I said nothing. Bullen didn’t appreciate anyone, especially his officers, indulging in double-takes, exclamations, or fatuous repetition. Instead I looked at the man seated across the table from the captain: Howard Cummings. Cummings, the purser, a small, plump, amiable, and infinitely shrewd Irishman was, next to Bullen, the most important man on the ship. No one questioned that, though Cummings himself gave no sign that this was so. On a passenger ship, a good purser is worth his weight in gold and Cummings was a pearl beyond any price. In his three years on the Campari, friction and trouble among — and complaints from — the passengers had been almost completely unknown.
Howard Cummings was a genius in mediation, compromise, the soothing of ruffled feelings, and the handling of people in general. Captain Bullen would as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as of trying to send Cummings off the ship. I looked at Cummings for three reasons. He knew everything that went on on the Campari, from the secret takeover bids being planned in the telegraph lounge to the heart troubles of the youngest stoker in the boiler room. He was the man ultimately responsible for all the stewards aboard the ship. And, finally, he was a close personal friend of banana-legs: they had sailed together for ten years, as chief purser and chief steward, on one of the great transatlantic liners, and it had been one of the master strokes in the career of that arch-lurer, Lord Dexter, when he had lured both those men away from their ship and installed them aboard the Campari. Cummings caught my look and shook his dark head. “Sorry, Johnny, I’m as much in the dark as you. I saw him shortly before dinner, about ten to eight, it would have been, when I was having a noggin with the paying guests.” Cummings’ noggin came from a special whisky bottle filled only with ginger ale. “We’d white up here just now. He says he saw Benson in cabin suite six, fixing it for the night about eight-twenty — half an hour ago, no, nearer forty minutes now. He expected to see him shortly afterwards because for every night for the past couple of years, whenever the weather was good, Benson and White have had a cigarette together on deck when the passengers were at dinner.”
“Regular time?” I interrupted. “Very. Eight-thirty, near enough, never later than eight thirty-five. But not to-night. At eight-forty White went to look for him in his cabin. No sign of him there. Organized half a dozen stewards for a search and still nothing doing. He sent for me and I came to the captain.”
And the captain sent for me, I thought. Send for old trusty Carter when there’s dirty work on hand. I looked at Bullen. “A search, sir?”
“That’s it, mister. Damned nuisance, just one damned thing after another. Quietly, if you can.”
“Of course, sir. Can I have Wilson, the bo’sun, some stewards and A.B.S?”
“You can have Lord Dexter and his board of directors just so long as you find Benson,” Bullen grunted.
“Yes, sir.” I turned to Cummings. “Didn’t suffer from any ill-health, did he? Liable to dizziness, faintness, heart attacks, that sort of thing?”
“Flat feet was all.” Cummings smiled. He wasn’t feeling like smiling. “Had his annual check-up last month from Doe Marston. One hundred per cent. The flat feet are an occupational disease.”
I turned back to Captain Bullen. “Could I have twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour, for a quiet look round, sir, first? With Mr. Cummings. It’s a calm, windless night. There’s been no word of any shouts, any cries for help, and as there’s always a good few of the crew on the lower decks at night the chances are that any thing like that would have been heard. And he’s not likely to be ill. What I’m getting at is that it’s a hundred to one against his being in any trouble where he requires immediate help. If he did require it, he’s probably past all help by now. I can’t see there’s any harm in waiting another twenty minutes before raising the alarm.”
“No one’s going to raise any alarm, mister. This is the Campari.”
“Yes, sir. But whether it’s broadcast over the tannoy system or whispered in a dark corner, it’ll make no difference. If Benson is missing and is going to stay that way it will be all over the ship by midnight to-night. Or earlier.”
“Job’s comforter,” Bullen growled. “All right, Johnny, you, too, Howie, see what you can find.”
“Your authority to look anywhere, sir?” I asked.
“Within reason, of course.”
“Everywhere?” I insisted. “Or I’m wasting my time. You know that, sir.” “My god! And it’s only a couple of days since that Jamaican lot. Remember how our passengers reacted to the customs and American navy going through their cabins? The board of directors are going to love this.” He looked up wearily. “I suppose you are referring to the passengers’ quarters?”
“We’ll do it quietly, sir. They’re still at dinner. And Howie here can fix anything that comes up.”
“Twenty minutes then. You’ll find me on the bridge. Don’t tramp on any toes if you can help it.”
We left, dropped down to “A” deck, and made a right left turn into the hundred-foot central passageway between the cabin suites on “A” deck: there were only six of these suites, three on each side. White was about halfway down the passageway, nervously pacing up and down. I beckoned to him and he came walking quickly towards us, a thin, balding character with a permanently pained expression who suffered from the twin disabilities of chronic dyspepsia and over conscientiousness.
“Got all the passkeys, White?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine.” I nodded to the first main door on my right, number one suite on the port side. “Open it, will you?”
White looked at Cummings. It was an understood thing at sea that deck officers never, never went into the Campari’s passenger accommodation except by passenger invitation, and even then only by kind permission of the purser and head steward. But to burgle the passenger accommodation.
“You heard the Chief Officer.” I wondered when I’d previously heard a harsh note in Howie’s voice and decided never; he and banana-legs Benson were pretty good friends. “Open up.”
He opened up. I brushed past him, followed by the purser. There was no need to switch on the lights — they were already on; asking the Campari’s passengers, at the prices they were paying, to remember to turn off the lights would have been a waste of breath and an insult. There were no bunks in the Campari’s cabin suites. Four posters, and massive four posters at that, with concealed and mechanically operated sideboards which could be quickly raised in bad weather; such was the standard of modern weather reporting, the latitude allowed Captain Bullen in avoiding bad weather, and the efficiency of our Denny-Brown stabilisers that I don’t think those sideboards had ever been used. Seasickness was not allowed aboard the Campari. The suite was composed of a sleeping cabin, an adjacent lounge and bathroom, and beyond the lounge another cabin. All the plate-glass windows faced out over the port side. We went through the cabins in a minute, looking beneath beds, examining cupboards, wardrobes, behind drapes, everywhere. Nothing. We left. Out in the passageway again I nodded at the suite opposite. Number two. “This one now,” I said to White.
“Sorry, sir. Can’t do it. It’s the old man and his nurses, sir. They had three special trays sent up to them — when, now let me see; yes, sir, about six-fifteen to-night, and Mr. Carreras, the gentleman who came aboard to-day, he gave instructions that they were not to be disturbed till morning.” White was enjoying this. “Very strict instructions, sir.”
“Carreras?” I looked at the purser. “What’s he got to do with this, Mr. Cummings?”
“You haven’t heard? No, I don’t suppose so. Seems like Mr. Carreras — the father — is the senior partner in one of the biggest law firms in the country, Cerdan and Carreras. Mr. Cerdan, founder of the firm, is the old gentleman in the cabin here. Seems he’s been a semi-paralysed cripple — but a pretty tough old cripple — for the past eight years. His son and wife — Cerdan junior being the next senior partner to Carreras — have had him on their hands all that time, and I believe the old boy has been a handful and a half. I understand Carreras offered to take him along primarily to give Cerdan junior and his wife a break. Carreras, naturally, feels responsible for him, so I suppose that’s why he left his orders with Benson.”