She nodded and Josh smoked and looked with narrowed eyes out into the fog and said suddenly: "Too damned reasonable. A quarrel among the three Portuguese over a diamond, two murders because of it. Oh, yes, it's reasonable. I was there when Luther identified the diamond. He did so right away, took one look at it and got very red and told the Captain he'd got it from his wife to give to Castiogne for arranging their passage. Did you bribe Castiogne for a passage?"
"No. That is, if Andre had done so he'd have told me. He arranged everything."
"You supplied the money?"
"Yes, but no more than enough for our passage and a—a loan to Andre. Naturally, he hadn't a cent. He was lucky to be alive."
"You called it a loan, I suppose, to save his feelings."
"Why not!" Again for an instant anger caught at her, but it subsided almost at once. She said wearily: "It wasn't much; only a little over our passage money, which wasn't much, either. Oh, that isn't important."
"Are you sure," said Josh, "that you aren't rich?"
"I'm sure. My father died while I was in France. After the war was over his lawyer got in touch with me and sent me some cash. He told me that I'd have enough money if I left the investments he had made as they are; but I'm not rich."
"Not like the Cateses?"
"Heavens, no. Theirs is one of the big American fortunes. Everybody knows that."
He said reflectively: "Luther said they had nothing with them now but Daisy Belle's jewelry. They've been selling it, he said, piece by piece. He said he'd wondered why the diamond was not found on Castiogne but supposed he had sold it and banked the money in Lisbon or something of the kind. Naturally he wasn't anxious to tell it, so he didn't volunteer the information. But then when he saw the diamond there on the table in the Captain's cabin he didn't hesitate. I'll say that for him. And the fact of its turning up in Urdiola's possession right after Para's murder does sound bad. I've been thinking —suppose Para murdered Castiogne in the lifeboat. Would that have been possible?"
She thought back again, as she had so irresistibly, so many times, to the black, nightmare hours on the Lerida lifeboat. "Yes. Yes, I remember that he bent over Castiogne. I thought he was trying to revive him."
Josh was looking at her quietly and thoughtfully. "Para then could have killed him and removed the diamond, if he knew that Castiogne had it. Or he could merely have removed the diamond after somebody else murdered him. Is that right?"
She shivered and pulled her coat more closely about her throat. "Anything could have happened that night in that boat, anything."
"I believe you," said Josh. "And I think that was when either Para or Urdiola took the diamond. Urdiola's story could be perfectly true or it could be the unimaginative lie of a very stupid man." He paused and smoked and said suddenly: "Marcia, was it Urdiola that night? Who tried to murder you, I mean?"
"I don't know. It was dark and so sudden and dreadful. I don't know."
"I've got to ask you this, Marcia. Please answer me quite honestly. Have there been any other attempts? Besides the man in the red bathrobe yesterday?"
She hesitated, not wanting to acknowledge it and thus somehow mark its authenticity. But she told him: "Someone tried the handle of the cabin door the same night, perhaps fifteen minutes before I went to Andre's cabin and met you on the way, and he and Gili were there. That was all that happened," she added quickly. "I opened the door to the corridor as soon as I could make myself do it. Nobody was there. It probably was nothing."
He thought for a moment, turning again, so she could see only his straight, uncommunicative profile. "Yes," he said finally, "probably it was nothing. And probably whoever was on the stairway yesterday merely wanted to be seen in that disguise. They've questioned the real patient, Jacob Heinzer, as exhaustively as they can. It's very hard for him to speak. But they've inquired and they've examined his records and so far there isn't a thing to link him up with anybody on the lifeboat. Colonel Wells says that aside from his wounds he's all right. I mean no question of nerve strain and battle fatigue or anything of the kind." He paused for an instant and continued in a rather odd and tight voice: "Does your—Andre believe that it was Urdiola who attacked him?"
"He said he didn't know why Urdiola would attack him or me, unless because he thought we knew something of Castiogne's murder."
"What do you think about it?"
"It's the only motive he could possibly have had; but I don't know what he thought I had seen. And in any case, we are safe now, all of us."
"Yes," said Josh. "Well, I shouldn't count too much on that."
"What do you mean?"
He would not meet her eyes. "I don't know. Anything, nothing. Only—listen, Marcia, once before, twice before I've said you were in danger. Well, I still think so."
"But Urdiola is locked up!"
"In spite of that. In spite of everything. I think," said Josh Morgan his voice suddenly rough, "that you have been in danger ever since an American ship came into view from the lifeboat."
"Josh . . ." But the foghorn began again, suddenly and harshly checking her question. She waited and Josh still would not look at her, still stood with his arm against the railing, looking into the fog, looking into nothing as if he were seeing there something clear and definite, something frightening, something that had power, something she could not see. The foghorn stopped and he turned to her. "Now then, we'd better go inside. You're getting cold." He put up his hand and touched her hair, very gently, very lightly, with a deeply thoughtful look in his dark eyes, "Your hair's all misted," he said.
"You must explain. There's something you know or guess."
"Marcia," he said abruptly, "is there anything you guess or know that you've not told me?"
His tone was so direct and so grave that she answered almost without knowing she was replying. "There's nothing I know. But I . . ." She hesitated, trying to put a very nebulous impression into words.
"What, Marcia? Tell me."
"Twice—I'm not sure I can make you understand—but twice I've had an odd sort of feeling that something was wrong somehow. I mean, not what I'd have expected it to be. So it didn't fit."
"Such as what?"
"Well, one time it was with Gili. When she was talking to the Captain. Somehow I'd have expected her to tell the Captain the same story about the Cateses being Nazis that she told us."
"And didn't she?"
"No. She looked very quiet and secretive somehow, and didn't mention it."
He thought for a moment or two, watching her and finally said: "It's just as well. I didn't believe it. It sounded too—I don't know, too much as if she enjoyed the interest she was creating by the story. Too much Gili," he said dryly. "But what else was it, Marcia?"
"It happened just after you had talked to me on deck and then gone inside. I remember that. I was lying back in the chair, thinking about the whole thing, really; about nothing in particular except perhaps Gili and the things she had said to me about Andre. But I can't think of any special thing; it was only that all at once I felt as if I—well, as if I'd missed some turning in a road that I ought to have recognized. As if"—she used the simile that had entered her own thoughts—"as if I knew a picture, but that something in the picture was suddenly crooked and wrong. Oh, I know that makes no sense." She broke off, annoyed at her own clumsiness and ineptness. But Josh's face was very thoughtful. He repeated: "Something wrong in the picture. Something . . ." he stopped.
For a long time, minutes it seemed to her, he just stood there motionless, as if he'd forgotten her existence. And then quite suddenly he moved and looked at her with bright, intent eyes that still did not seem to see her and took her arm. "I think I see what you mean," he said and whirled her around. "You'll have to go inside. You're cold. Your hair's all wet. Now . . ." They reached the lobby and everywhere was warmth and cheer and people, and he said, quite cheerfully himself: "Now mind what I told you, Marcia. I'll see you later. . . ."