Chapter 20

The Ending

But what he had said made me think of the metal mailbox, with a hinged top, that I had noticed on the printshop door. And also of something I had learned years ago as a police reporter on a newspaper. I said to the first officer, “Can we go to the ship’s doctor, quickly? I want a lot of aspirin, and some light oil. But let’s hurry—we may be too late even now.”

“Are you ill, m’sieu?”

“No—I’ve got a crazy idea. That five-hundred-franc bribe will be paid, I think. And the person who drops it in the printer’s mailbox is the person we are hunting. He will leave his mark on the metal box.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Fingerprints are uncertain, no matter what you may have heard. What I have in mind is far more certain.”

We reached the doctor’s office fast because the first officer commandeered the elevator, and there I ground three dozen aspirin tablets to powder, using some tongue depressors and a metal bowl. We borrowed a little bottle of mineral oil, took the elevator down, and hurried to the printshop.

I coated its hinged metal cover lightly with the oil, then blew aspirin dust all over it. I wiped away the excess that had blown onto the rest of the box so that the top now looked as if it had been painted a sort of grayish-white. I said a silent prayer that it would work.

As we walked down a main-deck corridor toward the purser’s office, the first officer said, “M’sieu, I do not understand any of this, but especially I do not understand why someone would wish—would want to ’ave the baseball score fabricated.”

“It was part of a plot to frighten her. To make her return to America.”

“I do not understand.”

“It’s an involved story. I don’t know much about it myself, movie-business rivalry. I’d rather explain what I know of it a little later.”

We were going up the stairs to the main deck when he spoke again, impulsively. “M’sieu, M’sieu Jones’s face, when he was found, had been painted green.”

“Painted?”

“Yes. Could that be connected with the plot to frighten Mademoiselle Moore?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

The assistant purser, in charge of the ship’s office, was young and efficient-looking.

“Is the report final?” the first officer asked.

“Je viens de rapporter à la passerelle.”

“You may speak in English.”

The assistant purser looked at me curiously. “I have just informed the bridge. The search is complete. She is not aboard.”

“Not a sign?” I asked. “Of anything?”

“Not a sign, m’sieu. She never got to le coiffeur. A woman who left the cinema just behind her said the Mademoiselle Moore started for the main staircase and began walking up.”

“Toward the boat deck.”

“Or the coiffeur. No one has reported seeing her after that. There is no trace of—anything.”

“The search must be done again. At once.”

I felt the same way. Not because a second search was likely to result differently. But because it was something to have going, a last tatter of hope to cling to. Anything was better than this feeling of steady sinking into catastrophe.

“The captain has already ordered it,” the purser said. “The men are being held.”

“I will direct,” the first officer said.

“God damn it.”

I didn’t say it to anyone in particular except, perhaps, to myself. “She’s got to be—she’s got to be someplace!”

They looked at each other.

“Someplace aboard, I mean.”

“These things somehow—they can happen, m’sieu,” the young purser said.

Solemnity lengthened the first officer’s lean dark face. “Do not abandon hope. We will do everything that can be done. I will call you on the instant of news.”

* * * *

In our suite, Tom had done what he could, too. He had ordered two double Martinis; they stood on a little table between the lounge chairs.

“I can tell by your face,” he said.

I sat down. “The search is over. She’s not on the ship. That’s all. She’s not on the ship.”

“Drink that.”

I took a gulp. “They’re doing the whole search once more. But it’s routine. They’ve gone over every inch once. Carefully.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes. After a long while I opened them again and drank more Martini. It could have been water.

“I think the most that can happen now,” I said, “is that the second search may turn up some indication of how she—of what happened to her. Where are the women?”

“Twit-Twit was going to shower. Bets came in just before you did. She’s lying down. I think she’d been crying.”

“Crying?”

“She’d heard a report on the search. She liked Merrilee.”

I closed my eyes again. When I opened them, Tom was finishing his Martini. I finished mine.

Tom said, “You know, to begin with, you did a lot more than you were supposed to do. Right from the start.”

