There were other things, she thought suddenly, too; excuses she had made in her mind for Mickey, things he had said and done, the way, even with the war over, he had seemed nervous and too wary; his insistence on taking passage on the Lerida to Buenos Aires, not home; his determination to use a false name.
She said slowly, staring out into the drifting fog: "There were always explanations—always reasons . . ."
A voice called again, eerily, across the water. Josh said: "Marcia, I believe it would have made no difference in Banet's death if I had told the Captain earlier that I knew who he was and what I suspected." -
The air from the port was raw and cold. She pulled the over-sized red bathrobe closer around her throat.
"And I had to tell them about Mickey Banet, to save your life. Marcia, it was Banet who tried to murder you."
"Mickey!" She stared at him in bewildered disbelief. "Mickey tried to murder me?"
"Yes."
"But ... Oh, no. Josh! Why would he do that? There's no reason, no motive . . ."
"Oh, my dear, my dear. Don't you see that there was a very real motive, a very strong one. Mickey was not really an important war criminal, but he thought he was. He thought that at any moment his name would be known everywhere—his name and what he had done. Probably it would have been known eventually. That's true. He had a sort of fame before the war. Mainly, though, it was a case of the wicked fleeing where no man pursues. He was aware of his own guilt; he was afraid. He intended never to let anyone know that he was Michel Banet the traitor, the Nazi. But you knew his real name."
"So did Gili! So did Gili . . ."
"But you insisted on telling the truth. He knew that you would continue to insist upon telling the truth about it."
"Josh, he couldn't have tried to kill me that first night on the Magnolia. He was unconscious. You saw him. . . ."
"Wait, Marcia. This is what I think happened. I thought so," said Josh soberly, "that first night on deck. I could see how he might have done it, but I couldn't be sure. Let me tell you. I told the Captain, but I didn't put it as fully or as truly, Marcia, as I'm going to now to you. The fact is, you see, that I couldn't reconcile you and your love for him, with what I thought I knew of him. You being you, I didn't see how you could love him if he was the heel that I thought he was. That"—he shrugged and watched her gravely and said—"that restrained my hand, there at first. I didn't know what to do. And then I realized that I was in love with you. It happened just like that. One minute I just liked you. The next minute I knew that I . . ." He turned and seemed to look all around the cabin for a cigarette, found a package in his own pocket, drew it out and said: "The next minute I loved you. And you told me and you convinced me, Marcia, that you loved him, no matter what he was, and that you intended to marry him. So then I had to be so sure, you see, that he was a heel before I hurt you. And then . . ." He would not look at her now. His face was stern and white and tired. He said: "Then I knew beyond any doubt that he was trying to kill you. It was Michel Banet," he said, "who accidentally dropped the gauze bandages here in your cabin."
"But, Josh, it couldn't have been Mickey then, either. Gili and he were together the first time I saw the patient, or whoever it was. . . ."
"Marcia, Marcia!" He threw away the cigarette he had barely lighted. "Listen to me. Go back to that first night on deck. Go back to the moment when you sighted an American ship from the lifeboat, and knew he was American. Don't you see that you were Banet's danger? You knew who he actually was. He could never hide his identity so long as you were with him. And you were going straight to the United States where he was known. Castiogne's murder suggested the whole thing, perhaps. That with the fact that Banet knew that in the end you would insist upon telling the truth. Did you insist?"
"Yes, yes . . ." she whispered.
"I don't think," said Josh, "that in the beginning he even thought of trying to kill you; but I do think that he intended, when you got to South America simply to stay there. Certainly he never intended to come to the United States. And then, after all his careful plans—and it must have been rather a chore, as a matter of fact, to keep Gili quiet—but anyway, after all his careful planning, think how he must have felt when he was suddenly hauled aboard an American ship, due for the United States. And then you would not be persuaded. You said he had to tell them who he really was. You insisted. And Castiogne had been murdered. Banet reasoned that if you were murdered, too, they would only hunt the harder for whoever killed Castiogne. Yes, I think that put it into his mind."
"But it couldn't have been Mickey that first night on deck," she repeated. "He was unconscious. ..."
"Oh, was he?" said Josh, and shook his head. "I don't think so. I didn't think so then; I didn't think I'd hit him hard enough. This is what I think happened. Perhaps we'll never know, but"—he took her hand and doubled her fingers over, one at a time gently, as he talked—"I think that I did knock him out. Just for a minute or two. I think he came to, just about as you found him. He didn't know what had happened. He must have been genuinely puzzled. That, or there's somebody on board he expected to try to injure him. And in that case . . ." He paused for a moment, as if to explore some new but very tenuous and perplexing idea. Finally, he went on: "At any rate, he must have thought, here's an alibi. Unconsciousness. And there you were. I think he planned quickly to follow you, to get rid of you—over the railing, quickly—and then he found himself presumably unconscious, with a bruise on his face which would tend to prove his alibi. You would have disappeared, and both of these things would appear to be linked up with Castiogne's murder. And he would go free. I think he was always an opportunist, perhaps very luckily, and that's the reason why his attempts to murder you failed."
She must have made some motion to speak, for he went on quickly: "Let me finish. He picked himself up, if I'm right, as soon as you'd gone inside. Probably he thought of his little plan the minute you left him and regretted he hadn't thought of it sooner. He knew that you'd come back with people and that that chance, which had seemed in a flash, so good, was gone. But there was still a bare chance of getting you alone. I think he must have thought of the whole thing very quickly. You went inside the ship. Could he have followed you?"
She thought back to the confusion of gray passageways and her sense of bewildering strangeness to the ship. "I think I'd have known he was there. I think I'd have seen him."
"Are you sure? Couldn't he have entered the ship without your knowing it? Watched you from some passageway or corner, so he saw it when you went to the deck again, but on the port side? Are you sure he couldn't have done that?"
She thought back again to those swift and confused moments and said slowly: "He could have done that, I suppose. Yes."
"He must have done it. He could have watched even from the starboard door directly opposite, keeping himself out of sight. Then, when he saw you go out on the port side of the deck, he ran quickly around the stern. And you came that way as he hoped, and in the shadow it was easy. He had a sort of an alibi; you were alone. So there was his chance again and he tried to kill you and heard me coming."
"I can't believe it was Mickey," she whispered. But she did believe it.
Josh said: "Then he ran back to the starboard side to the spot where you'd left him—there to be found, later, still apparently unconscious. It wasn't actually an alibi for the time of the attack upon you, but it had all the effect of one. Both of you presumably were attacked at almost the same part of the ship and almost the same time. Anybody would conclude that it was the same person who did it, and certainly it would be linked with the murder of Castiogne. At least"—he released her hand and said, looking now into her eyes, "at least I can't figure it any other way. I think too that, on his way back to his cabin from the dispensary, he tried the door to your cabin, just tried it, just on the chance of your being alone, just on the chance of finding you there. I don't know. But he need not have returned to his cabin where Gili was waiting for him more than a minute or two before you and I reached it."