'I know what you saw — I've seen it close,' I replied, deliberately roughly. 'It's Holdgate, the volcanologist. He's dead. He's been murdered. That's a knife in his throat. Now I'm going to switch on the lights.'
I did. The place was empty.
Shock had already drawn older lines in Petersen's schoolboy face. He'd be older by years before the night was out.
I wrapped up the key and put it in my pocket. I went over to the body.
How, I asked myself, had Holdgate allowed himself first to be strapped to the board and then murdered? Smit, T-shirt Jannie and the bull-necked man named Pete weren't murderers. They'd all been having fun together when they had strapped Holdgate down that morning. Yet only they and Holdgate had keys to the place. They'd be the first I'd have to question.
Who could possibly have wanted to kill harmless Holdgate, and why?
My mind raced to the sharp exchange between Hold-gate and Wegger in the morning. It had been very heated, but nevertheless you don't murder a man because you disagree about whether or not a cave is a lava tunnel. I pulled myself up. What I was thinking implicated Wegger. But then was there anyone on board who wasn't implicated? I asked myself grimly. Even Petersen. You're going crazy, I told myself roughly, without bothering to turn and see what Peter-sen was doing. Anyway, Wegger had been on watch on the bridge. The unknown who had threatened Reilly in the tunnel shaft?
I tried to defuse my exploding thoughts. I'd be suspecting Linn next if I went on like this.
I rounded on Petersen. He was shaking, partly from shock, and partly, I realized, because the night had turned very cold. He was concentrating his gaze on Bokkie and the balloon.
I checked my watch. 10.45. Time, too, had become a clue.
'I want you to do two things, Petersen — quick,' I said. 'Three, if keeping your mouth shut is included.'
He wouldn't face my way. I positioned myself where he wouldn't have to look in the direction of the body.
'Aye, aye, sir.'
'First, get up to the bridge and tell Mr Wegger I want him here — at the double. Say to bring his gun with him — loaded.'
My words didn't seem to penetrate. 'He's — got — a — gun?'
'You heard me.' Shock demands shock treatment. 'Pull yourself together, man! A gun. Loaded. Is that clear?'
'Yes — I mean, aye, aye, sir.'
'Second, I want you to rout out the TV cameraman who came aboard with the tourists — I don't remember his name. He's doubling up in one of the new cabins next to us here, not the old ones amidships.'
'Which cabin?' asked Petersen.
'How in hell should I know? Look on the purser's list. It'll be on his noticeboard. Whoever his cabin mate is, keep him out of it. Tell him I want him with a camera and flash equipment.' I jerked my head in the direction of the body.
Petersen hung back.
'Well, what is it?' I demanded.
He said in a rush, 'Someone murdered him — I mean, he could still be lurking about. If you're left alone he might… might…'
'I hadn't given it a thought,' I replied. 'Thanks all the same for your concern. I don't think whoever did it will risk a second attack.'
I became still more aware of how cold it was. 'Drop into my cabin and bring me a sweater also, will you? And have yourself a shot more brandy at the same time. Captain's orders.'
He managed the beginnings of a wan smile. I locked the door behind him, still safeguarding the key with my handkerchief.
I felt quite impersonal about the grotesque object strapped to the board. It seemed to have nothing at all to do with the young-old-maidish fuddy-duddy I had known as Holdgate. He was the most unlikely knife-death victim possible. What did I know of his background?
I shivered in the icy air. My mind baulked at the jump ahead of it: murder, with a thousand complications. When Nelson's gunners at Trafalgar were stunned by the thunder of a thousand broadsides their minds shied away from thoughts of victory and took refuge in the trivialities of battle. In the same way my mind leapt to the tiny events of the day which had intervened between the time I had last spoken to Holdgate and now, when he would never speak again. A day of trivialities, of splendid trivialities. Linn and I had stood on deck and watched the dolphins, 'the swallows of the sea'. They had dived and swooped and performed their graceful arabesques both in the air and in the blue water alongside the Quest. The ship was still in blue water — the blue water of the Subtropical Convergence, Toby Trimen had told us. Linn and I had followed — as had most of the tourists — the 'swallows' with delight. Toby had also identified two types for us: the customary Southern white-sided dolphin and the dusky dolphin, He had taught us how to distinguish the two — the common type by its dark area behind the flipper, by its blunter head and broader dorsal fin.
Sea-birds, too, had convoyed the Quest. Dr Kebble had talked — one couldn't call such informality a lecture — about Prince Edward's very own bird, the Pilot Bird. White as an angel, it is unique to the island.
Then, in the afternoon, I had seen ahead a long grey-black line blocking the southern horizon. It had risen, the closer the ship approached, like a tangible physical barrier in the ship's path. It marked the end of the Subtropical Convergence, where the warm seas ended — the end of the dolphins, the Portuguese men-o'-war, the blue water, the yachting weather.
I had pointed the bank out to Linn and warned her of the storms which lay beyond it. It seemed to me now that that funereal range of fog was symbolic of the storm I had run into with Holdgate's death.
With that thought, my mind snapped back to the scientists' sanctuary and the grim reality confronting me. Holdgate's was the second death involving the Quest. Captain Prestrud had been pistol-whipped to death. Holdgate — struck by a sudden suspicion I went over to the body and looked at his throat. I was right. He hadn't been strapped to the board conscious. He had been half-strangled first. There was a hideous bruise round his windpipe. Someone — and it must have been a powerful man — had choked him senseless from behind, strapped him to the plank, and then thrust the knife home. It had been as calculated as a farmer butchering a sheep.
Why?
Who?
Like the Quest late that afternoon, I had crossed into stormy waters. The sea had turned a cold green at evening — in these high latitudes the twilight never seems to end — and ahead of us was the bank of fog, nearer now, and as dark in the approaching night as the thoughts at present in my mind.
I had cut the Quest's speed to half, a night-ice precaution. Deaf, for the radio black-out was total, and blind except for the uncertain radar, the ship had begun to pitch heavily as she felt her way South. I had doubled the look-outs and put the searchlight squad on the alert.
Before we plunged into the fog-bank I had spotted a single patch of white far out on the starboard bow. For a moment I had thought it was a growler or a bergy bit. When I put my glasses on it, however, it turned out to be the white snout of a Southern right whale dolphin. Then it was lost in the green-black water.
I was brought back sharply to Holdgate's murder by a rap at the door of metal against metal. I remembered to hold the key in my handkerchief when I opened it. It was Wegger. He had used the Luger as a knocker.
I indicated the body. 'What do you make of that, Number One?'
He came in. I watched him closely. From now on, everyone was under suspicion.
He stopped, raised the Luger muzzle to his lips, and blew into it. The low whistle it gave was a macabre sound, a death-watch sound.
His face had its iron-hard look in it. All expression was expunged from his eyes.
'Is he dead?' he asked.
'Yes.'
The Quest gave a deep roll as the south-westerly run of the sea lifted her keel. Holdgate's head rolled with it. First it went leftwards. On the return roll it only got halfway. The weight of the knife kept it pinned left.