Death in the Middle Watch (14 page)

“It may have been meant kindly,” Carolus said. “You didn't see anyone else?”

“No,” said Susan. “I wasn't really noticing.”

“I don't expect you were,” said Carolus with a friendly smile and went to find Mrs Stick whose news, he felt, would be worth hearing.

It was.

“You've heard about that sailor who tried to get Stick to go with him to one of those places, haven't you?” she began at once.

Carolus couldn't resist this.

“What places?” he asked.

“I don't want to talk about it, only it shows what happens to anyone who doesn't mind his Ps and Qs.”

“What?”

“He was arrested by the police last night, that's what, and locked up for goodness knows how long. That's why he's not on duty this morning. I said to Stick, ‘It's a good thing you didn't have anything to do with him,' I said, ‘else you'd be in gaol along with him,' I said. Of course the lady at the table where we sit knew better.”

Carolus had noticed that She had gone back to the longer and more formal title. Also that Mrs Stick seemed to find her information less reliable than in the first days out of port.

“Why? What does she say?” he asked.

“She always knows better. She says this sailor was just walking along the street minding his own business when two
policemen came up and got hold of him and before he knew where he was they had put handcuffs on him and taken him away.”

“Surely they must have had some reason?”

“That's what I told Her only She wouldn't have it. You know what She is. So I just let Her go on saying what She thought. She
knows
, like She always does. It doesn't matter what other people say.”

“But her story is the same as yours in essentials?”

“Of course it is. It couldn't really be anything else, could it? Only some say it was altogether different. They say that the sailor was knocked down by one of these little minicabs you see flying about the place and taken to hospital with a fractured leg. You don't know what to think, do you?”

“What does Stick have to say?”

“I'm surprised at Stick. He's got hold of another story altogether from that Mr Medlow, the one who's not quite right in the head. He told Stick he'd seen that sailor with the vulgar name fighting right in the middle of the main boulevard with one of the fellows off a British ship in the harbour and get took up by three policemen for making a disturbance. Anyway, he's not here, is he? So one of them must be true. Where's this place we get to next?”

“Famagusta,” said Carolus. “It's in Cyprus.”

“I should think it was,” said Mrs Stick. “I suppose She'll have something to say about that. She always does. Then we turn round and go home, I hope?”

“That's it.”

“I can't say I shall be sorry, though Stick seems to enjoy himself. It's been quite an experience though, what with all that's happened. I think that's Mr Gorringer trying to attract your attention, sir.”

It was. Mr Gorringer was peering impatiently through the window of the Sun Lounge, and Carolus went out to him.

“I felt it my duty to have a word with you,” he said. “I have been in conversation with one or two of the ladies, Mrs Grahame-Willows, a charming person, Lady Spittals, and others, and I find the most extraordinary stories are circulating about one of the deckhands, the man called Leacock.”

“Really?”

“The truth, of course, is known. The man was carried on board by two of his shipmates …”

Carolus looked up, uneasily.

“At what time?” he asked.

“About six o'clock in the evening, it seems. He was in a disgraceful state of inebriation. One lady, a Mrs Popple, actually witnessed the incident. The man was taken to his bunk and is probably even now sleeping off the effects of his drunkenness. Yet a variety of quite different stories have circulated.”

“That's always the case,” said Carolus. “I shouldn't worry about it.”

“You don't think there's any connection then, between the deckhand and the matter you are investigating?”

“Not the slightest. Have you got a ticket for the sweepstake on the day's run? If not, let's go and get one.”

So Carolus marched Mr Gorringer away. But he continued to feel uneasy. It was possible, be supposed, that Leacock had come aboard in the early evening either with the aid of his mates or alone. If so, he had gone ashore again. But the stories about him were just a little too varied and too sensational. Carolus wondered whether they had been circulated deliberately. On the whole, he felt it wiser to show no further interest in the matter.

But that was not so easy when several of his fellow passengers seemed determined that he should hear more, Mr Medlow, for instance. He had actually seen what happened, he told Carolus.

“I was strolling up the boulevard,” he said. “Very pleasant too. Trees, you know, and flower stalls. When out comes that fellow Leacock dressed in civvies …”

“Out from where?”

“A bar, from the look of him, followed by a
matelot
from the
Rothesay
that's in the harbour.”

“And then?”

“Then the scrap started. You've never seen anything like it. Fight? More like bloody murder.”

“But it wasn't?”

“It might have been. It took three cops to drag away this Leacock and two to get hold of the other man. But they got them both in the bogy waggon and away they went.”

Mr Medlow waved his arm to indicate the departure.

“Well, well,” said Carolus. “You did have a time ashore, Mr Medlow. You didn't see Leacock again?”

“Again? If you knew as much about these foreign ports as I do you wouldn't ask that question. We shan't see the poor fellow again for years, very likely. Once they get someone inside here they mean it.”

“At what time did you see the fight?”

“About six, I should think. And
what
a fight! Never seen anything like it!”

“You didn't think of interfering?”

“Are you out of your mind?” asked Medlow.

“
I'm
not,” said Carolus with insulting emphasis. “It surprises me that you were alone in seeing this combat. Didn't it attract a lot of attention?”

“You evidently don't know these countries. Two sailors having a fight? Nothing! Happens every day. They wouldn't turn round to give a second glance at it. Someone else from the ship did see it, though. He was standing quite near me when it happened. That fellow Runwell. Doctor Runwell, I
suppose I should say. He saw it all right, though he swears he didn't.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Just mentioned it casually that I'd seen him watching. He flatly denied it. Said he was never in the main boulevard. Bloody liar. I saw him, I tell you.”

“As clearly as you saw Leacock?”

“That's it. Of course it will go into my report.”

“Of course.”

