coughing or the Scotch brought some colour back to his face.
"What was it?" His voice was husky. "What-what kind of poison could kill a man like that? God, I've never seen anything so awful."
“I don't know. That's what I want to find out. May I look round now?”
“Christ, yes. Don't rub it in, Doctor-well, I didn't know, did I? What do you want to see first?”
“It's ten past eleven," I said.
"Ten past-my God, I'd forgotten all about the bridge." He prepared the bridge dinner with remarkable speed and efficiency-two cans of orange juice, a tin opener, a flask of soup, and then the main course in snap-lidded metal canteens. Those he dumped in a wicker basket along with cutlery and two bottles of beer and the whole preparation took just over a minute.
While he was away-which wasn't for more than two minutes-I examined what little open food supplies Haggerty carried in his galley, both on shelves and in a large refrigerator. Even had I been capable of it, which I wasn't, I'd no facilities aboard for analysing food, so I had to rely on sight, taste, and smell. There was nothing amiss that I could see. As Haggerty had said, he ran a hygienic galley, immaculate food in immaculate containers.
Haggerty returned. I said, "Tonight's menu, again.”
“Orange juice or pineapple juice, oxtail-”
“All tinned?" He nodded. "Let's see some." I opened two tins of each, six in all, and sampled them under Haggerty's now very apprehensive eye. They tasted the way those tinned products usually taste, which is to say that they didn't taste of anything very much at all, but all perfectly innocuous in their pallid fashion.
"Main course?" I said. "Lamb chops, Brussels, horse-radish, boiled potatoes?”
“Right. But these things aren't kept here." He took me to the adjacent cool room, where the fruits and vegetables were stored, thence below to the cold room, where sides of beef and pork and mutton swung eerily from steel hooks in the harsh light of naked bulbs. I found precisely what I had expected to find, nothing, told Haggerty that whatever had happened was clearly no fault of his, then made my way to the upper deck and along an interior passage till I came to Captain Imrie's cabin. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I knocked several times, without result. I hammered it until my knuckles rebelled, then kicked it, all with the same result: Captain Imrie had still about nine hours" sleep coming up and the relatively feeble noises I was producing had no hope of penetrating to the profound depths of unconsciousness he had now reached. I desisted. Smithy would know what to do.
I went to the galley, now deserted by Haggerty, and passed through the pantry into the dining saloon. Mary Darling and Allen were setting on a bulkhead settee, all four hands clasped together, pale-very pale-faces about three inches apart, gazing into each other's eyes in a kind of mystically miserable enchantment. It was axiomatic, I knew, that shipboard romances flourished more swiftly than those on land, but I had thought those phenomena were confined to the Bahamas and suchlike balmy climes: aboard a trawler in a full gale in the Arctic I should have thought that some of the romantically essential prerequisites were wholly absent or at least present in only minimal quantities. I took Captain Imrie's chair, poured myself a small drink and said, "Cheers!"
They straightened and jumped apart as if they'd been connected to electrodes and I'd just made the switch. Mary Darling said reproachfully: "You did give us a fright, Dr. Marlowe.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Anyway, we were just leaving.”
“Now I'm really sorry." I looked at Allen. "Quite a change from university, isn't it?"
He smiled wanly. "There is a difference.”
“What were you studying there?"
"Chemistry."
"Long?”
“Three years. Well,
"What was it?" His voice was husky. "What-what kind of poison could kill a man like that? God, I've never seen anything so awful."
“I don't know. That's what I want to find out. May I look round now?”
“Christ, yes. Don't rub it in, Doctor-well, I didn't know, did I? What do you want to see first?”
“It's ten past eleven," I said.
"Ten past-my God, I'd forgotten all about the bridge." He prepared the bridge dinner with remarkable speed and efficiency-two cans of orange juice, a tin opener, a flask of soup, and then the main course in snap-lidded metal canteens. Those he dumped in a wicker basket along with cutlery and two bottles of beer and the whole preparation took just over a minute.
While he was away-which wasn't for more than two minutes-I examined what little open food supplies Haggerty carried in his galley, both on shelves and in a large refrigerator. Even had I been capable of it, which I wasn't, I'd no facilities aboard for analysing food, so I had to rely on sight, taste, and smell. There was nothing amiss that I could see. As Haggerty had said, he ran a hygienic galley, immaculate food in immaculate containers.
Haggerty returned. I said, "Tonight's menu, again.”
“Orange juice or pineapple juice, oxtail-”
“All tinned?" He nodded. "Let's see some." I opened two tins of each, six in all, and sampled them under Haggerty's now very apprehensive eye. They tasted the way those tinned products usually taste, which is to say that they didn't taste of anything very much at all, but all perfectly innocuous in their pallid fashion.
"Main course?" I said. "Lamb chops, Brussels, horse-radish, boiled potatoes?”
“Right. But these things aren't kept here." He took me to the adjacent cool room, where the fruits and vegetables were stored, thence below to the cold room, where sides of beef and pork and mutton swung eerily from steel hooks in the harsh light of naked bulbs. I found precisely what I had expected to find, nothing, told Haggerty that whatever had happened was clearly no fault of his, then made my way to the upper deck and along an interior passage till I came to Captain Imrie's cabin. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I knocked several times, without result. I hammered it until my knuckles rebelled, then kicked it, all with the same result: Captain Imrie had still about nine hours" sleep coming up and the relatively feeble noises I was producing had no hope of penetrating to the profound depths of unconsciousness he had now reached. I desisted. Smithy would know what to do.
I went to the galley, now deserted by Haggerty, and passed through the pantry into the dining saloon. Mary Darling and Allen were setting on a bulkhead settee, all four hands clasped together, pale-very pale-faces about three inches apart, gazing into each other's eyes in a kind of mystically miserable enchantment. It was axiomatic, I knew, that shipboard romances flourished more swiftly than those on land, but I had thought those phenomena were confined to the Bahamas and suchlike balmy climes: aboard a trawler in a full gale in the Arctic I should have thought that some of the romantically essential prerequisites were wholly absent or at least present in only minimal quantities. I took Captain Imrie's chair, poured myself a small drink and said, "Cheers!"
They straightened and jumped apart as if they'd been connected to electrodes and I'd just made the switch. Mary Darling said reproachfully: "You did give us a fright, Dr. Marlowe.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Anyway, we were just leaving.”
“Now I'm really sorry." I looked at Allen. "Quite a change from university, isn't it?"
He smiled wanly. "There is a difference.”
“What were you studying there?"
"Chemistry."
"Long?”
“Three years. Well,
Similar Books
