Dangerous Cargo (21 page)

WE all stood around Mme. Storey at the edge of the empty
pool. On her palm lay the sinister little nickelled instrument. “Can any of
you tell me anything about this?” she asked.

There was no answer.

“Has anyone here used a hypodermic needle during the voyage, or do you
know of one having been used?”

No answer.

She singled out Tanner. “Doctor, you have such needles amongst your
equipment on board.”

“Sure,” he answered sullenly.

“How many have you?”

His pop-eyes rolled like those of a frightened horse. “I don’t know; I’ll
have to look,” he muttered.

She bent a searching glance on him, and he blurted out: “Three.”

“How do you keep them?”

“In a cardboard box on a shelf in my surgery.”

“Have you had occasion to use them during the voyage?”

“I have used one of them.”

“Then the other two are still in their antiseptic envelopes?”

“So far as I know, they are.”

“Is this one of your needles?”

“How can I tell? They all look alike.”

Mme. Storey undid the handbag she carried under her arm, and took a
cardboard box from it. “I picked this up in your surgery a while ago,” she
said, “thinking I might need it. Can you identify it?”

“It may be the one,” he said with a frightened sneer.

“If you doubt it, go and see if yours is there,” she said blandly.

He made no move to go. Mme. Storey lifted the cover from the little box
and we all saw the two needles in their unbroken cellophane wrappers with a
vacant space between them for the third.

“You can’t prove that that needle came out of there,” he snarled. “They
all look alike. There may be a dozen such needles aboard this vessel!”

“Possibly,” she said dryly, “but not likely. Of course, if you can produce
the needle that belongs to this box that will automatically let you out.”

“My shelves are not locked,” he said, “anybody could have picked it
up—just like you did!”

“But the door of the surgery is always locked when you are not there,” she
said. “I am told that you had the lock changed so that no steward or other
servant of the ship could ever enter.”

He was silenced.

“Perhaps I can help you to trace the missing needle,” she said mildly.
“When did you use it last?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“For what purpose?”

“I decline to answer.”

“On what grounds do you decline?”

“Professional privilege.”

“Very proper,” she said dryly. “Perhaps your patient will release you.”
She looked around from face to face. “Adele,” she said in the gentle voice
that can presage so much trouble, “will you permit the doctor to answer my
question?”

Adele stared and reddened. “Why do you pick on me?” she snapped.

“Well, I have noticed on several occasions during the last few days that
you were under the influence of a narcotic.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I be, if I feel like it?”

“No reason whatever. All I want to know is, did the doctor administer it
hypodermically?”

“Yes,” muttered Adele. “My nerves were shot to pieces!”

“Oh, quite! When did you receive your last treatment from him?”

“Yesterday morning about ten.”

“Ah, during the storm. Did the doctor give you the needle then?”

“No,” said Adele, startled. “Why should he?”

“So you could treat yourself if necessary.”

“Well, he didn’t. I never had the thing in my hand.”

Mme. Storey spoke a word or two in Les Farman’s ear, and the skipper went
up the stairs again. Adele and Frank glanced at each other
apprehensively.

My employer turned to the doctor. “After you treated Adele, you washed the
needle, put it in its box and returned the box to the shelf, I suppose.”

“I suppose so,” he answered sullenly. “Those are automatic actions. You do
them without thinking.”

“You had no occasion to use the needle after that?”

“No.”

“Did Adele leave the surgery immediately?”

“No. She stayed for a while talking.”

“Then it is possible that she may have taken the needle without your
knowledge?”

His eyes bulged out. “No!” he cried.

“But you cannot swear that it was there after she left.”

He saw that he had been led into a trap. He bit his lip and breathed
hard.

Mme. Storey transferred her attention to Adele. “Did you, in fact, take
the needle when the doctor wasn’t looking?”

“No!” cried Adele. “I told you I had never had it in my hand.”

“Where were you at a few minutes before seven this morning?”

“In bed and asleep,” said Adele, staring.

Mme. Storey appeared to forget them. She tapped a cigarette on the back of
her hand and walked away lighting it, and studying deeply. Adele and Tanner
were badly shaken. In fact, we all watched her apprehensively, wondering what
she was going to spring.

