Singing in the Shrouds. Ngaio Marsh
he turned his head, obliging Miss Abbott to throw back her own and stare vaguely at the luggage rack where she immediately spotted his suitcase with a dangling label: ‘P. Merryman, Passenger, S.S. Cape Farewell.’ She had an uncomfortable notion that Mr Merryman knew she had been reading over his shoulder and in this she was perfectly right.
Mr Philip Merryman was fifty years old and a bachelor. He was a man of learning and taught English in one of the less distinguished of the smaller public schools. His general appearance, which was highly deceptive, corresponded closely with the popular idea of a schoolmaster, while a habit of looking over the tops of his spectacles and ruffling his hair filled in the outlines of this over-familiar picture. To the casual observer Mr Merryman was perfect Chips. To his intimates he could be hell.
He was fond of reading about crime, whether fictitious or actual, and had dwelt at some length on the Evening Herald’s piece about The Flower Killer as, in its slipshod way, it called this undetected murderer. Mr Merryman deplored journalese and had the poorest possible opinion of the methods of the police but the story itself quite fascinated him. He read slowly and methodically, wincing at stylistic solecisms and bitterly resentful of Miss Abbott’s trespassing glances. ‘Detested kite!’ Mr Merryman silently apostrophized her. ‘Blasts and fogs upon you! Why in the names of all the gods at once, can you not buy your own disnatured newspaper!’
He turned to page six, moved the Evening Herald out of Miss Abbott’s line of sight, read column two as quickly as possible, folded the newspaper, rose and offered it to her with a bow.
‘Madam,’ Mr Merryman said, ‘allow me. No doubt you prefer, as I confess I do, the undisputed possession of your chosen form of literature.’
Miss Abbott’s face darkened into a rich plum colour. In a startlingly deep voice she said: ‘Thank you: I don’t care for the evening paper.’
‘Perhaps you have already seen it?’
‘No,’ said Miss Abbott loudly. ‘I haven’t and what’s more I don’t want to. Thank you.’
Father Charles Jourdain muttered whimsically to his brother-cleric: ‘Seeds of discord! Seeds of discord!’ They were in the seat opposite and could scarcely escape noticing the incident.
‘I do hope,’ the brother-cleric murmured, ‘that you find someone moderately congenial.’
‘In my experience there is always someone.’
‘And you are an experienced traveller,’ the other sighed, rather wistfully.
‘Would you have liked the job so much, Father? I’m sorry.’
‘No, no, no, please don’t think it for a moment, really. I would carry no weight in Durban. Father Superior, as always, has made the wisest possible choice. And you are glad to be going – I hope?’
Father Jourdain waited for a moment and then said: ‘Oh, yes. Yes. I’m glad to go.’
‘It will be so interesting. The Community in Africa – ’
They settled down to talk Ango-Catholic shop.
Mrs Cuddy, overhearing them, smelt Popery.
The remaining ship’s passenger in the bus took no notice at all of her companions. She sat in the front seat with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her camel-hair coat. She had a black zouave hat on the back of her head and a black scarf wound skilfully about her neck and a great studded black belt round her waist. She was so good-looking that all the tears she had shed still left her attractive. She was not crying now. She tucked her chin into her scarf and scowled at the bus driver’s back. Her name was Jemima Carmichael. She was twenty-three and had been crossed in love.
The bus lurched up Ludgate Hill. Dr Timothy Makepiece put down his book and leant forward, stooping, to see the last of St Paul’s. There it was, fabulous against the night sky. He experienced a sensation which he himself would have attributed, no doubt correctly, to a disturbance of the nervous ganglions but which laymen occasionally describe as a turning over of the heart. This must be, he supposed, because he was leaving London. He had come to that conclusion when he found he was no longer staring at the dome of St Paul’s but into the eyes of the girl in the front seat. She had turned, evidently with the same intention as his own, to look out and upwards.
Father Jourdain was saying: ‘Have you ever read that rather exciting thing of GKC’s: The Ball and the Cross?’
Jemima carefully made her eyes blank and faced front. Dr Makepiece returned uneasily to his book. He was filled with a kind of astonishment.
II
At about the same time as the bus passed by St Paul’s a very smart sports car had left a very smart mews flat in Mayfair. In it were Aubyn Dale, his dearest friend (who owned the car and sat at the wheel in a mink coat) and their two dearest friends who were entwined in the back seat. They had all enjoyed an expensive farewell dinner and were bound for the docks. ‘The form,’ the dearest friend said, ‘is unlimited wassail, darling, in your stateroom. Drunk, I shall be less disconsolate.’
‘But, darling!’ Mr Dale rejoined tenderly, ‘you shall be plastered! I promised! It’s all laid on.’
She thanked him fondly and presently turned into the Embankment where she drove across the bows of an oncoming taxi whose driver cursed her very heartily. His fare, a Mr Donald McAngus, peered anxiously out of the window. He also was a passenger for the Cape Farewell.
About two and a half hours later a taxi would leave The Green Thumb flower shop in Knightsbridge for the East End. In it would be a fair-haired girl and a box of flowers which was covered with Cellophane, garnished with a huge bow of yellow ribbon and addressed to Mrs Dillington-Blick. The taxi would head eastward. It, too, was destined for the Royal Albert Docks.
III
From the moment she came aboard the Cape Farewell, Mrs Dillington-Blick had automatically begun to practise what her friends, among themselves, called her technique. She had turned her attention first upon the steward. The Farewell carried only nine passengers and one steward attended them all. He was a pale, extremely plump young man with blond hair that looked crimped, liquid eyes, a mole at the corner of his mouth and a voice that was both strongly Cockney, strangely affected and indescribably familiar. Mrs Dillington-Blick took no end of trouble with him. She asked him his name (it was Dennis) and discovered that he also served in the bar. She gave him three pounds and hinted that this was merely an initial gesture. In less than no time she had discovered that he was twenty-five, played the mouth-organ and had taken a dislike to Mr and Mrs Cuddy. He showed a tendency to linger but somehow or another, and in the pleasantest manner, she contrived to get rid of him.
‘You are wonderful!’ her friend exclaimed.
‘My dear!’ Mrs Dillington-Blick returned, ‘he’ll put my make-up in the fridge when we get to the tropics.’
Her cabin was full of flowers. Dennis came back with vases for them and suggested that the orchids also should be kept in the refrigerator. The ladies exchanged glances. Mrs Dillington-Blick unpinned the cards on her flowers and read out the names with soft little cries of appreciation. The cabin, with its demure appointments and sombre decor seemed to be full of her – of her scent, her furs, her flowers and herself.
‘Steward!’ a querulous voice, at this juncture, had called in the passage. Dennis raised his eyebrows and went out.
‘He’s your slave,’ the friend said. ‘Honestly!’
‘I like to be comfortable,’ said Mrs Dillington-Blick.
It was Mr Merryman who had shouted for Dennis. When it comes to separating the easygoing from the exacting passenger, stewards are not easily deceived. But Dennis had been taken in by Mr Merryman. The spectacles, the rumpled hair and cherubic countenance had led him to diagnose absence-of-mind, benevolence and timidity. He was bitterly disappointed when Mr Merryman now gave unmistakable signs of being a