The Brass Chills Page 6

  We got through our own meal about seven, which left an hour to kill. I walked the deck, smoking. There was still daylight. A few minutes after eight I took a look in the dining saloon. Jess was there, having dinner. But a couple of the ship’s officers who’d come off duty at the same time were with her.

  I took a couple more turns around the deck. Then I looked in the dining saloon again. Jess was gone. Damn, I thought. She’d either have gone to her cabin or perhaps into the library. She wasn’t on deck.

  I went to the library. She wasn’t there. Neither was Bill. I had a head of steam up and nothing was going to stop me. I searched that ship from stem to stern — A deck, I mean. I went every place except the captain’s cabin. No sign of either of them. Bill, of course, might be below checking with his crew. I went to Jess’s cabin and rapped on the door. She didn’t answer. I didn’t care much whether she was asleep or not, so I gave that door a good pounding. No result.

  I started searching again.

  After an hour I gave that up. Lucas said she supposed Jess was sleeping, but, she wasn’t. Alec Walker hadn’t seen her. It was dark now. I wasn’t worried, mind you. I was just mad at having fluffed my opportunity.

  Then about ten o’clock I found her. I wandered up to the sun deck, and there she was, leaning on the rail.

  “Jess!” I said.

  She turned around as if I’d stuck a pin in her. I couldn’t see her face; just the dim outline of her figure.

  “Oh, it’s you!” she said. She sounded as though my approach had frightened her.

  “In person,” I said. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

  “Hiding?” Her voice was tight, almost sharp.

  “Hey, take it easy!” I said. I reached out to touch her hand. It was cold, and she drew it quickly away. “It’s just that I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You sound upset.”

  “It’s nothing Chris. I … I guess I’ve got the jitters.”

  “What about?”

  “Is this a third degree, Chris?”

  This was a fine beginning for what I had in mind! “Of course it isn’t,” I said.

  “Sorry,” she said. Her voice was more normal. “I’m not fit company for man or beast tonight. Maybe you’d better leave me alone till I feel a little less foul!”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone,” I said. I decided to take the plunge anyway. “I don’t want ever to leave you alone, Jess. The other afternoon when I was trying to tell you … ”

  “Chris, listen!” She put her hand on my arm to silence me. I thought she meant she wanted to say something, but instead she was listening. “Chris! The engines! They’ve stopped.”

  It was true. The steady vibration which had been under our feet for two weeks had ceased. Before I could say anything, the alarm bells rang.

  “Boat stations!” Jess said. She turned and hurried away without another word.

  As I made for my post I remember wondering why they’d stop if there was submarine danger. Bill was already by our lifeboat when I got there. The signal to lower boats hadn’t come.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “Search me.”

  Presently I heard the tread of feet on the deck. Bradley, Cleave, and two of the ship’s officers approached.

  “Gentlemen,” the captain said, “we’ve reached our destination. You’ll go below to your quarters, collect your duffel, and return to your stations. You’ll be taken ashore in small boats.”

  Somewhere in the blackness of the starboard was the Island.

  Bill and I went below. We’d kept our things packed in case of emergency. We didn’t stop to do any gassing. Bill said, “Thank the Lord this trip is over! I’ll feel better with solid ground under my feet.”

  Back on deck I found that all of us quartered on A deck had been brought around to the starboard side. The night was clear and still, and I could make out Bradley and Cleave talking together. Then Bradley stepped forward and spoke.

  “This group,” he said, “will be taken ashore in one boat. When we reach land you will be taken off singly, searched, and your belongings searched. We must be absolutely certain that the danger which has hung over us here on the Ship isn’t carried ashore. I’m sure you’ll all agree that this precaution is necessary.” He turned to Cleave. “Where’s Quartermayne?”

  “Mr. Quartermayne!” Cleave called out.

  Jed didn’t answer. The captain ordered one of the sailors to go to the master shipwright’s cabin to fetch him. We waited impatiently. The men on B deck were already being moved. We could hear the creak of oars as the boats slipped away from the Ship.

