Sybil took some persuading to come to the open deck, which was otherwise predictably empty, but she did so to please Percy, even though she had been feeling unwell. When Percy paused to look over the side, just behind the davit of the aftermost lifeboat, Sybil paused with him. There was no one else in view. The lifeboat prevented the couple from being seen by the lookout on the bridge deck, just as the same object shaded them somewhat from the general illumination. Percy had planned their position carefully.
“See the flying fish?” he questioned eagerly.
As Sybil leaned across the rail, squinting with enthusiasm, he stepped behind her, grasped both her ankles, and heaved her into eternity.
The splash she made hardly registered in the rush of water along the ship’s side. Her cry was lost in the churning made by the port screw close to where she went in. Any further sign of her was lost in the immediate tumult of the ship’s wake, and then in the murk and darkness. She died quickly — of shock, not drowning. The metabolic imbalance that caused her obesity had long put her heart and life at risk. She had been taking treatment without telling Percy, while doing her best to teach him how to fend for himself without her.
After what had been at once the most frightening as well as the most despicable act of his whole worthless life, Percy finished his promenade alone. For the time being, the balance of his mind was sustained by what he urged himself to regard as the justice of his cause. It happened he met no one as he went down to the cabin at around the usual time, but an encounter would still not have troubled him.
Sybil had complained of feeling off-color at lunch and dinner. She had mentioned it to several people. The cause was the cold-cure capsule that Percy had surreptitiously dissolved in her early-morning tea after he heard the weather forecast. Cold cures upset her. If anyone had asked, her indisposition would explain why she had returned to their cabin ahead of Percy.
He rang for her tea as usual.
When the steward knocked, Percy played the tape he had made in the bathroom of Sybil’s shrilclass="underline" “Oh, leave it outside, please! Thank you!”
But before the man could do as instructed, Percy opened the door. “Okay, I’ll take it,” he said, placing the tray just inside the cabin and calling in the direction of the bathroom, “Sleep well, darling — I won’t be late!” Then he stepped into the corridor and closed the cabin door. “My wife isn’t feeling well,” he remarked to the steward as they moved together in the direction of the stairs. “Needs sleep, that’s all. Keep an ear open in case she phones, though, would you? If she should need me, I’ll be in the main lounge, playing bridge.”
“Very good, sir,” the Pole replied, gratefully pocketing the overlarge tip, which had been intended to mark events clearly in his mind.
Two hours later, Percy looked up from his cards to glance at the time. “Oh, lord, I promised to look in on my wife before now.”
“I’ll go,” said his partner, the normally reticent Miss Mold, understood to be a retired nurse. She was dummy for the hand. “I need to freshen up, anyway. Give me your key.”
He had been relying on her to volunteer. He had mentioned earlier that Sybil hadn’t been feeling up to scratch.
Miss Mold returned shortly to report that Sybil wasn’t in the cabin, that her bed hadn’t been used, and that the contents of a sleeping-pill bottle had been spilled onto the counterpane.
Percy affected puzzlement, not alarm. “That’s strange,” he said. “Perhaps she found it too hot in the cabin. Or felt better, and went for a walk. D’you think I should go and look for her?”
“Who’s lost? Not Sybil?” It was Rita Stork’s voice. She had come up behind Miss Mold. “I’m not sure, but I think I saw her going up to the boat deck about an hour ago. She was ever so groggy at dinner.”
Percy found Rita’s mistaken observation almost too good to be true. Now, with a deeply concerned expression, he asked to be excused from the game to look for his wife. Rita and Miss Mold came with him. After they had searched both promenade decks, the cinema and games rooms on the third deck, and checked the cabin frequently, it was Rita who suggested they should tell the pursuer.
In another hour, the Captain reluctantly decided to turn the ship about. By then the crew and most of the passengers had been engaged in a meticulous search for Sybil, who had failed to respond to repeated summonses over the broadcasting system. A now-distracted Percy was plied with the professional ministrations of Miss Mold and the warmly feminine ones of Rita Stork.
Sybil’s body was never found, although the sea search went on well into the following afternoon, with other ships in the vicinity assisting. Everyone agreed with the Captain’s verdict — that Sybil, sick, had gone for a walk on the open deck and, fuddled by phenobarbitone, had fallen overboard. It seemed to be the only explanation.
People were deeply sympathetic to Percy — especially Rita, her sister Kirsty, and quiet Miss Mold. He stayed in his cabin for almost the remainder of the voyage, appearing only once for a meal and affecting then to be completely broken.
Late on their last night at sea, Rita came to see him from next door — to make sure that he was all right, she explained. It was nearly midnight, and after most people had retired. He was in bed already, reading a girlie magazine, which he quickly hid at Rita’s knock. For her benefit, he also adopted his bereft expression, while not being able to resist stealing lascivious glances at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. She was wearing a frilly negligee loosely fastened over a low-cut, diaphanous nightie.
After making a show of tidying the cabin, Rita poured a whiskey and took it to Percy. “Drink it. It’ll do you good. Help you sleep.” Her fingers stayed on his as he took the glass. “Now is there anything else you need? Anything at all?” She sat on the bed and crossed her legs, allowing the negligee to fall open completely.
“You could — you could kiss me goodnight,” he half stammered, hoping it sounded like an innocent request for further harmless consolation.
“Oh, you poor man. And I’d like that, Percy love,” she answered. “I’d like that very much. So let’s do it properly, shall we?” She stood up, letting the negligee fall from her, then she opened the bedclothes and slipped in beside him.
The following day was to be an unnerving one for Percy.
Because of the delay in searching for Sybil, the ship arrived at Port Kelang well behind schedule and too late for departing passengers to reach Kuala Lumpur in time to catch their flight to London. Since the ship had to leave almost immediately, the passengers were sent by train to the Malaysian capital, to spend the night in a hotel there at the shipping company’s expense.
There clearly being no purpose in Percy keeping Sybil’s clothes, before leaving the ship he gave most of them to a stewardess who was more or less Sybil’s size. As far as he remembered later, it was he who had suggested Rita and Kirsty should each choose a keepsake from Sybil’s other things, in gratitude for the comfort they had given him — publicly and otherwise. Rita had chosen the bright-red cashmere wrap Sybil had bought in Madras and had afterward worn frequently. Kirsty had selected a chunky and distinctive necklace.
After the short train journey, Percy reported as instructed to the British High Commissioner’s Office. He was there for some hours, giving a detailed account of the tragedy. In addition, he had to go over the Captain’s and the Deck Officer’s reports, which arrived from the Polish Embassy after some delay and then had to be translated, along with a deposition from the steward who was the last person Sybil was known to have spoken to before her death. In the English version, at least, the steward’s statement implied that he had seen Sybil as well as heard her. Percy was glad to confirm that this had been the case, confident that the man was not likely to be available again to correct him.