Singing in the Shrouds Read online

  ‘The circuit’s gone,’ a voice near the projector said and another added: ‘That’s the story. Hold everything.’ One of the figures disentangled itself and hurried away.

  ‘ “Put out the light”,’ a junior officer quoted derisively, ‘ “and then put out the light”.’ There was a little gust of laughter. Mrs Cuddy in the middle of the third row, tittered: ‘He stifles her, doesn’t he, dear? Same thing again! We don’t seem to be able to get away from it, do we?’

  Miss Abbott said furiously: ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’

  Alleyn had reached the edge of the hatch. He stood there, watching the backs of the passengers’ chairs, now clearly discernible. Immediately in front of him were Tim and Jemima, their hands enlaced, leaning a little towards each other. Jemima was saying: ‘I don’t want to pull it to pieces yet. After all there are the words.’

  A figure rose up from the chair in the middle of the row. It was Mr Merryman.

  ‘I’m off,’ he announced.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Merryman?’ Jemima asked.

  ‘I am nauseated,’ Mr Merryman rejoined, ‘but not for the reason you suppose. I can stomach no more of this. Pray excuse me.’

  He edged past them and past Father Jourdain, moved round the end of the row and thus approached Alleyn.

  ‘Had enough?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘A bellyful, thank you.’

  He sat on the edge of the hatch, his back ostentatiously presented to the invisible screen. He was breathing hard. His hand which had brushed against Alleyn’s was hot and dry.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve still got a touch of your bug, whatever it is,’ Alleyn said. ‘Why don’t you turn in?’

  But Mr Merryman was implacable. ‘I do not believe,’ he said, ‘in subjecting myself to the tyranny of indisposition. I do not, like our Scottish acquaintance, surrender to hypochondriacal speculations. On the contrary, I fight back. Besides,’ he added, ‘in this Stygian gloom, where is the escape? There is none. J’y suis, et j’y reste.’

  And so in fact he remained. The fuse was repaired, the film drew to its close. An anonymous choir roared its anguish and, without benefit of authorship, ended the play. The lights went up and the passengers moved to the lounge for supper. Mr Merryman alone remained outside, seated in a deck-chair by the open doors and refusing sustenance.

  Alleyn, and indeed all of them, were to remember that little gathering very vividly: Mrs Dillington-Blick had recovered her usual form and was brilliant. Dressed in black lace, though not that of her Spanish dress, and wreathed in the effulgence of an expensive scent that had by now acquired the authority of a signature tune, she held her customary court. She discussed the film: it had, she said, really upset her. ‘My dear! That ominous man! Terrifying! But all the same—there’s something. One could quite see why she married him.’

  ‘I thought it disgusting,’ Mrs Cuddy said. ‘A black man. She deserved all she got.’

  Mrs Dillington-Blick laughed. She and Aubyn Dale, Alleyn noticed, kept catching each other’s eye and quickly looking away again. Neither Mr Cuddy nor Mr McAngus could remove their gaze from her. The Captain hung over her: even Miss Abbott watched her with a kind of brooding appreciation while Mrs Cuddy resentfully stared and stared. Only Jemima and Tim, bent on their common voyage of discovery, were unmindful of Mrs Dillington-Blick.

  Presently she yawned, and she even managed to yawn quite fetchingly.

  ‘I’m for my little bed,’ she announced.

  ‘Not even a stroll around the deck?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘I don’t think so, really.’

  ‘Or a cigarette on the verandah?’ Dale suggested loudly.

  ‘I might.’

  She laughed and walked over to the open doors. Mr Merryman struggled up from his deck-chair. She wished him goodnight, looked back into the lounge and smiled intimately and brilliantly at Mr McAngus. ‘Goodnight,’ she repeated softly and went out on the deserted deck.

  Father Jourdain caught his breath. ‘All right,’ Alleyn muttered. ‘You carry on, here.’

  Tim glanced at Alleyn and nodded. The Captain had been buttonholed by Mr McAngus and looked restive. Jemima was talking to Mr Merryman who half-rose, bestowed on her an old-fashioned bow and sank groggily back into his chair. Aubyn Dale was drinking and Mr Cuddy was in the grasp of his wife who now removed him.

