He’d come aboard the ship in a rubber raft, and he wondered now if he were going to leave it in a lifeboat. If it did come to that, he reflected, he wasn’t going to be in great demand as an occupant of either boat. ‘No, you take the hard-luck bastard in that one. We don’t want him in here.’ Maybe you couldn’t blame them, at that; a murder, a suicide, a heart attack, and a fire, all in three days, might start a witch-hunt almost anywhere.
He went back and shaved. He had finished and was drying the razor when he became aware that Mrs. Lennox’ shower was still running. He grinned. She’d be a great asset on a small boat; she would have used up the Shoshone’s six weeks’ supply of water before breakfast the first morning. Well, it was one way to keep cool.
Karen Brooke was alone in the dining room when he went in a few minutes past eight. She was wearing a sleeveless summer dress of almost the same shade of blue as her eyes, which in combination with the swirl of honey-colored hair seemed to intensify her tan.
‘You look very nice,’ he said.
She smiled, but her manner was cool and impersonal. ‘Thank you, Mr. Goddard. I consider that a real compliment, in view of the priority.’
‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Lots of men would have said the ship’s afire, and then you look nice.’
‘Oh, there are clods like that.’ He sobered. ‘How long have you known it?’
‘Since yesterday. About the same time you asked me what the cargo was.’
‘But there’s still no official recognition?’
‘No. Mr. Lind hasn’t been down yet. But I suppose they’ve known it for the past few days. It might be what brought on Captain Steen’s heart attack, don’t you think?’
He nodded. ‘Anyway, he’s better this morning, according to Barset.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Karl came in. Goddard asked for a poached egg and some coffee. Karl poured the coffee and went back to the pantry. ‘Is all of number three loaded with cotton?’ Goddard asked. ‘Tween-decks too?’
‘No-o.’ She frowned, trying to remember. ‘They were just finishing loading when I came aboard, and it seems to me the tween-decks in that one is general cargo—cases of canned goods, leather, a lot of big carboys in crates, things like that.’
‘You don’t know what’s in the carboys?’
She nodded. ‘Alcohol.’
He said nothing, but it was obvious from her expression she knew as well as he did the potentialities of that combination— alcohol-saturated cotton—if those carboys started breaking in the heat down there.
Lind came in. He greeted them abstractedly, and it struck Goddard he came as near to looking troubled as he had ever seen him. Well, it might be understandable under the circumstances. When Karen asked how Captain Steen was doing, he shook his head and frowned.
‘I don’t know. I wish now I’d transferred him to the Kungsholm.’
‘Has he had another attack?’ Goddard asked.
‘No, not that. He rested quietly all night, and his pulse was all right. But the past hour he’s had more trouble breathing. And there may be some pulmonary edema—fluid in the lungs.’
‘Pneumonia?’ Goddard asked.
‘No. But it could be a symptom of congestive heart failure. Sparks is still in touch with the Public Health Service doctors, and we’ve got everything they recommend—but, I don’t know.’
‘Well,’ Karen said, ‘they wouldn’t have any more on the Kungsholm.’
‘Just one thing,’ Lind said bleakly. ‘A licensed doctor, instead of a ham-handed sailor.’ He shrugged then, and managed a wry grin, with a return of some of the old exuberance and self-confidence. ‘Oh, before I forget. We’re afire in number three hold. Not supposed to reveal things like that to you fluttery and hysterical passengers, but it’s getting a little like trying to hide an eight-month pregnancy.’
‘Is there anything you can do?’ Goddard asked.
‘We’re going to start throwing water in it as soon as we can get hoses down through the stuff in the tween-decks.’
‘Is there any chance of telling where the burning bales are?’
‘Not much. And if they’re very far down, it’ll be hard to get any water to them. But if we can wet enough of them on top maybe we can keep it under control.’ Lind drained his cup of coffee and got up without ordering breakfast. ‘You don’t know anybody who’s got a chicken farm for sale?’
He went out. Here we go again, Goddard thought. Will the real Eric Lind stand up? Wasn’t there any way you could arrive at some answer, some definite and final conclusion that would remain valid for at least an hour? Steen was better, so it was all a pipe dream, but now we’re prepared for the next bulletin that he’s dead. Or are we? He thought uneasily of Madeleine Lennox. No, she was all right. She was up; he’d heard her taking a shower.
Karen excused herself and left. He finished his poached egg and lit a cigarette while he drank another cup of coffee. When he went outside and walked aft, the bos’n and two sailors were knocking out the wedges that secured the tarpaulins on number three’s hatch cover. Smoke was filtering up here and there around the edges of it. Another man was unrolling a fire hose. He wondered if they had gas masks aboard; the smoke was going to be pretty bad down there.
He reached for a cigarette, but discovered the pack was empty. He tossed it over the side and went back to his cabin for another. As he was tearing the cellophane from it he was arrested by the faint sound issuing from the open door of his bathroom. He frowned, and stepped inside to be sure. The shower was still running in the one next door. After nearly forty-five minutes? He hurried out into the passageway.
Only the screen door was closed, and through it he could just hear the slight hissing of the water. He knocked. There was no answer, no sound of movement. Could she have gone off and forgotten it? He checked the dining room and the lounge and then the deck outside. She was nowhere around. Uneasy now, he came back and knocked again, and when there was still no response he stepped next door to Karen’s cabin and rapped. She looked out.
He explained quickly, and added, ‘I wonder if you’d look in and see if something’s happened to her.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She knocked on the door herself, and called out, ‘Madeleine.’ She went in. Almost immediately, Goddard heard her startled exclamation. ‘She’s lying under the shower! Wait’ll I get a sheet.’
He heard the shower stop, and then quick footsteps, Karen opened the screen door, her eyes frightened. He hurried into the bathroom. Madeleine Lennox lay almost face down on the tile in the open shower stall, a little stain of pink still spreading from the hair plastered wetly to her skull, and the sheet Karen had spread across her nude body was already soaked. Goddard rolled her over and raised her to a sitting position, wrapping the sheet about her as he gathered her up. Karen threw a towel across the pillow, and he laid her on the bunk.
He grabbed her wrist while Karen watched anxiously. ‘She’s alive,’ he said. The pulse was slow, but steady, and now they could see the rise and fall of her chest. ‘I’ll tell Barset to get Mr. Lind,’ Karen said. She hurried out.
Goddard stepped to the door of the bathroom and looked in. He saw the bar of soap lying on the tile, but it was two other things that caught and held his attention. One was the shower head itself; it was the same as the one in his bathroom, fixed, directly overhead, like those in any men’s locker room. The other item was the dry, unused shower cap hanging from a hook on the bulkhead. And the shower had come on during, or immediately after, all that din the bos’n was making with his fire hose at seven thirty. Well, he thought, you wanted to know. Now you do.