Dangerous Cargo (18 page)

“What do you mean, revenge?”

“In her way, she was in love with her husband.”

“If she was in love with her husband, why should she be jealous because I
have dropped her?”

“Do you expect a woman like that to be consistent?” Mme. Storey asked
dryly.

He merely scowled at his cigar.

“She ought to be parted from Tanner,” my employer went on. “The man has
fallen completely under her influence. God knows what they may be hatching
together.”

“He can have her,” growled Horace. “…What do you want me to do about
it?”

“Confine both women to their cabins until we reach New York. Or, if you
like, confine all the guests so you won’t appear to be showing any
favouritism.”

“Imprison my guests!” said Horace, staring. “You must be crazy! Think of
what a story they would make of it if the newspapers got hold of it!”

“There’s bound to be such a storm of publicity I don’t see what difference
a little more would make. If you find later that you have wronged anybody you
can always make it up to them.”

Horace reddened with anger.

“I won’t do it!” he said. “You’re taking too much on yourself.”

Mme. Storey was nettled too. “On myself?” she said. “My only object is to
see that you’re landed safely in New York. That’s my job! After that you can
go your own way.”

“Go my own way!” repeated Horace with extreme bitterness. “Don’t I know
it! I know you hate me! But why do you have to keep rubbing it in? If you
treated me decently you could do anything you liked with me!”

Mme. Storey fetched a long breath for patience. She smiled suddenly.

“I don’t hate you,” she said. “But it’s impossible to get along with you.
You despise those who flatter you and you quarrel with those who do not!”

This never reached him, “I don’t fight against women,” he said sullenly.
“I’ll take my chance with Sophie and Adele.”

“Very well,” she said, dismissing the subject with a gesture. “There’s
another thing…”

“Another?” he echoed, scowling at her in fear of what was coming.

“There is Martin,” she said firmly.

His face flushed up again. “Now you’re after Martin!” he cried. “You don’t
want to leave me a friend in the world! I won’t hear a word…”

“Be quiet!” she commanded, so peremptorily that he stopped midway, staring
at her with his mouth open.

She opened the door and glanced out into the corridor. “Fortunately there
were no listeners,” she said. “Moderate your voice.”

“I won’t hear a word against Martin!” he went on sullenly. “Martin and I
understand each other. I would trust him with my last dollar. I have no
secrets from Martin. He’s a darn sight more than just an employee. He’s my
friend, sometimes I think my only friend. At any rate, he’s the only soul
aboard this damned vessel that really cares for me. The others are just
making up to my money. Martin doesn’t care for money. He wouldn’t let me put
him down in my will. Martin is the only one who speaks to me honestly…”

“Not too honestly,” she murmured.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“He has the appearance of frankness, but I have noticed that he never says
anything disagreeable to you.”

“Why should he?”

“He does to everybody else. It’s his line.”

“You would say that!…What have you got against him, anyway?”

“No evidence, if that’s what you mean. Only a motive.”

“In heaven’s name, what motive could Martin have for doing me in? He would
only be out of a job. He is not down in my will. Neither the first nor the
second will. He has seen them both.”

“You have forgotten the diamonds,” she said quietly.

“Diamonds?” he repeated, staring.

“The diamonds he brought aboard at Willemstad.”

“I think you must be out of your senses!” said Horace.

“Not altogether,” she returned, smiling. From the desk she got the
wireless message that had come after dinner. Between the lines she had
decoded it in pencil.

She handed it to Horace without comment. Later I read it. It ran:

“Finally got in touch with Etienne Joannot. Nobody else could get the
information. Joannot cables Coade’s business in Holland was to receive
quantity of unset diamonds which Laghet has been buying secretly through many
brokers for year past. Value estimated million and a half.

“LATHAM.”

“Etienne Joannot is the cleverest detective in Europe,” remarked Mme.
Storey. “He has worked with me before.”

Horace’s face was crimson. “What do you mean by going behind my back like
that?” he demanded. “You have no business to be prying into my personal
affairs!”