Presently Les Farman came down the stairway bringing two additional
witnesses; Jepson, one of the dining-room stewards, and Hankley, a steward on
A deck. Mme. Storey said without looking at them:

“Jepson, please repeat the story that you told the captain a while
ago.”

The steward, a brisk and good-looking young fellow, clearly enjoyed taking
the centre of the stage. “Yes, Madam,” he said; “shortly before seven this
morning…”

“Wait a minute,” she interrupted; “how can you fix the time so
exactly?”

“Because Mr. Laghet was walking the deck, ma’am. Every morning he comes
up—I mean he used to come up for half a dozen turns around the
promenade just as regular as a clock.”

“What were you doing?”

“Working in the dining-saloon, Madam; rubbing down the furniture.”

“Well, go on.”

“I hears somebody coming up the companionway. The saloon doors are closed,
but I peep out between the sash curtains. It is Mrs. Holder. She has a funny
look, so I watch her. She couldn’t see me. She waits just inside the door
until Mr. Laghet comes around the deck and pops out on him. They stand there
talking.”

“Could you hear what they said?”

“No, Madam. That is, just a word or two.”

Adele was listening to Jepson with a kind of stony terror.

“The boss is mad,” Jepson went on, “and Mrs. Holder is sort of crying. I
mean her face was all twisted up, but I don’t see no tears. He wants to get
away from her, but she holds on to him, talking fast. They are just outside
the door into the lobby.”

“You told the captain what they said?”

“Yes, Madam, they get excited, and then I begin to hear. The boss keeps
saying: ‘Not a cent! Not a cent!’ She says something I can’t hear, and he
comes back with: ‘That’s no romantic memory!’ She says: ‘Horace, our child!
our child!’ And he says: ‘So you say!’ She was crying and hanging on to him;
he gives her a shove, and she falls down.”

“He comes into the lobby cursing,” Jepson went on. “He turns his head and
says to her: ‘It’s nothing to me whether he marries you or not! Why don’t you
cash in on the diamond?’ Then he runs down the stairs.”

“He is lying!” said Adele huskily.

“It sounds like Horace,” remarked Mme. Storey dryly. “Isn’t it true that
you met him on deck this morning?”

“Yes, but it was just an ordinary meeting. This man is making up a
sensational story about it.”

“What did you talk to Horace about?”

“About Frank Tanner. Frank said it would ruin him if Horace discharged him
without cause. I was just trying to persuade Horace to give Frank a letter
stating that his professional services had been satisfactory.”

“Crying?” asked Mme. Storey dryly.

Adele was near tears then. “I wasn’t crying!”

Mme. Storey turned back to Jepson. “What happened after Mr. Laghet went
down the stairway?”

“Mrs. Holder comes in from the deck, and Dr. Tanner shows himself in the
doorway of the library opposite me. He is hiding in there, but I didn’t see
him before. They don’t speak to each other. Mrs. Holder, she just shakes her
head at the doctor, and goes on down the stairway. The doctor, he goes aft
through the library. That’s all I see.”

Mme. Storey said to Adele: “Where did you go?”

“To my room!” she cried hysterically.

“Hankley,” Mme. Storey asked of the other steward, “did you see Mrs.
Holder early this morning?”

Hankley was our steward, a little dry man with a face like a mask. “Yes,
Madam.”

“Please describe the circumstances.”

“Well, Madam, as I was coming forward through the starboard corridor on A
deck, I seen her coming up the forward companionway…”

“No!” cried Adele in wild terror.

“You can swear that it was Mrs. Holder?”

“Oh, yes, Madam. She had on the pink lounging pyjamas with a red girdle
that I have often seen her wearing.”

“You are certain that she was coming
up
?”

“Yes, Madam. As she turned to the port side her back was towards me. She
didn’t see me.”

“What time was this?—careful how you answer.”

“Somewhere around seven, Madam. I didn’t take no precise notice of the
time. Somewhere around seven.”

“It’s a lie!” cried Adele. “I never went below A deck. I never saw Horace
again. I swear it!”

