He was waiting for them and he looked tired. His ruddy face had a grayish tinge; there were deep pockets around his eyes. A thermos bottle of coffee stood on the table before him. He turned at their entrance. "Oh, there you are, Miss Colfax. Come in. Bring in the two men, Major."
"Yes, sir."
The young Major vanished again. Captain Svendsen turned back to his desk and busied himself with some papers. After a moment, he said, over his shoulder, "Sit down, Miss Colfax."
The arms of the red chair felt slightly moist. The fog was everywhere, even here. The foghorn sounded again, long and slow and hoarse. When it died away Major Williams returned, ushering in two men.
They were small, dark, active-looking. They were wearing obviously borrowed clothes gathered up from the Magnolia seamen. They looked about them with suspicious eyes under heavy black eyebrows. One was thin and wizened, like an elderly monkey; the other very short, thick and sturdy. It was he, she thought, remembering the lifeboat, who had tried to revive Castiogne. Their swarthy faces were faintly familiar to her, but only that. She stared and they stared. Major Williams said cheerfully: "Here they are, sir," and Captain Svendsen shifted his solid big body about and looked at the two men and looked at her.
"These men were in the Lerida lifeboat. Their names are"— he glanced at a paper on his desk—"Manuel Para and Jose Urdiola. Now then"—he turned to her, his shrewd, deep-set eyes were very direct and urgent—"was it either of these two men last night?"
The two men shifted uneasily. Their dark eyes were angry, suspicious, and altogether impenetrable. She felt a curious embarrassment under that dark suspicious scrutiny, but she looked at them, thinking back, trying to dredge up some distinguishing mark, some sound, some clue. There was none. She only vaguely remembered their faces, here and there about the Lerida. She remembered them merely as black figures bending over oars, shifting about, huddled in the lifeboat.
She shook her head. "I can't tell. There was nothing I can remember. But someone . . ."
The Captain cut into her speech. "You told me that one of them tried apparently to revive Castiogne." He glanced at the short, sturdy-looking man, and said shortly: "Para, step forward."
He did so quickly. "Yes, sir."
"Was it this one, Miss Colfax?"
"I think so. I could not see his face."
Para burst out in fluent and vehement English: "But, sir, I told you. I tried to revive him, yes. I did not know he was dead. I thought exhaustion, yes. A collapse. I told you. I did not know he was dead. I told you . . ."
'That's enough," said the Captain curtly. He nodded at Major Williams and said: "Take them away."
Para, looking worried and angry, followed the other who had said nothing. Major Williams closed the door smartly after them. The Captain said directly: "What do you know of the Cates couple?"
She stiffened. Had someone already told him Gili's story? She replied warily: "I met them in Lisbon while we were waiting for a passage."
"What do you know of them before they reached Lisbon?"
Suddenly and disconcertingly she remembered Daisy Belle's words: "We stayed with a—a friend; in a chateau in the hills back of Nice!" What friend? And why had Daisy Belle lied so needlessly, apparently so pointlessly, the night before?
The Captain's eyes were too observant. For an instant she felt that he could read her thoughts. She said quickly and firmly: "They were caught in France and remained there. He was ill. I think they lived somewhere along the Riviera. . . ."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, his blue eyes very piercing and determined and also, queerly, impatient. "Look here, Miss Colfax. I've no time for evasions. I'd better tell you some things that you may not know. For one thing, Alfred Castiogne was murdered. You don't seem to be able to realize it. His body is in the morgue now. We never have a burial at sea. We've never, in fact"—pride came into his voice for an instant—"we've never had a death at sea. We've a proud record. But the point now is, this Portuguese third officer was murdered. There is no question in my mind as to whether or not one of you in the lifeboat murdered him. But . . ." He hesitated; a sort of reluctance touched his straight, hard mouth. "But I have to be fair. Colonel Wells is the medical officer in command. He examined the body, and he went to considerable trouble to investigate all the circumstances and facts available. And, to make it short, considering, he says, a question of rigor mortis and the length of time the man was dead when he was discovered, there is no proof that he was killed in the lifeboat."
"You mean someone else could have killed him! Someone, here on this ship . . ." She half rose to her feet.
"Wait! I didn't say that," snapped the Captain. "Nobody on my ship did it. I know my ship. My men are, as you know, of the Merchant Marine. I took on some new men last trip, but I investigated them thoroughly. I don't believe that Castiogne was murdered on the Magnolia. I believe, and so does Colonel Wells, that he was murdered in the lifeboat. But"—the Captain sighed, and said rather wearily—"we've got to be fair. As far as I can discover, this man, Castiogne, was assumed to have collapsed. Manuel Para, as he admits, tried to revive him. As you heard, he claims not to have known that he was dead, which is perfectly comprehensible, but does not prove anything. Castiogne could have been dead then, already murdered, or he could have been in a state of collapse and murdered later. Two Magnolia seamen—whom I have questioned, I assure you, to my own satisfaction—carried Castiogne up the Jacob's ladder and put him down for a moment or two on the floor along the companionway. There was some excitement and haste about getting you all aboard; the sea was running rather heavy. They were bringing litters for those of you who could not walk. There were, in short, several minutes during which nobody actually had his eyes on the man Castiogne. Naturally there was a certain amount of going and coming, hurrying, trying to save you all," said the Captain, looking for a moment rather as if he wished he had not undertaken saving any of them.
"But then somebody—anybody on the ship . . ."
"No, Miss Colfax, not anybody on the ship. Nobody in the wards, none of the patients could have done it. And I do not believe," he was suddenly sarcastic, "that any of the nurses would be very likely to creep up to the man and stick a knife in him. Or any of the doctors. For one thing, I've seen all of them under fire; what they've done is save lives—hundreds of them—through their own personal bravery. You can keep the nurses and doctors and the patients out of your calculations. And, so far as I'm concerned, I don't believe any of my ship's personnel had anything to do with this. But the fact is"—he paused again and said in a sort of angry, but honest concession—"the fact is there is a period of time on the Magnolia during which he could have been killed. He wasn't killed then," he said stubbornly. "I'm sure of it. But he could have been. So . . ." He shrugged. He was angry and stubborn, exasperated but honest. "So there you are. The simple fact is that he could have been killed in the lifeboat, or during the half hour or so while he was on the Magnolia before the doctor seeing to him discovered that he had a stab wound. It hadn't bled much; flesh had closed over it so the hemorrhage was inside."
He glanced at the watch on his thick red wrist, and said: "I'm only telling you all this, Miss Colfax, because it's the truth. Because I want you and everybody else on the lifeboat to help, not hinder my necessary investigation."
He shoved back his chair with a quick motion and got to his feet. He was reaching for his oilskins. "I'm going back to the bridge," he said. "I'm risking my ticket to leave it for a moment in a fog like this. Think it over, Miss Colfax. Try to remember . . ."