“I didn’t do enough.”

He said, “Just for the hell of it, let’s go over the alibis we rounded up, such as they may be.”

“That’s not the real problem. The real problem is, she’s gone. Revenge is easy. Like punishment. Restoring a human life is impossible.”

“We’ll have two more drinks.” He rang for the steward. “Let’s compare notes anyway. You probably got more than I did.”

I recognized what he was trying to do for me. It was probably useless, but anything was better than imagining the way of her death. Aboard ship, in a sudden confrontation? Or in the cold, heaving sea, in a welter of despair?

“You start.”

I tried. “I haven’t got so much. I did have one piece of luck,” and I told him about the bridge game.

“So if what this Cyclops—his real name is Giorgione—says is true, his meeting on deck with the Indian alibis not only himself but the Indian. His alibi for the first night isn’t much, although it’s convincing.

“Then there’s the kid in the mesh gloves, Mr. Bu. He sat next to us during part of the gala. He said he and his lovely girlfriend left early, but early was a long time after midnight, as I remember. What he was doing the first night I don’t know.”

“The first officer?”

“He indicates he has an alibi. He doesn’t, any more than I do. How was your luck with Widow’s-Peak Pennypacker?”

“Good and bad. Good because, oddly enough, he said he will make a guest appearance on the show next fall and really talk facts. He’s a vain bastard, and I think you’re right about the fag part. He says he must appear in a mask, because he cannot afford personal recognition.”

“That figures.”

“Yes. Anyway, he said last night at the gala he was there and sat alone, near the college girls. He danced with some of them, including the chaperone. It seemed to amuse him.”

“I saw him. But in that crowd anyone could have been there and gone and come back without being noticed by someone else.”

“The first night he said he had quite a few cocktails and then drank a bottle of sparkling Burgundy all by himself at dinner. He said he went to bed stoned, around ten-thirty.”

“That seems to be that. Everybody has an alibi. Or else doesn’t.”

“Yes. How about that other Pennypacker—Old Grandad? He’s so damned wholesome, I sometimes—the coincidence of names is odd.”

“Odd, but it’s how things happen in real life. Anyway, at bridge this afternoon he said he and his wife looked in on the gala a few minutes, danced, and then left to go below and read. The first night I know he was playing bridge in the smoking lounge when we came up here, because I saw him.”

“I have a feeling we don’t suspect the right people.” He pushed the steward’s button in sudden irritation.

From out in the corridor came the voice of Steak-Lover, bellowing at his wife. “When he comes back with decent sheets, you tell that steward we want some drinking water. Clean! Or no tip Friday.” The door slammed and he clumped down the hall.

Tom said, “I take it the steward is otherwise engaged. I’ll go up to the bar myself.” And he went.

I sat there while it got darker. That’s not merely a literal statement. The expensive cloisonné lamps spread subdued light, but a hundred million candle-power could not have brightened that room.

Twit-Twit came to her door. I didn’t feel like talking.

“Don’t look like that. And don’t feel like it, darling.”

“Okay.”

She walked to me fast on flapping mules and kissed me. But like the Martini, it didn’t do what it usually did.

“I’m not going to shower. I’m going to take you to the bar and buy you a drink.”

“Everyone’s buying me a drink. Tom’s gone for some now. You shower.”

“Sure?”

“A drink won’t help. Knowing the way you feel does, though.”

She kissed me again and left, slender in the negligee.

* * * *

I knew what I would ultimately do. I didn’t know or care how I would do it. Twit-Twit’s shower hissed on loud, then softer. The ship surmounted a tremendous wave, then seemed to crash down into the trough, the woodwork groaned in torture, and water in hidden pipes gasped obscenely.

This was an end of things. I wanted Tom to come back with the Martinis. Or with none. I didn’t care if I never had a drink, or if I had a million. I just wanted something to change; if the ship had sunk at that moment, it would have been fine.

There was a light knock at the door.

I said, “Come in.”

The first officer opened it. He took one pace into the parlor. An expressionless crewman stood outside.

