“Sounds O.K. to me. What it is to have a brain!”
“The trouble is, I’ve got damned little dough with me. I drew out what I had in my own account, but I can’t touch Helena’s capital yet.”
“Don’t worry about that, old man. I’ll see you through all right.”
“Where do you plan to make for? Isn’t the Continent rather risky? They might be on the lookout for us at the ports.”
“Take it easy, old man. It’s all lined up. Trust your Uncle Stu.”
The Avocet was sidling and swerving through an awkward cross-sea. Without the sails to steady her, she bucked at times in a disquieting, eccentric way, though the waves were nothing formidable. To be seasick now would be a monstrous irrelevance, thought Ned sourly.
“May I drive her for a bit?” he asked. “It’d take my mind off my stomach.”
“Presently. It’s an awkward patch here in an offshore wind. She’ll settle down before long, you’ll find.”
For a while Ned watched the waves rearing and tumbling behind Avocet’s quarter, baring their teeth now and then in a snarl of foam.
“By the way,” he said, “I’ve written the document.”
“What document?”
“The confession.”
Stuart Hammer’s knuckles went white on the tiller. “You’ve written it? Already? What the hell’s the idea of that?”
“To put Brian Holmes out of his misery, of course. We agreed that—”
“We agreed to do it together, after we’d got away,” Stuart interrupted with ominous calm. Then his self-control broke. “My God, you unspeakably silly little clot, I could break your neck! Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you suppose Holmes’ll keep it to himself? You must be insane! Every police force in Europe’ll be alerted. When did you post the damned thing?”
“Well, what an exhibition of hysteria!” remarked Ned coldly. “I never said I’d posted it.”
“You never—” Stuart gasped for breath then let loose a flood of foul language. There was foam at the corners of his mouth. “I shouldn’t advise you to play games with me,” he ended, menacingly, when he had calmed down a bit. “Where is the thing?”
“In my breast pocket.”
“Hand it over, son.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“I said, hand it over.”
Ned Stowe shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well,” he said, “if you insist,” and passed a folded sheaf of papers to his companion. Keeping a wary eye on him, Stuart Hammer studied the top sheet by the dim light of the binnacle. “This seems to be all in order, but it’s staying in my possession from now on. And in future kindly follow my instructions. Carrying a thing like this about! Suppose you’d lost it, or been pickpocketed.”
“I never thought of that,” said Stowe in a dismal tone.
“So it seems.” Stuart Hammer grinned evilly. “In fact, you’re a bloody wet, eh?”
The other man was silent.
“Well?” said Hammer.
“Well what?”
“I asked you a question. I like people to answer when I ask them questions.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Stuart Hammer’s hand shot out, and his fingers dug into Ned’s biceps; the pain was excruciating.
“Well?” said Hammer again.
“I’ve forgotten what you asked me. For Christ’s sake!”
“I said ‘you’re a bloody wet, aren’t you?’”
“Oh, all right, all right.” Ned Stowe sounded as if he was almost weeping.
“That’s no answer,” Hammer gently remarked.
“All right then, I’m a bloody wet.”
“That’s better.” Hammer took his hand away. It gave him intense satisfaction to have humiliated Ned Stowe. There only remained now to kill him. He would have enjoyed doing it slowly, with Ned conscious—he owed him something for that crack about an “exhibition of hysteria”; but a life-and-death struggle on a small ship was attended by too much risk, even with a weakling like Stowe: a cant of the deck might send them both overboard.
“Look after her for a bit, will you,” he said curtly. “I’m going to run us up some coffee. Throttle here. Keep her as she’s going.”
“Very well,” Ned sullenly replied, not meeting his companion’s eye. Stuart Hammer entered the cabin, drew the curtains across the portholes and switched on a low-powered light over the stove. While he waited for the water to boil, he shook a white powder out into one of the two mugs.
Ned Stowe, holding the tiller loosely, strained his eyes into the darkness ahead. They should be crossing the coastal traffic lane quite soon. Rapidly he lashed the helm, then took from his pocket four window wedges, moved in a few strides along the cockpit, and with his heavy boots kicked the wedges firmly into position under the edge of the cabin door.
“What do you want now?” called Stuart Hammer, thinking he had heard Ned knock on the door.
“Nothing. I was just wondering if you were lonely in there.”
“Get back to the helm.”
“Because you will be.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Ned turned to the helm. His eyes were accustomed to the dark now, and he could see tiny lights, pinpricks in the night, ahead on the port and starboard bows. He opened the throttle to full speed. The sooner he got into the coastal traffic lane, the better: the wedges should hold all right, but if Stuart Hammer had an axe or a marlin-spike in there, he might, given time, batter through the door, solid teak though it was.
In fact, he was battering now, with his fists.
Ned slid closer to the door. “What’s the matter now?” he shouted.
“The bloody door seems to have jammed. And who the hell told you to put on speed?”
“I like going fast. What did you say about the door?”
“It’s jammed. Can’t understand it. Never happened before.”