  Then the seaman who had been sent for Quartermayne came back, running. I could hear the hum of his excited voice, but not what he said.

  “Dr. Walker! Mr. Wells!” Bradley’s voice was sharp. “This way, please.”

  I dropped my duffel and followed him and Alec into the passage leading to Quartermayne’s cabin. I was behind them, the last one to reach the open cabin door. Over the seaman’s shoulder I saw Quartermayne — lying on the floor, his knees drawn up under him. His face was toward us, the left side against the rubber matting, set in a horrible mask of agony.

  Between the door and the bunks a wall table had been let down. On it stood Quartermayne’s metal blueprint Case, packed and locked — all but a pad of yellow scratch paper. He had evidently crawled toward the table, managed to pull the pad off onto the floor. But it had fallen beyond his reach. Clutched in his right hand was a flat carpenter’s pencil.

  Alec was already kneeling beside him. I saw the grim set of his mouth as he felt for a pulse that wasn’t there. He got up slowly, shaking his head at Bradley.

  There was an overturned glass on the floor beside Quartermayne’s bunk, and a medicine bottle with about a half-inch of brownish liquid left in the bottom.

  “Cough medicine I prescribed for him,” Alec said. “He’s been taking it the whole trip. Somebody must have got to it.”

  “He knew who did it,” Bradley said harshly, picking up the pad almost as if there was something to read on its blank yellow surface.

  I didn’t hear any more. I had seen something else; something outside the cabin on the rubber matting of the passage. There were half a dozen cigarette butts tramped out in a little heap. It was as much Bill Regan’s trademark as if he’d signed his name.

  VI

  I had to call Bradley’s attention to those butts. I felt as if I’d been slugged. I remember the seaman had sent for Bill. I remember an order that everyone on A deck should be gathered in the library. I remember Bill, coming along the passage with a puzzled look on his face. I remember the sharp intake of his breath as he saw Quartermayne. Then Bradley said:

  “Let me see your cigarettes, Regan.”

  Bill, still puzzled, pulled them out of his shirt pocket. Bradley stooped and picked up one of the butts. The brands matched.

  “What happened, Regan?” he asked. “Did he accuse you? Did he show you the evidence he had against you? Is that why you poisoned him?”

  “Poisoned him,” Alec said, “and then stood watch out here in the passage to be certain no one came to help him! You louse!”

  “That’s crazy!” Bill said. “I loved Jed like a father! I haven’t been near him or this cabin all day!”

  “He was alive half an hour ago,” Bradley said. “We were talking together in the captain’s cabin. Where have you been for the last hour, Regan?”

  Bill’s hesitation must have been apparent to everyone. “In our lounge room,” he said. “The library.”

  “We’ll check on that,” said Bradley. “Come on.”

  The rest of the A deck people were all in the library. I watched their faces as Bradley broke the news. Rage and shock were the most noticeable emotions. Then, when Bradley went on to Bill’s position, I thought there was going to be trouble.

  “Like hell he was here for the last hour,” big Joe Adams
said angrily. “He came in about ten minutes before the call to stations. He hadn’t been around all evening.”

  “Well, Regan?” Bradley looked and sounded like the angel of doom.

  Bill fumbled for a cigarette. “I … I guess I misjudged the time,” he said.

  “Where were you, then, before you came in here?”

  “Just … just around,” he said lamely.

  “Consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Regan,” Cleave said.

  “Just a minute.” It was Jess who interrupted. There was no color in her face at all. “Bill was with me.”

  “Where?” Bradley demanded.

  “Forget it, Jess,” Bill said quickly.

  She ignored him. “He was with me … in my cabin,” she said.

  PART THREE

  I

  A PIN, dropped in one of the heavy metal ash trays on the center table, would have resounded like a falling crowbar. Jess kept her blue eyes fixed on Bradley while everybody in the room was staring at her. The silence was broken by a sort of snort from Ellen Lucas. I saw Jess’s hands, hanging at her sides, clench. She didn’t look at Ellen.