“M’sieu.”

We looked at each other. I think at that moment we hated each other.

“M’sieu. The second search is complete. She is not aboard. It is certain.”

I didn’t try to talk; there was all the time left in eternity in which to say things. I finally said, “Thanks for letting me know. Personally.”

Only revenge was left.

“Do you know, m’sieu...her relatives must be notified. Do you know where they are?”

“She had none. Not even an ex-husband. And her mother is dead. Nothing can be done now.”

“Mais oui.” He touched his cap and the door closed behind him, leaving a vacuum.

* * * *

After a time I got up and turned off all the lights. Maybe I was trying to hide from myself.

It was sightlessly dark in the room. I wanted company. No, I didn’t want company. The cat purred from somewhere. I wanted—I didn’t know what I wanted.

“Here, cat. Here, Stowaway. Where are you?”

The purring stopped. Then it started again. Storm noise drowned it out; then I heard it, distantly. Then it was drowned out.

In one of the bedrooms? Both doors were closed. I listened at each. No.

The purring was louder in the parlor. I fumbled for my flashlight on the night stand and walked around slowly, making a game of it, snapping the light on periodically to look on the bed and under it, around the chairs, even in the life-belt rack. The purring was loudest at the closet door.

“Come out. Come out, Stowaway.”

The purring stopped abruptly, and I fumbled for the doorknob.

As I did, rockets flashed, my heart stopped, a million cannon exploded.

The cat never purred except when it was petted.

The first officer had searched the entire suite—but not this parlor closet.

I wrenched the door open and shafted the flashlight down. There was the cat, blinking in the sudden light, tail curled under her, lying on the stomach of someone sprawled on the closet floor.

The someone smiled a beautiful, sleepy smile. Her spun-gold hair was tousled childishly.

“I’ve had such a nice nap among your shoes,” said Merrilee. “What time is it?”

She stroked the cat again, and the cat began to purr again.

I helped her up. I held her. I kissed her—almost tearfully.

“How the hell long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. I went to sleep.”

“Since you left the movie?”

“No. The movie is where I got scared—when they started paging me. After a while I couldn’t sit still. If they were going to hurt me, they might hurt your friends, too. I just wanted to hide somewhere. I had the key you gave me. So I started up the stairs for here.

“But the public-address system kept paging me and I—I panicked. I didn’t even get this far; I ducked into the ladies’ room down the hall and just—just sat in one of the booths. For over half an hour. I took a tranquilizer.”

“Don’t you know they searched the whole damned ship for you, twice—from keel to crow’s-nest? Twice!”

“Twice? Gee! That shows they do care, doesn’t it?”

She meant it. I was so relieved I wanted to slap her—with love.

“That must be why this woman came into the john and called out my name.”

“It probably was a maid.”

“I thought she might be one of those hunting me. That’s what gave me the nerve to leave. I got your key all ready and peeked out. No one was in sight. I ran like a bunny down the corridor and let myself in. No one was around except your friend Tom, on the bed.”

This, of course, would be after I had left with the first officer and before the women came in.

“I tiptoed around and found I could be comfortable in the closet. Honest—your loafers are as soft as any pillow. The cat came in with me. She’s cute. I took another tranquilizer and went to sleep.

“After a while I heard you and your friend talking, but far away. When I woke up just now I felt safe and comfortable. I patted the cat. She likes me.”

Even while she talked, I was thinking far beyond this immediate situation. Thank heaven I had given her the key. Quite aside from possibly protecting her, it had begun a series of events that could miraculously change things. We’d keep her here. No one but ourselves—no one—would know. What that would do to the opposition!

They knew she was gone. But they knew they didn’t have her, and had not killed her. Had their terror tactics worked so that she had killed herself? They might think so, and act accordingly.

The hall door kicked open. Tom stood in the doorway, holding two large Martinis. He looked at her for ten long seconds, then came forward.

He handed her one drink. She smiled her thanks.

His eyes never leaving her, Tom drank the other one nonstop.