self, a calm and reasonable man. ‘But one has to strike a balance in these matters, don’t you think. Against what Dr Marlowe now regards as being a very remote possibility of another outbreak of food poisoning occurring, there’s the near certainty—no, I would go further and say that there’s the inevitability—that if we go directly to Hammerfest we’ll be put in quarantine for God knows how long. A week, maybe two weeks, before the port medical authorities give us clearance. And then it’ll be too late, we’d just have to abandon all ideas about making the film at all and go home.’ Less than a couple of hours previously, I recalled, Heissman had been making most disparaging remarks about Otto’s mental capacities, but he’d backed him up against Captain Imrie and now here was Goin doing the same thing: both men knew which side of their bread required butter. ‘The losses to Olympus Productions will be enormous.’

‘Don’t be telling me that, Mr Goin,’ Imrie said. ‘What you mean is that the losses to the insurance company—or companies—will be enormous.’

‘Wrong,’ Stryker said and from his tone and attitude it was clear that directorial solidarity on the board of Olympus Productions was complete. ‘Severally and personally, all members of the cast and crew are insured. The film project—a guarantee as to its successful conclusion—was uninsurable, at least in terms of the premiums demanded. We, and we alone, bear the loss—and I would add that for Mr Gerran, who is by far and away the biggest shareholder, the effects would be ruinous.’

‘I am very sorry about that.’ Captain Imrie seemed genuinely sympathetic but he didn’t for a moment sound like a man who was preparing to abandon his position. ‘But that’s your concern, I’m afraid. And I would remind you, Mr Gerran, of what you yourself said earlier on this evening. “Health,” you said, “is a damned sight more important than any profit we might make from this film.” Wouldn’t you say this is a case in point?’

‘That’s nonsense to say that,’ Goin said equably. He had the rare gift of being able to make potentially offensive statements in a quietly rational voice that somehow robbed them of all offence. ‘“Profit”, you say was the word Mr Gerran used. Certainly, Mr Gerran would willingly pass up any potential profit if the need arose, and that need wouldn’t have to be very pressing or demanding. He’s done it before.’ This was at variance with the impression I’d formed of Otto, but then Goin had known him many more years than I had days. ‘Even without profit we could still make our way by breaking even, which is as much as most film companies can hope for these days. But you’re not talking—we’re not talking—about lack of profit, we’re talking about a total and non-recoverable loss, a loss that would run into six figures and break us entirely. We’ve put our collective shirt on this one, Captain Imrie, yet you’re talking airily of liquidating our company, putting dozens of technicians—and their families—on the breadline and damaging, very likely beyond repair, the careers of some very promising actors and actresses. And all of this for what? The remote chance—according to Dr Marlowe, the very remote chance—that someone may fall ill again. Haven’t you got things just a little bit out of proportion, Captain Imrie?’

If he had, Captain Imrie wasn’t saying so. He wasn’t saying anything. He didn’t exactly have the look of a man who was thinking and thinking hard.

‘Mr Goin puts it very succinctly,’ Otto said. ‘Very succinctly indeed. And there’s a major point that seems to have escaped you, Captain Imrie. You have reminded me of something I said earlier. May I remind you of something you said earlier. May I remind you—’

‘And may I interrupt, Mr Gerran,’ I said. I knew damn well what he was going to say and the last thing I wanted was to hear him say it. ‘Please. A peace formula, if you wish. You want to continue. So does Mr Goin, so does Mr Heissman. So do I— if only because my reputation as a doctor seems to depend on it. Tadeusz?’

‘No question,’ said the Count. ‘Bear Island.’

‘And, of course, it would be unfair to ask either Mr Smith or Mr Stokes. So I propose—’

‘This isn’t Parliament, Dr Marlowe,’ Imrie said. ‘Not even a local town council. Decisions aboard a vessel at sea are not arrived at by popular vote.’

