“Double Scotch and a port flip,” he smirked.
“Oporto fleep,” grimaced Hay-Lawrence.
“To fornication,” said Demarest.
“To crime,” said Hay-Lawrence.
“No, sir,” nasally boomed the glass-eyed poker player. “This is on me. Waiter! One minute. Now, gentlemen, give it a name and let it rest. You, what’ll it be? Bass? Guinness? Double Scotch?… Well, then, three Basses, two double Scotches, and a Guinness … God, I’m as thirsty as a camel … If you’d ’a’ come in, my boy, with that pair of tens, you’d have been sunk so deep they’d never have found you … that’s the time I wasn’t bluffing.”
“There’s much to be said for strong drink,” murmured Demarest, filling his glass. “Aha! The Major is giving a little party …”
“Two Martinis,” Malvolio was saying, while he regarded the Welsh Rarebit with a loitering eye. He clearly felt that he had more right to her than the Major had — he knew her level. This made the Welsh Rarebit uneasy. She was uncertain whether to be friendly or rude. Consequently she was both, alternately. Queen’s knight to queen two … Hm … not so bad. Better threaten the queen’s rook pawn? Queen to king two … For goodness’ sake don’t hold the door open like that! Someone outside was holding it open, and the night air, cold and full of sea sound, galloped round the smoky room. Silberstein stepped over the brass, cigar in hand, and lazily, leisurely, serenely, greenly, surveyed the lighted roomful of people. Oh! Silberstein. Sorry, Silberstein, didn’t know … Annoyed with me, are you, for keeping the door open? Run home and tell your mother. Tell her a boy bigger than you hit you. Bury your blubbering whelp’s face in her apron and bawl. I know you, you damned little coward and sneak and tattletale … Silberstein saw them and came toward them slowly, with unchanging expression. Something flippant must be prepared for him. Something smubtle …
“Well, Dook, is he trimming you? I’ll bet you two drinks New England will beat you.”
“Don’t call me Dook!”
“Oh, all right, all right, Clarence — keep your shirt on … Ha! This was a Ruy Lopez … And Black, as they say in the books, has a seriously compromised position.”
“He’s clever,” murmured Demarest. “He knows we’re playing chess.”
“Chest,” corrected Silberstein. “In the army they call it chest.”
“What army?” Hay-Lawrence scowled.
“The Grand Army of the Republic.”
“I’m surprised they ever heard of it,” said Hay-Lawrence.
“That’s all you know, is it …” Silberstein leaned backward against the settee back, half standing, half sitting. He expanded his chest, lazily, narrowing his eyes. “My boy, the best checker players in the world are in the American army. They know all the numbers.”
“Checkers! What the devil is checkers?”
“Never heard of checkers? No?”
“The same as drafts,” simpered Malvolio; “they often ask me for checkers … You wanted something, sir?”
“Yes, will you repeat, gentlemen?”
“Not I, thanks,” said Hay-Lawrence.
“Two double Scotches, then … You don’t mind if I watch, do you? Of course not. Everybody likes an audience.”
Hay-Lawrence pondered, brown right forefinger lying on ruddy right cheek. With the other hand he revolved his oporto fleep. He was annoyed. Liberties were being taken with him by one who was not a gentleman. A frosty silence. A pity to have the game spoiled, nevertheless. If one could only keep separate the things one liked! Bawdy conversation with Silberstein — chess or literary conversation with Hay-Lawrence. Philately with the Major. With Smith — what with Smith? Poor old Smith. I wonder who’s kissing him now? Where is our wandering Smith tonight? Pawing her dresses in his stateroom: like the fawn. M-m-m-heliotrope!
“Go away, man! How can I think with you sitting there, a mass of expert knowledge?”
“Go away? Not by a damn sight. I came here to drink.”
Rook to knight square. So: Hay-Lawrence would fight for command of this file. Bishop to queen three. Attack the rook’s pawn. Can he save it?
“How!” said Demarest.
“Gesundheit,” said Silberstein. “While he’s thinking how to save his little goy — Christians, that’s what they call them on the East Side, where they used to play you for a nickel a game — I rise to remark that there’s a clairvoyant on this ship … A full-fledged clairvoyant. I dug him out from under a palm tree in the second-class dining saloon, where he was deep in the Occult Weekly or the Mystic Monthly, or some such thing — horoscopes on every page and ectoplasms running all over the place. Clairvoyant and clairaudient, — he’s a wizard! You’ve got to take your hat off to him. A most peculiar specimen. And full of bright little predictions. ‘You,’ he said to me, after one look at my hand, and a glance at my left eye—‘are hoping to sell chewing gum in England.’ How did he guess it?”
“Too easy,” said Demarest. “Probably your bedroom steward.”
“You may be right, you may be right; the usual method — find out in advance. And easy enough on a ship. He also observed, sadly, that there would be a death on this ship. Not so cheerful, that. Who’s elected? A chance for a pool. The dead man wins.”
“Well — does he say how he’ll die?”
“Murder.” Silberstein was placid, but stared a little.
“Murder? On this ship? He’s off his head.” Hay-Lawrence sipped his flip. A signet ring on the fourth finger.
“This grows interesting,” said Demarest. “Also of personal concern.”
“It does … He felt something wrong with the ship when he got in — something wrong with the ship’s aura.”
“I noticed that myself. Especially in that corridor beside the kitchen!”
“Then last night he had a nightmare. He woke up thinking someone was in his room, turned on the light — no one. Looked out in the hall — not a soul. Everybody asleep. Then he remembered his dream. An old man with a hole in his head, walking toward him, stretching out his hands — in his pajamas, he was — as if asking for something.’
“An old man? That lets me out,” said Demarest.
“And me,” Hay-Lawrence sighed. Rook to king square … Bishop to queen two, Demarest moved smiling. All as anticipated.
“An interesting question. He says he’s sure to recognize the victim — hasn’t seen him yet. When he does see him, ought he to tell him? If so, what?”
“He’s cuckoo,” said Demarest. “No harm if he did.”
“Would you like to be told?”
Silberstein stared with lazy penetration, his eyes cruel, at Demarest. A shiver went up Demarest’s backbone and coldly, slowly, flowered phosphorescent in his skull. Singular! No, he wouldn’t. Not by a damn sight. Another shiver, more fleeting, followed the first. He felt it also down the front of his arms. Death. Murdered at sea. Demarest dead, with a hole in his head. A murder at sea — why was the idea so peculiarly exciting and mysterious? Blood — blood — blood—throbbed the ship’s engines. A pale steward creeping along the corridor. Two bells. The steward threw something white over the side. His white linen jacket — bloodstained. An inspection next day—“Tompkins, where’s your jacket?” … “Burned, sir.” “Burned? How was it burned?” “Well you see, sir, I was smoking, and …” The knife discovered; a cook’s knife from the kitchen. Usually a belaying pin. Or one of those red axes hanging in the corridors For Use in Case of Fire.