褐衣男子13

 (Extract from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler) 

There is something to be said for life on board ship. It is peaceful. My grey hairs fortunately exempt me from the indignities of bobbing for apples, running up and down the deck with potatoes and eggs, and the more painful sports of “Brother Bill” and Bolster Bar. What amusement people can find in these painful proceedings has always been a mystery to me. But there are many fools in the world. One praises God for their existence and keeps out of their way.

Fortunately I am an excellent sailor. Pagett, poor fellow, is not. He began turning green as soon as we were out of the Solent. I presume my other so-called secretary is also sea-sick. At any rate he has not yet made his appearance. But perhaps it is not sea-sickness, but high diplomacy. The great thing is that I have not been worried by him.

On the whole, the people on board are a mangy lot. Only two decent Bridge players and one decent-looking woman—Mrs. Clarence Blair. I’ve met her in town of course. She is one of the only women I know who can lay claim to a sense of humour. I enjoy talking to her, and should enjoy it more if it were not for a long-legged taciturn ass who has attached himself to her like a limpet. I cannot think that this Colonel Race really amuses her. He’s good-looking in his way, but dull as ditch water. One of these strong silent men that lady novelists and young girls always rave over.

Guy Pagett struggled up on deck after we left Madeira and began babbling in a hollow voice about work. What the devil does any one want to work for on board ship? It is true that I promised my publishers my “Reminiscences” early in the summer, but what of it? Who really reads reminiscences? Old ladies in the suburbs. And what do my reminiscences amount to? I’ve knocked against a certain number of so-called famous people in my lifetime. With the assistance of Pagett, I invent insipid anecdotes about them. And, the truth of the matter is, Pagett is too honest for the job. He won’t let me invent anecdotes about the people I might have met but haven’t.

I tried kindness with him.

“You look a perfect wreck still, my dear chap,” I said easily. “What you need is a deck-chair in the sun. No—not another word. The work must wait.”

The next thing I knew he was worrying about an extra cabin. “There’s no room to work in your cabin, Sir Eustace. It’s full of trunks.”

From his tone, you might have thought that trunks were blackbeetles, something that had no business to be there.

I explained to him that, though he might not be aware of the fact, it was usual to take a change of clothing with one when travelling. He gave the wan smile with which he always greets my attempts at humour, and then reverted to the business in hand.

“And we could hardly work in my little hole.”

I know Pagett’s “little holes”—he usually has the best cabin on the ship.

“I’m sorry the Captain didn’t turn out for you this time,” I said sarcastically. “Perhaps you’d like to dump some of your extra luggage in my cabin?”

Sarcasm is dangerous with a man like Pagett. He brightened up at once.

“Well, if I could get rid of the typewriter and the stationery trunk——”

The stationery trunk weighs several solid tons. It causes endless unpleasantness with the porters, and it is the aim of Pagett’s life to foist it on me. It is a perpetual struggle between us. He seems to regard it as my special personal property. I, on the other hand, regard the charge of it as the only thing where a secretary is really useful.

“We’ll get an extra cabin,” I said hastily.

The thing seemed simple enough, but Pagett is a person who loves to make mysteries. He came to me the next day with a face like a Renaissance conspirator.

“You know you told me to get Cabin 17 for an office?”

“Well, what of it? Has the stationery trunk jammed in the doorway?”

“The doorways are the same size in all the cabins,” replied Pagett seriously. “But I tell you, Sir Eustace, there’s something very queer about that cabin.”

Memories of reading The Upper Berth floated through my mind.

“If you mean that it’s haunted,” I said, “we’re not going to sleep there, so I don’t see that it matters. Ghosts don’t affect typewriters.”

Pagett said that it wasn’t a ghost, and that, after all, he hadn’t got Cabin 17. He told me a long, garbled story. Apparently he, and a Mr. Chichester, and a girl called Beddingfeld, had almost come to blows over the cabin. Needless to say, the girl had won, and Pagett was apparently feeling sore over the matter.

“Both 13 and 28 are better cabins,” he reiterated. “But they wouldn’t look at them.”

“Well,” I said, stifling a yawn, “for that matter, no more would you, my dear Pagett.”

He gave me a reproachful look.

“You told me to get Cabin 17.”

There is a touch of the “boy upon the burning deck” about Pagett.

“My dear fellow,” I said testily, “I mentioned No. 17 because I happened to observe that it was vacant. But I didn’t mean you to make a stand to the death about it—13 or 28 would have done us equally well.”

He looked hurt.

“There’s something more, though,” he insisted. “Miss Beddingfeld got the cabin, but this morning I saw Chichester coming out of it in a furtive sort of way.”