‘I’ve no intention that they should be. I suggest we draw up a document. I suggest we note Captain Imrie’s proposals and considered opinions. I suggest if more illness occurs we run immediately for Hammerfest, even although we are at the time only one hour distant from Bear Island. I suggest it be recorded that Captain Imrie be protected and absolved from any accusation of hazarding the health of his crew and passengers in light of the medical officer’s affidavit—which I will write out and sign—that no such hazard exists: the only charge the captain has to worry about at any time is the physical hazarding of his vessel and that doesn’t exist here. Then we will state that the captain is absolved from all blame and responsibility for any consequences arising from our decision: the navigation and handling of the vessel remain, of course, his sole responsibility. Then all five of us sign it. Captain Imrie?’

‘Agreed.’ There is a time to be prompt and Captain Imrie clearly regarded this as such a time. At best, the proposal was a lame compromise, but one he was glad to accept. ‘Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me. I have to be up betimes—4 a.m. to be precise.’ I wondered when he had last risen at that unearthly hour—not, probably, since his fishing days had ended: but the illness of mate and bo’sun made for exceptional circumstances. He looked at me. ‘I will have that document at breakfast?’

‘At breakfast. I wonder, Captain, if on your way to bed you could ask Haggerty to come to see me. I’d ask him personally, but he’s a bit touchy about civilians like myself.’

‘A lifetime in the Royal Navy is not forgotten overnight. Now?’

‘Say ten minutes? In the galley.’

‘Still pursuing your inquiries, is that it? It’s not your fault, Dr Marlowe.’

If it wasn’t my fault, I thought, I wished they’d all stop making me feel it was. Instead I thanked him and said good night and he said good night to us and left accompanied by Smithy and Mr Stokes. Otto steepled his fingers and regarded me in his best chairman of the board fashion.

‘We owe you our thanks, Dr Marlowe. That was well done, an excellent face-saving proposal.’ He smiled. ‘I am not accustomed to suffering interruption lightly but in this case it was justified.’

‘If I hadn’t interrupted we’d all be on our way to Hammerfest now. You were about to remind him of that part of your contract with him which states that he will obey all your orders other than those that actually endanger the vessel. You were about to point out that, as no such physical danger exists, he was technically in breach of contract and so would be legally liable to the forfeiture of the entire contract fee, which would certainly have ruined him. But for a man like that money ranks a long, long way behind pride and Captain Imrie is a very proud man. He’d have told you to go to hell and turned his ship for Hammerfest.’

‘I’d say that our worthy physician’s assessment is a hundred per cent accurate.’ The Count had found some brandy and now helped himself freely. ‘You came close there, Otto, my boy.’

If the company chairman felt annoyance at being thus familiarly addressed by his cameraman, he showed no evidence of it. He said: ‘I agree. We are in your debt, Dr Marlowe.’

‘A free seat at the première,’ I said, ‘and all debts discharged.’ I left the board to its deliberations and weaved my unsteady way down to the passenger accommodation. Allen and Mary darling were still in the same place in the lounge, only now she had her head on his shoulder and seemed to be asleep. I gave him a casually acknowledging wave of my hand and he answered in kind: he seemed to be becoming accustomed to my peripatetic presence.

I entered the Duke’s cabin without knocking, lest there was someone there asleep. There was. Eddie, the electrician, was very sound indeed and snoring heavily, the sight of his cabin mate’s close brush with the reaper hadn’t unnerved him any that I could see. Cecil Golightly was awake and looking understandably very pale and drawn but not noticeably suffering, largely, it seemed very likely, because Mary Stuart, who was just as pale as he was, was sitting by his bedside and holding his far from reluctant hand. I was beginning to think that perhaps she had more friends than either she or I thought she had.

‘Good lord!’ I said. ‘You still here?’

‘Didn’t you expect me to be? You asked me to stay and keep an eye on him. Or had you forgotten?’

‘Certainly not,’ I lied. ‘Didn’t expect you to remain so long, that’s all. You’ve been very kind.’ I looked down upon the recumbent Duke. ‘Feeling a bit better?’

‘Lots, Doctor. Lots better.’ With his voice not much more than a strained whisper he didn’t sound it, but then, after what he’d been through in the past hour I didn’t expect him to.

‘I’d like to have a little talk with you,’ I said. ‘Just a couple of minutes. Feel up to it?’

