what they saw… Hand over the shooter.'
But I couldn't read the name. It was something foreign. However, it appeared that one of the two mannequins on the foc's'le was fitted with a moving arm, for he saluted us just then.
'They see us,' I said. 'I reckon they're coming alongside.'
I put my hand out again for the gun.
'You won't like it in gaol, son.'
'It'll be just like here,' he said, and the gun was in my hand.
I tried to look as though I had expected this development. I held the gun; I commanded the ship – the whole of the seas.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I held up my glass of Spanish sherry as though trying to decide whether it agreed with me or not. It looked like cold tea, and tasted like cold, very sweet tea.
'Vaughan left me at quarter after eleven, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding, with the black sea boiling behind him. 'I then remained here, reading, until half past, when I decided I'd better take my boots down to the boy. He's generally in the kitchen at that time, and one of his last duties is to clean the boots.'
'And as you were coming back up, you saw Blackburn going down with his boots,' Vaughan put in.
'That is correct,' said Fielding slowly, as though not over- keen on the fact having been mentioned. 'We crossed on the bottom stairs.'
'How did he seem?' I asked.
'How did he seem?' Fielding repeated, cocking his head. 'Rather morose. He barely gave me good night.'
'So the last person to see him would have been the boy?'
'Or our landlady,' said Vaughan. 'She'd been in the kitchen when you'd taken your boots down, hadn't she, Howard?'
'I believe that she had been,' said Fielding, 'but she'd gone up to her room by the time I got there.' He turned to me, explaining: 'It is the Lady's habit, Mr Stringer, to read articles from the newspapers to her brother, last thing.'
'And to drink wine,' added Vaughan.
I felt the urge to defend Amanda Rickerby against this slur, and immediately felt guilty on that account. A man ought to have feelings like that only for his wife. But then again my wife smiled at Robert Henderson, and yet every time I met him while walking, the bastard cut me dead.
A strange kind of flat boat was putting out from the harbour. It looked like a brightly lit, floating station platform with three men waiting for trains on it, and it was bucking about pretty wildly. Fielding saw me eyeing it.
'It works in combination with the Scarborough dredger,' he explained. 'They scour out the harbour approach every few weeks.'
'We think we know what happened to Blackburn, Jim,' Vaughan said. 'We think he jumped into the sea.'
'Why would he do that?'
'Well, he was pretty cheesed off about something,' said Vaughan, 'and that's fact. I often worry whether it was something I said to him after supper. You see, he'd been quite bright at supper.'
'You're advertising for railway men again,' I said, 'or at any rate, Miss Rickerby is.'
'Is she?' said Fielding, and he frowned. It wasn't like him not to know something.
'That's why I'm here,' I said.
'Of course,' said Fielding, with a single rapid nod of the head.
'The house is still on the North Eastern list,' I said. 'Any lodge within five minutes of the station is eligible, although strictly speaking, I don't think this is within five minutes.'
'It is if you run like mad,' said Vaughan. 'I'm off to the toilet,' he went on, rising from the couch.'… Toilet then bed.'
'Won't do, won't do,' said Fielding, shaking his head. 'You are not 'off to the toilet'. You are going to the lavatory, and we do not wish to know.'
'Please yourself,' said Vaughan, who gave us both good night before quitting the room.
Fielding said, 'I have tried my best to bring that young man on, Mr Stringer, believe me.'
I wondered whether this was how he saw Vaughan, as somebody to be brought on, much as the wife regarded me.
'I'm pleased that the fate of poor Blackburn didn't put you off coming here,' he said.
'I have his same room as well,' I said.
'As well as what?' he said, smiling. 'Won't you have another sherry?'
'All right then,' I said. 'I'm obliged to you.'
He twinkled his way over to the piano and brought the tray to the occasional table, where he filled my glass, passing it to me very daintily. I took it from him in the same way.
'In so far as I've known them,' he said, 'I've found engine drivers and firemen rather a rough class, but you conduct yourself in a very gentlemanly way, if I may say so.'
I nodded, thinking: Is he onto me? I touched my pocket book, through the wool of my suit-coat. It was there all right, the warrant card within it. Fielding couldn't possibly have had sight of it. Anyhow, he was smiling at me in a sad sort of way that made me think the compliment genuine.
'Did you find that Blackburn was like that?' I asked him.
'He was rather tongue-tied,' said Fielding, sitting back down in his accustomed seat. 'A big fellow but carried his size well. A dignified man… handsome…' 'Do you know what he and Vaughan talked about on their walk after supper?'
'Well,' Fielding said, 'I can make a hazard.'
'Rare one for the fair sex, isn't he?' I said. 'Mr Vaughan, I mean.'
'He's a rare one for pictures of the fair sex,' said Fielding. 'He showed you some of his samples, I suppose.'
'Yes,' I said. 'One.'
'Was it the naked lady on the trapeze?'
I shook my head.
'It was the naked lady holding the bicycle.'
'It is the same… artiste,' said Fielding with a sigh.
He was evidently pretty well acquainted with the cards himself, even if he didn't approve of them.
'Made out he knew her,' I said.
'He'd like to know her,' said Fielding, 'I don't doubt that. He's minded to set himself up as a photographer in that line, you know.' He shook his head for a while. 'It's my fault in a way. I mean, I brought him into the post card world.'
There came a noise from the doorway, and Miss Rickerby was in the corridor with her brother.
'Tell me, Mr Stringer,' Fielding was saying quite loudly, 'how do you manage to spot all the signals while rushing along the line? I believe the North Eastern is the most densely signalled railway in the country. Sixty-seven on one gantry at Newcastle alone.'
He was trying to cover up the subject of our conversation.
'Well,' I said, 'each man has his own pet way of remembering where the signals are. Speaking for myself, I…'
'They're like gladioli,' said Amanda Rickerby, coming into the room looking rather pink about the face but none the less fetching for that.
'How are they?' I said.
'That's what they look like,' she said. 'When there's more than one, I mean. I find them quite pretty but it frightens me when they change because nobody's near by and suddenly they move!
Her brother came into the room behind her, and I thought: You could say the same for him. He brought the
