Fatal Venture (18 page)

Panic was rising in waves in Morrison’s mind, but he fought it down. “Good God!” he said again; then after a few minutes he added: “What do you think they’ll do?”

“Do? What about?”

“I mean about an enquiry. There’s bound to be one, I presume?”

Bristow looked at him in surprise. “Bound to be an enquiry?” he repeated. “Of course there’s bound to be an enquiry. What in Hades do you mean?”

“Well, how can they hold it?” and Morrison put the point about the
Hellénique’s
French ownership.

“Oh, that?” Bristow answered. “I don’t know how they’ll do it, but you may take it from me it’ll be done. And if your description of this DI is correct, it’ll be a pretty searching one at that.”

“I don’t see how they’ll manage it, all the same. Apparently the Captain’s the only person who has the power to hold it, and he doesn’t want to.”

Bristow seemed a good deal upset. “It may make a lot of difference to us,” he said slowly, after a pause, “how and where it’s held. I can tell you I don’t feel too happy about it. I’ve said a lot against Stott that I shouldn’t have. And, for the matter of that, so have you.”

“I know,” Morrison returned, “and I wish I hadn’t. But I don’t see that it really matters.”

“Oh, don’t you? Can you account for all your time ashore? Because I can’t.”

Morrison did an admirable imitation of a man staring in surprise. “Bless my soul, Bristow,” he exclaimed, “what do you mean? You’re surely not suggesting that we could be suspected?”

Bristow made a gesture of impatience. “Of course I’m suggesting it,” he retorted irritably. “Can’t you see it for yourself?”

Morrison tried to look baffled. “Well, I can’t,” he replied. “Why should we? You’ve only just pointed out yourself that we stand to lose by his death.”

“I know I have, and it’s true. But look at it from the police point of view. Our possible loss is hypothetical, but our grousing at the man was actual and concrete. A lot of people will tell the police that they heard us cursing him.”

Morrison could not help feeling relief at the thought that Bristow was as nervous as he himself, though he probably had less reason for it.

“How much of your time ashore can you not account for?” he asked.

Bristow looked at him curiously. “An hour at least,” he returned. “I was with that golfing crowd all day except when I went off by myself to get those blessed photographs.”

Morrison was on the point of asking where he had taken the photographs, then he saw just in time that this again was the sort of remark that he should avoid. The location of the photographs could only be of importance if one knew that of the murder. If Bristow said he was in the opposite direction to that of the crime, it would be so easy to reply: “Then you’re all right.” And a remark of that kind, once made, could be neither withdrawn nor explained.

Then he saw that to ignore the point might seem equally suspicious. “I wish we knew where they found Stott,” he therefore went on, “I was at the Causeway till getting on to three, and then I walked back to Portrush. It’s a couple of hours’ walk or more, and I got the boat that left at five. So I think I’m fairly all right. Where did you take your photos?”

“On that sloping hill at the back of the town – Ballywillan it’s called, I believe. But I might have gone anywhere if I had hurried.”

“But you took the photographs? How many?”

“Five, as a matter of fact. But what has that to do with it?”

“Simply that if you were taking photos at Ballywillan you couldn’t have been anywhere else. Won’t the photos prove you were there?”

Bristow hesitated, then brightened up slightly. “Confirmatory evidence of my statement, yes,” he admitted. “It might or it might not be helpful. It depends, as you say, where Stott was found.”

Morrison was pleased with the conversation, which he thought he was carrying on very naturally. “Can’t you find that out?” he persisted. “If we knew, it might relieve both our minds.”

“We’ll hear it soon enough,” Bristow returned, relaxing into gloom.

Morrison thought that the propitious moment had at last arrived. “Tell me,” he said in a lower tone, “have you thought about Malthus and Mason?”

Bristow looked at him sharply. “The first thing that occurred to me when I heard the news,” he returned. “They were ashore, I know, for they came back in my boat.”

“You don’t know how they spent the day?”

