The roaring of the steam deafened him. For an instant he wasn’t sure whether the cargo had let go. Then the roaring blast from the steam pipe stopped hissing, became merely a hoarse, hot breath.
He rolled off Gjersten. The man was dead.
Piper came running back. Men poured down the iron ladder. There was a quarter hour of confusion, in the engine-room, on deck, in the executive cabin, — before Koski convinced the Pobrico’s command that he had a right to take the body ashore. It was another fifteen minutes until the Vigilant got underneath the swaying ladder again and let Koski step off to the foredeck.
“Hold her, Irish. Another one coming.”
“Holy Mother.” Mulcahey craned his neck up at the body being lowered in a sling. “You had to knock him out?”
“Permanently.” Koski slashed the hoist-rope.
A canvas sea-bag came down like a descending pendulum over the pilot-house; Mulcahey leaned out, grabbed it, hauled it in, line and all. “If anyone was to scoot up and ask me,” the Sergeant swung off toward the Narrows, “I would say a dead wolf is the best kind there is.”
“He won’t be biting, any more.” Koski dragged his burden aft. The police-boat lurched away from the freighter.
Joslin called: “Need any help?”
“Yair. Drag it down to the cockpit.”
“It was Gjersten,” Ellen cried. “That other... in the morgue... that’s Merrill.”
“Yair. Must be.”
“Means this skunk,” Joslin piled the tarpaulin over on top of the body, “murdered Merrill”
“To get his papers,” Mulcahey agreed.
“He got the papers, all right.” Koski wet his handkerchief in sea-water, laid it across his neck where the bullet had raised a welt. “But he didn’t kill Ovett. This,” he touched the corpse with his toe, “isn’t Bandage Face.”
XXIV
Aboard the Seavett, in Barbara’s cabin, Hurlihan made the sheet of paper rattle in his fingers. “Certainly I came all the way out here so you’d sign another proxy. That fat-headed cop took the other one; wouldn’t give it back.”
She leaned forward on the vanity bench, puckering up her lips, wiping a tiny smudge of carmine from one corner of her mouth with the tip of her little finger. She could see his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, but her eyes were attentive to her own features. “I’m frightfully sorry, Clem. But I’ve changed my mind about the proxy.”
He caught her shoulder roughly, pulled her around, half facing him. “It’s a little late in the day, for that.”
“Circumstances do alter cases, darling.”
“Only one kind that would change your point of view,” he said coarsely. “Who is it this time? Fross? I thought it was queer he was so insistent about coming to the yacht with me, tonight.”
“Don’t be absurd. You know Henry couldn’t have any appeal for me...” She exchanged lipstick for eyebrow pencil. “It’s just that with the police searching for Merrill, it might be better to see what turns up.”
The superintendent refolded the paper angrily, jammed it back in his pocket. “I don’t have to consult the oracles to guess your proxy’ll turn up at the special stockholders’ meeting, — in Hank’s name. But it’s my own damn fault. I knew better than to trust you.”
“Don’t be ugly, darling.” She let her hand rest lightly on his arm. “I’m not siding with anyone else. It’s just that Henry advised me sometime ago to be cautious until we know what’s going to happen to Merrill. Now, if the police should catch him, it might make all the difference in the world.”
He shook her hand off. “There’s always been the chance his ship would be torpedoed and he’d be drowned or burned to death. That never stopped you from going behind his back. If he were dead you wouldn’t be worried about a divorce and you could always hold up the Foundation by court action long enough to get some sort of settlement for yourself. That isn’t what bothers you now. You’re afraid to do anything Merrill might not like because then he might show up and let you take the blame he’s been shouldering on your account.”
“Why are you being nasty?” She was plaintive.
“Because you put me in a bad light with the police. That Lieutenant ran roughshod over me last night, as it was. I told him I spent the week-end on board because you were giving me the proxy. Now if I don’t vote it, he’ll want to know what happens. It’ll look queer. I tell you straight, Barbara, — if they try to pin anything on me, I’m not going to be the goat for you. Not in a homicide case.”
She laughed deep in her throat. “You know I didn’t murder Ansel.”
“Cardiff thinks you did. Your Filipino thought so, or he wouldn’t have quit you. Or maybe he beat it because he helped you dispose of the body.”
“Cle-e-e-em!!”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d been fooling around with Ansel, — and that squarehead would have been a bad person to two-time. Not like some of the others...”
“It hurts me to have you feel that way, darling. But I can’t blame you too much...” she pulled open a dressing-table drawer, drew out a sheet of note paper with a scorpion embossed in gilt in one corner. It was covered with lavender scrawls. “It’s so easy to draw the wrong conclusion when you only have part of the facts. I made the same mistake when I only took Merrill’s particular planet into account—”
“Don’t start on that...”
“...when I should have considered the influence of all the planets, the sun, moon, — horizon and meridian—”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake.”
The motors rumbled suddenly; the hull began to pulsate. “Cardiff’s getting ready to pull out, Barbara. I’m ducking—”
“Wait, Clem. I can show you. I know who committed the murder—”
Knuckles rapped at the door. Hurlihan. opened it.
Fross stood there, scowling. “Hurry up on deck. Rolf Berger just came aboard. With blood in his eye.”
Ting-tang! Ting-tang! Ting-tang! The ship’s clock chimed hurriedly as if it feared being late for an appointment.
On deck, Cardiff gave orders:
“Northeast by north. Nothing to port. That’ll be the bell off Execution Rock.”
“Tide’s sweeping us right along even at quarter-speed, Cap’n.”
“Ought to make the shoal about eleven-thirty, if we don’t pile up somewhere.”
“What they really mean by dead reckoning, yes, sir.”
Off Sands Point, off Rye Beach, off Great Captains Island, ships blew worried blasts on steam whistles; off Scotland Lightship at the mouth of the harbor, they whispered — held their breath...
In the Seavett’s saloon, the Executive Director stood straddle-legged in front of the fireplace. The cannel coal glowed cherry-red at his back but its cheerfulness was not reflected on the faces of Barbara or Clem Hurlihan or Henry Sutlee Fross.
“Lawford’s not going to die tonight.” Berger clasped his hands behind his back, thrust his chin forward truculently, “or I wouldn’t be here. But worry about Merrill has nearly done for him, this time. He collapsed; after I found him, and rushed him to the hospital, the doctors said it was a paralytic stroke, — and you know what that means. He won’t be able to take any active part in the business from now on. He knows it. He dictated a memorandum giving me power of attorney and managed to sign it with the last of his strength. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it now. Merrill ought to take charge, now. But the boy isn’t here. And so Lawford asked me to do one tiling for him.” He glanced at his brief case, lying against the bulkhead.