Bear Island (21 page)

    "Now I've seen the impossible," Conrad said. He wasn't smiling but he wasn't being censorious either. "Someone has at last given offence to Lonnie Gilbert.”

    “One has to work at it," I said. "I've transgressed against Lonnie's creed. He thinks that I'm unkind.”

    “Unkind?" Mary Stuart laid a hand on the arm I was using to steady myself. The skin under the brown eyes was perceptibly darker than it had been thirty-six hours ago and was even beginning to look puffy and the whites of the eyes themselves were dulled and slightly tinged with red. She hesitated, as if about to say something, then her gaze shifted to a point over my left shoulder. I turned.

    Captain Imrie closed the starboard wheelhouse door behind him. Insofar as it was possible to detect the shift and play of expression on that splendidly bewhiskered and bearded face it seemed that the captain was upset, even agitated. He crossed directly to Smithy and spoke to him in a low and urgent voice. Smithy registered surprise then shook his head. Captain Imrie spoke again, briefly. Smithy shrugged his shoulders, then said something in return. Both men looked at me and I knew there was more trouble coming, if not actually arrived, if for no reason other than that so far nothing untoward had happened with which I hadn't been directly or indirectly concerned. Captain Imrie fixed me with his piercing blue eyes, jerked his head with most uncharacteristic peremptoriness towards the chartroom door and headed for it himself. I shrugged my own shoulders in apology to Mary and Conrad and followed. Captain Imrie closed the door behind me.

    "More trouble, mister." I didn't much care for the way he called me “mister.” “One of the film crew, John Halliday, has disappeared.”

    “Disappeared where?" It wasn't a very intelligent question but then it wasn't meant to be.

    "That's what I'd like to know." I didn't much care for the way he looked at me either.

    "He can't just have disappeared. I mean, you've searched for him?”

    “We've searched for him, all right." The voice was harsh with strain. from anchor locker to stern post. He's not aboard the Morning Rose.”

    “My God," I said. "This is awful." I looked at him in what I hoped registered as puzzlement. “But why tell me all this?"

    “Because I thought you might be able to help us.”

    “Help you? I'd like to, but how? I assume that you can only be approaching me in my medical capacity and I can assure you that there's absolutely nothing in what I've seen of him or read in his medical history--

    " I wasn't approaching you in your bloody medical capacity!" Captain Imrie had started to breathe very heavily. "I just thought you might help me in other ways. Bloody strange, isn't it, mister, that you've been in the thick of everything that's been happening?" I'd nothing to say to this, I'd just been thinking the same thing myself. "How it was you who just ‘happened’ to find Antonio dead. How it was you who just ‘happened’ to go to the bridge when Smith and Oakley were ill. How it was you who went straight to the stewards" cabin in the crew quarters. Next thing, I suppose, you'd have gone straight to Mr. Gerran's cabin and found him dead also, if Mr. Goin hadn't had the good luck to go there first. And isn't it bloody strange, mister, that a doctor, the one person who could have helped those people and seemingly couldn't, is the one person aboard with enough medical knowledge to make them sick in the first place?"

    No question--looking at it from his angle-Captain Imrie was developing quite a reasonable point of view. I was more than vaguely surprised to find that he was capable of developing a point of view in the first place. Clearly, I'd been underestimating him: just how much I was immediately to realise.

    "And just why were you spending so much time in the galley late the night before last-when I was in my bed, damn you? The place where all the poison came from. Haggerty told me. He told me you were poking around-and got him out of the galley for a spell. You didn't find what you wanted. But you came back later, didn't you? Wanted to find out where the food leftovers were, didn't you? Pretended you were surprised when they were gone. That would look good in court.”

    “Oh, for heaven's sake, you silly old--”

    “And you were very, very late abroad that night, weren't you? Oh, making enquiries. Up in the saloon--Mr. Goin told me: up yes, I've been on the bridge-Oakley told me: down in the lounge-Gilbert told me: and' -he paused dramatically-"in Halliday's cabin-his cabin-mate told me. And, most of all, who was the man who stopped me from going to Hammerfest when I wanted to and persuaded the others to sign this worthless guarantee of yours absolving me from all blame? Tell me that, eh, mister?"