“Mustn't leave that out. Important piece of information.”

“For MI5?” queried Carolus.

Medlow gave him an angry stare and after a few minutes walked away.

On the following morning they docked at Famagusta and Carolus decided not to go ashore. He knew the place with its British holidaymakers and the residents who talked about the good times in Cyprus in the past, by which they apparently meant the times when the Cypriots were so poor that they depended on their patronage. The shops were like those of Gibraltar but even more expensive and the “native population,” as he had heard them called, were just as unmannerly as the Cypriot waiters who had somehow managed to invade London during the last war.

Apparently the Sticks were of the same mind when they returned to the ship.

“Farmer Gooster!” said Mrs Stick. “Not much farmer about that place, I can tell you. All you could buy was oranges and lemons and I've had enough of those on the ship. But what was that Mr Porteous doing, I'd like to know? Running about all over the place. You'd have been sure he would get run over the way he walked across the road. I thought he was the head of this cruise business.”

“He is.”

“Well, all I can say is, it didn't look much like it the way he was carrying on. Oh, well, we shall soon be home now, won't we? Stick says he won't be sorry, either. He misses the Company in the local, you see. He's used to that.”

C
AROLUS RARELY HAD TO
stay in London. When he did, he put up at Freeman's, a small, private and comfortable hotel, whose sole recommendation seemed to be something out-of-date which the proprietors called good service. The rooms were not very large and had been furnished about the time when Oscar Wilde used to stay there with dubious companions, called by the staff “young gentlemen” when they were addressing Oscar, and “those horrible little renters” when speaking among themselves. The hotel, however, was clean and the men and women who worked there seemed to be “on stage” all the time, playing the parts of those who worked in London hotels in late Victorian times.

It suited Carolus, who wanted no diversion at that time and did not mean to be disturbed by phone calls or visits. It was not that he wanted to think, for he had done all the thinking necessary before his cruise had ended. He wanted to decide how he should wind up the whole affair of the
Summer Queen
.

On his second day home, he telephoned Porteous.

“Would you turn up in your books to find out from what address Mrs Darwin wrote to book her last cruise?”

“Certainly, old man,” said Porteous. “Certainly,” and after a time he came back with 47 The Glebe. “That's that huge
block of flats near the British Museum. Enormous place. You can't …”

“And Darwin? Did he use the same address?”

“We don't seem to have an address for Darwin,” said Porteous. “I expect it's the same. After all they were married, weren't they?”

“They weren't when Darwin came on the cruise last year. See where he wrote from then, would you?”

“What's all this sudden interest in Darwin?” asked Porteous.

“I think he may be able to help me with my enquiries,” replied Carolus, like a policeman answering an importunate newspaper reporter.

“Well, here it is anyway,” said Porteous, “though I don't suppose they've ever heard of Darwin there now. Things and people change so quickly in London. He wrote from 341 Dover Street.”

“Thanks. You've no other address for him?”

“Why should we have?”

“Then tell me the address of Miss Rita Latour.”

“I hope you're not going to bother all these people with a lot of questions?” said Porteous anxiously. “We get cruisers coming back again year after year and they won't like it if they think someone's going to question them after a holiday.”

“Just give me the girl's address, will you?” asked Carolus again.

“She lives in Bromley,” said Porteous.

“Address?”

“17a Blackheath Terrace, or at least that's where she was a month or two ago. You never know with that sort. They shift about so much.”

“What sort?”

“I don't need to tell you. Anything else you want to know?”

“Not just at the moment. I'll let you know if anything more turns up.”

“You haven't given up the chase?” Porteous asked facetiously.

“It's a good thing for you I haven't,” said Carolus and put down the receiver.

He went first to Darwin's previous address in Dover Street. Number 341 consisted of a tall building given to so-called Service Flats, an anachronistic term if ever there was one. He went up in a creaking lift, thinking that it could only be a matter of time before the whole building was pulled down to make way for the inevitable block of offices.

He asked at a desk in the hall for Darwin. The name seemed to surprise a white-haired man with a sharply defined obtruding paunch.

“Mr Darwin?” he said. “We haven't seen Mr Darwin for nearly a year when he left here to get married. He keeps his flat on just the same, but he never comes back to it. You'd think he'd have to fetch something from there once in a while, wouldn't you?”

“No,” said Carolus. “But I have a feeling you may be seeing him soon. I'm very anxious to see him and I'd be most grateful”—Carolus emphasized this with a £5 note—“if you would let me know when he comes. Here's my telephone number.”

“We don't like doing that sort of thing,” said the old gentleman. “But I daresay it can be managed. I take it you don't wish me to mention to Mr Darwin,
if
he comes, that you were enquiring for him?”

“Best not,” said Carolus. “He won't want to be disturbed.”

“No. I see. I'll telephone you from here then, sir. That's if Mr Darwin comes.”

“Good. Fine. See you,” said Carolus briefly and went out into Dover Street.

Then grabbing a taxi, he drove to The Glebe, that architectural horror, the proximity of which to their nesting place had so much disturbed the readers in the British Museum. Here, having walked round the block to find the entrance for Flat Number 47, he was greeted cheerfully by a uniformed hall porter.

“Mr Darwin? Yes sir. He's in residence, but I don't know if he's at home just now. I'll telephone if you like, or you can go up and ring the bell.”

“I'll go up,” said Carolus.

“Very well, sir. Sad about Mrs Darwin, wasn't it? Very nice person. Always very thoughtful. Oh, thank you, sir. I'll call the lift.”

“You don't know whether Mr Darwin's alone, do you?” asked Carolus.

The hall porter did not seem to like this.

“Mr Darwin is always alone,” he said. “Ever since Mrs Darwin was brought home to be buried.”

“I see. He hasn't a young lady with him?”