'Well, we've just had a murder. What time is the burial service? I expect you want all the officers to be present.'
The fact that the Quest was holding course was enough to make my intentions about burial clear. All the same, I didn't care for the way he was usurping my prerogatives.
I said briefly, 'I've put Persson on round-the-clock non-stop radio watch. I'll decide about the burial when I get a signal out.'
He still seemed amused. 'Did you see the aurora?'
'Yes. I don't think I've ever witnessed a finer.'
'Persson doesn't stand a hope in hell,' he said. 'The further South we go, the worse it will become. We're now into the northernmost reaches of the auroras. They usually stretch in a great ellipse about three thousand kilometres long starting from the South Pole. The field shifts from west to east as the summer wears on, and then back again.'
'You seem to know a hell of a lot about it, Wegger.'
'Radio is my subject. Always has been. I know what a black-out means down in this part of the world.'
'Maybe you can suggest something to Persson? I've told him to try with the radio-telephone.'
Wegger replied — a little contemptuously, it seemed to me, 'Have you withdrawn your ban on me and the radio, then?'
I repeated, 'Any suggestions?'
The R/T simply hasn't got the range. These seas are empty. Persson's wasting his breath.'
I knew in my heart that I had put Persson on merely to salve my conscience. I realized as well as Wegger did what an Antarctic black-out meant.
'Persson will keep trying,' I retorted. 'Thanks for your help.'
He went off in the direction of the galley: It seemed to me that the plate and mug had a jaunty clatter to them.
The horizon was already lighter when I got to the bridge. Given a clear dawn, one can see by 3 a.m. in these high latitudes. I rang for more speed. The Quest's motion became quicker, and an occasional dollop of sea came aboard.
After a while we ran into a fresh patch of squalls and more fog. The night reverted to pitch-black under heavy overcast, and I reduced speed. It was a routine procedure which was to go on until morning.
My mind swung as erratically over the problem of Holdgate as does a compass needle when a ship gets close to Prince Edward Island. Scientists have yet to account for it. Nor could I account for Holdgate. I did not fancy the idea of putting possible suspects through the hoop. Yet it was something I had to do, and I began trying to compile a short list in my mind. It was obvious that since Smit, T-shirt Jannie and Pete had the only keys to the scientists' work-place they must come first. Besides, they had play-acted with Holdgate alive on the burial-board. It seemed to me that all three of them were very unlikely suspects, but I had to begin somewhere…
Captain Jacobsen!
All my free-wheeling suspicions suddenly came into abrupt focus. What did I know of Jacobsen? I hadn't even clapped eyes on the man. He hadn't been in to meals. He had always stayed in his cabin because — according to his wife — of his heart condition. Only Linn, as far as I knew, had spoken to him.
Jacobsen, as I had reminded Linn, was now the sole survivor of the three catcher skippers who had been involved in the war-time adventure with the German raider. And that adventure had been so significant that Captain Prestrud had tried to tell me about it with his dying breath.
I decided to interrogate Jacobsen with an eye to the mystery surrounding Holdgate's death, but I would still see the three met. men first. It was very likely that their interview would be purely a formality.
At the very moment when my mind was breaking into greater clarity the Quest broke out of the fog-bank, and it became remarkably light.
I rang for full speed ahead.
That killer-whale knife.
Captain Jacobsen was a whalerman. He might know something about it. I checked myself. As if Jacobsen would admit to knowing anything about such a knife if he were in any way incriminated in Holdgate's death! The kicker was that there was no way in which Jacobsen or anyone else could have removed the knife from Holdgate's throat from inside the locked sickbay. There was only one key, and it had been in my pocket. I had been with the body all the time from the moment Wegger and I had lifted it on the board. I knew how tired I was becoming when my mind latched on the question — could the knife have been dislodged and was it, in fact, still with the body hidden in the blanket? I hadn't searched for it. I had worked on the assumption that, as Wegger had stated, the blade had been lodged firmly in Holdgate's neck vertebrae. But was that so? After all, I had only Wegger's word for it. No one else had touched the knife.
My thoughts turned to my coming interview with Jacobsen, and I asked myself again and again what possible connection Holdgate could have had with the war-time adventure. He'd only have been a young child at the time. And how was I going to talk my way past Mrs Jacobsen? Was the heart condition genuine? Or only an excuse for keeping him hidden?
I decided I would announce Holdgate's death to the ship early over the loudspeaker system, but that I would not mention foul play. I would leave everyone to think it had been a sudden tragedy. If I could establish radio contact with the outside world I would call off the burial. It would take place about mid-morning, before the seas became too heavy to risk stopping the ship.
Yet another squall and a new blanket of fog doused the ship in darkness again. The Quest slowed.
McKinley came on watch at 4 a.m. He was heavy-eyed but clean-shaven and smelt of after-shave and fresh deodorant. I took him aside and briefed him about Holdgate.
He examined his nails and said, 'I hope it doesn't upset some of the passengers.' He didn't specify which.
I checked again, via the intercom, with Persson. Nothing. When I enquired, he said that Wegger hadn't been near the radio.
When finally the daylight held, I sent for Frank Gretland, the ship's carpenter. He came, half-asleep. He left, wide awake, after I had shown him what was in the sick-bay. I told him I wanted Holdgate sewn into a length of canvas with a couple of anchor-links at his feet to take him deep. I didn't want the body sucked into the screw once the Quest started on her way again.
I went to the day cabin. I opened the door quietly. Linn was still asleep.
I stood by the couch. She looked about sixteen, except that there was a small in-drawn line at the right-hand corner of her mouth and a faint purplish-blue in the delicate flesh of her eyelids. I paused for a moment before rousing her, conscious of how I would look to her when she woke, with the whiteness of sea salt on my overnight beard and on the shoulders of my dark pea-jacket.
Her fingers plucked convulsively at the edge of the penguin-rug and her eyes came open. They were on me, but unfocused. Then recognition came into them and she reached out a hand to me.
'Hello, John.'
I wanted to have her say that a thousand times, to hear her sleep-soaked voice linger over my name.
'Hello, darling.'
I put my hands under her armpits and lifted her into a sitting position.
She looked at me but it was plain that her thoughts were turned inward.
'I was dreaming,' she said. 'I dreamed I was a penguin and was being chased round and round an ice-floe by a savage bird with a knife for a beak.'
'You'd better consult Miss Auchinleck about it,' I replied, lightly. 'You're guaranteed protection if you're a penguin.'
She kept on looking at me. I was to remember that look.
She went on, as if the dream was enacting itself still, 'You were on another floe nearby. There was a cold green sea between us. I couldn't reach you in time.'
'That comes of sleeping in a penguin-skin.'
She smiled. 'It's yours, of course? I didn't even hear you come.' She lifted her lips to mine. 'You taste of salt and salt and salt. I don't suppose you've had a wink of sleep.'