“Let us assume that you do,” said Alleyn with perfect good nature.
“Ah! You are afraid—”
“I am afraid that if you were told what has happened you would try to run the show, and I don’t choose to let you. What did you see from your deck-chair, Mr. Merryman?”
A faint, an ineffably complaisant smile played about Mr. Merryman’s lips. He closed his eyes.
“What did I see?” he ruminated, and as if they had joined the tips of their fingers and thumbs round the table, his listeners were involved in a current of heightened tension. Alleyn saw Aubyn Dale wet his lips. Cuddy yawned nervously and McAngus again hid his hands in his armpits. Captain Bannerman was glassy-eyed. Father Jourdain’s head was inclined as if to hear a confession. Only Tim Makepiece kept his eyes on Alleyn rather than on Mr. Merryman.
“What did I see?” Mr. Merryman repeated. He hummed a meditative air and looked slyly round the table and said loudly, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Nothing?”
“For a very good reason. I was sound asleep.”
He broke into a triumphant cackle of laughter. Alleyn nodded to Tim, who again went out.
McAngus, rather shockingly, joined in Mr. Merryman’s laughter. “The key witness!” he choked out, hugging himself. “The one who was to prove us all right or wrong. Fast asleep! What a farce!”
“It doesn’t affect you,” Dale pointed out. “He wouldn’t have seen you anyway. You’ve still got to account for yourself.”
“That’s right. That’s dead right,” Mr. Cuddy cried out.
“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn said, “when did you wake up and go to your room?”
“I have no idea.”
“Which way did you go?”
“The direct way. To the entrance on the starboard side
“Who was in the lounge at that time?”
“I didn’t look.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
“No.”
“May I just remind you of your position out there?”
Alleyn went to the double doors. He jerked the spring blinds and they flew up with a sharp rattle.
The lights were out on deck. In the glass doors only the reflexion of the room and of the occupants appeared — faint, hollow-eyed, and cadaverous as phantoms, their own faces stared back at them.
From a region of darkness there emerged, through these images, another. It moved towards the doors, gaining substance. Mrs. Dillington-Blick was outside. Her hands were pressed against the glass. She looked in.
Mr. Merryman screamed like a ferret in a trap.
His chair overturned. He was round the table before anyone could stop him. His hands scrabbled at the glass pane.
“No. No! Go away. Go away! Don’t speak. If you speak I’ll do it again. I’ll kill you if you speak.”
Alleyn held him. It was quite clear to everybody that Mr. Merryman’s hands, starving against the glass like fish in an aquarium, were ravenous for Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s throat.
CHAPTER 12
Cape Town
Cape Farewell steamed into Table Bay at dawn and hove to awaiting the arrival of her pilot cutter and the police launch from Cape Town. Like all ships coming in to port she had begun to withdraw into herself, conserving her personality against the assaults that would be made upon it. She had been prepared. Her derricks were uncovered, her decks broken by orderly litter. Her servants, at their appointed stations, were ready to support her.
Alleyn looked across neatly scalloped waters at the butt-end of a continent and thought how unlikely it was that he would ever take such another voyage. At Captain Bannerman’s invitation, he was on the bridge. Down on the dismantled boat-deck eight of the nine passengers were already assembled. They wore their shore-going clothes because Cape Farewell was to be at anchor for two days. Their deck-chairs had been stowed away, the hatch was uncovered and there was no-where for them to sit. Sea-gulls, always a little too true to type, squawked and dived, squabbled and swooped about the bilgewater of which Cape Farewell blandly relieved herself.
Two black accents appeared distantly on the surface of the Bay.
“There we are,” Captain Bannerman said, handing Alleyn his binoculars.
Alleyn said, “If you don’t mind I’m going to ask for the passengers to be sent to their sitting-room.”
“Do you expect any trouble?”
“None.”
“He won’t—” Captain Bannerman began and hesitated. “You don’t reckon he’ll cut up rough?”
“He is longing,” Alleyn said, “to be taken away.”
“Bloody monster,” the captain muttered uneasily. He took a turn round the bridge, and came back to Alleyn.
“There’s something I ought to say to you,” he said. “It doesn’t come easy and for that reason, I suppose, I haven’t managed to get it out. But it’s got to be said. I’m responsible for that boy’s death. I know. I should have let you act like you wanted.”
“I might just as easily have been wrong.”
“Ah! But you weren’t, and there’s the trouble.” The captain fixed his gaze on the approaching black accents. “Whisky,” he said, “affects different men in different ways. Some it makes affable, some it makes glum. Me, it makes pigheaded. When I’m on the whisky I can’t stomach any man’s notions but my own. How do you reckon we’d better handle this job?”
“Could we get it over before the pilot comes on board? My colleague from the Yard has flown here and will be with the Cape police. They’ll take charge for the time being.”
“I’ll have a signal sent.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alleyn said and went below.
A seaman was on guard outside the little hospital. When he saw Alleyn he unlocked the door and Alleyn went in.
Sitting on the unmade-up bed with its sharp mattress and smartly folded blankets, Mr. Merryman had adopted an attitude quite unlike the one to which his fellow passengers had become accustomed. His spine curved forward and his head depended from it as if his whole structure had wilted. Only the hands, firmly padded and sinewed, clasped between the knees, retained their eloquence. When Alleyn came in, Mr. Merryman looked up at him over the tops of his spectacles but said nothing.
“The police launch,” Alleyn said, “is sighted. I’ve come to tell you that I have packed your cases and will have the things you need sent with you. I shall not be coming in the launch but will see you later today. You will be given every opportunity to take legal advice in Cape Town or to cable instructions to your solicitors. You will return to England as soon as transport is available, probably by air. If you have changed your mind and wish to make a statement—”
Alleyn stopped. The lips had moved. After a moment, the voice, remotely tinged with arrogance, said, “…not in the habit of rescinding decisions — tedium of repetition. No.”
“Very well.”
He turned to go and was arrested by the voice.
“—a few observations. Now. No witnesses and without prejudice. Now.”
Alleyn said, “I must warn you, the absence of witnesses doesn’t mean that what you may tell me will not be given in evidence. It may be given in evidence. You understand that,” he added, as Mr. Merryman raised his head and stared blankly at him, “don’t you?” He took out his notebook and opened it. “You see, I shall write down anything that you say.”
Mr. Merryman said with a vigour that a moment ago would have seemed impossible, “Esmeralda. Ruby. Beryl. Bijou. Coralie. Marguerite.”