“That’s merely silly,” she said coldly. “How did I know what I was going
to turn up? It was part of my job to investigate what Martin was up to, as
well as everybody else who was close to you.”

Horace subsided into sullen muttering. He was like a child caught
red-handed and trying to brazen it out. “Why shouldn’t I buy unset diamonds
if I have the money to pay for them?” he stormed.

“Why indeed?” murmured Mme. Storey.

“They say we’re headed for the revolution, and that all values will be
swept away. Well, whatever the state of society may be, diamonds will still
have a value!”

“Certainly. And why shouldn’t you smuggle them into the country on your
yacht if you can get away with it? I am not an agent of the Treasury. I’m
merely trying to point out to you that a million and a half is too great a
temptation to put in any man’s way.”

“Temptation!”

“Martin believes that nobody in the world knows about these diamonds but
himself and you. If anything happened to you they would just naturally fall
into his hands.”

“I trust Martin,” he said obstinately. “He’s the only man living that I
can trust! And it’s useless for you to urge me to watch him or to lock him
up. I won’t go against my friend!”

“So I see,” she said, spreading out her hands. “Where are the diamonds
now?”

“In the safe in my cabin.”

“Martin has the combination?”

“Certainly.”

“I suggest that you ought to tell him that I know about the diamonds. That
can do no harm.”

Horace grinned disagreeably.

“If he’s as bad as you think, that would only be putting your life in
danger,” he said.

“My life has been in danger ever since I took this case,” she said
casually.

“Sure, I’ll tell him,” he said. “…Martin went abroad two weeks before we
sailed. How could he be mixed up in it?”

“You received your first warning the day after he sailed. Perhaps
everything had been arranged then.”

He got up to go. “You will find that you are mistaken,” he said
confidently. “You ought to make friends with Martin.”

“I’ll try,” she said dryly.

Horace paused with his hand on the door-knob, and the hang-dog look of
appeal came into his face. “Would you like to see the diamonds?” he asked.
“You can have any one that you choose.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Mme. Storey. “I am only a woman!”

IT was on a Thursday night that we headed for New York. On
Friday, as far as outward appearances went, we fell into our usual routine
aboard the yacht. The members of our little party never had been honest with
each other, consequently they had no difficulty in keeping up
appearances.

Always the same guarded eyes when we came together, the empty vivacious
talk, the meaningless laughter. It was tacitly understood amongst us that
after some trifling difficulties in New York everything would be settled and
we would all sail away again for the islands of the blest in a sea of
perpetual summer. The fact that Horace himself would have to answer to a
charge of murder was discreetly overlooked. No one ever referred to Adrian
locked up below.

All this pretending that everything was lovely made the situation much
harder to bear. There were times when Sophie took my arm and led me along the
deck chattering, when I felt as if I should scream. When I got up in the
morning and when I went to bed I was haunted by a horrible foreboding of
trouble ahead. I became as jumpy as a jack-rabbit.

It was the same with the others. When you caught them off their guard
there was a terrible look in their faces. In spite of all the make-up in the
world, Sophie’s lost eyes made her appear twice her age. Horace, when he
thought himself unobserved, paced the deck like a damned soul, chewing the
inevitable cigar. The passions that were consuming Adele made her look like a
caricature of her former self.

I must say for Adele that she did not make pretences. She was like a
strange cat aboard the ship. She spoke to nobody. All her meals were served
in her cabin. Tanner was generally with her.

Les Farman quickly got his crew organised, and everything that had to do
with the ship seemed to run as smoothly as it had always done. It took a
heavy toll of the skipper because he had no trained officers to share his
responsibility. As the days and the nights passed Les’ eyes became red-rimmed
through insufficient sleep. But his good-humoured smile was unchanged.

One new development that made for trouble was that Horace appeared
suddenly to recollect that he was engaged to Celia Dare. Whenever Mme. Storey
humorously turned aside his attempts to make love to her, Horace sought the
girl’s company. Perhaps, manlike, he thought he could bring my employer to
terms this way. Celia was terrified. She had no experience to guide her.