Mme. Storey merely smoked and looked at her inscrutably.

“If I did go below,” cried Adele, “it was only because I was so agitated I
went beyond my deck and had to come back again.”

Mme. Storey said nothing.

“Frank!” cried Adele, beside herself with terror, “tell her that I
couldn’t have done it! Tell her that I never had the damned needle!”

Tanner’s face was ghastly. He moistened his lips. “It’s true,” he said.
“Adele never had that needle.”

“You cannot swear that she didn’t have it.”

“Yes, I can! At three o’clock yesterday afternoon it was in its place in
the box with the others. I saw it there.”

“Why didn’t you say so when I first questioned you?”

“I had forgotten.”

“Your sudden recollection is not very convincing.”

“I’ll swear it!” he cried. “I’ll swear to it in court or anywhere
else!”

“How did you come to look in the box at three o’clock yesterday
afternoon?”

“No particular reason. My eye happened to fall on it. I couldn’t remember
putting it back in its place, and I looked to see if it was there. Adele was
not in the surgery at any time after that, and the door was locked when I was
not there myself.”

“I see,” said Mme. Storey dryly. “Then how did the needle that was locked
up in your surgery get into the pool here?”

He saw that he was getting in deeper, and his eyes rolled.

“You haven’t proved that it is the same needle!”

“Well, let’s put it in another way. What has become of the needle that was
in this box at three o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

He had no answer to that. We could all see that he was near the breaking
point.

“Did you take it out yourself?” she asked softly.

My employer suddenly took a new line. “Do you expect to marry Mrs. Holder
when we get ashore?” she asked.

“No,” mumbled Tanner, “I couldn’t presume to look so high.”

Mme. Storey smiled dryly. “Then how does she come to be wearing the ring
with the bloodstone that used to decorate your little finger? It is rather
noticeable, because Mrs. Holder has so many more valuable rings.”

“Just a friendly keepsake,” he muttered.

“Ah!” Mme. Storey’s face suddenly became rather terrible. “I suggest that
you and Mrs. Holder staged that scene on deck early this morning for the
purpose of getting money out of Horace that would enable you to marry!”

“No!…No!” they murmured.

“It is evident from Jepson’s testimony that Mrs. Holder worked an ancient
and well-known trick for that purpose. It failed; and I suggest that you and
she then determined to put Horace out of the way in order to make sure of the
money that was coming to her under his will!”

“No!” they whispered abjectly.

“After the scene on deck where did you go?” she asked him.

“To my room.”

“You weren’t headed in that direction. You are familiar with every corner
of this ship. I suggest that you went down the after companionway and made
your way forward through B deck to the door that opens on this stairway just
above us.”

“No!”

Mme. Storey turned to Les Farman. “Captain, I recommend that you lock the
doctor up. It is certain that he killed Horace Laghet, or has guilty
knowledge of who did. We can wireless for the New York police to meet us at
quarantine.”

Tanner broke then. “No! No!” he cried. “I didn’t do it! I’ll tell all!
That needle passed out of my hands yesterday!”

“Who got it?”

“Adrian!”

“Ah!” said Mme. Storey. “That’s what I was trying to get at!”

THERE was an interval for lunch. Whatever happens, lunch has
to be eaten. I had to have mine alone beside the pool, because of the
evidence there, which Mme. Storey feared somebody might try to destroy. We
could not be sure who was with us and who was against us aboard this
ship.

While I was munching my sandwiches Martin Coade came down the stairway
blinking. “Hello, Pink!” he said. He had taken to calling me Pink as a
delicate compliment to my hair.

“Well,” I said. “It didn’t take you long to finish.

“Oh, who could eat?” he said, with a gesture. “Thought you might get the
horrors alone in this charnel house,” he went on, glancing around, “so I came
down.”

“Thoughtful of you,” I said dryly.

“This business has knocked me endwise!” he said, passing a hand over his
face.

Any display of feeling was so out of Martin’s line that it made me
slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say.

“You think I’m completely hard-boiled, don’t you?”

“Not exactly hard-boiled,” I said, “but you’ve adopted a certain line. In
fact, I don’t know anything about you.”