It was very quiet. No one moved; for a second or two it was as if no one breathed; as if the word itself had a paralyzing effect. But that, thought Marcia strangely, finally, was the thing they had left behind. Murder and more murder. Violence, terror and betrayal; bombs and guns and knives and torture. Her hands were digging into the red arms of her chair. The young Major over by the door moved suddenly, got out a package of cigarettes, glanced at the Captain and shoved it back into his pocket. Mickey was staring silently again at the carpet, his hands knotted behind him. Mickey who had seen so much of the blood and horror of Nazism.
"But I don't understand ..." A small blurred memory of the night returned to her. She cried: "He was rowing! He was directing everybody. And a dead man floated past and he— Alfred Castiogne—looked at him. I saw it. He lifted the body from the water."
"When was that?"
"I don't know." It was confused, horrible, all of it. She looked at Mickey for confirmation and Mickey was trying to tell her something. She could see it in the look he gave her; but what was it?
The Captain insisted. "When did that happen, Miss Colfax? Try to remember."
"I don't know. I can't possibly say. But Castiogne was alive then."
"You say you saw him lift the dead man from the water. It must have been light enough to see objects and movement. It must have been nearly dawn."
She nodded, still aware that Mickey was trying to communicate some message without words, without motion, with only that steady yet somehow warning look in his clear gray eyes. She replied to Captain Svendsen: "Why, yes. Yes, I suppose so. I can't remember much of it."
"When did Castiogne collapse, then? How much later?"
She tore her gaze from Mickey's urgent look and met the Captain's intent, shrewd eyes. "I don't know exactly. I believe that I noticed that he had collapsed about the time we sent up rockets."
The Captain turned to Mickey. "Is that as you remember it?"
Mickey shrugged. "It's as I told you. I remember thinking that he'd collapsed and somebody tried to revive him, one of the other seamen, I think. It was about the time we sighted your ship. But everything was very confused."
The Captain looked again at Marcia.
"Miss Colfax, let me put a frank and point-blank question. It will save time and trouble for everybody if you'll answer it frankly. Is there anything at all that you know or saw in that lifeboat which might have something to do with the murder of this man? Take your time. Try to remember."
But there was nothing; she shook her head.
"Everything was terribly confused. Time didn't mean anything. People moved about; we had to. But the only thing we thought of was the storm and the waves, and keeping the boat from being swamped. I cannot believe that he was murdered. . . ."
Captain Svendsen interrupted. "Miss Colfax, I want you to tell me everything you can remember of the lifeboat; everything that happened. . . . Don't be in a hurry; take your time. Start with abandoning the ship. Who put you in the lifeboat? Who sat beside you? Who in front of you? What was said and done? Who saw the Magnolia first? Everything."
"I didn't know Castiogne was dead. I didn't see anything. . . ."
Captain Svendsen sighed; he had a deadly patience; it angered him to be obliged to draw upon it, but he never quibbled with necessity. He began: "Who sat nearest you?"
His patience, though, had few results, beyond the small details Marcia remembered from the night. Replying to his questions, she told how they had left the Lerida; how they had rowed and bailed and hung onto life; the way they had huddled in the boat. She had sat for the most part beside Mrs. Cates; but there had been moving about, change as the men changed places.
"After you sighted us?"
She thought back as one tries to pierce the convolutions of a long and shifting dream. "Yes. We hunted for rockets. Everybody seemed to shift and move about."
"Castiogne, too?"
"I don't remember."
"But it was after that that he collapsed?"
She corrected him: "It was after that that I saw he had collapsed. One of the seamen tried to help him."
"Which one?"
"I don't know their names. He was short and thick."
"Go on."
Go on? Well, what had happened then? They had sent up rockets. They had rowed and watched the waves and rowed and looked when they could, when they dared, when there was no curling black wave rising between, for the red glow that was the Magnolia. Somebody—Mrs. Cates, she thought —had said it was a hospital ship. She remembered being carried upward, aboard the Magnolia and the wild rocking of the lifeboat. That was all.
Again the sounds of the ship, the small sighs and creaks, the rush of distant water, the ticking of a clock on the long, solid table were the only sounds in the cabin. Mickey did not move; his eyes, as clear and gray as the sea, looked straight ahead. The young Major stood by the door, his face without expression, an unlighted cigarette now in his hand.
The Captain watched her thoughtfully. Finally he leaned back in his chair. "Your name is Marcia Colfax. Right? You claim to be a United States citizen?"
"I am an American citizen. My passport . . ."
"I have here." He pulled open the deep drawer of the table beside him and then, as if he did not after all require to refresh his memory, closed it again. "You came to Lisbon from where?"
"From Marseilles."
Captain Svendsen reached for a pipe which lay on an ash tray near him and began to fill it carefully, his great pink hand looking extraordinarily powerful. "How long had you been in Marseilles?"
"Since the first summer of the war." The Captain's thick, queerly bleached eyebrows seemed to await further explanation. He pushed and packed the tobacco in his pipe. Impelled by that waiting, Marcia went on, again giving the bare facts. "I had gone from New York to France, to Paris, the summer the war began. I stayed on in Paris that winter. Then when the Germans occupied Paris I went to the South of France. To a villa outside Marseilles, as a matter of fact."
"You were there all that time?"
"Yes. Until about three weeks ago when I went to Lisbon." He had filled the pipe now and was lighting it; he shot a shrewd glance at her over the small flame. "Where is your present home in the United States?"
She thought of home. It was a swift, flashing picture of the big old house with the wisteria and maples and sunshine across the hills beyond—a picture that had haunted her through those grim and troubled years. She thought of the pleasant, high apartment overlooking the park. She said: "Maryland and New York City."
"Why didn't you go directly to the United States? Why did you set out for Buenos Aires?"
"Because we could get passage to Buenos Aires; it would have meant waiting to get directly to the United States."
"We?" said Captain Svendsen. "You mean yourself and Mr. Messac?"
Mickey said suddenly: "I've told you all this, Captain. We were going home to be married. . . ."
Without replying, the Captain turned toward the table, wrote quickly on a memorandum pad, tore off the paper and held it toward Major Williams. "Thank you, Mr. Messac. I'll not require your further presence," said the Captain as the young Major took the paper, read the scribbled note briefly and turned toward the door. "Oh, Major, take Mr. Messac to the officers' lounge, if you please. Or his own quarters, if he prefers it."
"Yes, sir." Major Williams paused, eyes on Mickey. Mickey, looking white again and strained, said: "But I'd like to stay, Captain, I'll not interfere. . . ."
"Please remain here. Miss Colfax." The Captain nodded abruptly toward Major Williams, who waited for Mickey. "Very well," said Mickey. He stopped beside Marcia. "Don't let them upset you, Marcia. Castiogne was nothing to you and me. I promise you, darling, as sure as my name is Andre Messac that all our trouble is in the past. Forever." He smiled, but his eyes were very clear and gray and intent. So she saw then what he'd been trying to tell her. She ought to have realized it when she first heard them address him as Mr. Messac.