CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Butterworth knows something, the note from Evers had said.
Lenox woke up late the next morning with a foggy head, but the phrase popped straight into his thoughts. As he ate breakfast and sipped his coffee, he considered the little he knew of Billings’s valet. Butterworth was jaundiced yellow, some harmless seafarer’s disease, Billings had mentioned, and too tall by several inches for the low ceilings on board a ship, which meant he always seemed slightly stooped.
Billings himself was in the wardroom, writing a letter, when Lenox put his head out. Seated alongside him was Mitchell, who was whittling down a piece of light-colored spruce into what appeared to be a finely detailed model of the Lucy.
It was a minor piece of information that Lenox registered almost automatically: Mitchell must be used to having a knife in his hands …
“D’you know,” the detective said in a conversational tone, “I almost feel guilty, asking McEwan to fetch me more coffee. He possesses such surpassing grace amidships that it seems he ought to be there.”
Billings looked up, smiling; Mitchell looked up too, but without the smile. “Oh, he’s landed where he wants to be,” said Billings. “It’s no bad job.”
“Have you had your own stewards long? How were they chosen?”
“Butterworth came to sea with me—my father’s servant.”
“He must be trustworthy, in that case.”
“Oh, very. Mitchell, did your chap come along with you?”
“He and I have been together on several voyages now, but all on the Lucy,” said Mitchell, still whittling. “We met when I was a midshipman in the Challenger, and when I had my step up I brought him along as my steward. Excellent fellow.”
“It’s common, then, for a steward to follow an officer from assignment to assignment?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mitchell. “In fact many of them act as butlers when their gentlemen are ashore. A bit rough, as butlers go, but nobody can keep a house clean like a steward.”
“It’s true that I have been amazed at the amount of time McEwan spends tidying.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Mitchell smiled at him, albeit thinly. “Such is life afloat, Mr. Lenox.”
Billings took a last mouthful of egg and stood up. “I think I’ll take a turn on the quarterdeck,” he said. “Last night’s wine has given me a morning head, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Mitchell.
“Mr. Lenox?” Billings asked.
“I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you.”
After they had gone Lenox rose and went to the closed door behind which lay Billings’s cabin, and the tiny nook where Butterworth slept. He knocked on the door, but nobody answered. As he began to push it open, a heavy voice behind him said, “Oy! Who’s that?”
Lenox turned. It was Butterworth himself. “Just the man I was looking for.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I have a few questions for you.”
“About what?” said Butterworth, his face suspicious.
“About Lieutenant Halifax.”
“Oh?”
“I was curious where you were during the middle of the night, when Halifax died.”
“I was fast asleep, leastways until Mr. Carrow came down to fetch my master.”
“You didn’t leave this cabin?”
“Not after supper, no.”
“Did Mr. Billings?”
“No! And if you’re implying—if you think—”
Lenox waved a hand. “Save your outrage, please. I only wanted to know if one of you might have seen something.”
Indignantly, Butterworth said, “Which and if we had, don’t you think we would have told?”
“Sometimes we may see things without seeing them.”
“I don’t understand riddles, Mr. Lennots, and I won’t answer ’em.”
“Tell me this, anyway—on the day of the voyage, did you notice anything peculiar?”
“No,” said Butterworth stoutly.
“Nothing?”
“Maybe excepting yourself.”
“You’re dangerously close to rudeness, Mr. Butterworth.”
Butterworth rolled his eyes, and then with a sullen bow of his head, said, “Apology.”
McEwan came out into the wardroom, munching on what looked as if it might be the toast Lenox had left uneaten on his plate, and, though it didn’t sound very good, whistling through the crumbs.
“Will you give us a moment?” said Lenox to him.
“Oh! Sorry, sir. I was coming to ask permission to polish your toast rack, the one with the letters in it?” Then he added, whispering, “It’s silver.”
“Yes, go on,” said Lenox. “But go!”
“I’m vanished, I’m positively vanished already, sir,” said McEwan, and as proof put a finger up to his crumb-covered lips.
When they were alone again, Butterworth said, “If that will be all—”
“No, it won’t. I asked you if you saw anything unusual on the day before Mr. Halifax was murdered. You say you didn’t. I ask you to consider again—did you see anyone unusual around Mr. Billings’s cabin? Anyone who might have stolen something from your master?”
Butterworth looked uneasy now, and Lenox saw he had struck a nerve. “No,” was all the man said, however.
“You did—I can see it on your face. Who was in Lieutenant Billings’s cabin?”
“Nobody, sir.”
“It’s ‘sir’ now, is it? You must tell me—a man is dead.”
“But it doesn’t mean anything!” said Butterworth.
“What doesn’t?”
The steward looked at Lenox for a long moment and then relented. “The captain. He insisted on looking through all the cabins in the wardroom on his own, the day of the trip.”
“The captain did? Is that usual?”
Butterworth shook his head. “No.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“He’s the captain. He don’t need no reason. But he wouldn’t have killed Halifax—it’s not possible.” This came out in a low moan. “Please, though, you mustn’t think he did anything! Mr. Billings idolizes him.”
“Be calm—I agree with you. It’s not possible. You may go, now—thank you.”
Lenox had told an outright lie. It was certainly possible that Martin had killed Halifax. First the whisky, and now the plain opportunity to have stolen both Carrow’s medallion and Billings’s pocketknife. The baffling absence of motive was all that held Lenox back from fully believing that Martin was the murderer.
Soon it was noon, and the daily ritual took place again, Lenox on the gleaming, swabbed, and holystoned quarterdeck to observe it. The midshipman called Pimples, under the supervision of Lee and Martin, took a sighting of the sun.
“Our latitude is thirty-five degrees north, and our longitude is six degrees west,” he said.
“You’ll see African soil soon, then,” Lee answered. “We’re close to passing through the strait between Morocco and Spain.”
All hands were piped to the midday meal, then, and the naval schedule continued apace.
It was two hours later that this routine was interrupted by the unthinkable.
It was Teddy Lenox who rushed to his uncle’s cabin, his face pale and his breath short. “It’s happened again!” he said. “Again!”
Lenox’s stomach fell. “Another murder?”
“Yes!”
“Who? Was it another lieutenant?”
Teddy could barely speak, but he managed to croak it out. “No,” he said, “the captain. Captain Martin is dead.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
There was a tremendous lurch somewhere deep in Lenox’s spirit. I failed, he thought to himself. What business did I have trying to play detective again? The contrapuntal voice that rose in his mind—Who else was there to do it?—he smothered quickly.