“In her cabin, sir.”
“Which one is that?”
Cardiff edged past. “Double stateroom there. At the stern. I’ll show you.”
“Never mind.” Koski moved through a carpeted saloon with knotty-pine paneling, hunting prints over a fireplace mantel, red leather club chairs. Before he knocked at the door of the aft cabin he glanced over his shoulder.
Cardiff was standing at the foot of the main companionway; he started up the steps hastily.
The Captain looked worried.
V
A throaty “Come in” answered his knock. Barbara Ovett was propped up against a mound of satin pillows on a wide, double bed. Koski eyed the curves which made her nile green sweater and black slacks seem just a little too tight.
“From the Police Department, Mrs. Ovett.”
“Oh, ye-e-es...” She lifted one hand, languidly brushed a spun-copper bang off her forehead. “Looking for Ansel, aren’t you?” She waved vaguely at a tiny boudoir chair.
He sat down, surveyed the gold-backed toilet set on the dresser; the mandarin gown with its cabalistic embroidery in gold. “Steward says you think something happened to him.”
“Something horrible.” She smiled sadly, half-closed her eyes as if she addressed a stupid child. “I knew it would.”
“How’d you know?” He put the rubber boot down.
Barbara opened her eyes wide in evident astonishment. “Why, the Fish told me. You know the Fish, of course?”
“The Fish. Yair.”
“Ansel’s birthday was the seventh of March.” She stroked her hair with a movement like a caress. “This is the nineteenth. Born under the sign of the Fish, with Neptune retrograding, — threatening the most dangerous vibrations, — with a tendency to terminate in a fatal accident...”
Koski pulled down the corners of his mouth, nodded. “There was a fatality, all right. Wouldn’t come under the head of an accident. Do your astrology books give any dope on what Ansel might have run into, — or who?”
She frowned daintily but there was no impatience in her voice. “The truth doesn’t really come from the books, Mister—?”
“Koski. Lieutenant Koski.”
“—it comes from the stars.”
“Okay. The stars have any data?”
“There are always indications. Only people don’t always interpret them properly. I did my best to warn Ansel. Every astro-physicist is aware that Neptune in an air sign has evil potentialities for those whose natal charts—”
“Yair, yair.” Koski sucked in his cheeks, pursed his lips. “Let’s skip the air signs and get down to earth. Any practical reason you know of for anyone to kill him?”
She opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind, shook her head instead.
“Or hack him to pieces? Or chuck his body in the tideway?”
She put her hand to her throat, — bent her head back, stared at him under lowered lids. “If that’s what happened, I’m not astonished. He never would pay any attention to the planetary influences that were so plain—”
“Pull over.” He held up a palm. “They don’t include a study of the stars at the Police Academy. So if it’s all the same with you, let’s skip the abracadabra.”
She pouted like a schoolgirl; there was a juvenile innocence in her wide-set green eyes. “But I was only trying to help you. You want to know what hapened to Ansel, don’t you?”
“I’ve a good idea what happened to Ansel. Right now I’d like to know a little something about your husband. For instance, he hasn’t been on board for quite a while, — until yesterday, — has he?”
She bent over to take a cigarette from a jade box. “Said the little black hen to the big red rooster, you ain’t been around, sir, as often as you useter.”
“Where has he been?”
“Where hasn’t he?” She let him strike a match, smiled intimately into his eyes when she leaned toward him. “Merrill has a crazy notion he ought to learn his father’s business from the sea up. So he’s tried it all. Longshoring, stoker, able-bodied sailor. Says he intends to learn all about going down to the sea in ships so some day he won’t be having to give orders he doesn’t know anything about. Carrying romance-of-the-sea a bit far, don’t you think?”
“Nothing very romantic about it these days, Mrs. Ovett. How long’s he been away this last time?”
“Seven weeks.”
“Mean to say he came home after two months’ absence, — and didn’t stay overnight? A fine thing!”
She pulled the sweater down tightly over her breasts, sighed. “The Seavett isn’t exactly Home Sweet Home to Merrill.”
“You live in town?”
“We have an apartment on Riverside Drive. We don’t use it a whole lot. You’ve heard of people being married — and not working at it.”
“Happens. One of those things?”
She lifted one shoulder, curled up a corner of her lips. “He’s so ridiculously jealous. He’s known Clem Hurlihan for years; — he’s perfectly aware I consult Clem about investments now and then. Yet when he came aboard yesterday and found Clem here, he got the sulks. Wouldn’t even talk to me.” She wriggled down on the pillows; rolled over on her side so she faced him. “I don’t have to tell you it was strictly for business reasons.”
“No. You don’t have to tell me that.” He began to sweat a little; it was close and hot in the stateroom. “You might tell me where your husband would have gone, if he wanted to find Hurlihan. After the superintendent had gone ashore.”
“Clem lives at the Sulgrave Hotel.”
He wrote it down. “Your husband didn’t actually have anything on you and Hurlihan?”
“Don’t be silly.” She kicked off one sandal. “Merrill might have wanted to get something on me, as you put it. That may have been why he was going after Ansel, hammer and tongs.”
“He was, hah?”
“I heard them wrangling down in the engine-room the minute Ansel came aboard. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, of course. But it would be just like Merrill to try and make Ansel admit that Clem and I... you know.” She put on a shy frown of embarrassment.
“Yair. There wouldn’t have been any reason for your husband being jealous of Ansel?”
“You must think I’m terribly bad!”
He took out the photograph, held it out on the flat of his hand.
“That?” She giggled, half-closed her eyes. “If that’s what’s bothering you! Clem took it. As a joke, of course. One day last summer when I didn’t know he’d come aboard.”
“I found it in Ansel’s cabin.”
“You did!” Color flooded up into her face. “You can’t imagine I knew he had it...”
“I had my imagination cut out years ago. What I want to know is where he got this. And if your husband knew he had it.”
“He might have taken it out of the stateroom Clem stayed in.” She watched his eyes to see whether he believed her. “One thing sure. He didn’t get it from Merrill. Merrill never saw it.” Her hand grabbed at the snapshot.
Koski held it out, away from her. A hand came from behind him, over his shoulder, snatched the print. He pushed his feet against the edge of the bed, tilted the chair back, wrenched around, got a grip on a starched white coattail.
A metal tray smashed down on his head, scalding fluid splashed across his face, crockery toppled into his lap. He hauled on the coat; fabric ripped. The Filipino came back to him, flailing wildly and clawing at his eyes.
Koski drove a short-arm jolt to the steward’s belt buckle. Frankie went to his knees, spitting in the Lieutenant’s face.
Barbara cried “Stop it” but made no attempt to interfere.
Koski’s left hand bunched the cloth of the Filipino’s coat just below the collar, yanked the steward toward him; his right, with the wrist and forearm rigid, drove in and up at the other’s chin.