  Alleyn said: ‘Goodnight, everybody.’ He followed the Cuddys into the passageway, turned left and went to the deck by the port-side door. He was just in time to see Mrs Dillington-Blick disappear round the verandah corner of the engine house. Before he could reach it she returned, paused for a second when she saw him, and then swam gaily towards him.

  ‘Just one gulp of fresh air,’ she said rather breathlessly. She slipped her arm through his and quite deliberately leant against him.

  ‘Help me negotiate that frightful ladder, will you? I want to go down to the lower deck.’

  He glanced back at the lounge. There they all were, lit up like a distant peep show.

  ‘Why the lower deck?’

  ‘I don’t know. A whim.’ She giggled. ‘Nobody will find me for one thing.’

  The companion ladder was close to where they stood. She led him towards it, turned and gave him her hands.

  ‘I’ll go backwards. You follow.’

  He was obliged to do so. When they reached the promenade deck she took his arm again.

  ‘Let’s see if there are ghost fires tonight.’

  She looked over the side still holding him.

  Alleyn said: ‘You’re much too dangerous a person for me, you know.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I do indeed. Right out of my class. I’m a dull dog.’

  ‘I don’t find you so.’

  ‘How enchanting of you,’ Alleyn said. ‘I must tell my wife. That’ll larn her.’

  ‘Is she very attractive?’

  Suddenly, in place of the plushy, the abundant, the superbly tended charms now set before him, Alleyn saw his wife’s head with its clearly defined planes, its delicate bone and short not very tidy hair.

  He said: ‘I must leave you, I’m afraid. I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Work? What sort of work, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Business letters. Reports.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. In mid-ocean!’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Look! There are ghost fires.’

  ‘And I don’t think you’d better stay down here by yourself. Come along. I’ll see you to your cabin.’

  He put his hand over hers. ‘Come along,’ he repeated. She stared at him, her lips parted.

  ‘All right!’ she agreed suddenly. ‘Let’s.’

  They returned by the inside stairway and he took her to her door.

  ‘You’re rather nice,’ she whispered.

  ‘Lock your door, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, good heavens!’ said Mrs Dillington-Blick and bounced into her cabin. He heard her shoot her bolt and he returned quickly to the lounge.

  Only Father Jourdain, Tim and Captain Bannerman were there. Miss Abbott came in by the double doors as Alleyn arrived. Tim furtively signalled ‘thumbs up’, and Father Jourdain said: ‘Everybody seems to be going to bed early tonight.’

  ‘It’s not all that early,’ Captain Bannerman rejoined, staring resentfully at Miss Abbott.

  She stopped dead in the middle of the room and with her eyes downcast seemed to take in the measure of her own unwantedness.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said grudgingly and went out.

  Father Jourdain followed her to the landing. ‘By the way,’ Alleyn heard him say, ‘I got that word in the Ximenes. It’s “holocaust”.’

  ‘How brilliant!’ she said. ‘That should be a great help.’

  ‘I think so. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Father Jourdain came back: ‘ “Safely stowed”,’ he quoted and smiled at Alleyn.

  Alleyn asked sharply, ‘Where’s everybody
else?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Tim rejoined. ‘The women are all in their cabins: at least I suppose you’ve accounted for the D-B, haven’t you?’

  ‘And the men?’

  ‘Does it matter? Cuddy went off with his wife and McAngus, very properly, by himself. Merryman toddled off some time after that.’

  ‘And Dale?’

  ‘He left after the Cuddys,’ Tim said.

  ‘I think,’ Father Jourdain observed, ‘that someone must have gone out on deck?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Only because I thought I heard someone singing.’ His voice faded and his face blanched. ‘But there’s nothing in that!’ Father Jourdain ejaculated. ‘We can’t panic every time somebody sings.’

  ‘I can!’ Alleyn said grimly.

  ‘With the women all in their cabins? Why?’

