Goddard felt a little chill between his shoulder blades and was aware he knew the answer to the question even before he asked it. ‘You haven’t told anybody else this?’
‘Just the captain,’ she replied. ‘At breakfast this morning.’
Maybe it was hopeless now, but he had to make one last effort. He smiled indulgently. ‘But isn’t there a flaw in your theory somewhere? If the thing was staged, why would Krasicki kill himself?’
‘How do we know he did? It could be another illusion.’
'I hate to tear your script to pieces,’ he said, ‘but he’s dead. I helped lift his body onto a bunk, and he was not only cold, but stiff.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, I guess that settles it.’
She would probably shut up now, but it was too late. Well, he asked himself, aren’t you going to warn her at all? Take up the ladder, Mate, I’m aboard. He sighed. ‘If there’s a chance in a million you’re right, you’ve stuck your neck out. Stay away from the rail at night, and keep your door locked.’
‘But I only told the captain.’
And the captain is a deeply religious man, who couldn’t possibly be involved in anything like that, he thought. Read the label attached to his arm. It identifies him the same as all other members of the cast. Krasicki was a gentle, persecuted Polish Jew, and Lind’s a big, exuberant, fun-loving boy who likes to doctor people. He excused himself and went to his cabin. He’d done his best, hadn’t he? And maybe Steen wasn’t involved in it.
If she figured out the mechanics of that dribble of blood from the corner of Mayr’s mouth, why hadn’t she been able to go one step further and grasp the self-evident fact that if the thing had been staged you no longer knew who anybody was? Of course, it was simple enough; so, also, was the blood on the shirt. It had been in a small balloon, or perhaps even another rubber article more likely to be found in the possession of seamen, attached to the inside of the shirt and punctured by the tiny awl Mayr’d had in his hand as he clutched his chest so dramatically after the second shot. Unfortunately, Mayr had dropped the awl in his cabin as they were lifting him onto the bunk, the only slip-up in the whole operation.
Then he, Goddard, had accidentally stepped on it, and had looked down and pushed it over against the bulkhead. The chances were Lind, who was washing his hands at the basin, had seen this in the mirror. This coupled with Goddard’s innocent remark that the hemorrhaging seemed dark for arterial blood, could be partly responsible for Krasicki’s death. The rest of the massive hemorrhage, of course, was easy. Lind had been alone in the cabin with Mayr for over ninety seconds while Goddard was running up to the next deck for the first-aid kit and sterilizer, and the blood was already there in some kind of container in the bedclothes. Obtaining it would have been no problem, not with three of them to donate, and Lind’s dispensary was equipped with hypodermic syringes and, no doubt, anticoagulants.
The rest, of course, was simply consummate staging and acting. Krasicki’s scream was calculated to paralyze the witnesses for the length of time necessary for him to get off the first two shots, the blanks, into Mayr’s chest, with the appropriate shuddering reaction from Mayr. Then Lind came in on cue, caught his arm and swung it up, while Krasicki kept pulling the trigger, now shooting live ammunition and breaking glass all over the place to give it the final touch of verisimilitude.
But all that was no longer important, he thought, as he lay in the sweltering stillness of his cabin. The question now was Steen. If he were involved, then Madeleine Lennox had told them the thing was never going to hold up; they had to eliminate her and anybody else they suspected she’d talked to. But even if the captain had had no part in it, there were still two very ominous possibilities. One was that he might now be suspicious enough, and naive enough, to order a search of the ship, which could trigger the final explosion of violence if Lind’s forces were strong enough. The mate couldn’t back out now; he was committed. The other danger was that even if the captain had better sense than to force the issue while the ship was at sea, Lind might already know of that breakfast conversation. Who knew where his spies were? The dining room steward could have overheard them. So could Rafferty, or Barset.
And what about the fire? The tween-decks of number three hold was the most likely place for Mayr to be hidden. It was directly below that cubicle where he’d been stitched into the burial sack, and when the switch had been made they wouldn’t have moved him any farther around the ship than they had to; the risk of detection was too great. What happened if the heat and smoke drove him out?