“Well, of course it’s jammed. Didn’t you hear me kicking the wedges underneath it?”
There was a full thirty seconds of silence from within. The thump and brush of the waves, like a jazz drummer’s continuo, swelled louder. Ned imagined Stuart Hammer on his knees, trying to look under the door and locate the wedges, poking at them ineffectually with a penknife. But the door fitted snugly: Hammer hadn’t a hope.
“I’ll murder you for this when I get out,” he suddenly bellowed, thumping again on the door.
“That’s why you’re not getting out,” called Ned. “But you were going to murder me anyway, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Ned edged closer to the door, so that he did not have to shout. He spoke loud and clear:
“The trouble with you, little man, is that you’re all conceit and no brains. You consistently overrate yourself, and therefore underrate everyone else. In fact—can you hear me?—you’re just a vulgar little red-faced nonentity.”
The man within bawled abuse.
“Do you really suppose,” Ned continued, “that I was taken in by your ridiculous maneuvers when we met last? A child would have seen through them. I pretended to collapse, to agree that we should leave the country together. It suited my book, you see—it was exactly what I was leading you on to suggest. All this stuff about the police being after you is pure invention on your part. You were determined to get rid of me because you thought I was cracking up. I deliberately gave you that impression, and you fell for it like the sucker you are. The last thing you ever intended to do was to sign the confession. Well, one signature on it will be enough to reassure Brian Holmes.”
“You must be mad,” came Stuart Hammer’s voice. “I have the confession here.”
“I was mad last time I sailed with you. I’ve been getting saner ever since. You’ve got one copy of the confession. I posted another—with my signature on it witnessed—to Brian Holmes a few hours ago, from Yarwich. Oh yes, and I told him in a covering letter what my plans are for you and me.”
There was a short silence. Then Stuart Hammer spoke, in a humoring tone very different from his previous bluster. Ned smiled, detecting that Hammer’s confidence had at last begun to fray.
“Your plans, old man? I simply don’t get it. What’s in your mind?”
“Hatred,” Ned calmly answered. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Helena.”
“But, damn it, you agreed, you wanted—”
“Oh, I’m going to pay too, don’t you worry.”
Breaking off, Ned moved back to the stern and gazed ahead. The lights of the coastal shipping were closer now—a mile away, perhaps, though he had no skill at judging sea distances in the dark. Overhead, the tall mast rocked gently as Avocet sidled over the swell. Stuart Hammer was beating on the cabin door again. Ned jumped down into the cockpit. He felt an extraordinary sense of physical well-being.
“Getting lonely?” he shouted to the other.
“Look here, old man, a joke’s a joke. You’ve had your fun. Let’s call it off. I’m sorry if I was a bit tough with you just now.”
“You’ll be sorrier that you were a bit tough with Helena.”
Ned Stowe peered forward again. With the helm lashed, Avocet was keeping her course well enough. He moved closer to the cabin door.
“I was going to tell you about my plans,” he began in conversational tones. “Remember last time we sailed together? You tested my nerve, shaving that cargo liner. Well, tonight I’m going to test yours. In about twenty minutes we shall cross the coastal shipping lane. It was very helpful of you, by the way, to put out the navigation lights. The Avocet is quite invisible. The cabin portholes are too near the water for your light in there to be seen by a lookout on a ship’s bridge—until it’s too late, anyway.”
“What the devil do you mean, ‘too late’?”
“I propose to run across the bows of the largest vessel available out there. I’m not very expert at it, so I may miss the first one; but there’ll be plenty more, and it’d give you more time to contemplate your end. Something was said about sinking or swimming together. I doubt if you’ll get any chance to swim, little man.”
“My God! You are crazy. You’ll never get away with it.”
“But I don’t want to get away with it.”
There was an appalled silence from within, then another fusillade of blows on the cabin door. When Hammer finally left off, Ned remarked:
“Losing your nerve already? You’re going to be in a dreadful state by the time we have our collision. Well, I must be leaving you for a while. Why not settle down and read a good book?”
“Here, stop! Wait a minute! Ned, I’ll give you money, anything you ask. I’ll write you a check—yes, pass it under the door—you needn’t let me out till—”
“How much money?”
“Five thousand. Ten,” Hammer wildly shouted. “Wait! I’m just writing it now.”
A slip of paper appeared under the door. Ned took it to the binnacle light. A check for £10,000, duly if shakily signed. He held it up between two fingers for a moment, then allowed the wind to snatch it away.
“Too bad,” he said, near the door again. “The wind blew it overboard.”
“I’ll write another.”
“Oh, shut up! Keep your breath to drown with. You’ll suffocate in there when we collide. Quite slowly, I hope. Like you suffocated Helena. You’re caught, and you can’t get out. But the worst part won’t be the drowning, I daresay: it’ll be the waiting for the impact. It’ll seem like hours. Sweat it out, little man, sweat it out.”
