Dangerous Cargo (23 page)

Adrian suddenly went to pieces. “No! No!” he screamed, wrapping his arms
around his head as if to shut out the sound of her voice. “I did not kill my
brother! I did not! You have no proof!”

“Search him,” said Mme. Storey.

“Yes, search me!” he cried, dramatically extending his arms. “Search my
person! Search my room! Search through my effects! I have nothing to
hide!”

Les Farman attended to the job. I need not enumerate all the things they
took from him; change, cigarette-lighter, wallet, etc. There was also a pair
of nail-clippers, a thing a man does not ordinarily carry around with him.
Mme. Storey smiled at the sight of them. She thrust her own hand into the
pocket from which the clippers had been taken, and drew it out, holding a
tiny piece of rubberised cloth between thumb and forefinger.

“This is the piece cut from the curtain,” she said impassively. “Notice
how it fits the curve of the nail-clippers. Adrian doesn’t posses a
pocket-knife. You see, he had no place to throw it down here and he put it in
his pocket. Later he forgot to throw it overboard. Well, every murderer makes
one mistake.” She walked down to the dressing-box and showed us that the
piece exactly fitted the hole in the curtain.

Adrian sank down on a bench, half-fainting. “No! No!” he moaned. “I didn’t
kill my brother! You are hounding an innocent man! I admit that appearances
are against me, but I didn’t do it, I tell you! When it came to the point, I
couldn’t do it!”

“What do you mean, when it came to the point?” asked Mme. Storey
sharply.

Adrian pressed his head between his hands. “I will tell all,” he moaned,
“but you must believe me!”

ADRIAN remained sitting on the marble bench against the wall
with his head pressed between his hands. Once he got started his story came
tumbling out. His hearers listened in amazement.

“It’s true I meant to kill Horace! I was possessed to do it! I planned it
just the way Rosika has described. I was hidden in the dressing-box with the
poisoned needle in my hand, waiting and watching. But when he came my nerve
failed me. I couldn’t do it. Oh, God, I’m glad! I’m glad! that crime isn’t on
my conscience!”

“But Horace is dead,” said Mme. Storey gravely.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it! It must have been a stroke of some
kind.”

“The needle has discharged its poison.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I dropped it.”

“Begin at the beginning,” she said. “You have been planning this for a
long time past?”

“Yes! Yes! Always I was wishing for Horace’s death. I was so afraid of
him! He knew it, and he took advantage of it, even as a boy. He was cruel to
me. You wouldn’t believe it! Always I made out to be crazy about him. I did
everything to please him. Because I was afraid! Like a nightmare all my
life!

“But it’s only lately that I began to think of killing him. It was like
something that came into me from the outside. A voice whispering: ‘Kill
Horace! Kill Horace! And you can begin to live a life of your own!’

“When he began to get ready for this voyage it seemed like a heaven-sent
opportunity. So easy to get rid of a man on shipboard without leaving any
trace. I knew he would take me. He always wanted to have me around. He took a
pleasure in tormenting me and making me feel cheap before others. And I
always had to smile and make out I was crazy about him. I was so afraid!

“The first time I met Captain Grober I felt by instinct that he was
crooked; that he would help me for money. He was just what I was looking for,
because he wasn’t afraid. Little by little we came to an understanding. His
price was a million dollars, to be paid out of my inheritance when I got it.
Out of that he was to pay whoever else might help us aboard the ship. He took
care of all the details.”

“Then it was Grober set my house afire,” said Mme. Storey.

“He had it done. We weren’t afraid that Horace would get on to us. You had
only to put Horace in a rage and he could see nothing. But when we learned
that he had employed you we were scared. We never did find out who warned
Horace. And Grober undertook to make you miss the ship.”

“And it was Grober who undertook to have me murdered in Willemstad,” she
said dryly.

“I don’t know anything about murder. Grober simply said that he would have
you detained in Willemstad until the yacht had sailed.”

“Well, go on!”