    His trump card played, Captain Imrie rested his case. I had to stop the old coot, he was working himself up to having me clapped in irons. I sympathised with him, I was sorry for what I would have to say to him, but clearly this wasn't my morning for making friends anyway. I looked at him coldly and without expression for about ten seconds then said: "My name's "Doctor" not "mister." I'm not your damned mate."

    "What? What was that?"

    I opened the door to the wheelhouse and invited him to pass through.

    “You just mentioned the word "court." just step out there and repeat those slanderous allegations in the presence of witnesses and you'll find yourself standing in a part of a court you never expected to be in. Can you imagine the extent of the damages?"

    From his face and the perceptible shrinking of his burly frame it was apparent that Captain Imrie immediately could. I was a long, long way from being proud of myself, he was a worried old man saying honestly what he thought had to be said, but he'd left me with no option. I closed the door and wondered how best to begin.

    I wasn't given the time to begin. The knock on the door and the opening of the door came on the same instant. Oakley had an urgent and rather apprehensive look about him.

    I think you'd better come down to the saloon right away, sir," he said to Imrie. He looked at me. "You, too, I'm afraid, Dr. Marlow. There's been a fight down there, a bad one."

    "Great God Almighty!" If Captain Imrie still had had any lingering hopes that he was running a happy ship, the last of them was gone. For a man of his years and bulk he made a remarkably rapid exit: I followed more leisurely.

    Oakley's description had been reasonably accurate. There had been a fight and a very unpleasant affair it must have been too during the period it had lasted-obviously, the very brief period it had lasted. There were only half-a-dozen people in the saloon altogether-one or two were still suffering sufficiently from the rigours or" the Barents Sea to prefer the solitude of their cabins to the forbidding beauties of Bear Island, while the Three Apostles, as ever, were down in the recreation room, still cacophonously searching for the bottom rung on the ladder to musical immortality. Three of the six were standing, one sitting, one kneeling and the last stretched out on the deck of the saloon. The three on their feet were Lonnie and Eddie and Hendriks, all with the air of concerned but hesitant helplessness that afflicts uncommitted bystanders on such occasions. Michael. Stryker was sitting in a chair at the captain's table, using a very blood-stained handkerchief to dab a deep cut on the right cheekbone: it was noticeable that the knuckles of the hand that held the handkerchief were quite badly skinned. The kneeling figure was Mary Darling. All I could see was her back, the long blond tresses falling to the deck and her big horn-rimmed spectacles lying about two feet away. She was crying, but crying silently, the thin shoulders shaking convulsively in incipient hysteria. I knelt and raised her, still kneeling, to an upright position. She stared at me, ashen-faced, no tears in her eyes, not recognising me: without her glasses she was as good as blind.

    "It's all right, Mary," I said. "Only me. Dr. Marlowe." I looked at the figure on the floor and recognised him, not without some difficulty, as young Allen. "Come on, now, be a good girl. Let me have a look at him."

    “He's terribly hurt, Dr. Marlowe, terribly hurt!" She had difficulty in getting her words out during long and almost soundless gasps. "Oh, look at him, look at him, it's awful!" Then she started crying in earnest, not quietly this time. Her whole body shook. I looked up.

    "Mr. Hendriks, will you please go to the galley and ask Mr. Haggerty for some brandy? Tell him I want it. If he's not there, take it anyway." Hendriks nodded and hurried away. I said to Captain Imrie: "Sorry, I should have asked permission.”

    “That's all right, Doctor." We were back on professional terms again, however briefly: perhaps it was because his reply was largely automatic for the bulk of his interest, and all that clearly hostile, was for the moment centered on Michael Stryker. I turned back to Mary.

    "Go and sit on the settee, there. And take some of that brandy. You hear?”

    “No! No! I-”

    “Doctor's orders." I looked at Eddie and Lonnie and without a word from me they took her across to the nearest settee. I didn't wait to see whether she followed doctor's orders or not: a now stirring Allen had more pressing claims on my attention. Stryker had done a hatchet job on him: he had a cut forehead, a bruised cheek, an eye that was going to be closed by night, blood coming from both nostrils, a split lip, one tooth missing and another so loose that it was going to be missing very soon also. I said to Stryker: "You do this to him?”

