deduced, on the way.
After a while I got up and went into my cabin, where Johnson’s painting lay, right side up, on the bunk.
Thinly suffused with sweet colour; flat and soft as a painting on silk, my own face lay mistily there. Made-up for Gilda, I looked like that.
I was entranced. Handling it lightly by the edges, I picked the wet canvas up, and stared at the arrangement of earth and soil and mineral pigments which the mind behind those bifocal glasses had transformed into my face. Beneath my feet, the deck tilted as the sails far above me, touched with wind, started to pull. My door swung open and sunlight filled all the cabin, bringing with it the smell of leaves, and flowers, and the salt tang of the sea. Dazzling with sun, the fresh-laundered curtains over my porthole filmed and fluttered against the blue sea beyond, and the sea itself glittered, coarse blue and white in the hearty young wind.
Dolly
leaned over with sudden decision, and something tipped, with a clack, from the other end of my bed. I laid the painting down, wedging it flat with my jewel case, and went to retrieve and secure what had fallen.
It was a coat hanger.
I hadn’t left a coat hanger there. I had it in my hand, vaguely wondering whose it was, when suddenly, without question, I knew. That powerful hanger, with the riveted hook, the hook which had never come out despite the dead weight it carried, was none of mine or Johnson’s ownership.
It was the hanger on which the dead body of Chigwell had been suspended, by his own large and well-fitting overcoat, in the wardrobe in Rose Street that night.
Johnson, when I called him, did not come at once. When the incredible nautical crisis, whatever it was, had been resolved and he finally entered, I had pulled myself together; although I could not bring myself, yet, to pick up the thing from where I had dropped it again, on his plushy blue rug by the bunk. Johnson’s eye, travelling past both it and me, lit upon his painting, still jammed on the bed, and saying, “Oh, that. Thanks,” he picked it up and disappeared, carrying it to the slotted overhead fitment where he kept his unfinished work in the saloon. I heard him come back to the tiller.
By that time I was out in the cockpit. “It wasn’t that.
Will you leave the bloody boat and listen, you fool
?” I spat at his moony bifocals. He handed the tiller to Rupert and followed me into my cabin.
Johnson did not share my distaste. As I told him what had happened he sat with the thing in his hands, turning it over and over. “There was no hanger like this on the boat,” he said. “It’s certainly Chigwell’s.”
“But how could it be?” I do not smoke. There are times when I wish that I did. “The police know you were involved. But if they’ve found the body, they wouldn’t do this. Neither would Kenneth. And apart from the police and Kenneth, the only person who could connect either of us with Chigwell’s body is—”
“The murderer,” said Johnson. He was silent, his hands quiet on the wood. “Not the nicest of thoughts, is it? We had him saving his skin, or else intent on pursuing your friend Dr. Holmes. It seems he’s not doing either. He’s following you.”
“Could he be on board?” I asked. It was a sensible question. I tried to sound sensible asking it.
“No,” said Johnson. “There’s no doubt about that. But it would have been easy to put the hanger aboard while we were sitting in the thick of the traffic at Rhu. It’s been there all day, I expect, but you haven’t noticed it. Probably Lenny picked it up and shoved it on to your bunk, thinking it yours… That’s
how
it was done.
Why
it was done is another matter. I think—” he hesitated.
“What?” Now we had facts, or near possibilities, I felt suddenly better. Dead men cannot swim.
“I think you should go back and get police protection. Hang the scandal. A two-day tabloid headline is better than losing your
After a while I got up and went into my cabin, where Johnson’s painting lay, right side up, on the bunk.
Thinly suffused with sweet colour; flat and soft as a painting on silk, my own face lay mistily there. Made-up for Gilda, I looked like that.
I was entranced. Handling it lightly by the edges, I picked the wet canvas up, and stared at the arrangement of earth and soil and mineral pigments which the mind behind those bifocal glasses had transformed into my face. Beneath my feet, the deck tilted as the sails far above me, touched with wind, started to pull. My door swung open and sunlight filled all the cabin, bringing with it the smell of leaves, and flowers, and the salt tang of the sea. Dazzling with sun, the fresh-laundered curtains over my porthole filmed and fluttered against the blue sea beyond, and the sea itself glittered, coarse blue and white in the hearty young wind.
Dolly
leaned over with sudden decision, and something tipped, with a clack, from the other end of my bed. I laid the painting down, wedging it flat with my jewel case, and went to retrieve and secure what had fallen.
It was a coat hanger.
I hadn’t left a coat hanger there. I had it in my hand, vaguely wondering whose it was, when suddenly, without question, I knew. That powerful hanger, with the riveted hook, the hook which had never come out despite the dead weight it carried, was none of mine or Johnson’s ownership.
It was the hanger on which the dead body of Chigwell had been suspended, by his own large and well-fitting overcoat, in the wardrobe in Rose Street that night.
Johnson, when I called him, did not come at once. When the incredible nautical crisis, whatever it was, had been resolved and he finally entered, I had pulled myself together; although I could not bring myself, yet, to pick up the thing from where I had dropped it again, on his plushy blue rug by the bunk. Johnson’s eye, travelling past both it and me, lit upon his painting, still jammed on the bed, and saying, “Oh, that. Thanks,” he picked it up and disappeared, carrying it to the slotted overhead fitment where he kept his unfinished work in the saloon. I heard him come back to the tiller.
By that time I was out in the cockpit. “It wasn’t that.
Will you leave the bloody boat and listen, you fool
?” I spat at his moony bifocals. He handed the tiller to Rupert and followed me into my cabin.
Johnson did not share my distaste. As I told him what had happened he sat with the thing in his hands, turning it over and over. “There was no hanger like this on the boat,” he said. “It’s certainly Chigwell’s.”
“But how could it be?” I do not smoke. There are times when I wish that I did. “The police know you were involved. But if they’ve found the body, they wouldn’t do this. Neither would Kenneth. And apart from the police and Kenneth, the only person who could connect either of us with Chigwell’s body is—”
“The murderer,” said Johnson. He was silent, his hands quiet on the wood. “Not the nicest of thoughts, is it? We had him saving his skin, or else intent on pursuing your friend Dr. Holmes. It seems he’s not doing either. He’s following you.”
“Could he be on board?” I asked. It was a sensible question. I tried to sound sensible asking it.
“No,” said Johnson. “There’s no doubt about that. But it would have been easy to put the hanger aboard while we were sitting in the thick of the traffic at Rhu. It’s been there all day, I expect, but you haven’t noticed it. Probably Lenny picked it up and shoved it on to your bunk, thinking it yours… That’s
how
it was done.
Why
it was done is another matter. I think—” he hesitated.
“What?” Now we had facts, or near possibilities, I felt suddenly better. Dead men cannot swim.
“I think you should go back and get police protection. Hang the scandal. A two-day tabloid headline is better than losing your
Similar Books
