“Yes,” Dale said. “Yes, it was. I watched you. I don’t remember much else except — my God, yes!”
“What have you remembered?”
Dale had been staring at his hand clasped before him on the table. He now raised his head. Mr. McAngus sat opposite him. They seemed to be moved by some common resentment.
“Go on,” Alleyn said.
“It was when I’d gone round the passengers’ block to the port side. I wanted a drink damn badly, and I wanted to be by myself. I’d got as far as the entrance into the passage and waited for a bit to make sure nobody was about. Ruby — Mrs. Dillington-Blick — was in her cabin. I could hear her slapping her face. I wondered if I’d tell her and then — then I smelt it.”
“Smelt what?”
Dale pointed at Mr. McAngus. “That. One of those filthy things he smokes. It was quite close.”
Mr. McAngus said, “I have already stated that I waited for a little on deck before I went to my cabin. I have said so.”
“Yes. But where? Where were you? I couldn’t see you and yet you must have been quite close. I actually saw the smoke.”
“Well, Mr. McAngus?” Alleyn asked.
“I — don’t exactly remember where I stood. Why should I?” He ground out his cigarette. A little malodorous spiral rose from the butt.
Dale said excitedly, “But the deck’s open and there was the light from her porthole. Why couldn’t I see him!”
“The door giving on the passage opens back on the outside bulkhead,” Alleyn said. “Close to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s porthole. Were you standing behind that door, Mr. McAngus?”
“Hiding behind it, more like,” Mr. Cuddy eagerly exclaimed.
“Well, Mr. McAngus?”
The long indeterminate face under the dyed hair was unevenly pallid. “I admit nothing,” said Mr. McAngus. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you think he might have been there, Mr. Dale?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. You see, I thought he must be in the passage and I waited and then I thought: “I’ve had this!’ And I looked and there was nobody there. So I went straight in. My door’s just on the left. I had a Scotch neat and I daresay it was a snorter. Then I had another. I was all anyhow. My nerves are shot to pieces. I’ve had a breakdown. I’m supposed,” Dale said in a trembling voice, “to be on a rest cure. This has set me all back to hell.”
“Mr. McAngus, did you hear Mr. Cuddy when he came and told us of his discovery? He was hysterical and made a great noise. Did you hear him?”
Mr. McAngus said, “I heard something. It didn’t matter.”
“Didn’t matter?”
“I knew where she was.”
“Mrs. Dillington-Blick?”
“I cannot answer you, sir.”
“You have yourself told us that you left this room by the deck doors, walked round the centrecastle block and then waited for some time on the port side. Do you stick to that statement?”
Mr. McAngus, holding to the edge of the table as if for support, did not take his eyes off Alleyn. He had compressed his mouth so ruthlessly that drops of saliva oozed out of the coners. He inclined his head slightly.
“Very well then—”
“No! No, no!” Mr. McAngus suddenly shouted. “I refuse! What I have done, I have done under compulsion. I cannot discuss it. Never!”
“In that case,” Alleyn said, “we have reached an impasse. Dr. Makepiece, will you be so kind as to ask Mr. Merryman if he will join us?”
Mr. Merryman could be heard coming down the passage. His sharp voice was raised to its familiar pitch of indignation.
“I should have been informed of this,” he was saying, “at once. Immediately. I demand an explanation. Who did you say the man is?”
An indistinguishable murmur from Tim.
“Indeed? Indeed! Then he has no doubt enjoyed the salutary experience popularly assigned to eavesdroppers. This is an opportunity,” the voice continued as its owner drew nearer, “that I have long wished for. If I had been consulted at the outset, the typical, the all-too-familiar pattern of official ineptitude might have — nay, would have been anticipated. But, of course, that was too much to hope for. I—”
The door was opened by Tim, who came in, pulled an eloquent grimace at Alleyn and stood aside.
Mr. Merryman made a not ineffective entrance. He was girded into his dressing-gown. His cockscomb was erect and his eyes glittered with the light of battle. He surveyed the party round the table with a Napoleonic eye.
Captain Bannerman half rose and said, “Come in, Mr. Merryman. Hope you’re feeling well enough to join us. Take a chair.” He indicated the only vacant chair, which faced the glass doors leading to the deck. Mr. Merryman made a slight acknowledgment but no move. He was glaring at Alleyn. “I daresay,” the captain went on, “that it’s in order, under the circumtances, for me to make an introduction. This gentleman is in charge of the meeting. Superintendent A’leen.”
“The name,” Mr. Merryman said at once, “is Alleyn. Alleyn, my good sir. Al-lane is permissible. A’leen, never. It is, presumably, too much to expect that you should have so much as heard of the founder of Dulwich College, an Elizabethan actor who was unsurpassed in his day, Edward Alleyn. Or, less acceptably in my poor opinion, Allane. Good evening, sir,” Mr. Merryman concluded, nodding angrily at Alleyn.
“Over to you,” the captain muttered woodenly, “Mr. Allan.”
“No!” Mr. Merryman objected on a rising inflexion.
“It’s of no consequence,” Alleyn hastily intervened. “Will you sit down, Mr. Merryman?”
“Why not?” Mr. Merryman said and did so.
“I believe,” Alleyn went on, “that Dr. Makepiece has told you what has happened.”
“I have been informed in the baldest manner conceivable that a felony has been committed. I assume that I am about to be introduced to the insupportable longueurs of a police investigation
“I’m afraid so,” Alleyn said cheerfully.
“Then perhaps you will be good enough to advise me of the nature of the crime and the circumstances under which it was committed and discovered. Unless, of course,” Mr. Merryman added, throwing back his head and glaring at Alleyn from under his spectacles, “you regard me as a suspect, in which case you will no doubt attempt some elephantine piece of finesse. Do you, in fact, regard me as a suspect?”
“Yes,” Alleyn said coolly. “Together with sundry others. I do. Why not?”
“Upon my word!” he said after a pause. “It does not astonish me. And pray what am I supposed to have done? And to whom? And where? Enlighten me, I beg you.”
“You are supposed at this juncture to answer questions, and not to ask them. You will be good enough not to be troublesome, Mr. Merryman. No,” Alleyn said as Mr. Merryman opened his mouth, “I really can’t do with any more tantrums. This case is in the hands of the police. I am a policeman. Whatever you may think of the procedure, you’ve no choice but to put up with it. And we’ll all get along a great deal faster if you can contrive to do so gracefully. Behave yourself, Mr. Merryman.”
Mr. Merryman put on an expression of mild astonishment. He appeared to take thought. He folded his arms, flung himself back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Very well,” he said. “Let us plumb the depths. Continue.”
Alleyn did so. Without giving any indication whatever of the nature or locale of the crime, an omission which at once appeared to throw Mr. Merryman into an extremity of annoyance, he merely asked for an account in detail of anything Mr. Merryman might have seen from his vantage point in the deck-chair, facing the hatch.
“May I ask,” Mr. Merryman said, still looking superciliously at the ceiling, “why you adopt this insufferable attitude? Why you elect to withold the nature of your little problem? Do I detect a note of professional jealousy?”