    “Obvious, isn't it?”

    “You have to savage him like this? Christ, man, he's only a kid. Why don't you pick on someone your own size next time?"

    “Like you, for instance?”

    “Oh, my God!" I said wearily. Beneath Stryker's tissue-thin veneer of civilisation lay something very crude indeed. I ignored him, asked Lonnie to get water from the galley and cleaned up Allen as best I could. As was invariable in such cases the removal of surface blood improved his appearance about eighty percent. A plaster on his forehead, two cottonwool plugs for his nose and two stitches in a frozen lip and I'd done all I could for him. I straightened as an indignant Captain Imrie started questioning Stryker.

    "What happened, Mr. Stryker?”

    “A quarrel.”

    “A quarrel, was it now?" Captain Imrie was being heavily ironic. "And what started the quarrel?”

    “An insult. From him.”

    “From that-from that child?" The captain's feelings clearly matched my own. "What kind of insult to do that to a boy?”

    “A private insult." Stryker dabbed the cut on his cheek and, Hippocrates in temporary abeyance, I felt sorry that it wasn't deeper, even although it looked quite unpleasant enough as it was. "He just got what anyone gets who insults me, that's all.”

    “I shall endeavour to keep a still tongue in my head," Captain Imrie said drily. "However, as captain of this ship-”

    “I'm not a member of your damned crew. If that young fool there doesn't lodge a complaint-and he won't-Fd be obligated if you'd mind your own business." Stryker rose and left the saloon. Captain Imrie made as if to follow, changed his mind, sat down wearily at the head of his own table and reached for his own private bottle. He said to the three men now clustered round Mary: "Any of you see what happened?”

    “No, sir." It was Hendriks. "Mr. Stryker was standing alone over by the window there when Allen went up to speak to him, I don't know what, and next moment they were rolling about the floor. It didn't last more than seconds."

    Captain Imrie nodded wearily and poured a considerable measure into his glass, he was obviously and rightly depending on Smithy to make the approach to the anchorage. I got Allen, now quite conscious, to his feet and led him towards the saloon door. Captain Imrie said: "Taking him below?"

    I nodded. "And when I come back I'll tell you all about how I started it." He scowled at me and returned to his Scotch. Mary, I noticed, was sipping at the brandy and shuddering at every sip. Lonnie held her glasses in his hand and I escaped with Allen before he gave them back to her.

    I got Allen into his bunk and covered him up. He had a little colour in his battered cheeks now but still hadn't spoken. I said: "What was all that about?"

    He hesitated. "I'm sorry. I'd rather not say." `Why ever not?”

    “I'm sorry again. It's a bit private.”

    “Someone could be hurt?”

    “Yes, I-" He stopped.

    "It's all right. You must be very fond of her." He looked at me for a few silent moments, then nodded. I went on: "Shall I bring her down?”

    “No, Doctor, no! I don't want-I mean, with my face like this. No, no,, I couldn't!"

    “Your face was an awful sight worse just five minutes ago. She was doing a fair job of breaking her heart even then.”

    “Was she?" He tried to smile and winced. "Well, all right."

    I left and went to Stryker's cabin. He answered my knock and his face didn't have welcome written all over it. I looked at the still bleeding cut.

    "Want me to have a look at that?" Judith Haynes, clad in a fur parka and trousers and looking rather like a red-haired Eskimo, was sitting on the cabin's only chair, her two cocker spaniels in her lap. Her dazzling smile was in momentary abeyance.

    “No.”

    “It might scar." I didn't give a damn whether it scarred or not.

    "Oh." The factor of his appearance, it hadn't been too hard to guess, was of importance to Stryker. I entered, closed the door, examined and dabbed the cut, put on astringent and applied a plaster. I said: "Look, I'm not Captain Imrie. Did you have to bang that boy like that? You could have flattened him with a tap.”

    “You were there when I told Captain Imrie that it was a purely personal matter." I'd have to revise my psychological thinking, clearly neither my freely offered medical assistance nor my reasonableness of approach nor the implied flattery had had the slightest mollifying effect. "Having MD hung round your neck doesn't give you the right to ask impertinent prying questions. Remember what else I said to Imrie?”