“Harry Holder seemed like a tool just ready to our hand, and Grober fixed
it so that he was signed on as a sailor. Just put a gun in Holder’s hand and
he’ll do our job for us, Grober said. Jealous husband and all that. Not the
slightest risk to us. You got on to Holder and shipped him to New York. He
sneaked back aboard the yacht, and Grober had him hidden, and had another gun
passed to him.

“That failed too. Then Grober picked on Les Farman to do the job. You know
what happened then. We never did find out who warned Horace. Farman betrayed
us, and Grober and I were locked up separately. I thought it was all up.

“The second night that I was locked up I was awakened by something
knocking at the glass of my porthole. I opened it and found a note hanging
from a string outside. It was wrapped around a bolt to give it weight. The
note was written in pencil. It wasn’t signed, but I naturally assumed that it
was from Grober or one of his men.

“Have you still got it?” asked Mme. Storey.

“No! After I memorised the contents I threw it overboard.”

“What did it say?”

“It said: ‘Horace knows all. This means a life sentence in the
penitentiary for you unless you’re man enough to strike for your own freedom.
Send for the doctor to-morrow and ask him for a hypodermic needle. Tell him
that you are accustomed to give yourself a shot occasionally and you have the
stuff but have broken your needle. The doctor’s a wise guy. He won’t inquire
too closely if you let him understand that it’s to his advantage to keep his
mouth shut. When you get the needle tell him to slip his hand behind the
cushions of the wing-chair that stands to the right of the fireplace in the
lounge, and he’ll get his. If you get the needle I’ll pass you what goes with
it, and you can lay for Horace in one of the dressing-boxes alongside the
swimming-pool. This is your last chance. Answer and let me know if you’re man
enough. Destroy this.’”

“You answered that you would do it?” suggested Mme. Storey.

He nodded. “I was as much afraid of Grober then as I was of Horace,” he
muttered. “I couldn’t stand going to prison. I would go mad. I’m near mad
anyhow, I’ve brooded on this so much. Wouldn’t take much to push me over the
border-line. It was only by killing Horace that I could get any peace!”

“Go on!” she said.

“We ran into the storm next day, and I didn’t do anything because I knew
Horace couldn’t use the pool in bad weather. Yesterday afternoon, when it
moderated, I sent for the doctor. You know what happened then. He gave me the
needle. And towards dawn this morning I heard from Grober again, or whoever
it was. He sent down a little bottle of poison and the key to my room on a
string. There was a note with it telling me to fill the needle and throw the
rest of the poison overboard.

“The note also told me to leave my room at six-thirty, and to hide myself
in the dressing-box that was nearest to the diving-board. After I had done
the job I was to return to my room, throw the needle into the sea, and tie
the key to the string so that it could be returned to Jim, thus destroying
all links between me and the death of Horace.”

“You obeyed instructions?” prompted Mme. Storey.

Adrian nodded. He began to shake at the mere recollection. “I started out
from my room. Oh, God! I was terrified. I was afraid to go and I was afraid
not to go. I died a hundred deaths on my way down to the pool. But nobody saw
me. It was only a dozen steps from my door to the door opening on the forward
companionway.

“I hid in the dressing-box, and cut a little hole in the curtain so I
could see. When Horace came down the stairway I began to shake so that I
couldn’t do a thing. He must have heard something, for he yanked the curtain
back and discovered me there. He struck me, and it was then that I dropped
the needle. I don’t know where it went.

“I grappled with Horace to prevent him from striking me. I was no match
for him. I expected him to kill me. But while we were struggling he suddenly
went limp. He sank down on the floor, pulling me with him. When I got clear
of him I saw that he was dead. I could scarcely believe my senses. He was
dead. He must have had a stroke of some sort.

“I ran back to my room and locked myself in. The string was not hanging
down outside my porthole. But soon afterward it came. I tied the key to it
and after a moment or two it was drawn up. That’s all.”

“You’re sure the body was lying beside the pool when you last saw it?”
asked Mme. Storey. “It was found in the water.”

“Certain,” said Adrian. “I could not be mistaken about that.”

“You are positive he was dead?”

“Absolutely. His eyes were staring open; his heart had stopped. If you
could have seen him you would know!”