  Captain Bannerman interjected, loudly scoffing: ‘You may well ask why! Because Mr Ah-leen’s got a bee in his bonnet. That’s why!’

  ‘What had McAngus got to say to you?’ Alleyn asked him.

  The Captain glowered at him. ‘He reckons someone’s been interfering with his hyacinths.’

  ‘Interfering?’

  ‘Pinching them.’

  ‘Damnation!’ Alleyn said and turned to go out.

  Before he could do so, however, he was arrested by the sound of thudding feet.

  It came from the deck outside and was accompanied by tortuous breathing. For a moment the brilliant square cast by the light in the lounge was empty. Then into it ran an outlandish figure, half-naked, wet, ugly, gasping.

  It was Cuddy. When he saw Alleyn he fetched up short, grinning abominably. Water ran from his hair into his open mouth.

  ‘Well?’ Alleyn demanded. ‘What is it?’

  Cuddy gestured meaninglessly. His arm quivered like a branch. ‘What is it? Speak up! Quickly.’

  Cuddy lunged forward. His wet hands closed like clamps on Alleyn’s arms.

  ‘Mrs Dillington-Blick,’ he stuttered and the syllables dribbled out with the water from his mouth. He nodded two or three times, came close to Alleyn and then threw back his head and broke into sobbing laughter.

  ‘The verandah?’

  ‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’ the Captain shouted.

  Cuddy nodded and nodded.

  Alleyn said: ‘Captain Bannerman, will you come with me, if you please? And Dr Makepiece.’ He struck up Cuddy’s wet arms and thrust him aside. He started off down the deck with them both at his heels.

  They had gone only a few paces when a fresh rumpus broke out

  behind them. Cuddy’s hysterical laughter had mounted to a scream.

  Father Jourdain shouted: ‘Doctor Makepiece! Come back!’

  There was a soft thud and silence.

  Captain Bannerman said: ‘Wait a bit. He’s fainted.’

  ‘Let him faint.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘All right. All right:’

  He strode on down the deck. There was a light in the deckhead over the verandah. Alleyn switched it on.

  The Spanish dress was spread out wide, falling in black cascades on both sides of the chaise-longue. Its wearer lay back, luxuriously, each gloved hand trailing on the deck. The head was impossibly twisted over the left shoulder. The face was covered down to the tip of the nose by part of the mantilla which had been dragged down like a blind. The exposed area was livid and patched almost to the colour of the mole at the corner of the mouth. The tongue protruded, the plump throat already was discoloured. Artificial pearls from a broken necklace lay scattered across the décolletage into which had been thrust a white hyacinth.

  ‘All right,’ Alleyn said without turning. ‘It’s too late, of course, but you’d better see if there’s anything you can do.’

  Tim had come up with Captain Bannerman behind him. Alleyn stood aside. ‘Only Dr Makepiece please,’ he said. ‘I want as little traffic as possible.’

  Tim stooped over the body.

  In a moment he had straightened up.

  ‘But, look here!’ he said. ‘It’s not—it’s—it’s—’

  ‘Exactly. But our immediate concern is with the chances of recovery. Are there any?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Very well. Now, this is what we do—’

  IV

  Captain Bannerman and Tim Makepiece stood side-by-side exactly where Alleyn had placed them. The light in the deckhead shone down on the area round the chaise-longue. It was dappled with irregular wet patches most of which had been made by large naked feet. Alleyn found that they were overlaid by his own prints and Tim’s and by others which he examined closely.

  ‘Espadrilles,’ he said, ‘size nine.’

  The wearer had approached the chaise-longue, stood beside it, turned and made off round the starboard side.

  ‘Running,’ Alleyn said, following the damp prints. ‘Running along the deck, then stopping as he got into the light, then turning and stopping by the hatch and then carrying on round the centre-castle to the port side. Not much doubt about that one.’

  He turned back towards the verandah, pausing by a tall locker near its starboard corner. He shone his torch behind this. ‘Cigarette ash and a butt.’

  He collected the butt and found it was monogrammed and Turkish.

