Free Death in the Middle Watch by Leo Bruce Page B

Mediterranean instead of on its way back to England. Then I shall pay for a special flight to carry her body home and I shall go with it. I should think Porteous would be more than ready for the sake of the other passengers. It must all be an embarrassment to him.”
    â€œI suppose so. He’s always speaking of his responsibility for the happiness of his cruisers. I think, if I may say so, that your plan is a good one.”
    â€œIn this way there will be a proper postmortem.”
    Carolus looked keenly at him.
    â€œMost people, when they lose a relative, are horrified by the idea. I’m glad you see it in that light.”
    It will cost a lot of money,” said Darwin unexpectedly. “But I shall be glad if it only helps a little to get at the truth.”
    â€œYes. I see that.”
    â€œBut you have no idea, even a sheer guess, where the truth lies?”
    â€œI wouldn’t say that. We all indulge in guesswork sometimes. But at present I have nothing even to form the basis of a list of possible suspects.”
    â€œLet us be hypothetical though, Deene. Who would be on that list if you decided to make it now?”
    â€œAlmost everyone on the ship, to start with. The officers and crew and all the passengers.”
    â€œ
All
the passengers?”
    â€œWhy not? If you suspect one it must be all of them, men and women. But it doesn’t end there. The Purser will have told you that a launch put out from the docks last night at about one o’clock. The agent’s clerk, apparently. The man who met you at the airport this morning. That widens the range considerably.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThere were two boatmen on the launch whom Ratchett assumed to be the usual crew of the launch. But no one knows. The launch seems to have been alongside for the best part of an hour. You see why I say this widens the range of possibility?”
    â€œYou mean that the murderer might have been concealed aboard the launch?”
    â€œOr could have been one of the men whom Ratchett took for boatmen. There are a number of possibilities. All in all, I see no point in trying to make a list of suspects at the moment. Perhaps I may be able to suggest something before you leave us at Gibraltar. You have not been concerned in any way with the troubles in Northern Ireland, I suppose?”
    â€œI have some property there. And in the South. But surely this could have no connection?”
    â€œI mention it only because some of the younger members of an Irish family were playing in the corridor rather noisily near your wife’s cabin. Their connection seems the most farfetched of suppositions, but since I was given the information, I pass it on to you.”
    â€œThanks. I see your difficulties. Don’t let me add to them by asking you to investigate every ridiculous piece of guesswork of the passengers.”

Eight
    N O ONE AMONG THE passengers on the sixty-fifth cruise of the
Summer Queen
was likely to forget the events of the night she left Lisbon for the journey down to Gibraltar, and the greatest addicts of holiday cruising swore after them that they would never go on a cruise again. The sea was rough, for one thing, and the wind and inky darkness of the night made the name of the ship, and of the company which chartered it, a mockery. But there was more to it than bad weather and Carolus himself felt, in words quoted from one of his favourite authors, that almost anything was rather more than likely to happen.
    On the first night out from Lisbon, none of the officers appeared at dinner and it was said that they were all needed for their mysterious duties on the bridge or in the engine room. As Mrs Stick told Carolus after dinner, “
She
says they know it’s bad luck to carry a corpse on board.”
    Carolus was amused to notice that reference to “the lady at the table where we sit” had become shortened at last to the simple if majuscular She, the full title being too