He swore irritably, and sat up to light a cigarette, trying to shake off the uneasiness. For God’s sake, he still didn’t know any of this, did he? The whole thing could be imagination. As though to corroborate this, the
* * *
The two fans droned monotonously in the dining room, stirring the muggy air. Krasicki’s death weighed on everybody’s spirits, as well as the enervating heat that apparently would never end. Captain Steen was more silent and withdrawn than ever, and even Lind was subdued. The state of their nerves was apparent when Karl dropped a dish as he was serving the jellied consomme. They all jumped, and had to restrain themselves from looking at him angrily. A sullen Rafferty came in to clean up the mess.
Karen Brooke spoke to Steen. ‘This weather must make you long for the Norwegian fiords, Captain.’
He nodded and managed a wan smile. ‘Yes. And it’s been nearly two years since I was home.’
Lind said to her, ‘But it just takes one winter gale in the North Atlantic to make this look good again.’
'I agree with you,’ Madeleine Lennox said. She began an account of being on a freighter that had been hove to for three days in the Bay of Biscay and how eventually she’d been physically exhausted just from the endless holding onto something and trying to keep from being thrown from her bunk.
Captain Steen interrupted her in a voice not much more than a whisper. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ Goddard looked around. Steen’s face had gone white and was stamped with anguish as he pushed himself to his feet. He started to collapse, but caught himself with a hand braced on the table.
‘Cap, what is it?’ Lind asked quickly.
He and Goddard were leaping up to help him when he swayed, crumpled forward against Karen Brooke’s shoulder, and fell to the deck. Both women cried out.
Lind and Goddard pulled his twisting body from under the edge of the table and into the open. Barset came running in. ‘Good God, what happened?’
'I don’t know,’ Lind snapped. ‘Get a stretcher!’
Barset hurried out. Steen’s eyes were closed and he appeared to fight for breath as he continued to writhe in agony. Lind caught his wrist and tried to feel the pulse. Steen twitched spasmodically and he had to grab for it again. Goddard caught the arm with both hands and held it still. Lind jerked his head at Karl. ‘Find the chief. Tell him to get an oxygen bottle up to the skipper’s quarters.’
To Goddard’s glance and the unasked question:
Barset ran in with the stretcher. They lifted Steen onto it, but he continued to double his body in pain and twist from side to side. He would never stay on it going up the ladders. ‘We need some line!’ Lind barked. ‘Wait! This’ll do.’ With one explosive yank, he swept off the tablecloth, scattering dishes, food, water tumblers, and silverware across the deck. The big arms corded and there was a ripping sound as he tore it in two. He tossed one piece to Goddard, and they passed them under the stretcher and over the captain’s body at thighs and chest to lash him in place. One of the sailors hurried in.
‘Take him up,’ Lind ordered. ‘I’ll get the kit and be up there.’ He ran out. Goddard and the sailor picked up the stretcher, but at that moment the bos’n came in. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. Goddard surrendered it, and followed them down the passageway. They started up the ladder, the sailor going first; the bos’n, with the strength of those almost grotesque shoulders and arms, lifted his end of it straight overhead to keep it level. They mounted the second ladder and disappeared onto the boat deck.
Several of the crew had gathered in the well-deck, looking up. Goddard was conscious of blank stares. ‘Jesus Christ, what next?’ one asked. ‘Anybody got a rubber raft?’ another said. ‘I’d bail out of this pot.’
Karen Brooke and Mrs. Lennox came out of the passageway and joined them, both badly shaken. Mrs. Lennox said she thought it was a heart attack; it was very similar to the one that had stricken her late husband. It wasn’t necessarily fatal, she assured Karen; he’d had two, five years apart. As they stood waiting for some word, Goddard was conscious again of the odor of burning cotton. Ten minutes later Barset came down the ladder.