Les Farman’s eyes were blazing with scorn for the miserable Adrian. “He’s
a pretty good liar,” he said. “Tells the truth until almost the end, hoping
to get away with it!”

“Perhaps his story is all true,” said Mme. Storey mildly. “It sounds
true.”

“What!” cried Les in astonishment. And more than one of us echoed him.

“Why should he lie about leaving the body beside the pool?” she said. “He
has nothing to gain by that.”

“But the poison was discharged from the needle,” insisted Les, “and you
found the puncture in Horace’s leg.”

“Surely. There is no doubt that Horace was killed. But perhaps somebody
else did it.”

“What reason have you for saying that?”

“There is evidence that somebody else was concealed down here at the same
time.”

“Oh, God bless you for that, Rosika! God bless you!” cried Adrian
hysterically. He snatched up her hand and fondled it, “Nobody can deceive
you!”

She freed her hand. “If you are not the murderer,” she said, with a cold
glance, “it is only because of your cowardice.”

MME. STOREY dismissed her audience, announcing that she
would resume her investigation in half an hour’s time in the lounge. They
filed up the stairway with manifest reluctance. They didn’t want to miss
anything. Adrian protested against being locked up again. My employer pointed
out that there was as yet no proof of his story.

“What difference does it make?” he said. “There is no place I could go
except overboard. If I jumped overboard it would save the state the expense
of a trial.”

“There is something in that,” she said dryly. “On the other hand, the
authorities would blame Captain Farman and I for allowing you to cheat
justice.”

When they had gone, she pointed out to the astonished Les Farman that the
steel door from number one hold into the gymnasium was loose. Les swore that
he had made it fast when he had come through four days previously, and that
no one had had any occasion to use it since.

“In case of accident at sea,” he said, “our lives would depend upon these
doors!”

As this door was fastened from the other side we had to mount to B deck
and go forward to reach the stairway into number one hold. We passed through
the pantry and the galley. The cooks, already busy with the preparation of
dinner, glanced at us with covert curiosity.

“It may have been one of these devils,” muttered Les. “Who can tell where
they have their spies?”

“I doubt if it was one of these,” answered Mme. Storey. “For the present I
am assuming that the second person who hid in the swimming-pool was the same
individual who sent the instructions and the poison to Adrian. That letter
which Adrian repeated from memory was written by an educated person. He or
she doubted if Adrian had nerve enough to carry the thing through, and so hid
on the spot to make sure of it.”

“Then you think it may have been a woman?”

“I am not eliminating the possibility,” she said dryly. “A woman can do
anything a man can do if the incentive is strong enough.”

The stair-well to number one hold was immediately forward of the galley.
Four doors opened off it on B deck; aft the galley through which we had come;
to port the butcher’s stores; forward a storeroom for heavy baggage; and to
starboard the crew’s mess. The stairway came down from the well-deck
overhead.

“Plenty of routes for our visitor to reach the spot,” remarked Mme.
Storey. “We may need a flashlight below.”

“I have it,” said Les.

Mme. Storey opened the various doors to glance inside. The butcher’s
stores—a small room with a block and tables for cutting meat. The
refrigerator-room opened off it. The floor was covered with sawdust.

At the foot of the iron stairway there were several locked doors leading
to various storerooms, and aft, the bulkhead door into the gymnasium. This
door was made watertight by a number of screw-bolts all around it. A T-wrench
hung on the wall alongside.

On the occasion when Les had come through this door, Mme. Storey whose
eyes miss nothing, had noticed by the marks made by the wrench on the painted
heads of the bolts, that it was the first time this door had been opened. Now
she had no difficulty in showing us, with the aid of her glass, the
superimposed marks of the second opening. Moreover, that morning’s visitor
had been in such a hurry to leave he had only given one of the bolts a turn
or two to keep the door from swinging open.

The powerful flashlight revealed no fresh fingerprints on door or wrench
handle. “Wore gloves,” said Mme. Storey. “We are dealing with a cool
hand.”

“Can I fasten up this door now?” asked Les. “It’s dangerous.”