Bristow shook his head. “I didn’t see them. I’m sure they weren’t on the links.”

“Do you think,” Morrison said hesitatingly, “the police ought to be told about that business?”

“I do think so. But it’s not our job. Hardwick will be running the thing and he knows all about it.”

“Does he?” Morrison’s tone suggested doubt.

“Yes. I was present when he and Stott discussed it. That was when we knew those two were corning aboard. Stott wondered if they were out for trouble and warned Hardwick to be prepared.”

Morrison left the cabin with an anxious mind. Obviously all he could do was to sit tight and say nothing, at least so far as the police were concerned. But about Margot he was not so sure. He felt he ought to express at least conventional regret at old Stott’s fate, but he did not wish to go to her cabin. Finally he compromised by ringing her up.

She seemed but little affected by the news, and that more for the publicity it would bring than for the loss of her great-uncle. To avoid the condolences of the passengers she was for that evening keeping her room, but she would be glad to see him next morning if he would call round.

The message cheered him immensely, but it did not banish the increasingly heavy load of fear and foreboding he was beginning to carry.

That night there was a fresh notice on the board.

I deeply regret to state that news has been received from Portrush that Mr John Stott has been found dead under circumstances pointing to foul play. An enquiry into his death has therefore become necessary, and I hereby invite anyone on board who may be able to throw any light on his movements or intentions ashore to report to me.

H J H
ARDWICK
,

Commander
.

One of the attributes of the great of the earth is that weighty consequences may follow from their lightest actions. This was exemplified in the case of the murder of John Stott.

It happened that some three weeks before that tragic event, the envoy of a powerful mid-European country was visiting the British Prime Minister. “Conversations” had taken place between them, with satisfactory results to both. The Press in each country was loud in approval of the results of the negotiations and the meeting was coming to an end in a well-organised blaze of glory.

On the last evening there was a banquet to mark the happy consummation of the visit, and his natural enthusiasm for good work well done caused the foreign envoy to supplement the official toasts with a large number to various eminent personages in his immediate vicinity. The result was that, while remaining entirely sober and decorous, his appreciation of what was humorous was slightly broadened. It was as a joke, harmless and well meant, that when the talk touched on the
Hellénique,
he turned to the Prime Minister and remarked: “We’re grateful to you, over our way, for your efforts to stop the gambling. You’ve given us a classic phrase. When anyone wants rapid and drastic action he says: ‘Look slippy or the British will have cleaned up the
Hellénique
before you’re through’.” A few more toasts and he would have nudged the PM in the ribs, but, happily for diplomatic relations between the countries, the banquet came to an end before this climax was reached.

Though he took the sally as it was meant, as humour of the highest type, the Prime Minister was displeased. It was not the first time he had been twitted with his Government’s failure to stop gambling in what was virtually, if not legally, Great Britain. Personally, he didn’t care two hoots whether gaming went on or whether it didn’t, while the Home Secretary, whose job the affair really was, held that the ship was a blessing in disguise: that it provided a useful safety valve for undesirable energy and kept money in the country which might otherwise have gone abroad.

But the Home Secretary had not developed this opinion until his efforts to stop the proceedings had failed. At first he had considered the venture an outrage – a positive insult to himself and his department. In a lordly manner, he had directed that action be taken against its instigators. And he had been coldly displeased when his advisers had advised that nothing could be done: that Stott and company had managed to outwit the majesty of the English Law.

Then there had come the popular outcry, the barrage of letters to the Press, the questions in Parliament, and his cold displeasure had given place, first, to impotent fury and, when that proved unavailing, to the cynical approval of the venture already mentioned. But though he successfully concealed it, his
amour propre
had been wounded, and he would have been glad to wreak his vengeance on the transgressors, had he only known how.

To a lesser degree, the Prime Minister shared his feelings, and it thus happened that on the day following the banquet he heard from his chief full details of the envoy’s taunt.