She used to come to our sitting-room with her troubles. Once Mme. Storey
said to her: “Celia, you’re of age, aren’t you?”

The girl nodded.

“Then it’s up to you to play a woman’s part. You have never made believe
to be in love with Horace and you don’t have to begin now. But you must avoid
angering him as long as we are at sea. We have trouble enough on board. Make
Emil stay away from you and treat Horace exactly as you used to treat him
before Emil came round. It’s only for a few days.”

The girl played her part very nicely, but the effect on Emil was terrible.
That nice boy went savage. He lurked in the corners scowling at Horace with
murder in his eye. Luckily Horace never noticed him.

During these days Mme. Storey seemed to be taking Horace’s suggestion that
she make friends with Martin. They had long conversations on deck, most of
which I did not overhear. But it was clear that she was plumbing
him—with very little result, she confessed. Either there was nothing in
him or he could hide it better than any man of his age she had ever
known.

One morning when I was sitting alongside her she said to him: “You’re
married, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” he said. “But I never mentioned it. How did you know?”

She studied him through narrowed lids. “Oh, you have the general
expression of a married man.”

“What is that?”

“Shorn,” she said. “Like Samson.”

It nicked his vanity. “What about Storey?” he retorted. “Where is he?”

“Storey?”

“I mean the gent who gave you the right to hitch madame to your name.”

“Oh, Storey! He passed out of the picture so long ago I have difficulty in
recalling his features. I am free, white and twenty-one plus!”

They chaffed each other back and forth endlessly. Just the same Mme.
Storey had found the joint in his armour; his wife. Martin spoke of her in
the humorous, slighting manner he adopted towards everything, but he could
not keep his voice from warming, nor his strange peering eyes from becoming
almost human.

“What’s her name?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Miriam.”

“What’s she like?”

“An old-fashioned girl; really good. She fell for me because I was such a
bad guy.”

“You’re not very bad!”

“You don’t know the half of it, dearie!…The missus’ grand aim in life is
to save my soul. I tell you I have to watch my step. If I reformed I would
cease to interest her. On the other hand if she knew the full extent of my
wickedness she would turn from me in horror!”

“You’re a good psychologist,” said Mme. Storey dryly. “Have you got a
picture of her?”

“Yes. She sent me a snapshot in her last letter.” He took the envelope
from his pocket.

I looked over Mme. Storey’s shoulder, and saw a tall beautiful girl with a
sensitive face. She was smiling, yet there was a look of sadness in her eyes,
of which she was perhaps unaware.

“She is charming,” said Mme. Storey handing it back.

Her sharp eyes took note of the address on the corner of the envelope, and
when we got down below she said: “Martin lives in the Greycourt Apartments,
number 2527 Broadway. Better put it down.”

On Saturday we ran into what Les Farman called “a whole gale,” and the
guests disappeared from the decks. It was one of the historic gales in which
several ships foundered. On the
Buccaneer
we heard their faint S.O.S.
calls, but we were too far away to be of any aid. It was a terrifying
experience; the ship reeled and plunged like a mad thing. Yet the sea didn’t
look
rough, but only grey and snarling. In the middle of it Les Farman
came clumping down in sea boots and oilskins to give us a word of cheer.

His face was beaming.

“It’s immense!” he said. “You should come up on the bridge and see how she
rides it. Not a drop coming aboard! She’s a duck of a ship!”

After that we felt better.

By Sunday afternoon it was all over and the guests reappeared on deck with
their customary smiles. I expect most of us were thinking: Only twenty-four
hours more. Dinner was quite a lively affair.

Immediately afterwards there was an outbreak which showed how thin was the
crust of the volcano on which we were treading. It happened in the lounge.
Nobody could tell exactly how it started. Apparently Adele and Frank Tanner
were sitting in the corner whispering when Horace came in to get a cigar.
Horace didn’t like the way Frank stared at him and said so, whereupon Frank,
fired by a sense of Adele’s wrongs, real and imaginary, suddenly went
crazy.