  ‘How corny can you get?’ he muttered, showing it to Tim, and returned to the verandah from where he pursued the trace of the wet naked feet. Their owner had come to the port side companion-ladder from the lower deck and the swimming-pool. On the fifth step from the top there was a large wet patch.

  He returned to Captain Bannerman.

  ‘In this atmosphere,’ he said, ‘I can’t afford to wait. I’m going to take photographs. After that we’ll have to seal off the verandah. I suggest, sir, that you give orders to that effect.’

  Captain Bannerman stood louring at him. ‘This sort of thing,’ he said at last, ‘couldn’t have been anticipated. It’s against common sense.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Alleyn rejoined, ‘it’s precisely what was to be expected.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Aftermath

  The passengers sat at one end of the lounge behind shut doors and drawn blinds. Out of force of habit each had gone to his or her accustomed place and the scene thus was giving a distorted semblance of normality. Only Mr Merryman was absent. And, of course, Mrs Dillington-Blick.

  Alleyn himself had visited the unattached men in their cabins. Mr Merryman had been peacefully and very soundly asleep, his face blank and rosy, his lips parted and his hair ruffled in a cockscomb. Alleyn decided for the moment to leave him undisturbed. Shutting the door quietly, he crossed the passage. Mr McAngus in vivid pyjamas had been doing something with a small brush to his hair which was parted in the middle and hung in dark elf locks over his ears. He had hastily slammed down the lid of an open box on his dressing-table and turned his back on it. Aubyn Dale, fully dressed, was in his sitting-room. He had a drink in his hand and apparently he had been standing close to his door which was not quite shut. His manner was extraordinary: at once defiant, terrified and expectant. It was obvious also that he was extremely drunk. Alleyn looked at him for a moment and then said:

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘I? Have a drink, dear boy? No? What d’you mean, up to?’ He swallowed the remains of his drink and poured out another.

  ‘Where have you been since you left the lounge?’

  ‘What the devil’s that got to do with you?’ He lurched towards Alleyn and peered into his face. ‘Who the bloody hell,’ he asked indistinctly, ‘do you think you are?’

  Alleyn took him in the regulation grip: ‘Come along,’ he said, ‘and find out.’

  He marched Dale into the lounge and deposited him in the nearest chair.

  Tim Makepiece had fetched Jemima and Mrs Cuddy. Mr Cuddy, recovered from his faint, had been allowed to change into pyjamas and dressing-gown and looked ghastly.
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br />   Captain Bannerman, louring and on the defensive, stood beside Alleyn.

  He said: ‘Something’s happened tonight that I never thought to see in my ship and a course of action has to be set to deal with it.’

  He jerked his head at Alleyn. ‘This gentleman will give the details. He’s a Scotland Yard man and his name’s A’leen not Broderick and he’s got my authority to proceed.’

  Nobody questioned or exclaimed at this announcement. It was merely accorded a general look of worried bewilderment. The Captain nodded morosely at Alleyn and then sat down and folded his arms.

  Alleyn said: ‘Thank you, sir.’ He was filled with anger against Captain Bannerman: an anger not unmixed with compassion and no more tolerable for that. At least half the passengers were scarcely less irritating. They were irresponsible, they were helpless, two of them were profoundly silly and one of them was a murderer. He took himself sharply to task and began to talk to them.

  He said: ‘I shan’t at the moment elaborate or explain the statement you’ve just heard. You will, if you please, accept it. I’m a police officer. A murder has been committed and one of the passengers in this ship, almost certainly, is responsible.’

  Mr Cuddy’s smile, an incredible phenomenon, was stamped across his face like a postmark. His lips moved. He said with a kind of terrified and incredulous jocosity: ‘Oh, go on!’ His fellow passengers looked appalled but Mrs Cuddy dreadfully and incredibly tossed her head and said: ‘Mrs Blick, isn’t it? I suppose it’s a remark I shouldn’t pass but I must say with that type of behaviour—’

  ‘No!’ Father Jourdain interposed very strongly. ‘You must stop. Be quiet, Mrs Cuddy!’

  ‘Well, I must say!’ she gasped and turned to her husband. ‘It is Mrs Blick, Fred, isn’t it?’