He nodded. Mary dear said: ‘I’ll leave you then,’ and made to rise but I put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

‘No need. The Duke and I share no secrets.’ I gave him what I hoped would be translated as a thoughtful look. ‘It’s just possible, though, that the Duke might be concealing a secret from me.’

‘Me? A—a secret?’ Cecil was genuinely puzzled.

‘Tell me. When did the pains start?’

‘The pains? Half-past nine. Ten. Something like that, I can’t be sure.’ Temporarily bereft of his quick wit and chirpy humour, the Duke was a very woebegone Cockney sparrow indeed. ‘When this thing hit me I wasn’t feeling much like looking at watches.’

‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ I said sympathetically. ‘And dinner was the last bite you had tonight?’

‘The last bite.’ His voice even sounded firm.

‘Not even another teeny-weeny snack? You see, Cecil, I’m puzzled. Miss Stuart has told you that others have been ill, too?’ He nodded. ‘Well, the odd thing is that the others began to be ill almost at once after eating. But it took well over an hour in your case. I find it very strange. You’re absolutely sure? You’d nothing?’

‘Doctor!’ He wheezed a bit. ‘You know me.’

‘Yes. That’s why I’m asking.’ Mary dear was looking at me with coolly appraising and rather reproachful brown eyes, any moment now she was going to say didn’t I know Cecil was a sick man. ‘You see, I know that the others who were sick were suffering from some kind of food poisoning that they picked up at dinner and I know how to treat them. But your illness must have had another cause. I’ve no idea what it was or how to treat it and until I can make some sort of diagnosis I can’t afford to take chances. You’re going to be very hungry tomorrow morning and for some time after that but I have to give your system time to settle down: I don’t want you to eat anything that might provoke a reaction so violent that I mightn’t be able to cope with it this time. Time will give the all clear.’

‘I don’t understand, Doctor.’

‘Tea and toast for the next three days.’

The Duke didn’t turn any paler than he was because that was impossible: he just looked stricken.

‘Tea and toast?’ His voice was a weak croak. ‘For three days!’

‘For your own good, Cecil.’ I patted him sympathetically on the shoulder and straightened, preparing to leave. ‘We just want to see you on your feet again.’

‘I was feeling peckish, like,’ the Duke explained with some pathos.

‘When?’

‘Just before nine.’

‘Just before—half an hour after dinner?’

‘That’s when I feel the most peckish. I nipped up into the galley, see, and there was this casserole on a hot plate but I’d only time for one spoonful when I heard two people coming so I jumped into the cool room.’

‘And waited?’

‘I had to wait.’ The Duke sounded almost virtuous. ‘If I’d opened the door even a crack they’d have seen me.’

‘So they didn’t see you. Which means they left. Then?’

‘They’d scoffed the bleedin’ lot,’ the Duke said bitterly.

‘Lucky you.’

‘Lucky?’

‘Moxen and Scott, wasn’t it? The stewards?’

‘How—how did you know?’

‘They saved your life, Duke.’

‘They what?’

‘They ate what you were going to eat So you’re alive. They’re both dead.’

Allen and Mary darling had obviously given up their midnight vigil for the lounge was deserted. I’d five minutes before I met Haggerty in the galley, five minutes in which to collect my thoughts: the trouble was that I had to find them first before I could collect them. And then I realized I was not even going to have the time to find them for there were footsteps on the companionway. Trying with very little success to cope with the wild staggering of the Morning Rose, Mary Stuart made her unsteady way towards an armchair opposite me and collapsed into rather than sat in it. Insofar as it was possible for such an extraordinarily good-looking young woman to look haggard, then she looked haggard: her face was grey. I should have felt annoyed with her for interrupting my train of thought, assuming, that was, that I ever managed to get the train under way, but I could feel no such emotion: I was beginning to realize, though only vaguely, that I was incapable of entertaining towards this Latvian girl any feeling that remotely bordered on the hostile. Besides, she had clearly come to talk to me, and if she did she wanted some help, or reassuring or understanding and it would come very hardly indeed for so proud, so remote, so aloof a girl to ask for any of those. In all conscience, I couldn’t make things difficult for her.