Free The Golden Rendezvous by Alistair MacLean Page B

shouldn't be here, miss beresford."
    "What happened to him?" she repeated. "That's for the ship's surgeon to say. Looks to me as if he just died where he sat. Heart attack, coronary thrombosis, something like that." she shivered, made no reply. Dead men were no new thing to me, but the faint icy prickling on the back of my neck and spine made me feel like shivering myself.
    The warm trade wind seemed cooler, much cooler, than it had a few minutes ago. Dr. Marston appeared. No running, no haste, even, with dr. Marston: a slow measured man with a slow measured stride. A magnificent mane of white hair, clipped white moustache, a singularly smooth and unlined complexion for a man getting so far on in years, steady, clear, keen blue eyes with a peculiarly penetrating property, here, you knew instinctively, was a doctor you could trust implicitly, which only went to show that your instinct should be taken away from you and locked up in some safe place where it couldn't do you any harm.
    Admittedly, even to look at him made you feel better, and that was all right as far as it went, but to go further, to put your life in his hands, say, was a very different and dicey proposition altogether, for there was an even chance that you wouldn't get it back again. Those piercing blue eyes had not lighted on the "lancet" or made any attempt to follow the latest medical developments since quite a few years prior to the second world war. But they didn't have to: he and lord dexter had gone through prep school, public school, and university together and his job was secure as long as he could lift a stethescope. And, to be fair to him, when it came to treating wealthy and hypochondriacal old ladies he had no equal on the seven seas. "Well, john," he boomed.
    With the exception of captain bullen, he addressed every officer on the ship by his first name exactly as a public school headmaster would have addressed one of his more promising pupils, but a pupil that needed watching all the same. "What's the trouble? beau brownell taken a turn?"
    "Worse than that, i'm afraid, doctor. Dead."
    "Good lord! brownell? dead? let me see, let me see. A little more light, if you please, john." he dumped his bag on the table, fished out his stethescope, sounded brownell here and there, took his pulse, and then straightened with a sigh. "In the midst of life, john... And not recently either. Temperature's high in here, but I should say he's been gone well over an hour." I could see the dark bulk of captain bullen in the doorway now, waiting, listening, saying nothing. "Heart attack, doctor?" I ventured. After all, he wasn't all that incompetent, just a quarter of a century out of date. "Let me see, let me see," he repeated. He turned brownell's head and looked closely at it. He had to look closely. He was unaware that everyone in the ship knew that, piercing blue eyes or not, he was as shortsighted as a dodo and refused to wear glasses. "An, look at this. The tongue, the lips, the eyes, above all the complexion. No doubt about it, no doubt at all. Cerebral haemorrhage. Massive. And at his age. How old, john?"
    "Forty-seven, eight. Thereabouts."
    "Forty-seven. Just forty-seven." he shook his head. "Gets them younger every day. The stress of modern living."
    "And that outstretched hand, doctor?" I asked. "Reaching for the phone. You think "just confirms my diagnosis, alas. Felt it coming on, tried to call for help, but it was too sudden, too massive. Poor old beau brownell." he turned, caught sight of bullen leaning in the doorway. "Ah, there you are, captain. A bad business, a bad business."
    "A bad business," bullen agreed heavily. "Miss beresford, you have no right to be here. You're cold and shivering. Go to your cabin at once." when captain bullen spoke in that tone, the beresford millions didn't seem to matter any more. "Dr. Marston will bring you a sedative later."
    "And perhaps mr. carreras will be so kind "i began. "Certainly,"
    carreras agreed at once. "I