Gili's hand went slowly to her jaw. She said: "I didn't think you had it in you."
Marcia hadn't thought so, either. She looked at Gili's reddened cheek with dismay and a certain sense of shock but without even a twinge of apology. Daisy Belle said briskly: "Best thing in the world for hysterics! Now then, let's go to lunch." She put her hand on Marcia's shoulder and turned her toward the door. She said to Gili: "You'd better come too. Pin up your hair. We'll wait. Hurry."
It was like a schoolmistress, making quick order of childish chaos. And, like a child, Gili sulkily obeyed. She combed her long hair. Jerking it savagely, she pinned it up, and gave Marcia and Daisy Belle a sullen, brooding look and, as Daisy Belle motioned toward the corridor, again obeyed.
It was difficult though, to sit over a long lunch, listening to the pleasant, animated talk of the nurses at the same table, knowing that Gili sat on the other side of Daisy Belle, eating steadily, saying nothing, but with a look in her green eyes that bided its time.
Do you believe me, Mickey had said, or Gili?
Her fingers still tingled. Gili's face still showed a reddish mark. Marcia had never slapped anybody in her life before, and she thought gratefully of Daisy Belle, who had put the whole absurd scene on its proper level. It was typical of Daisy Belle to see, to understand, and kindly, promptly and loyally to act.
But she thought also that lunch would never end. It was the second sitting; they had been late. The officers' tables at the other end of the room were vacant long since; she did not see Mickey, she did not see Josh Morgan, she did not see Luther, she did not see anyone she knew. And when the mess boy finally served them coffee and the remaining little group of nurses trickled out of the room, going back to the wards, she still had no chance to talk to Mickey or to Josh Morgan. -
The three women started back to the cabin together, Gili swishing along ahead, still angry, still with that look of latent, biding fury in every motion she made. Daisy Belle, her fine long face very troubled and tired-looking, stopped for a moment in the nurses' lounge as they passed it and came out with an armload of magazines.
"There's nothing else to do," she said, answering Marcia's glance. "And, my dear, don't talk to Gili now. Don't, just yet, talk to Andre. Wait. Time," said Daisy Belle Cates with a queer note in her voice, like sorrow, like regret, "time is a gentleman."
Daisy Belle, of course, had heard everything Gili had said. But Daisy Belle did not know of the crumpled roll of gauze in her pocket.
So she left Daisy Belle at the door of the cabin. She said something, anything about going on deck, about exercise. Daisy Belle put one hand upon her arm and then quietly relinquished her hold. "Very well," she said. "You know best."
Marcia, walking slowly along the warm, brightly lighted passageways, reminded herself that she must be very careful. She must stay where there were people. She must not be alone, not for a moment. But she would find Josh Morgan.
She didn't. He was not in the lobby on B deck, or in the busier lobby on A deck; he was not in his cabin, for she inquired of an obliging young sergeant who took her there and knocked on the door and opened it, showing an empty cabin with Josh's cap and coat slung on the bed. She could not find him and, not wanting to see Gili again, not wanting to talk to Daisy Belle and see the knowledge in her eyes, no matter how understanding that knowledge was, she went to the nurses' lounge and sat there pretending to read. Actually she was aware only of that limp roll of gauze in her pocket, and of Gili.
Do you believe me, Mickey had said, or Gili?
It was like a merciless, nagging refrain.
And the gauze, of course, was evidence. Since she could not find Josh, as she wished to do, the obvious course was to give it to Captain Svendsen.
It was later than she had realized. The lights were on now everywhere and the fog was creeping again into the ship, as it did somehow at night.
She'd not wait longer for Josh. She looked for him, nevertheless, as again she went through the lobby and up the stairs.
And when she knocked on the door with its gold-lettered sign—Captain Lars Svendsen—and it opened, Josh was there.
He sprang up when he saw her and came toward her. The Captain, sitting at his desk, put down his pipe and rose. Colonel Wells was there too and turned to watch.
Josh said "Hello" in a matter-of-fact tone. The Captain said courteously: "Come in, come in . . ." Colonel Wells smiled impersonally and politely.
The Captain went on: "I'm glad you came, Miss Colfax. Colonel Morgan has been trying to make me believe that you are in danger. I don't mean that I have ever doubted your belief that you were half strangled the first night you were on my ship, but I did think it might have been due to your overwrought nerves. Now then, as you know the thing is over, thank God, we've got Urdiola and a sound case against him. You know all about that?"
She moved her head in acknowledgment. Something about her look, her silence, suddenly seemed to strike Josh as wrong. She was aware of his sharpened attention and the little frown that suddenly came between his eyes. The Captain said: "But I don't mind telling you, Miss Colfax, that it would help if you can identify Urdiola as your assailant. Can you do that?"
She shook her head. She started to speak and stopped and took the gauze helmet from her pocket.
Josh understood first and sprang forward to her side and took the roll of gauze from her hand. He swore and held it so they could see it and then put it on the Captain's desk. "See that . . . See that . . ." he cried almost incoherently and was back at Marcia's side, his hand on her shoulder, compelling her to look at him, compelling her to speak. "Tell us what happened. Tell us—hurry . . ."
But she had not realized how unsubstantial a story it was until she told it and saw the Captain's face, fixed and hard as granite. Colonel Wells coughed and lighted a cigarette and said nothing. The Captain waited for a moment, tapping his pipe absently on the arm of his chair, eyeing her with those bright, shrewd, hard eyes. Finally he said in a dry voice: "Very interesting, Miss Colfax. Exactly when did this occur?"
She told him.
"And you actually saw no one?"
"No. But that was on the floor."
He glanced at the gauze heap impatiently. Colonel Wells came over to the desk, picked up the gauze, looked at it, said: "Inexpertly made. No nurse or doctor made that," and put it down again.
The Captain said: "Urdiola is locked up. The patient, Jacob Heinzer is naturally not under guard, but I expect we can check on his whereabouts. I'll try. In the meantime, though, are you perfectly sure anyone was really there?"
Before she could reply, Josh Morgan said suddenly: "Captain, I'm afraid I'm guilty of withholding some evidence."
"What's that, Colonel?" The Captain's bleached eyebrows were suddenly heavy and threatening.
"The fact is, sir, the Cateses couple have been accused of collaboration with the Nazis. And, if the story is right, Castiogne knew it."
"Castiogne! You mean that you think he tried to blackmail Cates? But Cates said he gave him the diamond for passage bribe. Cates said . . ."
"Right, sir."
"Wait." The Gaptain touched a bell and gave quick orders to the boy who appeared. "Get hold of Mr. Cates and his wife. Get them both here. Now then, Golonel Morgan, exactly what do you mean?"
As if he knew that she was willing him not to tell it, Josh would not look at Marcia. He stared instead very intently at the end of his cigarette while he told Gili's story, almost word for word, exactly as she had told it.
The Gaptain listened and, as Josh finished, began to pace the cabin angrily. "Why didn't you tell me before now?"
"Because I didn't believe it."
The Gaptain paused briefly to shoot him an angry—and troubled—look. "And you do believe it now?"