  I could feel the blood in my temples. I had a sensation in my middle as though all my guts had dropped out.

  “So Regan was with you in your cabin, Miss James?” Bradley said.

  “Yes.” Her voice was high, defiant.

  “For an hour before the call to stations?”

  “He left me about ten minutes before it sounded,” Jess said.

  I was sick. I wanted to get out of there.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could prove that, Miss James.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t suppose there is.”

  I was wondering how long this had been going on. Had they been seeing each other from the very beginning of this trip … since that first night when I’d found Bill waiting outside the door of the sick-bay?

  “No one saw Reagan go to your cabin or leave it?” Bradley asked.

  “I don’t know.” She had started to shake her head again. “Perhaps there is a way …”

  “Go ahead, Miss James.”

  “If I tell you, you wont believe it,” she said. “But something happened after Bill had been there about fifteen minutes. Let him tell you, and then it’ll prove he was there.”

  “Well, Regan?” Bradley said.

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Bill said.

  Jess drew a deep breath. “Chris,” she said.

  “The hell with it,” said Bill, and he sounded as if he meant it.

  I looked at him for the first time since Jess had alibied him. There was a stub of a cigarette between his lips, and his eyes were squinted, characteristically, to keep out the smoke.

  “We haven’t got all night for this, Regan,” Cleave said.

  “I’ll tell you, then,” Jess said. “Chris came looking for me about a quarter to nine. He knocked on the door. We kept still till he went away. Ask him if that isn’t so.”

  There was a flash of sympathy in Bradley’s gray eyes as he glanced at me.

  “It’s true,” I said.

  “If we hadn’t been in the cabin,” Jess said, “we wouldn’t know that, would we?”

  They’d been in there. They’d kept still, waiting and hoping for me to go away.

  “Did you look anywhere else for Miss James, Chris?” Bradley asked.

  My face was burning. “I looked all over the ship for her,” I said.

  “Did you see Regan at any time while you were looking?”

  “No,” I said. Something boiled over inside me. “Damn it, it’s clear enough they were together, isn’t it?” Somebody dropped a hand on my shoulder. It was Ed Winthrop, his eyes somber behind his spectacles. He was sorry for me, too. I remember I wrenched away from him.

  “Nothing is clear,” said Bradley, in a tired voice. “If you were with Miss James, Regan, when did you drop those cigarette butts outside Quartermayne’s cabin?”

  “I didn’t,” Bill said. “Not tonight. Not any time.”

  “They’re your brand,” Cleave said.

  “There must be a hundred guys smoke Camels on this ship,” Bill said,

  “But they don’t leave a trail of them around on the floor,” said big Joe Adams.

  “Some day,” said Bradley, “somebody will solve a murder case with clues like that. But they’re never that easy for me.”

  II

  That was the end of any direct investigation for the moment. We had to disembark. I gathered that everything that could be taken off the Ship in darkness would be. If the job of unloading wasn’t complete, she would lift anchor and cruise away, to return the following night. They were taking no chances of any daylight reconnaissance by the enemy.

  We were a grim but subdued group when we were herded back on deck and went down a rope ladder, one by one, into a waiting power launch. It was pitch black, and it wasn’t till we were underway that I knew that it was Tubby Garms and McCoy I was crowding between in the stern of the launch.

  “Douse that cigarette, mister,” said a sharp-voiced marine.

  A red point dropped into the bottom of the boat and went out. I could visualize Bill’s heel crushing it out. The motor exploded into action, and the launch pulled away from the Ship.

  It must have been less than a hundred yards to shore. We clambered out onto a narrow wooden pier, each carrying his own duffel. Then we were marched through the darkness, like prisoners of war, armed marines on either side of us. No one spoke except for a muttered four-letter word here and there as someone stumbled over a rock or missed his footing in the dark. The marine who led the way had one of those shaded blackout torches strapped to his wrist. It gave light for him and no one else.

  Then we found ourselves pushing between some sort of heavy canvas shield. Somebody said:

  “All clear, Lieutenant.”