I looked at him severely.

“If you’re trying to get up a nasty scandal about Chichester, who is a missionary—though a perfectly poisonous person—and that attractive child, Anne Beddingfeld, I don’t believe a word of it,” I said coldly. “Anne Beddingfeld is an extremely nice girl—with particularly good legs. I should say she had far and away the best legs on board.”

Pagett did not like my reference to Anne Beddingfeld’s legs. He is the sort of man who never notices legs himself—or, if he does, would die sooner than say so. Also he thinks my appreciation of such things frivolous. I like annoying Pagett, so I continued maliciously:

“As you’ve made her acquaintance, you might ask her to dine at our table to-morrow night. It’s the Fancy Dress dance. By the way, you’d better go down to the barber and select a fancy costume for me.”

“Surely you will not go in fancy dress?” said Pagett, in tones of horror.

I could see that it was quite incompatible with his idea of my dignity. He looked shocked and pained. I had really had no intention of donning fancy dress, but the complete discomfiture of Pagett was too tempting to be forborne.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Of course I shall wear fancy dress. So will you.”

Pagett shuddered.

“So go down to the barber’s and see about it,” I finished.

“I don’t think he’ll have any out sizes,” murmured Pagett, measuring my figure with his eye.

Without meaning it, Pagett can occasionally be extremely offensive.

“And order a table for six in the saloon,” I said. “We’ll have the Captain, the girl with the nice legs, Mrs. Blair——”

“You won’t get Mrs. Blair without Colonel Race,” Pagett interposed. “He’s asked her to dine with him, I know.”

Pagett always knows everything. I was justifiably annoyed.

“Who is Race?” I demanded, exasperated.

As I said before, Pagett always knows everything—or thinks he does. He looked mysterious again.

“They say he’s a Secret Service chap, Sir Eustace. Rather a great gun too. But of course I don’t know for certain.”

“Isn’t that like the Government?” I exclaimed. “Here’s a man on board whose business it is to carry about secret documents, and they go giving them to a peaceful outsider, who only asks to be let alone.”

Pagett looked even more mysterious. He came a pace nearer and dropped his voice.

“If you ask me, the whole thing is very queer, Sir Eustace. Look at that illness of mine before we started——”

“My dear fellow,” I interrupted brutally, “that was a bilious attack. You’re always having bilious attacks.”

Pagett winced slightly.

“It wasn’t the usual sort of bilious attack. This time——

“For God’s sake, don’t go into the details of your condition, Pagett. I don’t want to hear them.”

“Very well, Sir Eustace. But my belief is that I was deliberately poisoned!”

“Ah!” I said. “You’ve been talking to Rayburn.”

He did not deny it.

“At any rate, Sir Eustace, he thinks so—and he should be in a position to know.”

“By the way, where is the chap?” I asked. “I’ve not set eyes on him since we came on board.”

“He gives out that he’s ill, and stays in his cabin, Sir Eustace.” Pagett’s voice dropped again. “But that’s camouflage, I’m sure. So that he can watch better.”

“Watch?”

“Over your safety, Sir Eustace. In case an attack should be made upon you.”

“You’re such a cheerful fellow, Pagett,” I said. “I trust that your imagination runs away with you. If I were you I should go to the dance as a death’s head or an executioner. It will suit your mournful style of beauty.”

That shut him up for the time being. I went on deck. The Beddingfeld girl was deep in conversation with the missionary parson, Chichester. Women always flutter round parsons.

A man of my figure hates stooping, but I had the courtesy to pick up a bit of paper that was fluttering round the parson’s feet.

I got no word of thanks for my pains. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t help seeing what was written on the sheet of paper. There was just one sentence:

“Don’t try to play a lone hand or it will be the worse for you.”

That’s a nice thing for a parson to have. Who is this fellow Chichester, I wonder? He looks mild as milk. But looks are deceptive. I shall ask Pagett about him. Pagett always knows everything.

I sank gracefully into my deck-chair by the side of Mrs. Blair, thereby interrupting her tète-à-tête with Race, and remarked that I didn’t know what the clergy were coming to nowadays.

Then I asked her to dine with me on the night of the Fancy Dress dance. Somehow or other Race managed to get included in the invitation.

After lunch the Beddingfeld girl came and sat with us for coffee. I was right about her legs. They are the best on the ship. I shall certainly ask her to dinner as well.

I would very much like to know what mischief Pagett was up to in Florence. Whenever Italy is mentioned, he goes to pieces. If I did not know how intensely respectable he is—I should suspect him of some disreputable amour . . .

I wonder now! Even the most respectable men——It would cheer me up enormously if it was so.

Pagett—with a guilty secret! Splendid!