Ned returned to the helm and unlashed it. However enjoyable the thought of Stuart Hammer’s state of mind, for himself he wanted to get it over. He was near enough now to the coastal traffic to see the ships’ lights moving against the black backcloth. He picked out one set of lights, a good distance away to northward, as the executioner.
There was a new sound from inside the cabin—a measured thudding which suggested that Stuart Hammer had got to work with a marlinspike or an ax; if the latter, he would be able to break through the door before long. Ned groped in a locker beneath him and found a marlinspike. He did not want to kill Hammer that way, but it might be necessary.
The thudding went on for some time, then stopped. It was evidently not an ax. Ned moved forward a moment, to make sure the wedges had not shifted. Now he could steer his course undistracted. The vessel he had picked on was coming up fast, but he judged it would pass astern of him if he maintained his present speed, for already he could see both its starboard and port navigation lights. He throttled back, letting Avocet idle over the waves.
He became aware that the waves were lighting up and darkening in a curious way. For a moment he thought something had gone wrong with his eyes. Then he realized that the light came from Avocet’s cabin portholes just above deck level: Stuart Hammer had opened the curtains and was switching the lights on and off to attract attention—switching them, Ned quickly perceived, to make the Morse signal of S.O.S.
Ned’s brain was working with remarkable clarity and resource. He put down the helm, so that Avocet came round to port and was soon pointing almost dead straight at the approaching vessel, instead of showing her broadside. Now a lookout on the vessel would not be able to see the Avocet’s lighted portholes.
Stuart Hammer’s next move took him by surprise. He had been watching over the port bow the lights of the approaching steamer, toward which he was steering, now that the course was altered, at a fine angle. Something caught his eye—a movement rather than an object—between the Avocet’s deck and the night. He flashed his torch on it. A cylindrical shape was protruding from one of the portholes, pointing outward and skyward. Snatching up the marlinspike, Ned clambered onto the half-deck, ran forward, and struck viciously downward at the distress rocket which Stuart Hammer had pushed through the open porthole and was about to fire off. The rocket fell on the deck and Ned kicked it into the sea. If Hammer had succeeded in releasing it, every vessel in sight would have been on the alert.
It was annoying that Hammer should distract him while he wanted to concentrate upon his steering. Avocet’s head had fallen off during this brief skirmish, and she would be showing her broadside again, with its four lighted portholes, to the advancing steamer. Jumping to the helm, Ned swung her back onto course. Would Hammer try that one again? Had he a supply of rockets in the cabin? Ned warily watched, shifting his gaze between the port and starboard sides of the cabin and the navigating lights of the steamer which was racing toward them.
What had annoyed him most, he now realized, was that Stuart Hammer should have recovered his nerve—to the extent, anyway, of showing some resourcefulness. He had wanted to reduce the man to a state of bellowing, blubbering panic before he killed him. But this cold vindictiveness now left him. He had no desire to bait Stuart Hammer any more. It was no longer a question of avenging Helena’s death—only of expiating it. He was as guilty as Stuart and the world would be well rid of them both. The quicker the better.
The advancing steamer grew out of the darkness ahead, a dim bulk rapidly enlarging itself. Opening the throttle full, Ned drove Avocet to intercept the flutter of foam at the vessel’s stem. Far too late, Stuart Hammer let off another rocket from a starboard porthole. Its only effect, when it burst high overhead, was to draw the eyes of the lookouts upward for the few remaining seconds during which Avocet would have been visible to them. Then, screened from their view by the steamer’s ponderous, high fo’c’sle, Avocet swung sharply to starboard as Ned put the helm up and ran her at right angles across the steamer’s course. Peering through a porthole, Stuart Hammer saw the great bows ripping toward him like a vertical knife, an advancing promontory, and had time only to shriek once before the impact hurled him off his feet and the inrushing sea began to strangle him.
The vessel had struck Avocet dead amidships. The stem rolled her over, trod her down, thrust her aside, leaving a shattered and waterlogged hulk sinking in the steamer’s wake. Ned Stowe was flung into the sea by the
impact. He rose once to the surface, then the heavy sea boots dragged him down for good.
A Note on the Author
Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym of poet and author, Cecil Day-Lewis, used primarily for his mystery series.
Cecil Day-Lewis CBE (1904 - 22) was a British poet from Ireland and the Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He is the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary filmmaker and television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis.
Day-Lewis was born in Ballintubbert, County Laois, Ireland. He was the son of the Reverend Frank Cecil Day-Lewis and Kathleen Squires. After Day-Lewis's mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, with the help of an aunt, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. Day-Lewis continued to regard himself as Anglo-Irish for the remainder of his life, though after the declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1948 he chose British rather than Irish citizenship, on the grounds that 1940 had taught him where his deepest roots lay. He was educated at Sherborne School and at Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927.
Discover books by Nicholas Blake published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/NicholasBlake
A Tangled Web
A Penknife in My Heart
The Deadly Joker
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1958 by Harper & Row, Publishers
Copyright © 1958 Nicholas Blake
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You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise