Chapter 10 #2
He gave her a hard look. “You didn’t get hysterics when the poor beggar fell,” he admitted. “In fact, you kept your head better than I did, off to the bridge right away for help. I ought to’ve caught him before he went over, but I were that flabbergasted.”
“It’s a pity,” Daisy agreed, “but you’d just been rocked by that cross-wave, too, which was utterly disorienting. Anyway, it’s no good crying over spilt milk. What happened that made you think he’d been shot?”
“You saw him come up to me? He asked for a light for his cigarette, which was right daft considering t’rain and wind.
I were feeling in my pocket for matches, but, when yon big wave hit t’ship and rocked the both on us, I took my eyes off him for a moment, a split second, just. When I looked back, there was a gurt red patch on his shoulder and he was reeling round as if from a blow.
I heard no shot, but if ’twere not a bullet as hit him, what it was I cannot guess. ”
Forcing herself not to dwell on the impact of a bullet on flesh, Daisy tried to conjure up alternative possibilities. “He couldn’t have brushed against wet paint? Or rust? And perhaps knocked his head against a davit, knocked himself silly?”
“I’d not dare suggest rust to yon Captain,” Gotobed said dryly. “Nor was the colour rusty. Red paint—I don’t recall seeing any.”
“A wet paint sign could easily have blown away.”
“Aye, very true. And he might have knocked his head, though I’d have said he stepped away from the nearest davit towards me.”
“I’d better go and look for rust and red paint anyway. Alec’s bound to ask about it when I report to him.”
“I’ll come wi’ thee, lass.”
Daisy went up the companion-way hand over hand on the railing.
She noticed that Gotobed climbed with the vigour of a much younger man.
In the transition from farm labourer to millionaire man of business, he had not let himself run to seed, and he retained the countryman’s sturdy indifference to the weather.
The weather had changed abruptly, Daisy realized. It had stopped raining, and the wind had veered to the north, a steady blast with icy fingers that scrabbled through the interstices in her green tweed coat and pinched at her ears and nose. She shivered.
At the top, they stopped to look back. The wake was still a long curve.
“We’re steaming in a circle,” said Daisy.
“It will play havoc with the mileage pools.” She turned to look towards what she guessed was the centre of the circle.
As the Talavera crested a wave, she caught a glimpse of one of the life-boats.
“Maybe they’ll find him. But if you’re right and he was shot, I shouldn’t think the blood would come through his coat so quickly unless an artery was hit. ”
“Aye, lass,” Gotobed said heavily. “I fear he’ll have bled to death long since if he didn’t drown first. I know what I saw.”
“We’ll check for wet paint anyway.”
The davits by which Gotobed and the victim had been standing were plain white, like all the rest, but for the bottom foot or so, which was green.
Not a speck of rust was visible, not even around the bolt-heads.
Daisy looked for blood on the deck, but either the man’s mac had absorbed it all, or any splashes had been washed away by the rain.
She sighed. “I’d better go down and force Alec to take an interest,” she said. “If he wants to speak to you, I’ll send a steward.”
“I’ll be up here, at least until the boats come back.”
Down she went once more. Every cloud, even the cloud of murder, had a silver lining: At this rate, with the amount of exercise she was getting, she’d be able to eat anything put before her without gaining an ounce.
Alec was curled up on his berth again. “What now?” he groaned.
“Darling, it does look as if the man was shot.” Daisy recounted Gotobed’s description of what he had seen. “No red paint around, let alone wet red paint. I can’t see what other explanation there could be, can you?”
“There’s a medical condition,” Alec said, frowning, “some sort of bubble in the wall of a blood vessel, which may burst at any time.”
The concept did not seem to disturb his stomach any further, though it made Daisy feel slightly sick. “I suppose the shock of feeling it happen might have made him spin around,” she said doubtfully. “It’s an awful coincidence, though, two men falling overboard in such a short time span.”
“It would be even more of a coincidence having two murderers aboard.”
“Maybe there’s only one. Not that I can imagine what connection there could be between a Suffolk farmer and a stage-door Johnnie.”
“A what? You know who the second victim is?”
“No, not exactly,” Daisy said reluctantly. “Only, when he was walking towards us, I thought I recognized him as a man I’d seen talking to Wanda. She told me he was one of her admirers when she was on the stage. I promised not to tell anyone, in case Gotobed was upset by the reminder of her
antecedents. I’m not sure it was him though. I couldn’t see much of his face between his hat and his scarf.”
“A highly speculative identification,” Alec grunted. “But supposing it was him, you don’t know the fellow’s name, do you?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. Wanda didn’t go so far as to introduce him. In fact, he rather sloped off when he saw I’d noticed him with her. It seems to me, darling, that we can’t do much until we know who’s missing.”
“We!”
“Oh, spiffing, you’re going to get up and take over.”
“I’m not stirring until the d … blasted ship stops shimmying. It’s up to Dane to find out who fell off his blasted ship this time, and you can tell him so from me.”
“Right-oh,” said Daisy, with trepidation. “I’d better get it over with at once.”
“Not in those words!” Alec called after her.