Presently he got up, and looked out of his porthole. They were taking a lovely farewell of Cape Town; Table Mountain especially, square-cut like an immense grey monolith, tipped with gold at its peaks, had a matchless splendour which seemed to grow more noble as it receded. Carl stayed where he was at the open porthole for a long time, while the Alcestis steamed southwards at mounting speed, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and dipped her bows for the first time into the warm Indian Ocean. Then he dressed, and set out on the prowl.
Even in his anger, he had sense enough to realize that he was looking for victims, as the Captain had made him a victim, a few hours earlier. He felt that he had never been angrier, with any man or any situation: a few weeks ago the whole thing had been under control, they had been swimming along to victory, they would land at New York with a wonderful tan and a hundred thousand dollars; now, if the Captain could be believed—and he was a man to be believed, in this area—they would be lucky if they landed at New York at all.
It was not that the Captain was a match for him—Carl would never admit that. But it was true that Harmer could manipulate the rules to suit himself, and no one else; at sea, in command of his ship, he had the same power and the same limitless discretion as ship's captains had held for five hundred years; history might blame or exonerate them, but in the meantime, "Go!" meant go and "Stop!" meant stop.
It was something which Carl Wenstrom had never met before. It stood in his way. It must be someone else's fault.
Kathy was asleep—or at least, her cabin door was locked, and she did not answer when he knocked. He would deal with Kathy— strange Kathy, unpredictable Kathy, perhaps retreating Kathy—later on, in his own good time. . . . The next door he knocked on was Diane's, and Diane was in.
Indeed, she was in bed, enjoying a light breakfast of fresh sliced peaches, devilled kidneys, and fingers of anchovy toast, when Carl made his entrance. He waited while her stewardess added a touch of cream to her coffee, patted the pillows behind her head, and withdrew, before he asked:
"Sure you're doing all right?"
Diane, who had her own instinct for moments of drama and violence, looked at him warily and said:
"What's the matter, Carl?"
"You know damn' well what's the matter!" He was finding it easy—fatally so—to switch on anger as soon as an appropriate target showed itself. "While you're lying around like the Queen of Sheba, I'm doing all the work and carrying all the weight! Did you know that Louis has taken off into the woods somewhere? Did you know that the Professor practically gets his name printed in the ship's newspaper, among our more prominent drunks? Did you know that the Captain is going to put us all ashore at the next stop, unless we behave ourselves?"
"Gee, Carl," said Diane, alarmed. "I didn't know any of that."
"Well, you know now!" (Now who had said that before? The same damned man. . . .) "A lot of it is your fault, you stupid little bitch!" The words came easier as his early morning anger found its chance targets, the things he was prowling for; the words were not even the words he would normally have used, they were more like Diane herself losing her temper, like Louis doing some cheap show-off act. .. . "In fact, a hell of a lot of it is your fault. You started the Captain making all these inquiries, adding it all up. Good Christ, if I'd known you were going to send half the ship to the doctor's office, do you think I would have brought you along? I could get more mileage out of a plastic doll!"
"Now, see here, Carl!" Diane sat up with a jerk, spilling a good deal of expensive food in the process. She had never heard Carl talk like this before, and it emboldened her to answer back, in the same crude idiom. "If you're talking about mileage, you haven't done so badly out of me! What have you had from Kathy, I'd like to know? Precisely nothing! You want to work off a hangover, go and do it on her. I was doing all right until one of those cheap bastards—oh, for God's sake!" she finished suddenly. "Give it a rest, will you?"
"Leave Kathy out of this!" Carl said, menacingly.
"Why not?" she shrugged. "Everyone else does. Except maybe that sailor."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Write your own novel," said Diane, with a sneer. "What do you think they were doing all day in the woods?—twiddling their thumbs?"
"What the hell does a cheap tramp like you know about it?"
If he was thus harsh and crude with Diane—and there was more of it, much more, before he had finished—he was positively murderous with the Professor. He found him, as usual, lying down in his cabin, half-stripped to his meagre skin against the Indian Ocean heat; even as he went into action, he despised himself for hammering away at this poor old ruin of a man. But it did not stop him. Today, nothing was going to stop him.
"Get up!" he commanded immediately as he stepped into the cabin. "What the hell do you think you're doing, lying around half naked! If you've got nothing better to do, put on some of those early Victorian rags and take a walk around the deck. You might just sweat out some of the alcohol!"
"What—what's this?" said the Professor, struggling to sit up. This was the second time in as many days that Carl had stormed in and abused him; his nerves were already ragged, and his exhausted body shaking at the very first contact. "I've just woken up!" Sitting up, clutching his ridiculous flannel pyjamas across his chest, he said waveringly: "Carl, I meant to ask you. ... I did exactly as you said, I had nothing to drink yesterday. . . . But a man of my age needs the occasional stimulus—"
"The occasional skin-full, you mean," answered Carl derisively. He leant back against the door, a strong tough man scornful of all the old and the trembling. "I have news for you, Professor. Those days are over. Let me tell you, you're not going to have another ounce of Scotch till we get to New York. And damned little then, by God!"
"But Carl, I need it," wailed the Professor. And indeed, he did need it, at that very moment; the hand that brushed across his flaky lips was visibly shaking. "A man of my age. . . . It's not my fault if I went into the wrong cabin. It could happen to anyone! And I honestly thought that the watch was mine. I thought—"
"Watch?" asked Carl sharply. He glared down at the Professor. "What watch? What are you drivelling about?"
"The watch I picked up," said the Professor, suddenly in fear. "It was very like mine, and—"
" You bloody old fool!" Carl's voice, low-pitched, had an extreme menace in it. "What's this about a watch? Did you take a watch? Did they catch you stealing?"
"But I thought you knew." The Professor was almost hiding his face in his hands. "You said yesterday—the Captain told you—"
"The Captain told me you were found wandering about in the wrong cabin," said Carl. With a huge effort, he stopped himself walking forward to chop the old man into the ground. "He said nothing at all about a watch.Did you take a watch? Was it you who started this whole thing?"
"But I was taking it for you, Carl." Caught in abject guilt, he might have been a dog offering a retrieved stick. "Not for myself! They were saying I never earned any money. . . . So I . . . But it was for you! I swear it! Oh God, Carl—" he whispered, as Carl came forward with his fist raised, "it was for you."
"I hit him," said Carl to Kathy, half an hour later. "I hit him hard. I had to. Christ, do you realize this is all his fault? He was caught trying to steal a watch! That must have been when it all started."