  A door opened and there was a lighted room beyond. We were hustled in, and I realized that the canvas curtained the three sides of a small front porch.

  We were in what turned out to be the mess hall. It was a long, narrow wooden building furnished only with trestle tables and benches. A smell of fresh coffee came from a kitchen that evidently lay behind the swing doors. We put down our bags and looked around at one another. Bill had gone to the end of one of the benches, and he sat there smoking, his eyes lowered to the duffel bag at his feet.

  A marine, equipped with side arms, stood with his back to the entrance. The door couldn’t be opened till he was assured the canvas porch curtains were in place. It was hot and airless. I could feel little rivulets of sweat running down my back and chest. I looked for Jess. She, too, had drawn away from the rest. She was sitting at one of the far tables, her back to me. Big Joe, Lew Lewis, and Ed Winthrop were in a huddle, but I could hear only the rumble of their voices. Then Bradley and Cleave came in. With them were a tough1ooking marine sergeant and the fattest woman I’d ever seen outside a circus. She was a dark-skinned Filipino, and she must have weighed at least two hundred and eighty pounds. I learned that she was the wife of the sergeant, O’Rourk by name. He’d been stationed in the Islands for fifteen years and was suffering from a permanent and burning rage that he’d been detailed to this island instead of to active duty on Bataan.

  Bradley took over. “You all understand the reason for this search, and why it’s necessary,” he said. “We’ll all strip, and Sergeant O’Rourk, who’s had no connection with any of us, will search our clothes and belongings.”

  “My goodness!” said Ellen Lucas in a stifled voice.

  If Bradley’s stern facade cracked at all, I couldn’t tell in the dim light. “Mrs. O’Rourk will undertake to search you and Miss James in the kitchen, Miss Lucas,” he said.

  Mrs. O’Rourk flashed the two nurses a wide, amiable smile and waved them toward the kitchen. I saw she was barefoot, and that in spite of her huge bulk she moved with light, easy grace.

  Then we got down to business. I was reminded of th
at day in the recruiting office as we stood in a line, stripped, and O’Rourk went through our things. Half an hour later he was done and, of course, had found nothing.

  Mrs. O’Rourk returned, carrying a collection of lipsticks, compacts, and lotion bottles. She put them down in a heap on one of the tables.

  “I am not knowing about these,” she said. She had a clear high voice like a child’s.

  “I’ll check on them,” Alec Walker said.

  “Otherwise, okay!” said Mrs. O’Rourk. She took us all in with her happy smile. She spoke American and was proud of it.

  “Mrs. O’Rourk has made coffee,” Bradley said. “Then Captain Cleave has some instructions for you before you’re shown to your quarters.”

  Still smiling, Mrs. O’Rourk began ladling out coffee from a huge white enamel pot, but I don’t think anyone else had much enthusiasm for it or the hard biscuits that were served with it. The leadermen, excluding Bill, went into another huddle.

  Jess and Ellen came back from the kitchen. When I saw Ellen’s face, I remembered Tubby Garms saying on ship board, “I’ll bet she wears long drawers.” She looked now as if exposing her person to Mama O’Rourk had been almost more than she could take.

  I maneuvered my way over to Jess, who was standing alone, tin coffee cup in her hands.

  “Cigarette?”

  “Thanks,” she said, without looking at me. I lit it for her and handed it over. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do or say. She sipped her coffee. Then she looked up, and her eyes met mine for just a moment.

  “I’m sorry, Chris,” she said.

  “What you do with your life is your own business,” I said, sounding like a church deacon and hating myself for it. “I suppose he really was with you? You’re not just helping him to an alibi?”

  “He was with me,” she said.

  “You must have thought me a dope,” I said, “letting you in on my pathetic little heartbeats.”

  “Please, Chris!” She turned away and moved off by herself.

  Cleave rapped on one of the tables and the room went silent. “Gentlemen,” he said, “there are several things I want clearly understood. No lights. No cigarettes in the open. We’ve marine sentries standing watch, and they’ve got orders to shoot first and ask questions afterward if anyone shows a light. Is that clear?”