“You’ll have to do something, ffoulkes,” the PM ended up, in an exasperated tone. “We can’t have every Tom, Dick and Harry throwing the damned thing in our teeth.”

Whether the classification of the distinguished foreigner as a Tom, a Dick or a Harry would have led to a war had it become known was an interesting though immaterial point. The two Ministers were talking
in camera
.

“But it’s been running for a year and more,” the Home Secretary pointed out aggrievedly, as if offering a complete justification.

“A year too long,” grunted the PM unsympathetically. “See what you can do about it,” and with finality he changed the subject.

The matter thus once again became a personal one to the Home Secretary. Later that day he sent for the files of the case and reread his expert’s opinions. From these he only grew more firmly convinced than ever that Stott had indeed outwitted them. Nor could he see any possibility of getting beneath the man’s defences.

But Sir Marmaduke ffoulkes had not reached his present altitude through admitting defeat. He had previously dropped the matter because a solution of its problem had not been apparent. Now it was different. His personal prestige was at stake. After what the foreign envoy and the PM had said, he could no longer afford to be beaten.

In his younger and less palmy days, the Home Secretary had been a barrister, and in court he had learnt that circuitous means often succeed where the direct method has failed. Now he recalled his training. If Stott could not be got at through his methods, might he not through some failure to carry them out?

To the Home Secretary it seemed the only possibility: worth trying at all events. Later that afternoon he moved the affair a step further on.

It happened that there was penal reform conference at the Home Office at which, representing Scotland Yard, was Sir Mortimer Ellison, one of the Assistant Commissioners. After the proceedings were over, the Home Secretary asked him to wait.

“This blessed
Hellénique
gambling business has cropped up again,” he told him. “The PM has been getting his leg pulled about it, and he is not pleased.”

“We went into that, sir, as you know,” Sir Mortimer answered. “We were advised we could do nothing.”

“I’m aware of that,” the Home Secretary returned a trifle dryly. “I agree; provided those people carry out their scheme to the letter.”

Sir Mortimer glanced at him keenly. “You mean – “ he was beginning when the other interrupted him.

“The thing has been running for over a year without any apparent interest from the authorities. It would only be natural if they were to grow a little careless. One slip, and we might get them.”

“You mean they might, for example, come into a British port with their gambling rooms open?”

“Scarcely that, I fancy. But they might come inside the three-mile limit.”

“I don’t know that I quite follow you there,” Sir Mortimer returned. “I take it your idea in raising the question is that I should arrange for the boat to be kept under observation?”

“Of course.”

“I should do that by putting one or more officers on board as passengers. You meant that, sir, didn’t you?”

“That would be your pigeon, but it’s what I had in mind.”

“Well the point that occurs to me is that none of my fellows would be in a position to say whether the ship was inside or outside the limit. That would require sea knowledge and charts and possibly instruments.”

The Home Secretary paused. “I could send a navigator from the Navy to assist your man, if that would help,” he suggested. “But I don’t confine it to observing the three-mile limit. I rather thought of having a general watch kept in the hope that they may do something that will let us prosecute.”

Sir Mortimer Ellison agreed without enthusiasm. He had already given a good deal of thought to the problem, and he did not believe that the Home Secretary’s suggestion would produce results. However, too lavish an application of cold water to the suggestions of one’s superiors was untactful.

“There is one instance in which even a man without nautical knowledge might obtain conclusive evidence,” he therefore went on, “and that is if, with the rooms open, they went between two pieces of land less than six miles apart. They’re always coasting round islands. Suppose an island lay five miles from the mainland and they went between. We’d get them then all right.”

“I’m afraid they’d never do that.”

“Well, there’s what you said about their becoming careless. I suggest I put a man aboard her for a week or two. We could perhaps be guided about the naval officer by his reports.”

The suggestion was favourably received. Sir Mortimer was told to do what he could with his own men for a fortnight, when the question of further action would be considered. Pleased to have shelved the necessity for immediate decision, the two men parted amicably.